Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!

record your gameplay

make sure your recordings have the names in the videos/clips

anything extreme is likely going to lead to enforcement

on top of trying to detect and enforce against cheating they are also attempting to cut down on people that just switch accounts after facing enforcement

more here

https://www.seaofthieves.com/community/forums/topic/149671/updates-to-security-features

The seas are filled with really, really good players. Probably do what WolfManbush said, only review the footage before uploading it. ESP, 120FOV and speed hacks are common among "sweaty" players, as they want as much an advantage as possible.

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

ESP, 120FOV and speed hacks are common among "sweaty" players, as they want as much an advantage as possible.

Common? many of the super skilled fighters create content, not all the same types of content in the same types of ways and not are all widely known but if they are involved in serious pvp to some degree they are likely to have some content out there. Not too hard to determine who is up to something and who isn't. I wouldn't say it's common in the random adventure environment.

I'd say the only real place that it's confirmed common is in the circles that chase streamers around to get attention. The malicious side of pvp which really isn't a big group overall.

A lot of the exaggerations about cheating for the random organic environment ironically comes from the people that see it the most. The problem being is that the accusations and assumptions spread out into exaggerations about people that weren't even the hostile ones to begin with. There is no reason to believe or significant evidence to suggest that random people pveing that can actually defend themselves are cheating but over time it became common to accuse people that perform well of being cheaters.

When dozens or hundreds of supporters of one person hear over and over accusations that tends to turn into a lot of loose accusations being spread around by that community.

@wolfmanbush said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

ESP, 120FOV and speed hacks are common among "sweaty" players, as they want as much an advantage as possible.

Common? many of the super skilled fighters create content, not all the same types of content in the same types of ways and not are all widely known but if they are involved in serious pvp to some degree they are likely to have some content out there. Not too hard to determine who is up to something and who isn't. I wouldn't say it's common in the random adventure environment.

I'd say the only real place that it's confirmed common is in the circles that chase streamers around to get attention from. The malicious side of pvp which really isn't a big group overall.

A lot of the exaggerations about cheating for the random organic environment ironically comes from the people that see it the most. The problem being is that the accusations and assumptions spread out into exaggerations about people that weren't even the hostile ones to begin with. There is no reason to believe or significant evidence to suggest that random people pveing that can actually defend themselves are cheating but over time it became common to accuse people that perform well of being cheaters.

Huh. I must be reeaaallly unlucky. Either that, or I've been watching too much SoT montages. I'm not one to call hacks often, but I've been running into quite a few creators (in the wild) in the past week or so. After looking at these people's videos, I can conclude that about 75% of them have been using one of the three "cheats" I listed above.

@personalc0ffee said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

The seas are filled with really, really good players. Probably do what WolfManbush said, only review the footage before uploading it. ESP, 120FOV and speed hacks are common among "sweaty" players, as they want as much an advantage as possible.

What is a speed hack?
Hacking to make your sprinting speed faster.
If they have to use hacks, they ain't sweaty at all.
Surprisingly, the stuff like 120FOV don't give much of an advantage. Hackers still can be sweaty, and sweats can be hackers.
120 FoV is a real fast way to a ban.
Yep, it is. And if you're on PC, you can get it without moderation going after you. Stretch the screen.

@personalc0ffee said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@personalc0ffee said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

The seas are filled with really, really good players. Probably do what WolfManbush said, only review the footage before uploading it. ESP, 120FOV and speed hacks are common among "sweaty" players, as they want as much an advantage as possible.

What is a speed hack?
Hacking to make your sprinting speed faster.

That would be highly noticeable.

Yet it still isn't noticed. Sometimes it's blatantly obvious, sometimes it just looks like the normal running speed and a lot of people just turn a blind eye to it, thinking it's normal.

If they have to use hacks, they ain't sweaty at all.
Surprisingly, the stuff like 120FOV don't give much of an advantage. Hackers still can be sweaty, and sweats can be hackers.

I'm saying they are not worthy of that title because they are cheating or modding.

Fair, fair.

120 FoV is a real fast way to a ban.
Yep, it is. And if you're on PC, you can get it without moderation going after you. Stretch the screen.

The screen stretch, I've seen people doing it, they are at a huge disadvantage and it makes the gameplay very unenjoyable.

Granted, they need to fix that because you still should not be able to see further than supported, unless you have an actual widescreen setup.

I think the only way they could do that is to make the game always fullscreen. Windowing it and stretching it allows for way too much FOV. Say you have a 3 - monitor setup. If you stretch it across all 3 monitors, you get this ridiculous FOV. It makes gameplay unenjoyable, yes, but some people are willing to do that.

It definitely seems to be getting worse. Flying keggers, people zipping around underwater like Aquaman, impossible detection and accuracy. I've seen all of these, but moreso in the past month or two.

@p4l3ryder said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

I heard that's a growing problem, we had a guy with aim bot hitting us with his sniper while we were super deep in the water. He hit every shot so we swam super deep to board, no way he could see us and he killed us with 4 shots. Never missed, boat at full speed and us swimming down at an angle.
Now they use a physical projectile type of HITREG, not beam style like COD. So totally hacking. Weekly thing.

What is your gameplay style?

What is your typical risk taking level?

I hear about people saying it's a daily/weekly/common thing

I've fought solo at a high risk level every day for a long time and haven't seen what people talk about.

1. Fights are random, random skills, random scenarios, so fights aren't all one thing. Sometimes I sink a galleon and 2 brigs back to back and a sloop sails up and destroys me in seconds. Sometimes I get wrecked 5 fights in a row, sometimes I go days without being sunk. Always random even at the highest risk level and while fighting on average the most skilled pirates on the servers I play on (I don't attack non hostile ships and I mainly fight server hoppers and hostile pvp crews through happenstance.

2. I'm just some dude and most players are just a random person in a server so the chances of being targeted are much lower.

3. People have improved over time and it isn't because of cheating. People commonly hit their shots now, they have learned more of what to do and what not to do in combat. Plenty of pirates that are just flat out decent at shooting guns now, Bigger crews allows them wiggle room and allows them to perform well together .

4. This game requires a lot of strategy and knowledge to perform on top of what of what a cheat could realistically do. Cheats don't make a strong helm, they don't create strong strategy that has to adapt and be implemented on a second by second basis in combat.

Cheating exists but for people to act like it's something they see regularly in such a fashion that it's without a doubt cheating is an extreme exaggeration going off of what I have seen every day for years while playing organically at a high risk level and having a lot of random fights. Lower risk levels are much less likely to see cheating in combat.

There is a peculiar lack of day to day evidence that gets spread around compared to the amount of cheating accusations. I would think that recording the interactions would be a lot more common if people felt they were regularly being cheated against. This is a highly recorded/streamed game but yet there always seems to be a lack of evidence that is anywhere near what could be considered proof of widespread cheating.

@wolfmanbush I've seen plenty of videos of flying keggers (and experienced it once myself) and even a video from the perspective of the flying kegger, which I sent to Rare. Just saw one of a guy flying through the water at impossible speeds today. Not sure what the policy of linking to such things is around here. Sure, some claims of cheating are sometimes really good players, but it's definitely out there.

@fatbeard1353 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@wolfmanbush I've seen plenty of videos of flying keggers (and experienced it once myself) and even a video from the perspective of the flying kegger, which I sent to Rare. Just saw one of a guy flying through the water at impossible speeds today. Not sure what the policy of linking to such things is around here. Sure, some claims of cheating are sometimes really good players, but it's definitely out there.

The keg thing is new and region specific

and has no connections to years of people claiming widespread cheating about aim stuff and esp.

Cheating existing isn't widespread cheating and a new cheat that recently popped up doesn't really have anything to do with the specific type of cheating that people have claimed for years.

@personalc0ffee said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@personalc0ffee said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@personalc0ffee said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

@animeowl0807 said in Hackers are a BIG PROBLEM!!!!!!:

The seas are filled with really, really good players. Probably do what WolfManbush said, only review the footage before uploading it. ESP, 120FOV and speed hacks are common among "sweaty" players, as they want as much an advantage as possible.

What is a speed hack?
Hacking to make your sprinting speed faster.

That would be highly noticeable.

Yet it still isn't noticed. Sometimes it's blatantly obvious, sometimes it just looks like the normal running speed and a lot of people just turn a blind eye to it, thinking it's normal.

If they have to use hacks, they ain't sweaty at all.
Surprisingly, the stuff like 120FOV don't give much of an advantage. Hackers still can be sweaty, and sweats can be hackers.

I'm saying they are not worthy of that title because they are cheating or modding.

Fair, fair.

120 FoV is a real fast way to a ban.
Yep, it is. And if you're on PC, you can get it without moderation going after you. Stretch the screen.

The screen stretch, I've seen people doing it, they are at a huge disadvantage and it makes the gameplay very unenjoyable.

Granted, they need to fix that because you still should not be able to see further than supported, unless you have an actual widescreen setup.

I think the only way they could do that is to make the game always fullscreen. Windowing it and stretching it allows for way too much FOV. Say you have a 3 - monitor setup. If you stretch it across all 3 monitors, you get this ridiculous FOV. It makes gameplay unenjoyable, yes, but some people are willing to do that.

Nah just make it so you can't stretch it outside a particular aspect ratio or beyond the boundaries of the set resolution, which let's be honest, if you are running at 1920X1080 on a 1440 panel, there's no need to stretch it like that and the image is better if you full window it.

SoT already runs in borderless window so, it doesn't even have a true full screen mode.

True, but there would be at least a small advantage. Really, it doesn't matter too much.

@wolfmanbush Thanks but not all of us can record or catch the cheaters with a ss. This is 100% on Rare and I am about to ask for a refund and never play again. The surge is out of control. It seems like everyone and their mother uses cheats now.

INB4 you don't know what the difference is between a good player and a hacker.