How bad is the subtle hacking in this game?

Can't believe you just admitted to hacking. Reported.

Well I'm not sure it proves anything.

But it does show that:

1. Someone can be outrageously hacking without you (as a player/opponent) knowing about it (ESP comes in to this category with PS2).

2. Even genuinely good players do sometimes use hack software (to be "better").


As for it not ruining your game, yep that's just common sense, but equally I'd much rather have 100% certainty no one was cheating if that were possible.

Saying that no one should care though is as stange as suggesting it would be "fine" if one side in a football match was allowed to field 12 players (the difference is that in this case it may be impossible for anyone to know if 12 players are on the pitch or not - but that doesn't make it any more or less right or wrong).

Besides standing in trees I use well known hacking techniques like looking at the minimap, playing with the sound turned on, and listening when people tell me where dudes are in teamspeak.

Wow abusing third party software too. Where do you draw the line?

No, no. No one should care as long as it has no effect on the game, which is currently the case. Given how frequently I'm accused of hacking - every play session (and I'm a pretty average player among 'hardcore' players) - and how frequently I feel an opponent MAY have been hacking (i.e. not even enough of an inkling to actually accuse) - almost never, and probably entirely never when factoring in how ****ed the netcode is - it's very obvious to me that the 'effect' our '75%' of players using 'subtle hacks' is having, is that it brings what must be otherwise a thoroughly terrible playerbase up to a reasonably competitive standard, where I'm not eternally bored and actually have some fun from time to time.

If your two football teams were equally good, then yes, I agree that this is a fair comparison. On the other hand, if this is Manchester City vs Me and the 10 Guys I Met in the Pub Last Night, I don't think there's a single Manchester City player, nor any spectator, that would feel it was unsporting for us to field a team of 20, let alone 12.

When taken on a 1v1 level then (unless you want to take on whether more VS players hack than TR etc ), the only time this is a fair comparison is when both players are equally skilled, and one uses a hack to get the advantage over the other. Given that no player has any real knowledge about their own abilities, much less the abilities of a random person from somewhere else in the world, it's -far- more sensible to assume that in that fight you had where that guy totally outclassed you, he was better than you. In that fight where you were as good as eachother, he was just as good as you. In that fight where you beat him, you were better than him... than it is to assume in that fight where he outclassed me, he was hacking and I'm actually better than him. In that fight where we were even, he was hacking and I'm better than him. In that fight where I beat him, he'd finally turned his hacks off.

And to round that back up to my original point that, 'No one should care as long as it has no effect on the game, which is currently the case,' the only time when people should care, is when it has permeated the entire game. This is where the forum whiners come from; they are the people who, for them, it clearly has permeated the entire game already, because the majority of their encounters end with one of the last 3 statements above. For me, and clearly for pretty much every good player posting in here, it hasn't even begun to permeate the game, because I have yet to see anyone do anything that I thought even necessitated suspicion.

My 1st post in this topic, answering to the OP question about the percentage is: 5-10%
I never assumed everyone is a hacker, I just told an anecdote

Stealth cheating is indeed hard to detect but not impossible if you got "experience" about weapons and game mechanics. Cheaters need to be careful and the temptation to overdo or the occasional mistake is always a possibility, even if you have detuned your hack at the point is nearly impossibile to distinguish from true skill.

About the 2 cheaters, the 1st one is a true stealth cheater, because his killboard and stats seem really legit. But if you were on the battlefield facing him, as NC you would have understood his Gauss saw was too accurate in CQB and while moving himself.
The 2nd one was more blatant:

A part of his killboard.

I reported and so on, but the problem still exists and while it can't be eradicated in his totality, we can try at least to identify some characteristics.

I've killed so many infiltrators that have spotted my Mag it's hilarious. I also hunt everything by sound. Infils sniping, AV turrets, The double- whump,whump of a locked down prowler, etc. Both while driving and while on foot.

As far as situational awareness goes... a good set of headphones, while turning off in-game music, etc.... makes a huge difference. I understand those that play while listening to music, etc... but they also have to realize the trade-off because of it.

It was even worse back during the Scout radar flashes... at least now there aren't as many of those floating around... It was really hard to determine if they had ESP... or if there was just a scout flash sitting parked nearby... even now... if an ESF is overhead, there is a chance of you showing up on the minimap like a beacon of "shoot me now"

That's the hard part about the "subtle" hacks... hard to tell them apart from good players or even some in-game mechanics.... It's also the reason that if they are subtle enough... it really doesn't bother me. If a bad player becomes a good player because of them.... it doesn't make a difference to me vs fighting a good player. If they are being blatantly obvious about it, however... that's another issue.

It's sad really that those "subtle" hackers need those advantages to make themselves feel good about themselves. In the end, it's really just a game.

See that's not a hacker... It's actually a tree branching out from his normal AA work into a little AI work.

God, I remember the tech plant days where I'd sit on top of the legs of the tech plant and empty every single shot of bolt-action into the heads of the zombie masses. I even certed out the last level of ammo belt because the certs gained by sniping then easily paid for it... it also paid for the ejection seat for my ESF to get me to those spots...

Very rarely did anyone even look up to shoot back... and even more rare... come up and take me out. Sigh... the oblivious masses... cert farm galore.

This is so true, people never watch above their head and they don't check the surroundings
I have a short video of myself being in the cap point room in TI Alloys, among perhaps 2 squads of NC and after I shotgunned one or 2 to death.
I started the video and (without c4 or grenades) I just oneshotted 3 or 4 of them before being killed.

It most definately has an effect on the game, it's just that people can't always tell the difference (but that is neither justification nor mitigation for cheating).

In my Warhammer Online example, that player should have lost a LOT more than he did if he'd not used the hack, that no one could tell he was using a hack is irrelevent; cheating is still cheating whether you are caught or not.


If, for example, I ran ESP my K/D ratio would probably quadruple (or more) instantly (at least against anyone not using ESP), I wouldn't be any better than I am now, I'd just have a hideously unfair advantage. Add in some subtle cheats (say getting rid of recoil and CoF) and I reckon I'd be a match for anyone..... or rather myself and the hack software would be.

As someone mentioned earlier was Lance Armstrong only a cheat once he was caught? And therefore did it not matter what he was doing when he won? Or if indeed he had never been caught?





Hackusations are neither here nor there though, they'd likely occur with roughly the same frequency in a game with endemic hacking and a similar game with absolutely no hacking at all.

If I have to leave because of 1 *** hat then the fight is ruined. If the hack is subtle I wont know about it, and therefore I can continue to enjoy the fight.

You're also a touch paranoid, relax a little.

This is a VERY touchy subject.

It is my personal opinion that hacking (especially aimbotting) is far more prevalent than anyone is willing to admit.

However, I would never throw up a percentage and call it fact as I simply don't have anything to back it up.

I have played MANY games over the years and the hacking of online FPS's is endemic.

I played for like 3 hours today and maybe there was somebody hacking or it was just lag.

Pretty widespread and horrible problem if you ask me.

the game had a hacking p

1000 players , lots of cheats , if 5% use em , we got 50 cheters
And there are around us everyone who play long can see it , just blind or those whu use cheats can sey there no cheters

I am an IT security engineer... they MUST be a litte bit paranoid. Thats part of my job. i do that since nearly 20 years and you would be surprised how creativ/careless people can get when there are flaws which they can use/abuse for their advantage.

The question is now HOW MANY.

My answer: since MMO gaming is possible the market is massively increasing for cheats .. So there must be a (paying) public demand f. If there is no demand, then there is no market. If the market in the internet reacts to a demand, there must be a significant group of this 2.4 billion internet users which demands it.
Look at BF4. It was not even on the market, but there where already pay cheats available.

And as long as it is technically possible, people will use cheats. Just to compete faster with the skilled gamers (or other cheaters) and pushing their small ego's up. To show his fellow gaming friends what a real Mr. Masterblaster he/she is.

The only way to get rid of this (and this discussion) is to set the bar technically as high as possible that third party software cannot be used or at least make it more difficult to use.(Thinking about game streaming...there is no game client on the PC, the game only gets streamed to the computer)

The "soft" detection by reports from other player is not very reliable, because certain cheats are very hard to detect if they get properly used. There are to many false positives and the administrativ overhead for the gaming company is much to high to investigate single reports. Even sometimes there are only unfortunate series of events which makes someone think its an abuse.

My 2 cents..

Id say the degree of hacking is increasing. Like just now how I step out of the spawn room, run up a hill and this guy instantly knows right where im at and better yet, knows right where my head is at.

Those guys who can keep guns square on ur head while ur both moving from 20m+? All I hear is plink plink plink dead? Ooookay lol.

If anything I notice its the increase in Aim bots, possibly due to this new headshot change.....its much harder to truly detect if its an aim bot so therefore more people will use it. But its pretty easy to tell if someone has the aimbots lol.

Its a (down) spiral. The older the game, the more skilled vets on it, the more skilled vets. the more cheater come up, the more cheater come, the more people are willing to use cheats to be competitiv....even experienced players because its nearly impossible to compete with an /ESP/aimbot/speedhack/spanw_to:crosshair whatever combination.
Its also some group pressure from friends/clans to have a better KDR/BR then the other.

Thats a task for the game designer to avoid that.. But how they can get new (paying) players to the player base if newbies are get constantly killed by experienced players like canonfodder (even if there where no cheaters) To be honest, thats no fun for newbies.. They will leave soon and a possibly paying customer is gone.

Maybe thats also a reason why anti cheat is not so popular in game design. The learing curve in FPS is very flat. You need many hours of playtime to hit i.e, a moving target while you are also ADAD moving. Or just to know the facilities, how to defend/conquer it.
At least then newbies with cheats can compete and will maybe future paying customer. The problem is if they use cheats they are massivly overpowered compared to legit players.

Maybe the problem is much more complex...

Just a thought...

To be honest, i feel sorry for those cheaters. What fun do they have from playing the game like this? What good story can they share? - I can only imagine them saying something like this:

One day i... I mean, my aimbot... I mean,... Ugh, **** it. My K/D is higher than Snoop Dogg.

Its not the subtle hackers you gotta worry about. Its the ones that fly around under the map at 1000mph headshotting everything within 300m