@potatosord I don’t know if you’re only playing on console servers where cheaters can’t get in, but that’s complete nonsense. On PC servers, at least every 5th match has a cheater who’s boosting other players. Personally, I’ve only banned a few, but it doesn’t really help.
Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans
@super87ghost Quick swap was an intentional mechanic — every OG player will tell you they shouldn’t have removed it. If it were an exploit, they would never have left it in the game for so long. Wake up — this is a multimillion-dollar company; they would never allow it to stay that long. They removed it because streamers and “swabbies” were whining, since good players were using it — end of story. Any other excuses aren’t true, and anyone saying otherwise is probably a new-gen Sword Lord whining because someone is actually good.
@fellow77307 No, it was not an intended mechanic, just like loot juggling/loot sprinting isn't an intended mechanic and can be removed/patched at any moment. How long something has been in the game does not define whether or not it was intended.
@lisak2604 Hm, if you’re getting spawn camped, that’s just a skill issue — just leave.
And about the Czech language thing, I honestly don’t get it. There aren’t that many Czech players and the game isn’t that popular here, so it’s unnecessary for them. I think they have more important things to work on than adding a language that only a few people in SoT would use. a ano jsem čech a znam fakt jen par českych hracu@mopwieldinghedgehog I understand your point, but quick swap was explicitly designed as a combat mechanic and widely used by the community in intended ways. If Rare had considered it an exploit, they would never have left it in the game for years, and it was featured in official updates and tutorials. Just because something can potentially be abused doesn’t automatically make it unintended — context and developer intent matter.It’s like saying that moving your mouse quickly in the water is an exploit — it’s not, it’s just moving your mouse quickly, that’s all.
@fellow77307 said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:
- ...but quick swap was explicitly designed as a combat mechanic...
No...it wasn't, hence being removed/fixed
- and it was featured in official updates and tutorials.
...No..it wasn't..
- It’s like saying that moving your mouse quickly in the water is an exploit — it’s not, it’s just moving your mouse quickly, that’s all.
It is, just a useless one as you can just aim at the middle and hit the player.
@fellow77307 Cheaters have been using it for years without caring what it looks like. I play on 5760x1080, a 16:3 setup. I can see on my setup how animations are not made for that high of an FOV. I can see inside viewmodels when I reload, my elbows get glitchy looking. It's not that there were no issues with the FOV cheaters use, it's that the cheaters don't care about the issues. They don't care about the viewmodel bugs and they sure as hell wouldn't be reporting them since they can only see them with hacks.
point, but quick swap was explicitly designed as a combat mechanic
Show me. Where in the game, tutorial or Dev saying. “Yes this was created by us for this purpose”
It’s broken game exploit. Just like every other game that has it own version. It bypasses loops to improve or skip moments for “faster action”Fact that they are patching it….proves it. (Or trying to patch it)
Heck. People used the sleep emote to tuck on ships. Wasn’t intended but was funny enough it now is a mechanic but better with actual tutorial to show how.
...No..it wasn't..
Quick swap was 100% tweaked as a regular game mechanic before the game direction shifted to tall tales and new players. When an update made it too good/too bad, it was adjusted to be at an acceptable speed.
It is, just a useless one as you can just aim at the middle and hit the player.
If it were useless, competitive sweaty players wouldn't cry about it when used.
Quick swap was 100% tweaked as a regular game mechanic before the game direction shifted to tall tales and new players
No. That is 100% wrong. That also saying QS in every game that has it was always welcomed from the beginning. It never was but during the early days, where everyone was doing pvpve and not straight up pvp, it was fine maybe but never broken.
If Rare never added arena or hourglass, it for sure QS would have still been an issue and addressed by same time. Or sooner.There's got to be a way that accounts can be connected further with like an IP address or something. It's easy to make a new Microsoft account or steam account or whatever they're using to make a new account 5 seconds after they get a ban, but not everybody has a VPN laying around. Something like that would change things very easily.
@poetniknowit IP bans are very easily circumvented. Sometimes just by unplugging your modem for an hour. They'd also be risking those banned IPs being circulated to legitimate users on the same WAN network.
@worst-tdmer said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:
...No..it wasn't..
Quick swap was 100% tweaked as a regular game mechanic before the game direction shifted to tall tales and new players. When an update made it too good/too bad, it was adjusted to be at an acceptable speed.
This is a myth based on a bug fix that was completely unrelated so essentially misinformation at this point. Quickswap was never officially announced as a feature and wasn't featured in official updates and tutorials.
@mopwieldinghedgehog Please please please do not remove loot juggling please please please please please
@capt-greldik a dit dans Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans :
@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.
Except that in reality, as has been said many times here on this forum, reporting cheaters is absolutely useless because even if they're banned, they come back 5 minutes later with a new account (created for free).
The anti-cheat system is mainly there to say "we're doing something," but we know very well that it's a placebo.
This is precisely why I haven't reported anyone for several months, even though I've encountered cheaters.Especially since there's one thing I absolutely don't understand: how come the developers didn't think about cheating as soon as the game was being developed?
Why did they wait at least six years to implement it (even if it's useless?)?Every game with PvP has an anti-cheat feature from the moment it's released.
So either the developers think all their players are nice teddy bears who do everything right—in other words, they're really naive—or I don't know.
But in any case, the SoT developers bear a terrible responsibility in this story.@zeyrniyx said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:
Except that in reality, as has been said many times here on this forum, reporting cheaters is absolutely useless because even if they're banned, they come back 5 minutes later with a new account (created for free).
The anti-cheat system is mainly there to say "we're doing something," but we know very well that it's a placebo.
This is precisely why I haven't reported anyone for several months, even though I've encountered cheaters.Assuming all cheaters will create a new account and cheat again.
Also, if you're not reporting you're helping the cheaters in some way. If Rare has more information about the amount of cheaters they might prioritise fighting them more.
Assuming all cheaters will create a new account and cheat again.
Because they do?
Also, if you're not reporting you're helping the cheaters in some way. If Rare has more information about the amount of cheaters they might prioritise fighting them more.
Until Rare adds actual consequences to being banned (in the form of a level/time gate for hourglass, or an actual reliable hardware ban), creating a report is just a waste of 5-10 minutes.
If they want information about the number of cheaters, it's out there. They don't exactly hide, their discord servers/websites are public and advertised. In the main cheat client's discord, there are more members than average SoT players on steam this month.
@worst-tdmer a dit dans Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans :
Assuming all cheaters will create a new account and cheat again.
Because they do?
Also, if you're not reporting you're helping the cheaters in some way. If Rare has more information about the amount of cheaters they might prioritise fighting them more.
Until Rare adds actual consequences to being banned (in the form of a level/time gate for hourglass, or an actual reliable hardware ban), creating a report is just a waste of 5-10 minutes.
If they want information about the number of cheaters, it's out there. They don't exactly hide, their discord servers/websites are public and advertised. In the main cheat client's discord, there are more members than average SoT players on steam this month.
But of course they do. It's so obvious that even asking the question is frankly... naive (to put it mildly)....
It's not for nothing that Rare talked about blocking multiple Microsoft accounts...Regarding the consequences that would come from Rare, frankly, after 8 years of existence, I no longer expect anything from that side...
Not to mention the fact that the upcoming implementation of 110° FoV is a nice gift to cheaters, a message telling them: you were right to do it. Because don't think it's simply due to player demand; they said it themselves: they realized (wow, after 8 years, really) that the main cheating tool is changing FoV...
It's all well and good to make us believe we're winning a battle, but whether we like it or not, the war will be won by the cheaters.
@lem0n-curry a dit dans Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans :
@zeyrniyx said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:
Except that in reality, as has been said many times here on this forum, reporting cheaters is absolutely useless because even if they're banned, they come back 5 minutes later with a new account (created for free).
The anti-cheat system is mainly there to say "we're doing something," but we know very well that it's a placebo.
This is precisely why I haven't reported anyone for several months, even though I've encountered cheaters.Assuming all cheaters will create a new account and cheat again.
Also, if you're not reporting you're helping the cheaters in some way. If Rare has more information about the amount of cheaters they might prioritise fighting them more.
Yes, of course, now it's us who's responsible for cheaters... WE'VE HEARD IT ALL.
Look, it's simple: for four years I've been reporting cheaters. The only result is that there have never been so many cheaters.Furthermore, if you think, if the developers think, that I'm going to waste 10 minutes of my time each time reporting a cheater who, even if they get banned, will come back shortly after, NO!
It's not up to us to manage this, it's up to the developers themselves!
If there are cheaters, more than normal (depending on the period), it's certainly not the players' fault, but it's up to the developers to work on this problem!Furthermore, if you think, if the developers think, that I'm going to waste 10 minutes of my time each time reporting a cheater who, even if they get banned, will come back shortly after, NO!
It's not up to us to manage this, it's up to the developers themselves!
If there are cheaters, more than normal (depending on the period), it's certainly not the players' fault, but it's up to the developers to work on this problem!And what they're gonna work with if you don't bother to report them? Genius take 😂 in case you didn't know - cheats get constantly updated, so reporting needs to be constant as well, to keep up with those cheats.
Instead of endlessly crying on the forum about cheaters and being a perpetual victim, use that same time for reporting.
You should have less cheaters to cry about then lol.
PS. nobody is saying that SoT doesn't have a cheater problem.
But devs def don't need people to tell them about this across 300 posts on the forum. They already know. What they do need, is players to keep reporting.
Complaining on the forum solves absolutely nothing. It's a waste of everybody's time.
@r3vanns Something else that's a waste of time - sinking to machine gun, god mode cheaters. The devs definitely do need to know, forums or not, it's ruining everyone's experience in the game. If you wanna play hourglass, nope, it's cheater infested. If there were stricter consequences, that'll be great, but at the moment, this game is near unplayable (there's people streaming on Twitch while cheating, there's even people in adventure who cheat). We waste more time reporting them than them coming back.
@kianonboard said in Cheaters Are Out of Control – Boosting for Money and Evading Bans:
@r3vanns Something else that's a waste of time - sinking to machine gun, god mode cheaters. The devs definitely do need to know, forums or not, it's ruining everyone's experience in the game. If you wanna play hourglass, nope, it's cheater infested. If there were stricter consequences, that'll be great, but at the moment, this game is near unplayable (there's people streaming on Twitch while cheating, there's even people in adventure who cheat). We waste more time reporting them than them coming back.
That's all great. Again, nobody is debating the number of cheaters.
But what all of you need to understand is that Rare, like any other company can only be reactive, or pro-active in fight against cheats.
It still doesn't change the fact that complaining on forums ain't gonna speed things up.
The only thing that can speed things up in fight against cheaters is constant, and more importantly - valid reporting = DATA. The more valid data you submit, the faster they can patch things up.
You may not like to hear it, but that's the truth mate. Forum complaining against cheaters at least, doesn't help anyone, and solves 0 issues. It's just noise, nothing more.
@r3vanns More noise = the better. If there's all these forum posts, it's obviously the main concern. Yes, reporting is good, but if it's extending beyond support, they're going to be more pressured to handle cheaters better. People feel no interest in reporting anymore because they make a new account and they're back to cheating. I would love a Rare CM to play maybe 5 games of hourglass, they'd be embarrassed of the state of the game. They need to go beyond bans (and I know it's extremely tedious and consuming for such a small company, but they need to start taking legal action, it's expanding beyond Hourglass and this game is unplayable for the most part, yes this is easier said than done).
@kianonboard I've seen swabbies who don't even know how to play who use cheats like instant offer and all that, it's insane.
@r3vanns More noise = the better.
Maybe for some cases, yes. Not this one. This is only noise, and pressure for the sake of pressure.
You ain't gonna make a small team, who has a set amount of goals for each month and very limited resources, work more on something just cuz you keep getting loud. Ask extreme PvE/SS or Insider communities if you don't believe me lol... 😅
At the end of the day, devs are doing what their higher ups (and to an extent, Microsoft) is telling them. Not the community. Their "freedom" is very limited.
At some point, the noise on the forum is just making clutter and extra job for moderators. Nothing else.
So let's agree to disagree here.
but they need to start taking legal action
With this part, I do agree. I wish they would at least start sending cease & desist letters to sites like this. For a start, in case they're not doing this already without us knowing. Cuz that's free.
Would I like to see cheat devs and websites sued to oblivion? Hell yea! However, it's again only up to Rare to decide if this is worth pursuing depending on their financial & resource situation. Because any type of lawsuit costs money, and time.
And trust me they're aware of all of this, as any even remotely serious gaming company ever. They don't need you or me to tell them that, across 300 forum posts.
Meanwhile, patience and persistence is the key. Keep reporting, cuz they need data and statistics, not the endless complaining on the forum.
- Agree with OP cheaters are rampant.
During the times when I was active in hourglass, I met cheaters nearly daily. In Jun/Jul 2025 only, I received the following update on my support tickets at least 13 times. "One or more players that you recently reported were investigated and permanently removed from Sea of Thieves based on the evidence yourself and others have provided."
And these 13 updates are only cases where we can clearly identify the cheater. There's also magic bucketing. Our ship would have no holes, and be faraway from the enemy ship (so they can't bucket into our ship), but somehow, we'd fill up with water. Water in our ship rises especially quickly when the enemy ship has a lot of holes. These are reported as "bugs".
- The cheater issue is more widespread in Asia/Oceania than NA/EU.
I remember we recruited a a random NA/EU golden skeleton pirate from official SoT discord. We told them we want to sell our flags after a win on our 2nd or 3rd streak. He was like, chill please. The cheater situation isn't that bad. Let's wait till we got a 4th streak. Next match: blatant cheaters.
Cheaters prefer Asia/Oceania because these servers are quieter. Boosters have an easier time here. They prefer to match their boosting flag ship against their own feeder ships. They dive at the same time. If their ships match up (black screen at the same time), they proceed with the match. If it doesn't, they cancel match (either alt+f4 during black screen or scuttle ship before the "battle begins" banner appear).
Sometimes they mess up, their 42 streak flag ship ends up being playing against a normal ship. This is when they run in circles until they can sub in their cheaters to protect their streak. Then, they fight. When I know the fight is lost (who wants to fight a flying machine gun?), I just get onboard to identify their boosted crew. I see the same names again and again. The boosted "innocent pirates" are not punished. They pay cheaters to be boosted to golden skeleton/ghost curses. The cheater pirates take the bans. These innocent pirates take the rep gains.
Rare said that they take action against boosted pirates. I've not seen it in action.
I've also written more about these experiences here: https://www.seaofthieves.com/community/forums/topic/179385/hourglass-matches-should-proceed-even-if-one-ship-s-entire-crew-alt-f4s
- Players are not rewarded for the work of doing reports.
We know it takes Rare 1-3 days to do a ban. Even if we report, it takes a while for Rare to ban the pirate. So when we meet cheaters, instead of queuing again to meet the same cheaters, we just call off the session.
We know how easily cheaters can make new accounts. Even if we report, they're back on another account faster than we can do the report. So why bother with the extra work? We're here to play, not work in data. I've been playing the cheater-catching game. But most of us aren't interested. If we get hourglass rep compensation after facing confirmed cheaters, then maybe we'll have incentive to report.
@d3adst1ck That's overestimating the brain power of some of the people that use cheats and play this game though. If there were some sort of identifier you would force people to use a VPN. People already don't want to spend money on cheats because they're cheap and it could just be one easy way to try to get rid of the excess cheaters.
@poetniknowit There already are identifiers that cause new accounts to get flagged/banned if they don't clear it out and it doesn't work because people who don't know how to do it just ask on the cheat forums, just like they'd do with IP bans.
@burnbacon higher fov would be considered a choice kinda how you could lower it to 70 if you want too. Kinda how like in Minecraft you can run high fov and it looks horrible but some players like it
@fellow77307 console servers still have a fair bit of cheaters. There are many console players that use soft aim, fov, and ximing I’ve had people that I thought were legit but over time admitted that they payed a few dollars and used cheats that are impossible to detect from recording or videos. It’s became a common occurrence and it’s hard to tell now if someone is cheating or not considering over 20000 players pay for cheats in this game that go undetected for months or never.
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