Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans

@musicmee Now imagine the amount that GTA 6 will get on launch :p

@burnbacon Okay, then convince me of something else

@fellow77307

Rare messed up on multiple fronts with this issue, and indirectly encouraged cheats in several ways.

• They waited 7 years to realize people wanted an FoV higher than 90.
• They took away one of the most popular combat mechanics, quickswap.
• Most importantly, they waited 7 years to crack down on pak files.

This created a pipeline from relatively harmless FoV paks, to absurd weapon skin paks, to no fog no ship grate paks, to quick swap paks, to hard cheats.

• Then they waited 7 years to address their ban enforcement policy and realize it wasn't very reasonable.

This created a huge wave of players that feel they "wrongfully" lost their account with thousands of hours and gave them little reason not to cheat, outside of personal integrity.

• Now they've waited 3+ years to implement a level/time gate on Hourglass, the mode that popularized cheating and where cheaters make 99% of their money.

Anticheat isn't the end all be all for deterring cheaters, Rare has just mis-stepped at every turn when it comes to in-game deterrents.

@burnbacon

I love that you make sure to remove the tag in your replies to my posts.

Regardless of how you feel about the mechanics, it's clear a large number of the dedicated player base wanted them. So much so that many resorted to third party mods to put them in the game. Once they start using shady online forums to modify their game files it's a matter of time before they start dabbling with hard cheats.

After the failure of Monkey Island and 5 years of consistent decline in the player count, Rare finally smartened up and shifted their focus from drawing in/catering to new players/casuals, back to the dedicated player base. But it's a bit late and the damage is done, now the well is poisoned with cheaters.

@potatosord

Just to paint a picture, the main cheating client used at the moment has 6,265 members on discord.

The average player count for SoT on steam in the last 30 days was 6,322.

@potatosord

Okay buddy, questioning the cheater problem in 2025 is insane. Anyone who plays the game knows cheating has been a major issue for the past 3 years, all your favorite streamers/youtubers would agree.

@potatosord

He's a solo that goes around farming content off swabbies in adventure mode. "Going out of his way to look for cheaters" is just a setup to his gimmick.

I have 6k hours, 5k allegiance, play with comp teams/streamers, and ran into over a dozen cheater crews dolphin diving onto our boat spamming slurs/trying to doxx my crewmates/telling me "redbeards have no voice" just over the past G&G weekend.

If you only run solos, your chance of running into them is lower, as the main reason cheaters run hourglass is to boost or target streamers/farm rage bait.

@worst-tdmer said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

Regardless of how you feel about the mechanics

It was never an mechanic and always an exploit. And using exploits to gain an advantage over other players is literaly cheating.

@worst-tdmer said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

it's clear a large number of the dedicated player base wanted them.

No, a large number of the dedicated cheaters wanted them, because using exploits to gain an advantage over other players is literaly cheating.

@worst-tdmer said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

So much so that many resorted to third party mods to put them in the game.

Again: this is cheating. And they not only did it to 'putting them in the game', but also to execute the 'quick swap' perfectly (so they didn't actually quick swap themselves even when the exploit was possible, they used macro's to do it for them). There is a reason that when Rare introduced Easy Anti-Cheat, that suddenly the fast majority of the 'TDM community' suddenly vanished from the seas....

@worst-tdmer said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

Once they start using shady online forums to modify their game files it's a matter of time before they start dabbling with hard cheats.

They already were cheating from the start. And nobody who is an actual dedicated player will go full cheatmode, because they love the game to much to ruin it. It is telling that the community you speak of seem to slip into it.... Tell me they are not actual dedicated players, but just griefers who want an upperhand over other players and will use any cheat they think they will get away with to achieve that.

@worst-tdmer said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

Okay buddy, questioning the cheater problem in 2025 is insane.

You are the one actually advocating for and trying to justify the actions of the cheaters earlier (see the quotes above here).....

@super87ghost

It was never an mechanic and always an exploit. And using exploits to gain an advantage over other players is literaly cheating.

Semantics. If it makes you feel better replace "mechanics" with "desired game settings".

No, a large number of the dedicated cheaters wanted them, because using exploits to gain an advantage over other players is literaly cheating.
Again: this is cheating. And they not only did it to 'putting them in the game', but also to execute the 'quick swap' perfectly (so they didn't actually quick swap themselves even when the exploit was possible, they used macro's to do it for them).

Rare has already conceded that FoV is a major want from the community, that's why they're adding it after 7 years. 90% of the PvP player base want these options, 30-40% actually used paks. Have you ever used a macro? Using a macro for quickswap would be extremely clunky in real combat situations where movement is everything.

There is a reason that when Rare introduced Easy Anti-Cheat, that suddenly the fast majority of the 'TDM community' suddenly vanished from the seas....

When Rare introduced EAC, literally nothing changed. I ran into a cheater named "EAC Works Rare" the exact same day. And the TDM Community went nowhere, in fact I'd say it's grown with things like "Evil Mode" and ram strat enjoyers. I run into people trying to set up TDM's/Camp Wars every time I run hourglass.

They already were cheating from the start. And nobody who is an actual dedicated player will go full cheatmode, because they love the game to much to ruin it. It is telling that the community you speak of seem to slip into it.... Tell me they are not actual dedicated players, but just griefers who want an upperhand over other players and will use any cheat they think they will get away with to achieve that.

I don't think you're wrong here, I've always thought it was lame. But I don't think it's about griefing, I think it's about ego. They do it for the same reason PvE'ers will pay for alliance servers and petition for full PvE mode, they don't want to lose.

You are the one actually advocating for and trying to justify the actions of the cheaters earlier (see the quotes above here).....

I'm not advocating for or justifying anything I talked about, I'm explaining how we got here and what I think could have avoided it. I think Rare had the opportunity to shut down the pipeline of Paks-to-cheats, early, but failed.

Had they cracked down on paks, cheating culture wouldn't have grown into the cesspool it is today. Had they addressed the community's desire for FoV earlier, people wouldn't have gone looking for paks. Had they reassessed their enforcement policy earlier, people wouldn't have a "nothing to lose" mindset around cheating. If they implemented a time/level gate on Hourglass, cheaters wouldn't be able to easily make money/find their targets.

These are all missteps that got us to where we are today.

@potatosord

He farms more engagement off of Hourglass than off of adventure. He has ghost curse and is nearly at skeleton basically off of loss farming for a meme. He probably has played more HG matches than me.

In the VoDs I skimmed through he did a handful of solo matches, and spent a lot more time tucking on duos/bigger boats.

Which is it? Do they farm streamers or not? I just told you about a well known streamer in the SoT community who has barely encountered any.

They definitely affect most hourglass streamers. Sponge has 19 videos on cheaters in the last year, and those are just the ones he won against, and that's in one of the least populated regions.

As well, if they mostly farm streamers and larger crews, that means for the most part they actually aren't affecting that many people. They affect streamers for visibility, sure, but being more visible only means more people are aware of them, not actually dealing with them. Streamers and large HG crews are two of the smallest subsets in the SoT community.

I don't disagree with you there, that's why I think a time/level gate on hourglass would effectively shut down a huge portion of cheaters without them leaking into adventure.

@potatosord said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

@worst-tdmer John Anti Cheat (BugSenseii) goes out of his way to look for cheaters and has only found like 10 in 1000+ inspections. I have played over 1000 HG matches, and only encountered one for real cheater and one guy who was either really good or cheating. I have over 1200 hours in this game, and only 2 times have I ever found anyone doing anything remotely close to cheats.

You’ve been very lucky. I’ve turned in video evidence of multiple cheaters and got the email confirmation that “a player or players have been banned for breaking the rules” or whatever the exact wording is. I started during season 9 and began my HG journey then, it was atrocious. Never mind the difficult to identify aiming assistants; flying, teleporting, the works. The only reason I ever came to these forums was actually to see what’s being done about cheating.

Since the anticheat went in it seems to come in waves, I assume this is because Rare bans in waves so as to avoid banning one person resulting in that cheater bypassing the anticheat in a new way, essentially paving the way for unbanned cheaters to stay unbanned. Currently I’m not seeing many cheaters, but I do encounter them still occasionally. It also seems to vary from region to region. European players are being very vocal about cheating currently, while myself and my crew (NA) aren’t noticing them very often at all. I didn’t see any over the community weekend and I did HG each session. About half solo and the other half brig, yesterday I did duo as well.

@potatosord said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

@capt-greldik I started in 2020, before season 1. I started playing the game before it was even available on steam. This is my experience with this game.

I understand that, and you are lucky.

@potatosord said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

@capt-greldik It just seems unlikely that I play that long and only encounter one person who was verifiably cheating.

I agree, how’d you manage that? In my 2500 hours I’ve encountered dozens; as I said previously Rare agreed as they banned several of those I actually bothered reporting.

I don’t think there’s any debate to be had regarding whether cheaters have a presence in sot, it’s quite known. Rare has acknowledged in more than one way and also acquired an anti-cheat. You can also go online (I won’t say where, but a place with a lot of videos is a start) and find forums and discussions on implementing cheats based on the latest patch.

Also, when players are flying, teleporting, putting water in your ship remotely, using the old quick swap speed, and this list goes on for a long time, there’s not really any room for mistaking fair play for cheating, it’s blatantly obvious. Many players mistake fair game for aimbot, and frankly I’m not sure how rare would even accurately detect aimbot with video evidence (anticheat aside), but when people are flying?

Fingers crossed I’ve only experienced two cheaters that come to mind in the last few months, I also havent been doing HG (or playing for that matter) as much.

I’m happy for your lack of cheater encounters, but that doesn’t change the reality.

@potatosord

I recall seeing in one of your post that you took a long break and came back recently. I don’t know when your break began, but perhaps you missed some of the good old cheating waves.

My experience on NA the last handful of months has been relatively cheater free, so perhaps if you’re NA, coupled with your break, you’ve found the cheater goldy locks zone… for now. You’re an HG player, I’d bet all the money that it won’t be long before you meet some cheater degenerates.

@potatosord

I’ll one up you, I’ve encountered players using slurs and cheats. The two seem to go hand and hand often. I guess with them already breaking the rules they feel free to emulate their racist uncle.

@potatosord

Anecdotally NA seems okay currently, and in the time frame you mentioned I’ve also noticed fewer cheaters, but still some. I think other regions are having a more difficult time with them right now. Europe seems especially cheaty based on these forums and the discord.

Edit: I play NA West so I can’t speak for other regions, although based on my ping I think I end up on the east coast sometimes.

@potatosord said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:

@capt-greldik If the last 8 months have had so many less cheaters then its clear that in the last 8 months minimum cheaters have been a problem that has been massively minimised. Yes, people still post here about them but that's because people who get tilted by cheaters want somewhere to vent it.

I mean that’s just our anecdotal experiences. You mentioned earlier that “this is your reality” or something to that extent regarding the lack of cheaters you’ve experienced. The prevalence of cheaters in our sessions isn’t necessarily indicative of cheating in sot worldwide.

I forget which season introduced the anticheat but the season following was one of the worst for cheater prevalence. Your sessions being on a good streak currently doesn’t mean it isn’t an issue for sot. When I initially came to these forums specifically because of cheating nothing bothered me more than those who tried to downplay the cheating problem which was very obvious and very real. Is it better now than when I started in season 9? For me, yes, currently but there have been waves of terribleness and it seems like some regions are still experiencing that.

I’m glad that rare has acknowledged the problem on many occasions, I’m glad that there’s an anticheat, I’m glad that multiple cheater degenerates I’ve reported were confirmed banned, and I’m glad that at least in my anecdotal recent experiences that NA west seems to be relatively cheater free, but that doesn’t change the reality for sot on a whole.

You mentioned streamers earlier, I watch some too. None of the popular HG streamers would deny the existence of cheaters past or present.

I think you're right, the game isn't evolving at all. I stopped playing it when they added the option to set the ship on fire because the game became unplayable. I don't know when it was, probably before 2019. Now my friend and I tried to give it another chance, like digging for treasure = terrible animation and the animation takes a long time.
Then we were occupied by Ukrainians who cursed at us, and occupied the ship and stole everything. We had no chance to defend ourselves, two against four. The game kept teleporting us to the ship where they killed us right after reviving.
But it was more obvious that they were always waiting where we spawned. Or when I ran away, to the island, they found us there again. So they probably had some kind of wallhack.
I don't know, the whole game is terribly confusing, I had to organize AI for help so I could report their behavior.
I don't understand why experienced players, who know where our ship is like that, sail to us, loot us and bye.
I don't understand why the game assigns experienced players to inexperienced ones?
It's disgusting and they demand my money back because I simply can't play the game. And to this day, support for the Czech language hasn't been added, so it's obvious how they're doing it at Rare.

@worst-tdmer I completely agree with this.

@burnbacon So you’re just going to fight against literally everything TDM players want? FoV isn’t something only they want, and it’s completely unrelated to that.
And saying it “ruins the look of the game” is total nonsense — cheaters have been using higher FoV for 7 years without anything lagging or breaking. It’s really not that complicated.