Attempt to alleviate the Cheaterproblem in Hourglass

Restricting HG to PLs isn't the solution, for a few reasons:

1] This leaves out the large chunk of players who are not yet PL, but wish to get better at PvP or earn the curses/cosmetics.

2] If someone is paying for cheats, and a vpn, and spoofing their hwid, oh and btw they can fly around the map and spawn loot in whenever they want... then I don't think a PL restriction is going to do much to slow them down.

The only solution is a real anti-cheat.

Not whatever goofy "machine learning" system that's been failing so much that Rare still relies on support tickets to catch people.

@theblackbellamy

Youre right , its not the Solution to the problem itself and i never claimed it to be but i do understand your frustration. Well for me i just decidet to try to come up with Suggestions how things can better , even if its just a little.
to your points:

1. as i mentioned before, there is still open world PVP which everyone of us used BEFORE Season 8 came out. Aswell if Rare really want to provide the possibility for new people to hone their PVP skills they simply can provide them with an unranked Hourglass where you still go for dives but without commendation progress.

2. And yes ofc its harder to track or denie someone who has payed cheats. But for all those other cheats who are litterally FREE to get it will make a difference.

Maybe its not much but every bit helps and aslong people only complaining without beeing constructive in their critiques i think nothing gonna change at all.

Lets be honest, even with anticheat you will have cheaters and its a complex and continuous progress you have to go through when it comes to fighting cheaters. So the implimentation of an anticheat might also dont do the trick.
Thats why i think if you can put hurdles into your game and if they are reasonable and dont mess too much with your regular players, to make it a little harder for cheaters, you should.

Thanks for your reply !

Best regards

Iirc the current record for reaching PL status from scratch is under 7h during a G&G weekend, without cheats.

It won't probably slow them down much. What it would do however is unleashing them on adventure while they are currently mostly focused on HG. It sucks for the people playing hourglass a lot, I totally get it, but creating incentives for cheaters to mess with the regular playerbase for little to no benefits isn't worth it in my opinion.

@grog-minto

Yes youre right , but there is not always a G&G weekend and aswell i dont think this people are able to speedrun it. But again its to alleviate the problem may it be as little as it gets, but right now you can make a new account windows account and therefore a new rare account in about 20 minutes. even if its G&G weekend 7 hours then dont sound that bad to me compared to 20 minutes.

I already enountert numerous of cheaters in the regular Seas aswell so the thinking of unleashing them to the regular seas is already outdated in my eyes. People realized pretty fast that those cheats are not only useable for hourglasspurpose.

Thank you for your reply!

Best regards

I dont hate the Pirate legend Idea just for the reason, that it just raises the barrier of entry. Yes it sucks for new players that want to get into pvp. But Houreglas isn´t the best option for that regardless, becauce the skillevel increased so mutch in the last few month that a new player usually just gets sunk in the first 3 minuts of the fight anyways. The Pirat legend requirement also encourages banning people becauce they are forced to level another account to pirate legend. Even if they are able to spawn loot or fly around it´t still gonna take some time to get pl (downside might be that they start kegdropping adventure players to steal theire loot). So only dedicated cheaters will go through that process 5-10 or more times. So it washes out the people that cheat out of boardom. My personal solution to the cheater problem would be live report system. Where a player can report suspicious activity in the server and a Game master joins the server to investigate. hard cheating is usually very obvious so they could bann the players without any doubt. I think you probably only need a 5-10 people online at any time to keep this system running for a server since people Houreglass isn´t that popular anayways. And yes kannonaimbot and aimbot in general isn´t fixed with that but it may be able to combat kegdropping and flying around at least.
Just some of my thoughts have a nice day whoever reached the bottom of this post^^

@cpt-soulfamily
I also feel there would be some disscouragment to the cheaters if they have to regrind to PL again. Aswell i am on the same page with you when it comes to new players joining the hourglass. Although i already explained a simple solution for Rare to still provide PVP content for non PL players (Reply to TheBlackBellamy), i also think that Players who dont know how to raise their mast , wont really learn from hourglass-encounters where they get dumped on in under 3 minutes. Even more a reason to take the Non-ranked Hourglass for new players in concideration since they then have a secure enviroment to play against other new players.

As for the live report function i dont really think it will be a productive solution since the report function can easy be missused. Aswell it always happens that there are missaccusations which then lead to wasteing the time of the Game-masters.
Not even mentioning the enormous ammount of players and servers they have to monitor.

Thank you for your reply!

Best regards

@neroy87

Hello here, I already made a post about it : A supplement for Hourglass

And I completely agree with this idea of ​​forcing players to be pirate legend before they can enjoy the PVP mod. It would even be better to force them to be Reaper 75 knowing that Reaper is the only pvp faction in the adventure.
Makes sense, to improve before you can do this mod the adventure is more than enough. And no they can't generate loot so they will have to go through the farming stage to pass PL and this can also prevent new players from voting without wanting to.

The longer the step to participate in this mod, the better. It must be long and tedious. And there believe me, they will think before wanting to redo an account.

To say that they will be freed in the adventure is not necessarily true, they do not want to rub against the adventure players but they prefer to fight the pvp players.

I think this is THE most interesting, viable and effective SOLUTION.

@d3adst1ck

Hello , i hope i understood you right , so youre saying they going in with one account , starting the dive and then disconnect and invite another account ? If thats the case just impliment a emerge function into the game as soon as the crewsize changes from its original size. This way it will also help in order of unfortunate disconnections from regular players since it sometimes happen that you cant cancel the dive after one of your crewmates disconnected and you getting matched with a full manned ship.
As soon another account then joins and doesnt meet the requirements the crew wont be able to go for ranked PVP.

And i dont know what you mean by "normal" users either. arent we all "normal" users ? if youre refeering to "unleash" cheaters to the regular seas then i already took a statement to that.
(Reply to Grog Minto)

We all can speculate how this change might or might not shift things arround but in the end were just spinning in circles.

Tank you for your reply!

Best regards

@rlkaa

Hello , i didnt knew there was such a post already out. More then less i think its a worthy theme to be discussed.

Forcing them to become Reaper lvl 75 is a bit unbalanced i think since you then also need an equal achivement for the Athena side. Otherwhise you would force players to play Reapers. Aswell i think this will only play into cheaters hands, because reapers is the faction which is the fastest to lvl up, since you can just sink other ships and turn in everything.
I dont belive forcing cheaters to lvl up a PVP-Faction is a good idea.

but yes i also dont belive that it will shift things around too much. There is already a numerous amount of cheaters sailing on the regular Seas not playing hourglass.

Thanks for your reply!

Best regards

Make it so they have to unlock it. Like sink 200 skeleton ships.

“Arg! So you gotten a good taste of being a pirate ships? Test your might against another soul who wishes to do battle. Welcome to the hourglass!”

@d3adst1ck

But then just lock the rejoin function to the point where only the original crew , who started the Queue, will be able to rejoin. And if you , or anyone of your crew is not PL you can only join unranked Hourglass fights .

For people who are already grinding the Hourglass , i dont think there will be any inconvenience by needing the PL title for joining the Hourglass fights. IF there is really someone, who is already grinding Hourglass but still not PL , in one of the former Replies from Grog Minto its said on G&G Weekends its done in about 10 hours.

Again cheating will ALWAYS be a thing aslong there is not 100% secure anticheat. But we can sit here and downtalk everything by just creating fictive szenarios , or we come up with ideas how to improve. Well i chose last.

Thanks for your reply!

Best regards

@burnbacon

I like this ideas. ahahahahah :)
The question is clear: we must force players who want to make HG to go through additional stages (how in LOL, where you have to be level 30 before you can launch ranked) long, tedious, while keeping in mind mind that the game should be accessible to everyone.

@burnbacon

Also a nice idea but that will then create a shortage on skelly ships on the servers since everybody would try to farm them getting the commendation.

I also thought about haveing "enough" seamiles since this would be an achievement nobody gets disturbed with.

Thanks for your reply!

Best regards

I was thinking about this and if they made you get 50 in one trading company it would help new players get some experience, give a point to introduce hour glass to them and give a requirement for cheaters to grind to to enter with new accouints.

I agree, the fastest way to reduce cheaters at this point is to give them more barriers to entry. The problem is, more barriers to entry means that less people will be active in the mode, which is exactly what it doesn't need right now. Think about it: If it took you 20 minutes to get your TV remote out of a safe every time you wanted to use your TV, how would your TV usage change?

A barrier to entry would need to be simple and universal, so that regular players would have no barriers and new players would have a small amount. Maybe, to be able to engage in hourglass, you would need to reach level 15 in any trading company for Athena, and level 15 in reapers for Servants? This is a easy and reasonable barrier (it's the barrier to buy an emissary flag for trading companies). It wouldn't stop cheaters, but back to the TV remote analogy, making boring time barriers for cheaters is going to reduce the amount of cheaters. I couldn't tell you by how much, but any amount is worth it as long as the non-cheaters still get little-to-no barriers.

@d3adst1ck said in Attempt to alleviate the Cheaterproblem in Hourglass:

@grumpyw01f said in Attempt to alleviate the Cheaterproblem in Hourglass:

Maybe, to be able to engage in hourglass, you would need to reach level 15 in any trading company for Athena, and level 15 in reapers for Servants? This is a easy and reasonable barrier (it's the barrier to buy an emissary flag for trading companies).

These aren't equal barriers. Athena 15 takes considerably more time and requires a much smaller selection of end game loot, so unless you'd be happy running into significantly more same faction battles as a reaper you'd need to think of something else. Scratch that, your wording made me think you were speaking about Athena but you're talking about the other companies.

I still think they wouldn't be equal since Trading Companies are specific loot and Reaper is everything.

The numbers don't matter to me.

Nice idea… but I’m 99% that cheaters can just add PL to their account.

@grumpyw01f

Hello , well i do understand your point althoug i feel grinding 15 lvls is really not that hard and doable in about 1 hour if you take worldevents etc. in count.I also think it should not be too much of a grind since people would get affected negatively . Thats why i came up with the PL status , since this would be the needed Title to be able to get in the PL-Hideout anyways. Also it gives you enough time to learn the ropes of the game. For People without PL status who still want the ability to have PVP on demand Rare could just make a non-ranked Hourglass which works the same as the regular one but you dont get any ( maybe other , lower ) achievements . This will provide a safespace for new players who want to learn PVP but also will be a barrier for all those new accounts to join the regular hourglass immediatly.

For the one side its still too less grind ppl should go through , for the others its too much. Thats why i think PL is the sweetspot , not only because its something your aiming for anyways when you play this game , but because its enough time to learn everything and its something which is needed anyways for the PL-Hideout.

Thanks for your reply!

Best regards

@no-mic-sotta

Hello , i think the Cosmetic - and Titel- Hack got already removed by Rare. Atleast thats what they postet.

Also its not just the Title but the whole Recommendation which the cheaters would have to add.
Ofc if this idea or any other idea gets implemented it needed to be thought through before just popping something half baked out on the servers.

Tanks for your reply!

Best regards

@neroy87

Hello , well i do understand your point althoug i feel grinding 15 lvls is really not that hard and doable in about 1 hour if you take worldevents etc.

When did I say it should be hard? It shouldn't be. It should only be boring for an experienced player. Cheaters play on shadow accounts, so any progress they make isn't benefitting themselves, just the people they play with. So the primary goal of a cheater is to have their fun dominating any players that stand in their way. If you add even just 1 hour to the setup time that a cheater needs to get started in hourglass, you are making their experience more boring between bans. This helps stop cheaters. They may just move on to something else.

Thats why i came up with the PL status , since this would be the needed Title to be able to get in the PL-Hideout anyways.

While I agree, non-PL players are going to have some trouble getting wins in HG, the problem is that PL is a very lofty goal for a new player. And, as I said, barriers to entry lower player counts. If every new player hopped into hourglass, the matchmaking would be able to stick them together so that they have more balanced games. So what hourglass needs is more inexperienced players, not less. Your idea would just serve to lower player counts. Not everyone that plays this game makes PL their goal. Some come from competitive games and want to have fun with PvP. Why should they have to complete 50+ hours of PvE to play the PvP mode? Sorry, but engagement is more important than cheating (though I understand cheating lowers engagement). So, small barriers that make cheaters' experience worse is what is needed for a short-term fix while a greater solution is being worked on.

@grumpyw01f

Well , maybe you misunderstood me then , what ment is getting a higher grind for the ranked Hourglass to get people to grind for it. As you mentioned there is already to few players and its true that SoT is lacking on Players for the PVP-mode. Yet the only thing what would happen is that those few new more players which come dripping in , will get matched with highrank people since the queue doesnt have anything else to offer. So this would just result in the demotivation of new players and not in balanced fights. Instad i would highly recommend to open up the still existing big stamps on each Contintent to maximise the Ladder-Funktion (aslong its still in a reasonable pingrange).

But in the conversation with others i also mentioned that it would be a good idea to have an unranked Hourglassmode for all those people who dont have PL so new people aswell as people who just play for the PVP and nothing else can also just join the unranked hourglass then. It would benefit the new players since they match up with (probably) enemies in their own rank.

And i dont think that the main motivation of cheaters is to dominate other people in terms of them haveing fun doing so , but either to reach the commendations they are aiming for or carrying their crewmates. There is enough websites where SoT accounts with double golden curse getting sold aswell carryingservices you can purchase.And there is those people who just had enough of cheaters dumping on them denying their grind and start cheating by themself in order to reach their goal.
So, no i dont believe that the majority of cheaters are only doing it for the sake of dumping on people.

And yes , engagement is more important than cheating. Yet here we are people stepping away from the game because of cheaters ( even partnered Streamers like Phuzzy Bond ) takeing all their viewers , Friends and Crewmates with them since they have enough of the current state. So is it the current state that has to change, or do we just hit on the next tree hopeing some new SoT players will fall down? You just cant summon new Players and even if you could , as soon those new players decide to play the PVP mode and get sunk by people dropping Kegs out of the sky , they either leave the game (or maybe atleast the PVP mode) or become cheaters by themself.

Thanks for your reply!

Best regards

Hello, here, @Neroy87

I sincerely think that there are enough PL players for the proper functioning of the mod. And I confirm that the idea of ​​having to be PL to participate in this mod would be a very good solution to slow down these cheaters.
Imposing the fact of having to be PL to participate in this mod is in no way a problem for new players assuming that the player base is small and that they will therefore necessarily fight enemies much stronger. So seeing them train by becoming PL is a good thing and has no impact on the mod. @GrumpyW01f

Believe me that just the fact of having to change accounts during the dive and reconnect with another should discourage them, even if I am convinced that they will not have the possibility of circumventing that. @D3ADST1CK It is clear that for this it is necessary to lock the voting table if a member does not meet the prerequisites

The most important thing is to force cheaters to have to spend time on something else before they can participate in this mod. And so this solution is good.
You also have, as mentioned above, the possibility of having to sink 200 skeleton ships, which is also a very good idea. And no, it can't create a shortage of skeleton boats...

I remind you that the PVP mod is more of an endgame mod. (In addition, RARE does not inform these customers that the game brings you to have to sink another ship and how to do it)
In many other games you had to reach a certain level before you could launch another mod (LoL)

Personally I would go so far as to have to be PL and also 75 or less in Reaper (only PVP faction, so it's consistent). But the idea of ​​the 200 skeleton ships is good

@scheneighnay

Hello , yes i also think its not the solution and some sort of active-cheat-prevention is still needed.
And it was never ment as solution but as a Hindrance to cheaters beeing able to almost instantly make a new account and go into hourglass fights again.
Therefore Rare would also need to ensure that cheaters cant cheese the PL-commendation aswell as the matchmaking without beeing PL.

Thanks for your reply!

Best regards

Agree with @Scheneighnay here, the only crews I've seen in hourglass who weren't pirate legend were either cheaters or new players who voted on hourglass by mistake and had no clue what was going on. Everyone else will have been pirate legend and around the 50 days played mark.

It'd be a nice barrier to prevent some cheating. It may lower some participation but the crews missing are most likely the ones we want rid of. If it works it may actually bring players back to the mode.

@a10dr4651 I doubt regarding the last bit. The game mode is too bare-bones, the rewards are scarce and xp gain is a crawl.

@twodozenrats

Hey there,
Well for first it might look a bit much but you have to keep in mind that this is supposed to be a achievement that you unlock by getting PL. Also if you go for the Guardians faction and become lvl 100 you are then able to get the ghost-curse aswell it unlocks a new area in the PL hideout. However you as a player need to be PL to even get into the PL-hideout by yourself. Yes you can ask someone else to open it for you but in the end do you really wanna ask people to open it up for you ? All the new cosmetics wich you unlock through the achievements of the hourglass are also only purchaseable in the PL-Hideout.

Anyways i do understand that people have different opignions on the point of how big this "Hurdle" should be for you and others its to high , for other people its still too low since they think it should be even more exhausting and tedious . So in the end i think i found the sweetspot for this and that would be PL. Not only that it also somehow makes sense when you look at the achievements and what they unlock.

But if you still want to do PVP regardless of your Rank or your achievements , i suggested an unranked Hourglassmode for people who arent PL yet but still want to train their PVP skills.

Tanks for your reply!

Best regards