This game is getting a rise in cheaters, good player will hardly notice them but they are there, there so far is invincibility, one shot, instant boat repair, teleport, and instant all treasure grab. This is bad and needs to be fixed, we cant get evidence as the cheater just kills us before we can and then SOT support wont listen and ban them, an Anti-Cheat is needed.
Anti-Cheat
@enderdragon1242 said in Anti-Cheat:
This game is getting a rise in cheaters, good player will hardly notice them but they are there, there so far is invincibility, one shot, instant boat repair, teleport, and instant all treasure grab. This is bad and needs to be fixed, we cant get evidence as the cheater just kills us before we can and then SOT support wont listen and ban them, an Anti-Cheat is needed.
Invincibility is an exploit, not the result of a hacked-client. One shotting is either a blunderbuss or you were shot by two different people. Teleporting is straight up lag, that's no one's fault.
Regardless of what people say, Sea of Thieves does not have a cheating problem. Yes, there are cheaters, but, unlike in other games, it doesn't do much to help you. In fact, a lot of hacks are actually quite useless in Sea of Thieves due to the way it is designed. Continue to record and report, and you'll be fine. There are not enough cheaters for Rare to try and install one.Unfortunately this is one of the biggest problems with Sea of Thieves, and the worst part is not even the cheaters, but the fact that they themselves are banned and can easily create a new account and go play as if nothing had happened. And with a new account they have nothing to lose and keep causing trouble on the seas.
@enderdragon1242 said in Anti-Cheat:
This game is getting a rise in cheaters, good player will hardly notice them but they are there
Yes there are cheaters in this game as there are in any online game, but some/most of the things you call out for cheating are literally impossible in this game because of how the game works.
there so far is invincibility, one shot.
These two are literally impossible because it is the server that deals the damage, not the opposing players client, the player client only sends a message tot the server with info like; “i shot gun {gun type} in {xyz} direction at {a} angle”
While the server is handling this message the client that shot the bullet does its own calculations and if it thinks it hit something the only thing that happens is show a hitmarker, this hitmarker is handled fully client side and thus if the server determines that a hit actually didn’t take place no damage message will be sent to the other player.
The thing is there is currently a rather noticeable issue with hit registration and this has been there for quite a while in which the server decides not to damage the other player (hit reg failure) or actually damage the other player when it was clearly a miss ( which is called a backtrack) however it is not possible for a hacking player to have any influence on the servers decision.
instant boat repair, teleport, and instant all treasure grab.
All of these also have an element of server control so again impossible.
This is bad and needs to be fixed, we cant get evidence as the cheater just kills us before we can and then SOT support wont listen and ban them, an Anti-Cheat is needed.
(To expand on what scurvywoof said:)
Invincibility is an exploit, not the result of a hacked-client. One shotting is either a blunderbuss or you were shot by two different people. Teleporting is straight up lag, that's no one's fault.
Instant ship repairing...? Grabbing all the treasure at once?
OP, you aren't making any sense. You claim these cheats exist, but you also claim to not have the ability to record it due to dying so fast. So I'm curious:
How are you seeing these specific things without recording, or dying?
Ship repairs would be on their own ship I assume, (unless you're getting cheaters on YOUR crew, which would be easily recordable), so riddle me this Batman, if you're claiming cheats on repairs on the interior of their ship, how can you see them to confirm they instantly repaired? If you died so quickly to one shots, how did you get close enough to see them to confirm it? How would you watch them long enough to see them start the repair AND finish; NOT get a recording, and still claim it's cheating...?
Same goes for grabbing all the loot. How did you see they had a lot of loot that was all moved at once, but couldn't record it???
You make these claims OP, and an excuse to back them up, but despite the backup, they still fall in on themselves. These two extras I talked about feel like a grab at anything to add to the list, whether you've seen it or not.
The game has Anti cheat so it probably most likely just a player who was much better than you however there is a RARE occasion you do meet one which I haven’t seen in all my time playing since before launch. but if you ever do suspect of someone cheating make sure you record it or else no one will really believe you until proven.
I dunno how y'all are so certain in these threads.
I've fought about as much as anyone in adventure mode against just about every type of crew that exists and I've never been certain of anything that they do in regards to cheating. I don't see their screens, I don't have the facts of the incident other than my own eyes and perceptions, and the game is a buggy mess on a regular basis which makes combat anomalies far more likely to be related to that than anything else.
Randomness of fights creates a low context scenario where benefit of the doubt makes the most sense.
Not much accuracy comes out of an environment where people are guilty just because people say they are.
Plenty of skilled crews sailing around out there, lots of lucky ones too.
@targasbr said in Anti-Cheat:
Unfortunately this is one of the biggest problems with Sea of Thieves, and the worst part is not even the cheaters, but the fact that they themselves are banned and can easily create a new account and go play as if nothing had happened. And with a new account they have nothing to lose and keep causing trouble on the seas.
This actually isn't an issue, because if the offense is serious enough to warrant it, their device or network can be banned or otherwise locked out from the service. This means that they would have to get a new platform and/or network, in addition to a bew account, in order to continue making repeat offenses - and that can become prohibitively expensive.
@wolfmanbush said in Anti-Cheat:
I dunno how y'all are so certain in these threads.
I've fought about as much as anyone in adventure mode against just about every type of crew that exists and I've never been certain of anything that they do in regards to cheating. I don't see their screens, I don't have the facts of the incident other than my own eyes and perceptions, and the game is a buggy mess on a regular basis which makes combat anomalies far more likely to be related to that than anything else.
Randomness of fights creates a low context scenario where benefit of the doubt makes the most sense.
Not much accuracy comes out of an environment where people are guilty just because people say they are.
Plenty of skilled crews sailing around out there, lots of lucky ones too.
I find that there's a lot of emotional blame BEFORE fact-checking in most cases. When in doubt, record. Then play it back, and try to reason out why whatever you recorded happened. You would be surprised at how many things you would come up with before cheating.
@galactic-geek said in Anti-Cheat:
@targasbr said in Anti-Cheat:
Unfortunately this is one of the biggest problems with Sea of Thieves, and the worst part is not even the cheaters, but the fact that they themselves are banned and can easily create a new account and go play as if nothing had happened. And with a new account they have nothing to lose and keep causing trouble on the seas.
This actually isn't an issue, because if the offense is serious enough to warrant it, their device or network can be banned or otherwiselocked out from the service. This means that they would have to get a new platform and/or network, in addition to a bew account, in order to continue making repeat offenses - and that can become prohibitively expensive.
The theory is very beautiful, but in practice it is possible to get around the ban quickly, at no cost, and create a new account to play with.
@targasbr said in Anti-Cheat:
@galactic-geek said in Anti-Cheat:
@targasbr said in Anti-Cheat:
Unfortunately this is one of the biggest problems with Sea of Thieves, and the worst part is not even the cheaters, but the fact that they themselves are banned and can easily create a new account and go play as if nothing had happened. And with a new account they have nothing to lose and keep causing trouble on the seas.
This actually isn't an issue, because if the offense is serious enough to warrant it, their device or network can be banned or otherwiselocked out from the service. This means that they would have to get a new platform and/or network, in addition to a bew account, in order to continue making repeat offenses - and that can become prohibitively expensive.
The theory is very beautiful, but in practice it is possible to get around the ban quickly, at no cost, and create a new account to play with.
Not if your device or network is banned. And it's not a theory - if it gets that far, it can and will happen, and it will cost a lot to circumvent such measures.
@galactic-geek said in Anti-Cheat:
@targasbr said in Anti-Cheat:
@galactic-geek said in Anti-Cheat:
@targasbr said in Anti-Cheat:
Unfortunately this is one of the biggest problems with Sea of Thieves, and the worst part is not even the cheaters, but the fact that they themselves are banned and can easily create a new account and go play as if nothing had happened. And with a new account they have nothing to lose and keep causing trouble on the seas.
This actually isn't an issue, because if the offense is serious enough to warrant it, their device or network can be banned or otherwiselocked out from the service. This means that they would have to get a new platform and/or network, in addition to a bew account, in order to continue making repeat offenses - and that can become prohibitively expensive.
The theory is very beautiful, but in practice it is possible to get around the ban quickly, at no cost, and create a new account to play with.
Not if your device or network is banned. And it's not a theory - if it gets that far, it can and will happen, and it will cost a lot to ircumvent such measures.
The theory is beautiful, but in practice it is simple to circumvent it.
@enderdragon1242 There are probably a million more claims of people cheating than actual cheaters. For sure there are some. But people don’t seem to fully grasp how good you can be at this game when you have thousands of hours of quick scoping and bunny hopping. Personally it doesn’t affect my game that much.
@galactic-geek if you have the technical knowledge (or a capacity to use google and a willingness to learn), you can circumvent bans, even device and network related "finger printing" can be spoofed if one really wants to "cheat" or rather return back via a new account in this case.
The anti cheat seems kinda bad though, considering people can easily use stuff like cheat engine to change the fov, not to mention all the other stuff that can easily be dll injected. There are many available public cheats for this game, if you look on certain other forums that are seemingly up to date and there is not much they can do to stop this sadly.
Even if they ban this people, there isn't much stopping them from returning with another account and subscribe to game pass until / if they get banned again.
This stuff is 100% happening in this game (same as in other games), but personally i have not come across that many "blatant" cheaters, however that still doesn't mean there aren't any or that its easy to tell who's actually cheating especially with less obvious stuff. Best you can do is record suspicious behaviour and hope rare has some kind of logs to back up your "evidence" so they can take action.
Considering a lot of people can't even bother to learn basic pvp or sailing mechanics in this game, i really doubt many would be willing to invest time to become tech savy enough to cheat sophisticatedly, so i don't think this is that huge of a problem.
You will see cheating denial syndrome all over here. These players are oblivious. It's rampant & easily available. Some of which are free.
They will tell you that there is server-side machine learning anti-cheat, but it's apparently not working very well. They will also tell you to report the player but it's impossible when most these cheats are not apparent via video evidence. They will just say you got out skilled or call you a bad player when they are 3 year & still gumped.
@bambino133t said in Anti-Cheat:
You will see cheating denial syndrome all over here. These players are oblivious. It's rampant & easily available. Some of which are free.
They will tell you that there is server-side machine learning anti-cheat, but it's apparently not working very well. They will also tell you to report the player but it's impossible when most these cheats are not apparent via video evidence. They will just say you got out skilled or call you a bad player when they are 3 year & still gumped.
If the cheats are not apparent with video evidence and you don't have clear proof then what supports your claim of it being rampant?
Irrelevant happenings outside of an incident isn't proof or evidence against an individual in a specific case.
@wolfmanbush When you play this game enough you start to feel abnormalities. Then you meet players that blatantly cheat & let it be known. Then you do a quick google search and find them everywhere - recently updated along side the latest SoT updates.
@bambino133t said in Anti-Cheat:
@wolfmanbush When you play this game enough you start to feel abnormalities. Then you meet players that blatantly cheat & let it be known. Then you do a quick google search and find them everywhere - recently updated along side the latest SoT updates.
Exploits and macros can potentially be detected with more accuracy based on experience but outright cheating is just perception and a lot of ego involved "nobody can hit those shots that consistently, nobody can do this, nobody can do that"
Nobody denies that cheating exists, it exists in everything but youtube videos and bubble thought doesn't turn suspicions or accusations into fact.
There is no evidence to suggest widespread cheating and there certainly isn't proof that would justify using "rampant".
@wolfmanbush Macros & exploits are one thing, but ESP & Aimbot are another. No doubt there are some sweaty TDMers that can quickly double-tap you without blinking an eye. There are no bubble thoughts to be had. It is what it is. Whether or not you want to know it or not. Our beloved game has not properly addressed these issues.
This "you can't see, you can't hear it, it must not exist" mentality needs to stop. There is no evidence that there isn't widespread cheating. From my perspective, it's quite rampant. Perhaps it's the type of crews that I run with that live the pirate life for the spice & a sweaty fight. Maybe I took the time to actually look this stuff up.
Like I said, some players despite playing for 3+ years are still quite clueless when it comes to competitive gameplay.
@bambino133t said in Anti-Cheat:
@wolfmanbush Macros & exploits are one thing, but ESP & Aimbot are another. No doubt there are some sweaty TDMers that can quickly double-tap you without blinking an eye. There are no bubble thoughts to be had. It is what it is. Whether or not you want to know it or not. Our beloved game has not properly addressed these issues.
You can't see, you can't hear it, it must not exist. There is no evidence that there isn't widespread cheating. From my perspective, it's quite rampant. Perhaps it's the type of crews that I run with that live the pirate life for the spice & a sweaty fight.
Like I said, some players, despite playing for 3+ years, are still quite clueless when it comes to competitive gameplay.
the bold is an approach that will damage and destroy an otherwise functional environment quickly.
adhering to a system of evidence and proof isn't about protecting piratical misdeeds or those that engage in them, it's about valuing accuracy and fairness for the individual. We are all individuals and we all benefit from a system that looks for accuracy and just enforcement.
The initial assumption is innocence until evidence leads to proof and justified removal of benefit of the doubt.
If the assumption is guilt we are all guilty because everyone is labeled something by someone, something that the evidence may not support. Something that may not be true.
Most fights in adventure are random, random players in random scenarios. In these scenarios there is not enough context to make any clear statements about anyone's character or the community as a whole when it comes to what cannot be seen on our screens. Accusations of cheating are not insignificant, it's an accusation against character, it requires evidence/proof or significant context to become accurate.
@wolfmanbush Otherwisely functional if you are stubbornly oblivious.
Thus the need for a more intrusive client-side anti-cheat system. MS OS already does this. Why shouldn't their games? You can't rely on an antiquated reporting system that adheres to an abomination of the late 90s. Most players won't even mess with this.
@bambino133t said in Anti-Cheat:
@wolfmanbush Otherwisely functional if you are stubbornly oblivious.
Thus the need for a more intrusive client-side anti-cheat system. MS OS already does this. Why shouldn't their games? You can't rely on an antiquated reporting system that adheres to an abomination of the late 90s. Most players won't even mess with this.
Multiple times you have insinuated that I am oblivious to what happens out there.
This makes my experience relevant to the conversation.
I have over 11k hours and nearing 10k documented sinks of organic adventure mode play (solo/open crew) with heavy combat as a defensive fighter that has largely fought server hoppers that target my style of play. Server hoppers that range in skill but include many of the top of the food chain.
I have seen many things in combat. I have fought thousands of random and unique players. I do not know if any of them were cheating. It's not oblivious to refuse to make accusations that are not supported by evidence and/or proof. You yourself said that video doesn't show what you are accusing people of.
and that's just looking for one case, when it comes to the rampant accusation there would need to be a mountain of strong evidence against many people in many random scenarios not just some pocket of competitive play in a social bubble as that doesn't represent adventure mode as a whole where a majority of the players aren't even interested in high level combat (shown by the activity of servers)
Pretty difficult to have a rampant issue when the majority are floating around picking up treasure and chasing pve/commendation goals while hoping they don't get popped before they sell.
@bambino133t said in Anti-Cheat:
@wolfmanbush I could repeat myself to make my case, but at this point, I'm talking to a wall.
No, it's because while you're not necessarily wrong, he's definitely right.
Googling such cheats doesn't help reduce cheating - in fact, it may help grow it, as you are inadvertently learning of how to do it, and adding even more views to that particular video or site. If anything, once found, those should be reported so that they get closed down. Finally, you may not always know how dated some of those cheats are - some may no longer be effective or relevant.
@enderdragon1242 for all of you asking, nobody is going to have a recording thing open when they play a game unless they stream or make YT videos, also the cheater will try and stop you from recording them. Also like I said good players wont really see them cheating cause most of the cheaters are bad even with cheats. i also should have went into more depth, the instant boat repair- they were a duo brig and my brig crew of 3 boarded them and we all three blew gunpowder on them and jumped off, we heard them go off so we went to board to kill them and their ship had 0 holes and no water, and for invincibility- killed him once and he auto revived without a teammate and then we shot him 7 times with pistols and blunder to no avail. teleport- we were 4 islands behind them and out of cannon range, all of a sudden behind then wheel one of them is on and kills me, no splashing noise and my crew was watching the ladder from the side. instant treasure- i backspawned and grabbed the flag to keep it, i watched all the treasure dissapear and appear on their ship in an instant. And again recording is going to be hard cause cheater wont want to get recorded, and most people dont have a recording thing open everytime they play a game.
@enderdragon1242 said in Anti-Cheat:
@enderdragon1242 for all of you asking, nobody is going to have a recording thing open when they play a game unless they stream or make YT videos, also the cheater will try and stop you from recording them. Also like I said good players wont really see them cheating cause most of the cheaters are bad even with cheats. i also should have went into more depth, the instant boat repair- they were a duo brig and my brig crew of 3 boarded them and we all three blew gunpowder on them and jumped off, we heard them go off so we went to board to kill them and their ship had 0 holes and no water, and for invincibility- killed him once and he auto revived without a teammate and then we shot him 7 times with pistols and blunder to no avail. teleport- we were 4 islands behind them and out of cannon range, all of a sudden behind then wheel one of them is on and kills me, no splashing noise and my crew was watching the ladder from the side. instant treasure- i backspawned and grabbed the flag to keep it, i watched all the treasure dissapear and appear on their ship in an instant. And again recording is going to be hard cause cheater wont want to get recorded, and most people dont have a recording thing open everytime they play a game.
Here’s a little tip. You have an Xbox account, meaning you must atleast have access to game bar. Game bar has a “record last 30 seconds” feature. It’s buggy, but it’s there, and easy to use.
”the instant boat repair- they were a duo brig and my brig crew of 3 boarded them and we all three blew gunpowder on them and jumped off, we heard them go off so we went to board to kill them and their ship had 0 holes and no water,”
That is a good ol’ case of bad server performance and/ or hit reg. Hacked clients don’t affect the servers performance unless it’s a certain type.
”and for invincibility- killed him once and he auto revived without a teammate and then we shot him 7 times with pistols and blunder to no avail.”
This needs more context. Auto-revive? You sure he didn’t die around a spawn area and he offered as someone spawned in? I’ve seen it countless times. Also, that’s not invincibility, that’s hit registration. Also, judging by the lack of closure, I assume you killed him.
”teleport- we were 4 islands behind them and out of cannon range, all of a sudden behind then wheel one of them is on and kills me, no splashing noise and my crew was watching the ladder from the side. instant treasure- i backspawned and grabbed the flag to keep it, i watched all the treasure dissapear and appear on their ship in an instant.”
You got tucked on, my friend. People hid on your ship and then attack for loot or they tuck for fun. Also, there’s a bug with boarding where you can silently board, so that’s entirely possible.
You were in the water and saw the loot on their ship that is behind the railings? Okay, sure. What’s not to say your loot just despawned/ stopped rendering and they already had loot?”And again recording is going to be hard cause cheater wont want to get recorded, and most people dont have a recording thing open everytime they play a game.”
No, no, no. Everyone has access to atleast XBox game bar. If you have a NVIDIA graphics card, you can also use the much higher quality and more reliable GeForce Clips (ShadowPlay or something like that) which can also be used. It’s not hard to record last 30 seconds, or 45 seconds, etc.
You’ll get there eventually. You have to if you want to enjoy the game.
@enderdragon1242 if anyone had the ability to defeat server-sided checks and change server-sided data, why would anyone waste it on stuff like "instant repair all" or "teleport across map"? They wouldn't, they would go directly to "give hundreds of millions of gold, tens of thousands of ancient coins, give all locked cosmetics."
Some of what you are talking about can be explained by how this game works with tucking and sneaking around. Others can be explained by the absolutely abysmal server performance this patch. Forget rubber banding, lag, and hit reg. I have seen entire ships blink out of existence in front of me as I approach and they come back to life behind me about 1-2 minutes later. Players are reporting seeing their crew mate shoot on their screen and kill a guy only for their crew mate to have completely missed a shot and the enemy still moving around. The server stability is in sub-basement 30. Until it gets back to even 2020 levels, we will not be able to accurately see who is legit vs who may be cheating.
@galactic-geek Like said, once again, said cheats are updated along side every SoT update. Googling this stuff makes people aware that this is an issue.
@bambino133t said in Anti-Cheat:
@galactic-geek Like said, once again, said cheats are updated along side every SoT update. Googling this stuff makes people aware that this is an issue.
The simple fact of the matter is that cheats are never going to go away - and this has always been true for every video game, in the history of video games - such is the nature of programming. All anyone can ever do is reduce it to the point of not affecting a large enough portion of that game's community in a negative manner by use of reporting. Otherwise, it'sup to the developers. In that manner, I like to believe that SoT succeeds in spades.
You also seem to forget that the SoT community has been growing - along with that will come a small percentage of cheaters. That doesn't mean it's becoming rampant - just that, like the rest of the community, it's growing steadily.
@bambino133t said in Anti-Cheat:
@wolfmanbush Otherwisely functional if you are stubbornly oblivious.
Thus the need for a more intrusive client-side anti-cheat system. MS OS already does this. Why shouldn't their games? You can't rely on an antiquated reporting system that adheres to an abomination of the late 90s. Most players won't even mess with this.
Buddy they could go full blown intrusive like BattlEye in Tarkov. Keeping snapshots of your and everyone else's entire set of hard disks on their servers. Still wouldn't stop it because then it would just shift to undetectable hardware cheats that exploit vulnerabilities and blind spots in how PCs are architected just like in Tarkov for those cheaters who fight it so dedicated. You know who then gets hurt? Those people not cheating who have private information/data and details on their machines who now have semi-public leaks.
The best way forward for anti-cheat globally is to use ML AI server-sided anti-cheat. Yes it requires training the program to zero in on suspicious behavior in regards to movement and POV among other things (that's where reporting comes in.) Once this foundation is laid though, it becomes near infallible. On top of that, it lives server-side, never touches your private data, and makes it impossible for coders to reverse engineer and work around it (ending the cat and mouse game.)
@galactic-geek So, you are insinuating that nothing should be done about cheaters in SoT?
It is a cat & mouse game, yes. But, these cheats are not updated because of an anti-cheat system. They are updated bc of changes that impact their functionality. If there was an anti-cheat, these players would have been banned yet I see them playing SoT daily on the same account.
Implementing anti-cheat aside from the server-side machine learning system would cause a proper ban wave. Most the casual cheaters would be done for.
@kommodoreyenser The current Machine Learning server-sided anti-cheat has failed us. Windows OS has already intrusively touched your private data.
Both systems should be in place; not one or the other. Yes, there will be those that find ways around, but why not smoke out the casual cheaters.
At this point you think Rare should just keep looking the other way?
5 out of 78
