A Support/Hackers Discussion

[Nickolino]

What do you guys thinks about the way the support deal with hackers and cheaters? I'm still newbie on this game, it's my first month, and maybe I don't have the experience to talk about this topic. Still, I wanna discuss it.

We can only report bad player calling the support, and I agree with that, it would be a sh*tstorm of false accusations on this forum if it was permitted. But what is the point of reporting when this service have a huge delay? Last week I saw a hacker get 2nd and 3rd place in a red roo competition, he got a ban later, but still got two trophies from hard working players (the 1st player had to multiply his points and hunt much more than common to win). Today I spended 10 hours trying to gain some advantage in a comp and saw all my progress going down when a cheater shotgunned every game at 6 meters range through the first place. I already reported him, but that's not what I want to talk about. The point is, why should I report misconducts if I'm not going to see results in a aceptable period of time and the damages caused by those players will not be repaired? Reporting or not, the result is going to be the same, and this is pretty frustating.

[therisths]

I checked the one you described , he is a cheater 100%. For a guest to shot 51 slugs while he has only 30 ? Ofc he can buy nore slugs with gms but 28 hogs with 12ga within an average 7m killshot means luring (i doubt it for a guest to have a hog caller so soon) which means more time. 28 hogs in 1h + 1km travelled is abvious hacking. Anyways all you can do is to send a support ticket. Unfortunatelly, they will win their prize.

[Nickolino]

I checked the one you described , he is a cheater 100%. For a guest to shot 51 slugs while he has only 30 ? Ofc he can buy nore slugs with gms but 28 hogs with 12ga within an average 7m killshot means luring (i doubt it for a guest to have a hog caller so soon) which means more time. 28 hogs in 1h + 1km travelled is abvious hacking. Anyways all you can do is to send a support ticket. Unfortunatelly, they will win their prize.

Yes, if you look at his gallery you're going to see everything. He printed himself using hacks, which makes me think he's doing this on purpose, "for lulz" or even joking with the support.

Reading my post again made me think that I sounded a bit grumpy, as if complaining about what happened to me. If so, it was not my intent. I really want to discuss this method of dealing with the problem that we have at this time. I think it's unfair that there's no compensation for hackers stealing your trophy and I would say that it encourages the use of hacks. Anyone can make a fake account, destroy the day of some dudes and get away with a ban on your fake account you don't even care, while the competitors probably lose a lot of time and maybe some money.

[therisths]

Its not only hackers , sometimes there are bugs like doublescoring or meter bugs (lots of good players won comps with 100000m shots) all of them got their trophies anyway. Idont know how guests are able to shoot hogs, is there still the free rotation thing?

[caledonianblues]

What do you guys thinks about the way the support deal with hackers and cheaters? I'm still newbie on this game, it's my first month, and maybe I don't have the experience to talk about this topic. Still, I wanna discuss it.

We can only report bad player calling the support, and I agree with that, it would be a sh*tstorm of false accusations on this forum if it was permitted. But what is the point of reporting when this service have a huge delay? Last week I saw a hacker get 2nd and 3rd place in a red roo competition, he got a ban later, but still got two trophies from hard working players (the 1st player had to multiply his points and hunt much more than common to win). Today I spended 10 hours trying to gain some advantage in a comp and saw all my progress going down when a cheater shotgunned every game at 6 meters range through the first place. I already reported him, but that's not what I want to talk about. The point is, why should I report misconducts if I'm not going to see results in a aceptable period of time and the damages caused by those players will not be repaired? Reporting or not, the result is going to be the same, and this is pretty frustating.

I agree that the situation is far from ideal. Unfortunately there's no solution that I can see, short of Expansive Worlds employing additional support staff or further developing any cheat-detection software they have so as to automate (or at least better automate) the banning of accounts when the use of exploits is detected. I have no idea why support consists of only one person. Perhaps it's a monetary issue, who knows. The point is, in lieu of a solution, the only thing we (forum members and players) can do is continue to report cheating using the channels recommended by Expansive Worlds. Frustrating I know, but nobody else can ban accounts and I suspect the job of altering competition results is manual and time consuming (ergo not cost-effective).

[willybepop]

Yes, if you look at his gallery you're going to see everything. He printed himself using hacks, which makes me think he's doing this on purpose, "for lulz" or even joking with the support.

Makes me wonder who is behind the hacking. If it's someone who doesn't like guests?

[L3M182]

basically avoid comps for the species that are on guest rotation :/

[Tod1d]

What do you guys thinks about the way the support deal with hackers and cheaters? I'm still newbie on this game, it's my first month, and maybe I don't have the experience to talk about this topic. Still, I wanna discuss it.

We can only report bad player calling the support, and I agree with that, it would be a sh*tstorm of false accusations on this forum if it was permitted. But what is the point of reporting when this service have a huge delay? Last week I saw a hacker get 2nd and 3rd place in a red roo competition, he got a ban later, but still got two trophies from hard working players (the 1st player had to multiply his points and hunt much more than common to win). Today I spended 10 hours trying to gain some advantage in a comp and saw all my progress going down when a cheater shotgunned every game at 6 meters range through the first place. I already reported him, but that's not what I want to talk about. The point is, why should I report misconducts if I'm not going to see results in a aceptable period of time and the damages caused by those players will not be repaired? Reporting or not, the result is going to be the same, and this is pretty frustating.

I agree that the situation is far from ideal. Unfortunately there's no solution that I can see, short of Expansive Worlds employing additional support staff or further developing any cheat-detection software they have so as to automate (or at least better automate) the banning of accounts when the use of exploits is detected. I have no idea why support consists of only one person. Perhaps it's a monetary issue, who knows. The point is, in lieu of a solution, the only thing we (forum members and players) can do is continue to report cheating using the channels recommended by Expansive Worlds. Frustrating I know, but nobody else can ban accounts and I suspect the job of altering competition results is manual and time consuming (ergo not cost-effective).

Option 3) I suspect someone who is good at database queries could create tool(s) to automate permanently banning a player (removing all traces of that player in the database), as well as updating/re-syncing any competitions that player participated in.

[L3M182]

What do you guys thinks about the way the support deal with hackers and cheaters? I'm still newbie on this game, it's my first month, and maybe I don't have the experience to talk about this topic. Still, I wanna discuss it.

We can only report bad player calling the support, and I agree with that, it would be a sh*tstorm of false accusations on this forum if it was permitted. But what is the point of reporting when this service have a huge delay? Last week I saw a hacker get 2nd and 3rd place in a red roo competition, he got a ban later, but still got two trophies from hard working players (the 1st player had to multiply his points and hunt much more than common to win). Today I spended 10 hours trying to gain some advantage in a comp and saw all my progress going down when a cheater shotgunned every game at 6 meters range through the first place. I already reported him, but that's not what I want to talk about. The point is, why should I report misconducts if I'm not going to see results in a aceptable period of time and the damages caused by those players will not be repaired? Reporting or not, the result is going to be the same, and this is pretty frustating.

I agree that the situation is far from ideal. Unfortunately there's no solution that I can see, short of Expansive Worlds employing additional support staff or further developing any cheat-detection software they have so as to automate (or at least better automate) the banning of accounts when the use of exploits is detected. I have no idea why support consists of only one person. Perhaps it's a monetary issue, who knows. The point is, in lieu of a solution, the only thing we (forum members and players) can do is continue to report cheating using the channels recommended by Expansive Worlds. Frustrating I know, but nobody else can ban accounts and I suspect the job of altering competition results is manual and time consuming (ergo not cost-effective).

Option 3) I suspect someone who is good at database queries could create tool(s) to automate permanently banning a player (removing all traces of that player in the database), as well as updating/re-syncing any competitions that player participated in.

only issue with this is, using any form of bot or AI program for detecting cheats and hacks is no matter how good cheaters will always get through the net and innocent people will get banned. although a program that detected consistent odd behaviour for lack of a better word could flag up for a human admin could be plausible.

personally id do what they did with the forum mods but on a tighter leash. Get trusted volunteers, have to look into the mass of reported cases and then short list those that are obvious to support for banning, dismiss those that are just sour grape reports and forward those that will need a deeper look by those that have the tools. basically streamline the workload using those that want the best for the game and nothing in return.

[Trackfield]

"a program that detected consistent odd behaviour for lack of a better word could flag up for a human admin could be plausible. "

I like that idea, or anything that would flag the account.
The problem still is even if the player is banned, the honest players lose out on the em$ and trophies.