a crew in arena got 4k in 3 games in a row from cannon shots only, never missing and hitting me every time when trying to do just about anything also they grabbed the chest off our ship when we were miles from the sell point and sold it instantly after grabbing it, so i get why people might assume its "lag" or its ping related but the obviousness from it is pretty obvious that, that is cheating and not lag related, but i get it without proof talking about it doesn't matter, but i still want to bring this to the for front cause i do think the devs need to look into the hacks a bit more, i've played for years and what i can say is the "teleport" hack is a real thing has been for a long time but its hard to prove such a vague thing with videos without seeing them appear right in front of you but again, i have the right to bring this up and i "HOPE" that the devs actually want to better the community in these situations and not just assume that its blantant raging, at least take the time to look into it more instead of ignoring it
This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem
4k points using the cannon is easy for experienced players even on sloop.
I personally still think it's a lag problem, many players confuse this with cheats. I've also played for years, I've even played with and against NAL competitors and I can count on my fingers the number of times I've seen cheaters in the arena.
Do you have video of this? If you have, make a report that the next day they will be banned.
@targasbr i don't have video proof my pc can't handle recording and playing the game at the same time so its not possible for me
@targasbr all i can do is bring it up and hope that people will actually look into it more closely instead of ignoring it but i get it , no proof then i must be lieing
@soulphia8253 said in This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem:
@targasbr i don't have video proof my pc can't handle recording and playing the game at the same time so its not possible for me
There is a program called OBS, it is used for streams and recordings, even the weakest computers can use it to record without major problems.
@targasbr i've tried, but i don't think it matters eitherway during those games i didn't have any obvious proof to record they were off screen when they teleported and sold at the last minute the only thing i could of recorded was that their shots landed 95% of the time about 55% of them always hitting me directly
@soulphia8253 said in This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem:
@targasbr all i can do is bring it up and hope that people will actually look into it more closely instead of ignoring it but i get it , no proof then i must be lieing
The problem here is that a lot of things can be confused with cheats, especially in the arena where the servers are very unstable.
For you to have an idea, I myself have been called a cheater several times, some of them at the time I played on xbox, where even if I wanted to, there would be no possibility.
Rare doesn't ignore it, they analyze each report, and I can guarantee that because I've done several and even without great evidence they analyze and ban if they find anything suspicious.
@soulphia8253 I will let you know now...
No one is ignoring it... I get to see a little behind the scenes and the support team work their socks off chasing, monitoring and acting on evidence based reports.
Also, no one is accusing you of lying... but sometimes factors you may not even be aware of can distort your view of a situation.
@soulphia8253 said in This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem:
@targasbr i've tried, but i don't think it matters eitherway during those games i didn't have any obvious proof to record they were off screen when they teleported and sold at the last minute the only thing i could of recorded was that their shots landed 95% of the time about 55% of them always hitting me directly
There are a few things you can do in the game to have an advantage and make it look like we're teleporting, but this is a glitch, so if you record the player you can ban him, as Rare has zero tolerance for these things.
@musicmee alright, thanks for the encouraging words, sorry for bringing this up but I legit don't have a way to report these things fast enough, starting up a whole recording program and lagging my pc isn't that easy for me, it takes time and usually when i try i still can never get "evident" proof all i can say is even in adventure, it happens rarely but i have had people teleport onto my ship randomly, but again never within view, though in some cases it could just be them tucking so again its hard to prove it but thank you for at least looking into this the little you can i really wish i could help more but its hard too, and i wish there was a easier way to show/report players at least give us a way to report people via their names so you can look into said accusations easier
Your perception is your perception, there isn't a lie there it is how you feel about the incident.
Imo it's important to let those that deal with reports handle their business and those of us participating in the experience focus heavily on benefit of the doubt. People report what they want to report but the community focus imo should always be to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when we are all participating in a game that has a lot of inconsistencies that lead to odd things happening.
Public accusations of cheating when there isn't clear proof of wrong-doing leads to a lot of negativity and unpleasantness which escalates until it just isn't fun to compete against each other.
@wolfmanbush agreed, and sorry for posting this publicly but theres not really any thing i can do to bring it up, reporting them without proof is kinda against ToS so i don't even bother half the time, and its the biggest reason theirs names arn't listed, but its really hard to have this urge to better the community but without any easy way of doing so, its depressing and a little demoralizing, knowing i can do very little against hackers cause video proof is needed, and the hackers have just gotten smart at keeping them selves out of view when doing it
@soulphia8253 said in This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem:
@wolfmanbush agreed, and sorry for posting this publicly but theres not really any thing i can do to bring it up, reporting them without proof is kinda against ToS so i don't even bother half the time, and its the biggest reason theirs names arn't listed, but its really hard to have this urge to better the community but without any easy way of doing so, its depressing and a little demoralizing, knowing i can do very little against hackers cause video proof is needed, and the hackers have just gotten smart at keeping them selves out of view when doing it
The forums are for you to express yourself and suggest whatever you think is best
Imo we have no real idea who is actually cheating a very large majority of the time so statements like -hackers are still a problem- presents something as a problem that can't be backed up with proof.
My own perception is that I very rarely see performance that I don't attribute to skill or server inconsistencies. I think that opponents in competition deserve a lot of wiggle room with benefit of the doubt in situations where concrete proof isn't available to us.
I don't think making reporting easier actually leads to more cheating being caught I think it leads to more accusations to sift through that often will not have much evidence provided.
@wolfmanbush i suppose thats true, maybe the devs need a better way to look at recent gameplay data from accused players, i feel like for the teleport hack at least they should be able to see that said players moved from x,y spot to x,y spot way too fast, i really wish i could do more to prove this and i thank everyone for their thoughts on the subject, i do wish i could do this in a better way i really do, but its just so hard, half the time i'm usually in such a life or death situation i don't have time to get proof or it happens so fast its to late this game makes it really hard to do multiple things when under stressful situations sure i could run a recording program 24/7 and just delete useless footage but that eats up so much disk space and lags my pc
@soulphia8253 said in This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem:
@wolfmanbush i suppose thats true, maybe the devs need a better way to look at recent gameplay data from accused players, i feel like for the teleport hack at least they should be able to see that said players moved from x,y spot to x,y spot way too fast, i really wish i could do more to prove this and i thank everyone for their thoughts on the subject, i do wish i could do this in a better way i really do, but its just so hard, half the time i'm usually in such a life or death situation i don't have time to get proof or it happens so fast its to late this game makes it really hard to do multiple things when under stressful situations sure i could run a recording program 24/7 and just delete useless footage but that eats up so much disk space and lags my pc
I think invasive and intrusive style monitoring could lead to more cheating being caught but personally I'm not a supporter of targeted focus on individuals based on perception. I don't know what they currently do (it may already be implemented) but I wouldn't want it amplified.
I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze. I don't think people that regularly compete and regularly perform at a high skill level should be subjected to more scrutiny based on more accusations. They fight a lot and will have a higher chance of accusations that won't be based on evidence.
People could say "well if they aren't doing anything wrong they have nothing to worry about" but personally I'm not a fan of that being used as justification for more intrusive monitoring.
People should be able to enjoy their experience even if they engage in combat a lot with the assumption (based on benefit of the doubt) they aren't doing anything wrong rather than being treated/monitored as if they are guilty or potentially guilty of something.
Without us having the data about cheating we would only be weakening the individual's experience and overall pleasantness of the environment based on a narrative rather than fixing a factual problem.
Once arena closes down interactions are going to be significantly reduced. Adventure bounces back and forth between 5 and 6 ships. Interactions are short and limited. 1 or 2 of these are typically interested in serious combat.
This creates an environment where the odds of seeing someone that uses cheats are low and the one space where more interactions happened is closing down. So it'll be less likely than ever to see cheaters going forward because of how adventure gameplay is and how servers are set up. Many of the participants not being interested in combat at all or just dabble and there is no reason to think they have any motivation to violate the rules.
@soulphia8253 I can understand for sure how someone would think the things you described are hacking, but experienced players have seen enough of the game to recognize that 1) almost all hack accusations are actually a glitch, lag, server performance, normal gameplay, or sometimes an in-game exploit, but not an actual hack.
I would recommend watching the latest SoT podcast. They specifically address hacking, and said that they receive a LOT of hacking reports, and investigate every single one. They also said they have sophisticated methods of uncovering whether something is a hack or not, and they said very, very few turn out to be hacks. They actually took ownership and blame for creating mechanics that lead to these accusations.
As a long-time player, I am happy to say I may possibly have encountered hacking a couple of times out of tens of thousands of player encounters - but many times I have encountered things that could have been mistaken for hacking by someone less experienced.
Also, for someone without an understanding of programming and how multi-player games like SoT work (which is most people), you may not be aware that the way the servers handle things like health, player speed/location, spawning items, ship mechanics or damage. I’m no expert at all, but I do have some basic programming experience in Unreal Engine, and the way SoT servers work makes it impossible for anyone to manipulate those things. That’s why there are no teleportation hacks, invisible hacks, infinite health hacks, etc - although there ARE issues that can cause all of those. Lastly, don’t rule out godly players. There are players that are unbelievably skilled in this game, and newer (and even experienced) players sometimes can’t fathom that they are as good as they are. You mentioned not missing cannon shots in arena - keep in mind that NAL teams play in public lobbies when they aren’t in a match, and have been playing more since the close of arena was announced. Those guys don’t miss shots even if it’s across the map.
I'm not even gonna read your post, just gonna say I've almost hit 2000 hours on this game, about a 100 of the in Arena, I can confidently claim that I have found 1 hacker and on another occasion I kinda thought he the guy was hacking but wasn't sure, that makes 1/2 hackers encountered in 2000 hours, an incredibly low %.
On the other hand I've been called hacker multiple times, specially in Arena, usually for hitting multiple shots from far away with both cannons and EoR, for one-shotting people on cannons while actively aiming at their cannon to intentionally kill them (because you know, killing the enemy "cannoner" is a good strat); also for "not dying" (this one possibly because of hitreg), attacking through blocks (which also has to do with hitreg/server issues), killing through walls (when wallbang was a thing), also once I've been called a cheater because you jump from the galleon's wheel area to the terrace below just to drop their anchor right after as they thought I jumped into the sea.
Almost no one hacks in this game and Rare still constantly works to prevent players from doing so, people just see hackers everywhere because of server/hitreg issues making PvP unreliable and, mostly, out of frustration when defeated by more skilled crews.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but what you’re experiencing with the chest has been a bug for a long time on arena. The beacon is incredibly broken and doesn’t probably follow the chest so it can look like it’s teleporting or going fats as it tries keeping up with the chest. There’s also competitive arena players part of the notorious arena league which can very easily surpass 4,000 points with just cannons because most of them are very good with naval combat. Also, since you are on a lower end of you’ve said, it might potentially be affecting what you see in comparison to what is actually happening.
never missing and hitting me every time when trying to do just about anything also they grabbed the chest off our ship when we were miles from the sell point and sold it instantly after grabbing it, so i get why people might assume its "lag" or its ping related but the obviousness from it is pretty obvious that, that is cheating and not lag related,
Or. They just played the game enough they know how to aim and when to shoot. It not rocket science but enough time and practice you will never miss.
So it can’t be cheating but simply good playing.
These people pretend all day long people aren't using aimbots and esp systems.
There is a website dedicated to making cheats for this game for free. It's called [mod edit]. There are probably hundreds of these things out there.
Truth is people are cheating alot more than you think. Rare needs to put the hammer down before it's csgo or warzone.
@pellahh no they don't. You can find people showing you hacks in YouTube videos. As I said prior there is a website that makes free hacks for people. 2000 hours to ignore something really happening in the game alot?
@mc-leggers The number of hackers in the game are not related to the number of hacking videos on youtube.
I feel the need to go full essay now, TL;DR at the end.
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I've been ignoring nothing, I'm a highly PvP focused players, I fought a lot and I recognize the difference between a player that is skilled and one that is cheating because of his movement and fighting patterns.
-
As said, I've encountered 1 - 2 hackers i almost 2000 hours and have been called hacker A LOT (specially when playing arena),
believe me. People perceive the game as having way more hackers than how many it actually has, this is because of many reasons:
a. Technical issues:
Hitreg: You see the hit marker but you are not actually hitting the guy, so he survive 3 pistol shots without eating, average player reaction: hacker!
Blocking issues: The guy in front of you is able to sword spam through your block because of server issues, average reaction: hacker!
Underwater glitch: there's an underwater glitch (which I'm not going to explain how to reproduce) which allows you to teleport around in a small area to dodge enemy shots, average player reaction: hacker!
The game doesn't load enemy character so he's invisible, hacker!
Server just exploding: this is very rare but once I literally couldn't get damaged.
Wallbang: back in the day, when wallbang was I thing, I had been called hacker weekly I think, simply because I was shooting through walls so I must had ESP, couldn't simply be me predicting their position after going on lower decks kekw.
b. Psychological reasons:
For many people often pride joins the party to prevent you from feeling like you were the problem and lost because of your poor play, so when simply someone is stronger than you and is at a skill level that you don't understand because in your subconscious "a level of skill I can't understand or think is achievable doesn't exist", hackers!
I've been called a hacker a lot of times for hitting long range consecutive shots and killing them, like... sea of thieves has one of the most rewarding skill progression when talking about cannons, I've spent hours in arena just shooting at enemy ships to reach the skill level I had back then, I also used to actively try to aim at enemy cannons or wheel as those are the area where an enemy player is most likely to be AND to prevent the enemy crew to shoot at us, that was hacking a lot of the time for my enemy crew because my aim was clearly impossible. This is true in other games too, I reached pretty high MMR in League (Diamond 1) and in one occasion the enemy team was starting to call me a hacker, telling me I had a dodge script because I was consistently dodging his ultimate to the point I just fought with this guys focusing only on that (here).
Skilled opponents vs people's pride, tilt and toxic behaviors can make a lot of casuals and tilted players go for the hacker thing. Some times I even am not sure WHY someone thought I was hacking in SoT, like here. "ESP for seeing people in the water" like what? he was 1 meter below surface?? tilt just f***s up people perception and work on reality denial, this league video is a pretty good example of that (not my vid) here-
People showing hacks on youtube don't mean anything, yes there are hackers in the game but, as said, the chance of encountering one are so low that it can't just happen to happen as much as people claim, as said I've been called hacker so many times for many reasons and I'm not a hacker.
Most of the "hacks videos" are just phishing and scams, usually uploaded in stolen yt accounts. -
Why there are so little hackers in SoT then?
For a set of reasons that together makes SoT hackers population very low.
There are usually 2 macro groups of hackers: casuals and try harders, counter intuitively these groups are about the sime size, try harders might even be more.
There are not a lot of casuals hackers in general because these people usually care about progress and don't want risk loosing it, this is even more drastic in p2p games like sot, has it can be a waste of money.
Games with high amount of hackers are competitive F2P games because people can make alt-accounts easely and because skilled tryhards just want thatedge over other skilled tryhards to win over them, ending up in cheating. Yeah, it might sound weird but hackers are mostly good players too. These people either buy the game, hack, get banned and quit or be more dedicated and make alt-accounts in a way that is almost free that I'm not going to explain here for obvious purposes.
This game is not a competitive game, people won't bother doing a new account to PvP in adventure and the Arena community is a niche so small that it won't contain much hackers compared to the whole playerbase (also most of them will be playing in TDM servers holded by competitive communities, making it even harder for a casual to find one of them).
TL;DR
Basically the reason why people think there are a lot of hackers are bugs and technical issues; tilt and lack of understanding the game which distort player's perception.
The reason why there actually are little hackers is simply because SoT is not the type of game where hackers thrive.-
@pellahh said in This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem:
@mc-leggers The number of hackers in the game are not related to the number of hacking videos on youtube.
I feel the need to go full essay now, TL;DR at the end.
-
I've been ignoring nothing, I'm a highly PvP focused players, I fought a lot and I recognize the difference between a player that is skilled and one that is cheating because of his movement and fighting patterns.
-
As said, I've encountered 1 - 2 hackers i almost 2000 hours and have been called hacker A LOT (specially when playing arena),
believe me. People perceive the game as having way more hackers than how many it actually has, this is because of many reasons:
a. Technical issues:
Hitreg: You see the hit marker but you are not actually hitting the guy, so he survive 3 pistol shots without eating, average player reaction: hacker!
Blocking issues: The guy in front of you is able to sword spam through your block because of server issues, average reaction: hacker!
Underwater glitch: there's an underwater glitch (which I'm not going to explain how to reproduce) which allows you to teleport around in a small area to dodge enemy shots, average player reaction: hacker!
The game doesn't load enemy character so he's invisible, hacker!
Server just exploding: this is very rare but once I literally couldn't get damaged.
Wallbang: back in the day, when wallbang was I thing, I had been called hacker weekly I think, simply because I was shooting through walls so I must had ESP, couldn't simply be me predicting their position after going on lower decks kekw.
b. Psychological reasons:
For many people often pride joins the party to prevent you from feeling like you were the problem and lost because of your poor play, so when simply someone is stronger than you and is at a skill level that you don't understand because in your subconscious "a level of skill I can't understand or think is achievable doesn't exist", hackers!
I've been called a hacker a lot of times for hitting long range consecutive shots and killing them, like... sea of thieves has one of the most rewarding skill progression when talking about cannons, I've spent hours in arena just shooting at enemy ships to reach the skill level I had back then, I also used to actively try to aim at enemy cannons or wheel as those are the area where an enemy player is most likely to be AND to prevent the enemy crew to shoot at us, that was hacking a lot of the time for my enemy crew because my aim was clearly impossible. This is true in other games too, I reached pretty high MMR in League (Diamond 1) and in one occasion the enemy team was starting to call me a hacker, telling me I had a dodge script because I was consistently dodging his ultimate to the point I just fought with this guys focusing only on that (here).
Skilled opponents vs people's pride, tilt and toxic behaviors can make a lot of casuals and tilted players go for the hacker thing. Some times I even am not sure WHY someone thought I was hacking in SoT, like here. "ESP for seeing people in the water" like what? he was 1 meter below surface?? tilt just f***s up people perception and work on reality denial, this league video is a pretty good example of that (not my vid) here-
People showing hacks on youtube don't mean anything, yes there are hackers in the game but, as said, the chance of encountering one are so low that it can't just happen to happen as much as people claim, as said I've been called hacker so many times for many reasons and I'm not a hacker.
Most of the "hacks videos" are just phishing and scams, usually uploaded in stolen yt accounts. -
Why there are so little hackers in SoT then?
For a set of reasons that together makes SoT hackers population very low.
There are usually 2 macro groups of hackers: casuals and try harders, counter intuitively these groups are about the sime size, try harders might even be more.
There are not a lot of casuals hackers in general because these people usually care about progress and don't want risk loosing it, this is even more drastic in p2p games like sot, has it can be a waste of money.
Games with high amount of hackers are competitive F2P games because people can make alt-accounts easely and because skilled tryhards just want thatedge over other skilled tryhards to win over them, ending up in cheating. Yeah, it might sound weird but hackers are mostly good players too. These people either buy the game, hack, get banned and quit or be more dedicated and make alt-accounts in a way that is almost free that I'm not going to explain here for obvious purposes.
This game is not a competitive game, people won't bother doing a new account to PvP in adventure and the Arena community is a niche so small that it won't contain much hackers compared to the whole playerbase (also most of them will be playing in TDM servers holded by competitive communities, making it even harder for a casual to find one of them).
TL;DR
Basically the reason why people think there are a lot of hackers are bugs and technical issues; tilt and lack of understanding the game which distort player's perception.
The reason why there actually are little hackers is simply because SoT is not the type of game where hackers thrive.Yea, this is totally not the case. You are dismissive of how much of a issue it really is. Nobody said everyone is a hacker, or that there is more hackers than non. As this is the third time saying it, unlike other games SoT has free ESP and Aimbot websites.
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Does 'recent players' include ones you meet on the ferry?
Never mind hacking or bugs... I just nipped in the house where my sons are doing a fort with their friend and I watched a grown man on the ferry swearing and using homophobic and racial slurs at their 12 y/o friend.. I was so shocked i didn't think about clipping it until too late. Right out of nowhere... manchild wasn't even at the fort..
I hate to break it to you but you can find almost anything for "free" on the internet, especially hacks, and for any game.
Most of us don't take claims from "new" players about the amount of cheaters seriously because we've played a lot and met players from both ends of skill level, extremely good ones and bad ones. It's not too rare to be accused of cheating your self so it's hard to take them seriously even though there might be a real occasion behind their experience.
I wouldn't worry too much about SoT becoming a new CS go because SoT doesn't fit their format of gameplay. Most games that suffer from cheaters are free to play, fast phased or competitive in nature (at least in my experience) because in them player has a reason to cheat, to win or to boost their ego.
With sea of thieves it's nether of those. SoT isn't competitive, it isn't free to play, it isn't fight on demand as encountering players may take up to tens of minutes meaning you can't have a fight on demand as you can on most FPS games.
This doesn't mean that cheats aren't a thing in SoT, just that they're rarer.
@soulphia8253
Have you tried Game bars capture feature? It should be on by default and allows you to record past 5sec-2mins of gameplay on demand. So if you encounter a suspicious player you can capture the past 30sec of gameplay which tingled your cheater senses.Yea, this is totally not the case. You are dismissive of how much of a issue it really is.
If taking more than half an hour of my time to write a long and in depth post using my knowledge and experience as both as a SoT veteran and someone who used various cheats on Combat Arms and Minecraft which also led me to know many other hackers is dismissive, compared to you answering who answered to the whole post by denying it completely with a single phrase then I'm just gonna head out of the discussion. There's no point for me to convince you about the situation, Rare knows this better than me and you anyway.
As this is the third time saying it, unlike other games SoT has free ESP and Aimbot websites.
Just like every other game, also try them out (sarcastically, I'm not pushing anyone into hacking) and let us know how many days it takes for your acc to get banned or for you to get scammed. Because many hacks and cheats are just keyloggers and stuff like that hid in a very easy to make cheat that is also easely detectable. The quantity of hacks available to the players is not correlated to the quantity of actual players hacking.
Good luck fighting hackers off fo the seas! The community really appreciate your work to defend us, have a nice day.
@pellahh You are one of those people who can't stand being wrong. Who said everyone who see hacks online is hacking? Stop putting words where they don't belong to make your false argument. Also you admit to using hacks on other games, what makes you a credible source?
While noone is denying hacks exist and some people do use them I think you are making it sound like it's alot less widespread issue as you are making it out to be.
Now im speaking from only my experiance which is 2500+ hours, Lsd and TSD and I focus on pvp only. I have only encountered 1 crew out of 1000s of encounters who I suspected of using cheats.
I have more hours than I care to admit and have seen maybe 4, 5 instances of cheating. Of course there are always ones you cannot detect. Two clear aimbot players and at least a couple using the ESP and teleport type stuff, but that was a year or two ago. A very low encounter rate compared to most games, in my experience.
@unleet1 This is my point, no one knows if someone is using ESP, not even rare. It is nearly impossible to prover someone is aimbotting in this game also.
@nitroxien you can't exactly prove esp and aimbot hacks in this game. It doesn't have a kill cam, you have to get out of the engagement you are in first then tab over to a browser to report someone and they even ask for a video but how do you prove someone has aimbot? I recorded someone shooting across ships shot my gfs toon from the back in of a sloop by the anchor 5 times in a row while behind us. I sent it in and nothing happened to him, I put him my friend's list and the guy still playing the game. It's pointless because you can't prove it even with a video. Also I believe you can't name shame in here. You can't prove someone is using esp because all it does it tell people where things are.
@mc-leggers said in This game needs a better way to report players, i've been playing for years and hackers are still a problem:
@nitroxien you can't exactly prove esp and aimbot hacks in this game. It doesn't have a kill cam, you have to get out of the engagement you are in first then tab over to a browser to report someone and they even ask for a video but how do you prove someone has aimbot? I recorded someone shooting across ships shot my gfs toon from the back in of a sloop by the anchor 5 times in a row while behind us. I sent it in and nothing happened to him, I put him my friend's list and the guy still playing the game. It's pointless because you can't prove it even with a video. Also I believe you can't name shame in here. You can't prove someone is using esp because all it does it tell people where things are.
You keep saying you can tell if people are using aimbot or ESP but in all reality it is very easy to see especially when someone is blatant with it:
