Commitment to Player Safety - State of Play

  • Hey everyone,

    We have recently seen an increase in player reports and community discussion on harassment and cheating. We wanted to share an update on the current state of play and what we are doing behind the scenes to protect you from malicious actors.

    ‘Yellowbeard Error’ Reports – 30th August

    On Friday 30th August we received reports that a small number of our active streamers and members of the community became disconnected from the game and appeared to receive temporary bans. For some players this also coincided with targeting from malicious actors within the game.

    Our Live team quickly discovered a vulnerability in our support toolset that allowed these actions to take place. The Player Support team reinstated access to all players within 10 minutes and the vulnerability was subsequently patched within the hour. This was an isolated issue within the support toolset and didn’t affect the wider game or any player information as a result.

    While only vulnerable for a short time, some players experienced unacceptable behaviour that is in breach of our Code of Conduct. This vulnerability has now been resolved.

    Update on our Commitment to Player Safety

    One of the realities of operating an online game is in the ongoing work to keep our game secure and defend against the ever-present threat of cheat developers. It’s through this route that our community can sometimes meet people with malicious intent, and therefore cheat prevention is an area we are continuously actively working to improve.

    In March this year we integrated Easy Anti-Cheat, Epic Game’s industry-leading solution, to help ensure a fairer experience for all players. While this initial integration halted many active cheat engines, we are now starting to see some of them return. We are committed to the ongoing work to harden our security, and alongside this commitment we are performing a full internal review across our game and our processes.

    Alongside our game security, we are aware of the impact that ban evasion has within the experience and how frustrating it is to see malicious actors circumventing permanent account bans. We are exploring ways to mitigate against this at both a game and platform level.

    As part of coming updates, we’ll be placing restrictions on certain parts of the experience that will require play time in order to access, such as locking Hourglass play behind a reputation lock. While these were not part of the feature’s initial design, we want to add friction for cheat developers by placing barriers on cheaters to stop them impacting your play experience.

    Recent reports show that in-game text chat is a common tool used by malicious actors to target players, and with this in mind we are improving our profanity filtering before messages even reach players. We also plan to introduce a system that will monitor the content of chat messages more closely and provide moderation behind the scenes.

    We know that creating a safe and fair player experience is an ongoing focus, and by working across multiple areas we can meaningfully disrupt the efforts of cheaters and protect our players. While these improvements are ongoing, I want to also remind players of the tools within the game settings that can be used to protect you online and mitigate the impact of malicious actors today – see this article on In-Game Safety Options at the Sea of Thieves support site.

    If you believe that someone has broken our Code of Conduct or the Microsoft T&Cs, please read the article at the link here and create a support ticket – Sea of Thieves: How To Report a Player. This will be reviewed, and the appropriate action taken by our support team. It's important that you report any encounters where you perceive someone to be cheating or abusive – this helps us better investigate the incident itself, but also helps us understand the full context and scale of these issues.

    We are committed to improving the experience for our players and will continue to share updates on this topic regularly as we deliver improvements to the game over the coming months.

    Drew ‘Sonicbob’ Stevens

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  • "As part of coming updates, we’ll be placing restrictions on certain parts of the experience that will require play time in order to access, such as locking Hourglass play behind a reputation lock." MASSIVE W both for preventing hackers and also new players from accidentally voting up Hourglass.

  • "We also plan to introduce a system that will monitor the content of chat messages more closely and provide moderation behind the scenes." - Let's gooooooooooooooooooo

  • Nice to see that was patched so quickly. Any chance the crashes occurring on ps5 can get the same treatment? Makes it really hard to play when you can’t even get on the game without it crashing immediately

  • Locking HG behind rep is something we have been asking for a loooong time. THANK YOU!!!!

  • I have a few questions, the way the yellow beard were found was any personal information able to be gathered by the people? 2nd I like the idea of making cheaters do playtime before hourglass is unlocked but what are the plans to combat these people ruining new players who don't hourglass in adventure? Thank you for the update and I love that you're working on this@

  • "As part of coming updates, we’ll be placing restrictions on certain parts of the experience that will require play time in order to access, such as locking Hourglass play behind a reputation lock."

    And just how easy would it be for cheaters to teleport into vaults, or onto players ships whom are stacking loot, steal & sell the loot, gain quick reputation and be back in HG?

  • Thank you a lot, we are really happy to read this. It was impossible to play HG last weeks because of fresh accounts teleporting to our ships and screaming toxic stuff and putting their cheat discord as a spam in the chat. A million times thanks!

  • @rocketmankian I feel like there is the possibility that cheaters are able to cheat in loot in order to more quickly hit whatever level HG will be locked behind. We'll have to see.

  • Thank you for the transparency.

    The Yellowbeard incident, while not good overall, was seemingly handled quickly. I'm glad y'all could finally share that win with us.

    Looking forward to the future actions you mentioned here, especially regarding the ease of evasion.

  • @mdoggo19 said in Commitment to Player Safety - State of Play:

    @rocketmankian I feel like there is the possibility that cheaters are able to cheat in loot in order to more quickly hit whatever level HG will be locked behind. We'll have to see.

    I don't think they can spawn their own loot, that should be server controlled. If they can teleport around, it is trivial for them to grab loot that already exists in the world though.

  • The fact of the matter is that the malicious people have exposed a fully automated moderation system with no human being ready to evaluate whether a report is correct or incorrect.
    Instead of having hundreds of players with gold caps and multiple sotshot champions give the opportunity to the Affiliate communities to support you by providing volunteer moderators for the Ticket System, supervised by Rare moderators, in exchange for ancient coins as is already the case with some players.

    Gameforge was doing this as early as 2007, and for years had extensive control over communities of whatever language they spoke.

    The only requirement was to abide by the rules, have no penalties, and have a good number of hours of the game under your belt to be able to give proper support to users.

  • This is nice, but honestly it feels a little too blanketed in corporate speak. There’s a lot left to be desired in this address, especially closure and resolve for those who have their experience ruined by cheaters and combat exploits alike. I think many people don’t feel like enough action is being taken, and instead the anticheat is expected to solve the problems (which it isn’t doing so great at)

    Fully acknowledging, admitting, and assuring players is a big part of this, but also showing credible progress and actions taken, maybe with metrics or feedback reports, or some way for players to know that their reports on bad actors aren’t going into a full inbox of auto reply bots.

    I love the game and it hurts to see the community so up in arms as of late, and yet, I completely see where it comes from. From me losing the shrouded ghost to a game bug on video and being turned away by support, to players being shown blatantly abusing exploits or being highly toxic with no real feeling of consequence to them, I think you need to one, take more action and ensure that you’re hearing and acknowledging the pleas of the playerbase, and two, make sure it is known and understood widely.

    Most of the bans I hear about are accidental false redbeards. You’d think you’d hear more about bad actors being removed, but no, it seems accidental bans are more common, at least on socials. I think there’s an issue in that fact.

  • @d3adst1ck Same result though.

  • @bleu-solo said in Commitment to Player Safety - State of Play:

    "We also plan to introduce a system that will monitor the content of chat messages more closely and provide moderation behind the scenes."

    And just how easy would it be for cheaters to teleport into vaults, or onto players ships whom are stacking loot, steal & sell the loot, gain quick reputation and be back in HG?

    Of course this will happen but they already do this anyways. The point is that it will act as a further deterrent. How many times are cheaters going to continue to earn pirate legend or whatever only to then get banned in the same day? It becomes a simple equation of it not being worth their time.

    Hopefully the bar is at least as high as pirate legend.

    My preference wouldn't even be that though, it would be account age. Maybe 50 hours or 100 hours played or something.

    Maybe even 10 hours played. It would change a lot.

  • @mogetius-ita Honestly, I don't hate this idea.

  • Any idea how you will tackle the upcoming restrictions on Hourglass with crewmates who meet the requirements when someone who doesn't is on their crew? Will they be unable to vote on the Hourglass? How will this information be conveyed in-game so that the person without the requirements met will understand why they can't dive with their friend who can?

  • @captainlogun Probably the same way the emissary system works in that scenario- only a person who meets the requirements can vote it up at first, but once they have, other crewmates without said requirement can.

  • @mdoggo19 said in Commitment to Player Safety - State of Play:

    @d3adst1ck Same result though.

    For sure, but it takes a bit longer because they have to at least hop for it rather than spawn it and sell it immediately. Either way, I don't know how effective a reputation lock is going to be.

    All it could do is create a lucrative market for bot farmed accounts with rep. LOL. If people are willing to subscribe to cheat makers, they won't have any problem spending a few bucks on an account.

  • @swabbie-john
    Feels more like this change will shift the cheater problem from HG more towards general adventure as cheaters wish to level up to gain HG access and ruin days regardless.

    Also, knowing Rare, the restrictions probably aren't going to be as extreme as "earn pirate legend." Probably level 10-20 in a few factions

  • Thank you for the detailed update and your commitment to player safety! It’s reassuring to see the quick resolution of the Yellowbeard Error and the continuous efforts to improve game security. The new measures, like locking Hourglass play behind a reputation lock and enhancing chat moderation, are great steps forward.

  • @bleu-solo said in Commitment to Player Safety - State of Play:

    @swabbie-john
    Feels more like this change will shift the cheater problem from HG more towards general adventure as cheaters wish to level up to gain HG access and ruin days regardless.

    Also, knowing Rare, the restrictions probably aren't going to be as extreme as "earn pirate legend." Probably level 10-20 in a couple few factions

    My guess would be in that range as well, since I think most new voyage stuff starts unlocking at like 15? Keeping brand new accounts out of hourglass is probably good, but you also don't want to restrict it to end game only. Pirate Legend can still take considerable time to achieve for casual play.

  • @mdoggo19

    They can already do that.

    These people can literally give themselves whatever cosmetics they want, how do you think they are doing that?

    I came across a brand new player rocking Sea of Champions sails and even NAL sails when they should have absolutely no way of accessing those cosmetics without participating in either event.

  • Big W changes, nicely done.

  • Well done Rare, seems like good measures.

  • This is fantastic news!

    Level locks for hourglass is going to make a huge difference. But I do fear that the cheaters will just change directions, and start harassing random people in adventure... But time will tell, I am very hopeful.

  • While I appreciate the intention behind this move, a rep barrier will only drive hackers into the adventure game mode, where they previously resided mainly in hourglass outside of content drops and targeted attacks. I believe this change will do more harm than good, and that locking hourglass behind a time owned or played would be a far more effective solution, as it would prevent hackers from using game pass trials to quickly create alts.

  • @d3adst1ck I confirm that cheaters/bug exploiter can currently duplicate loot, i saw a galleon with 20+ reaper's bounty, they were on an island to duplicate them

  • I think a lot of exploiting and cheating is done under the widespread sentiment that “Rare doesn’t know/they won’t do anything” about it… so many people have gotten accustomed to and normalized illegitimate play because more often than not, nothing happens.

    Rare has made statements and warnings on things before, but the cases of action actually being taken have been silent, or maybe nothing was really done at all.

    The Burning Blade exploit progress removal is honestly the first time I can recall you guys saying you’ll be punishing people for illegitimate gameplay, and actually punishing them. As far as I saw, nobody got in trouble from the old loot duping from LotV, the Raid on a Skeleton Fleet dupe, Hourglass queue exploit, or even simple things like crud launching or ladder launching.

    Verbal deterrents are not enough when the community is under the impression that they’re nothing more than that: verbal.

  • Thanks for keeping the community informed!

    A lot of cheaters probably won't bother returning to Sea of Thieves due to the HourGlass reputation lock, but I’m concerned about possible side effects. While this lock may help HourGlass, it could also lead to normal players being harassed during gameplay. Most of the cheating is contained within HourGlass right now, but if it gets harder to cheat there, these cheaters might target others instead.

    By the way, there's an AI company that can identify players by how they move in-game, even across multiple accounts. No more ban evasion! Here’s a video explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkmIItTrQP4

  • @klutchxking518 said in Commitment to Player Safety - State of Play:

    I think a lot of exploiting and cheating is done under the widespread sentiment that “Rare doesn’t know/they won’t do anything” about it… so many people have gotten accustomed to and normalized illegitimate play because more often than not, nothing happens.

    Rare has made statements and warnings on things before, but the cases of action actually being taken have been silent, or maybe nothing was really done at all.

    The Burning Blade exploit progress removal is honestly the first time I can recall you guys saying you’ll be punishing people for illegitimate gameplay, and actually punishing them. As far as I saw, nobody got in trouble from the old loot duping from LotV, the Raid on a Skeleton Fleet dupe, Hourglass queue exploit, or even simple things like crud launching or ladder launching.

    Verbal deterrents are not enough when the community is under the impression that they’re nothing more than that: verbal.

    I agree, temporary bans for exploits would be the best for their use imo.

  • Great that they're finally locking HG behind rep wall...my only issue is that these people will easily evade that by simply knowing someone that is able to vote hourglass up then invite them, It's very impossible to sort the whole issue out..

    Just keep working on it 👍

  • Here's my idea.

    You going to lock it down? Lock it down hard.

    Make brand new accounts only able to sail safer seas to gain rep to the certain levels then able to access high seas.
    Make the hourglass only available when they reach pirate legend AND gain at least distinction 1 in one of the companies, 75 reapers and 30 athena.

    Lock it hard. That's just my opinion.

  • Thank you for taking the time and putting the thought into this. I for one appreciate your efforts to make this game a happy environment again.

    In addition to a rep lock, would you consider/explore having new accounts be required to spend 10+ hours on safer seas before allowing them into adventure to help mitigate those cheaters going into adventure to harass non pvp players as well?

  • Alongside our game security, we are aware of the impact that ban evasion has within the experience and how frustrating it is to see malicious actors circumventing permanent account bans. We are exploring ways to mitigate against this at both a game and platform level.

    We also plan to introduce a system that will monitor the content of chat messages more closely and provide moderation behind the scenes.

    Reactive rather than proactive approaches do nothing for the health of the game. 6 years better late than never I guess.

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