Cheaters ! When will we be hearing about the cheaters in your great videos update !

it is actively driving players away from the game.

yet here most of us are, on the forums/reddit/discord. :P

we are encountering cheaters multiple times a day, across different sessions, and it has become part of the normal experience.

Are we only talking about Hourglass or during actual adventuring seas? Most cases it always HG you will and majority of the complaints of cheaters always links back to "PvP"

players are now paying for boosts, paying others to cheat for them in modes like Hourglass

See. Besides that...why do we care how people earn Curses/Lvl in HG? Again, those curses people see others wearing doesnt = Skill. As you say, they could of been boosted/piggy back off someone else.

The result is a game where skill and progression feel meaningless

Skill always was meaningless, if you can kill a DG with a keg or poison them with a blowpipe. Its no skill, it silly fun.
Same with progression. You can do Shrines/Fortresss and even Camps to reach high progression in hours without doing any voyages. :P

Why would anyone invest money into a game where fairness is not guaranteed

Fortnite, GTA, Halo, CoD, Battlefield...just a name a few often cheating based filled games, yet still play today. Heck I can add TF2 to the mix as well.

This game has an amazing foundation and a passionate community, but if nothing changes, that community will continue to shrink.

AKA: Game is dying. drinks grog

Well, as always...See a cheater file a report.

@burnbacon I don’t really understand what your issue is with my posts, because this isn’t the first time you’ve come in just to downplay what I’m saying. I’m playing Sea of Thieves too—I’m not making this up. If you personally don’t experience it as often, that’s fine, but a lot of us do, and pretending it’s not happening doesn’t help anyone.

Yes, a lot of it happens in Hourglass, but not only. And even if it was mostly PvP, that doesn’t make it acceptable. PvP is a core part of the game, so of course that’s where cheating has the biggest impact. Saying “it’s just HG” doesn’t invalidate the issue—it highlights it.

About boosts and people paying for cheats: the problem isn’t just cosmetics or curses, it’s what it represents. It shows there’s a whole system around cheating now, where people profit from it and others normalize it. That affects the integrity of the game as a whole, not just one mode.

You’re also saying “skill was always meaningless,” but that’s honestly missing the point. There’s a difference between creative/silly gameplay (like kegs or strategies the game allows) and straight-up external cheats like speed hacks, overheal, or other unfair advantages. One is part of the game design, the other completely breaks it.

And comparing this to other games like Fortnite or Call of Duty doesn’t really work either—those games also struggle with cheating, and their communities complain about it constantly. The fact that cheating exists elsewhere doesn’t mean it should be accepted here.

Also, yes—I do report them. I actually have multiple pages of reports and bans already. So this isn’t about “just complain instead of acting,” I’m doing what I’m supposed to do as a player. But reporting alone isn’t enough when the issue is this frequent and this visible.

At the end of the day, I’m posting because I care about the game. If you don’t see the problem, that’s your experience—but a lot of us are tired of running into cheaters multiple times a day. Dismissing it or making jokes about it doesn’t change the reality for the players who deal with it constantly.

AND THIS TIME PLEASE ANSWER ME :D

@laynyd

I get your frustration. Just know you're not alone here. IDBZ (iirc) got an hourglass stack of 109 before sinking to a cheater. Imagine how he felt.

Just know that the multi-billion dollar company Blizzard also has issues with cheaters, as all games do. While it's certainly not accepted on any game, it's a fact of life we unfortunately have to live with. SoT is not alone here.

I highly doubt they're going to mention anything pertaining to the anti-cheat software, as the more details they give out, the more info they give those players/developers, and it's best to keep that information private in my opinion.

It's frustrating, but it's why I always record my sessions so I can report them. When I do, I don't engage with them, I just record my evidence and hop to a new server. There's an infinite amount of treasure in the game, and it is what it is. Good luck :/

@europa4033 thank you for your caring message here ! we always have the 30 seconds report with my friend and we are doing massive reports on the sea just hard to see your game in this situation... Before it was not as much as now its a nightmare..

@laynyd said in Cheaters ! When will we be hearing about the cheaters in your great videos update !:

The situation with cheating in Sea of Thieves has reached a point where it is no longer just frustrating—it is actively driving players away from the game. This is not an occasional issue anymore; we are encountering cheaters multiple times a day, across different sessions, and it has become part of the normal experience. What makes this even worse is that many of these players are completely open about it. They openly admit they won’t get banned, or that even if they do, they can bypass it or “unban” themselves. Whether that is entirely true or not, the fact that players believe this—and act on it—shows a complete lack of fear of consequences, which is a serious problem for the health of the game. At the same time, cheats themselves are evolving extremely quickly, being updated constantly, while it feels like the anti-cheat systems in place are outdated and not keeping up with the current reality.

I can’t even blame Rare on this one, cheaters are a plague to online gaming. I’ve found the more East you are on the world map (Americas being Westmost and Asia being Eastmost) the worse the cheater crisis becomes. While their implementation of EAC is admittedly a nothingburger Anticheat, the issue lies in Xbox Gamepass and ease of access to a new license at negligible cost. All they can do is fight against it with additional server checks, but those server checks run the risk of making gameplay stutter more. It sucks, but the only way to fight against cheating on this level is to push cybersecurity and malicious software laws in your country. You can try VPNing to another location with fewer cheaters, but that also hurts your Ping. Sadly, there isn’t a “one shoe fits all” solution to this.

Beyond blatant cheating, there is also a growing market around it: players are now paying for boosts, paying others to cheat for them in modes like Hourglass, or using more subtle advantages such as acceleration boosts, overheal, and other small but impactful modifications that are harder to detect but just as damaging to fair gameplay. This creates an environment where legitimate players feel completely powerless, because even when something seems “off,” it’s difficult to prove, yet happens far too often to ignore. The result is a game where skill and progression feel meaningless, because you can never be sure if you’re losing fairly.

Hilariously yet dreadingly, even Aim Cheats are nearly impossible to tell without being able to see the client perspective in real time. Some players in this game are just cracked beyond comprehension and hit shots like it’s just breathing to them

On top of all of this, the lack of visible communication from Rare about the issue makes things even worse. Right now, updates often focus on new content or Emporium additions, but many players simply do not care about cosmetic updates when the core experience is being undermined. Personally, I—and many others—have no intention of spending money in the Emporium anymore while the game is in this state. Why would anyone invest money into a game where fairness is not guaranteed and where cheating is so widespread? If this problem is not addressed clearly and urgently, people will continue to leave, and new players will not stay.

Believe me, I have my frustrations with Rare and their radio silence right now, but as far as I’m aware they actually have communicated decently well with this. I believe I recall Drew mentioning they’re working on making updates and improvements to new accounts being able to access Hourglass, but I’m not too sure how long ago that was. In addition, too much transparency allows cheat developers to begin working on that software in advance. Sadly it’s an issue radio silence is actually better on, as much as I want to know what kind of improvements are being made

What the community is asking for is not just action, but transparency and acknowledgment. Please address cheating directly in your update communications. Let us know that you are fully aware of how frequent and serious this problem has become, and explain what concrete steps are being taken to combat it—whether that means improving or replacing outdated anti-cheat systems, increasing detection efforts, or enforcing stricter and more visible bans. Even regular updates on anti-cheat progress would make a huge difference. Right now, the silence is being interpreted as inaction, and that is damaging trust more than anything else. This game has an amazing foundation and a passionate community, but if nothing changes, that community will continue to shrink. Players should not have to choose between quitting the game or becoming part of the problem just to keep up.

Becoming part of the problem does not solve it. Two wrongs will never make a right and an eye for an eye only makes the world blind (Not to imply you were or planned on it of course)

@laynyd Over the past few months, I've noticed a significant decrease in cheaters in Sea of ​​Thieves, especially in Hourglass. However, some players have been acting strangely and suspiciously in recent days. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it yet, but I probably agree with you.

@goldbeutel this is not a decrease its ameliorations of the cheats ! wait i show you i ve posted on reddit so you can see the screenshots ive found of the 2 days ago update ! https://www.reddit.com/user/Laynyd/comments/1sjff86/sea_of_thieves_rare_please_do_something/#lightbox / Its not acting strange its just evolving cheats that are harder to see and spot !

Got to remember. People will see a pirate flying with a keg now and assume they are cheating
When all they do was use a grapple and launch by cannon.

But again. When you spot a cheater. Report it
Much faster and more reliable

@burnbacon yeah no i know this, this is not about flying with a kag that they pouned but keep denying whatever im saying cause you dont experience it !

@laynyd I am totally sharing your view of it. I just wanted to share, that I have this feeling.

What was maybe misleading in my previous message: "However, some players have been acting strangely and suspiciously in recent days.". With :"Some players have been acting strangely..." I didn't talk about persons, who are complaining about cheats in forums, I talked about some strange acting people on the seas that did some suspicious things like sniping very good but being bad on the cannon. Just if someone misunderstood this :)

I talked about some strange acting people on the seas that did some suspicious things like sniping very good but being bad on the cannon.

Some people are just good at one aiming mechanic.

@burnbacon They can be really good but you can never be sure that they don't have any kind of hack and don't worry I'am not reporting everyone that is a little bit better at sniper than me because I know that this is possbile but it often feels odd.

@burnbacon and some people are cheating i dont know why you are so pressed about it its not that deep to admit a thing that is in the game like i said look up the link 2 days ago updates on the cheats :D https://www.reddit.com/user/Laynyd/comments/1sjff86/sea_of_thieves_rare_please_do_something/#lightbox

@worst-tdmer That sounds plausible.

Cheaters will always be a thing in any game, no matter what the developers do. I have not played for some time, but streamers, viewers, and forum discussions I have followed over the last couple of weeks have generally said that cheater numbers are low now days

However, what some people might be mistaking for cheaters could actually be other things, such as game bugs, bad lag due to your internet, server lag, or the route between you and the server being slow because many people are using the same path at the same time.

The other day I was watching a streamer where something had not loaded in correctly and it resulted in a player being killed. The streamer was talking to their teammate and said that to a new player it would have looked like a hack, even though it was actually a bug.

So just because something looks like a hack does not mean it is one. It could be many other things that are outside anybody’s control.

@uluckyhitreg Honestly i am tired of those answers, go HG you will see, everyone talks about it, you are not even playing anymore so please dont make assumptions of what is going on trought streamers. Im not a new player i have 7400hours on this game i know what im talking. Cheaters never been this active and this perfect than right now with as i said on other comment and as i will do again here, daily weekly update on their cheats as you could see it here a screenshot of a cheats update on a cheater discord ! https://www.reddit.com/user/Laynyd/comments/1sjff86/sea_of_thieves_rare_please_do_something/#lightbox

@worst-tdmer in normal seas there is low to no cheaters, in HG they shoot trought walls and stuff ive taken so many clips ive so many pages of ban def people but they dont care cause as you say it very well here with the new bypass they come back with new accounts that coast like 1 euros ? Rare is not banning IP so its not helping at all to do tickets they will be ban on this account and come back on the next one ! Ive been talking with a cheater and thats our conversation : '' cuz devs cant make normal pvp arena, i will be ban and will do the same it is not a problem for me, at the begining my point was to make people leave the game but not now, now im just having fun. devs r lying to players: we updated anticheat 1 day later : cheat is updated, without any problems and update of anticheat takes months, updates of cheat - hours but devs dont care so why should i care about players ''

@laynyd I've also made many reports and like 90% of them were in Hourglass.

Honestly i am tired of those answers, go HG you will see, everyone talks about it,

I played Hourglass for five hours last night and did nothing else.
I never saw a single cheater, and no one was acting silly. The only person who looked like a cheater was someone who seemed to have an endless chain of shots, but when they sank, they had over 20 HG crates that were still full. :/

Just wait until this week when LSS comes out. I'm going to be around these people a lot more.

Ive been talking with a cheater

You see, it's players like this who let cheaters keep cheating. You speak to them. They tell you lies, and you believe every word of it, but I don't blame you. You're in a bad mood right now, so you'll believe anything that makes it sound like the real bad guys are the people who make video games.

devs cant make normal pvp arena

What would that even fix?

Devs r lying to players: we updated anticheat 1 day later : cheat is updated, without any problems and update of anticheat takes months, updates of cheat - hours but devs dont care so why should i care about players

This is a perfect example of someone lying to you and you believing every word because "a cheater told me."
But it's all good; now this whole feed is one big thing. There are a lot of cheaters, but not as many as in other games. When you post these things, cheaters see them and laugh, which gives them more reason to keep cheating (as one said, "because it's fun"). They are pushing you to complain and maybe quit by giving you the satisfaction of knowing what they are doing.
Fortnite and TF2 are still very popular games, even though they have a lot more cheaters.

@Laynyd Yeah i agree with pretty much this whole post.

I haven't seen as many cheaters lately, until the past 2 or so days, today we encountered one very blatant one very fast.

@Boneheart1237 As someone who's brother plays a ton of online games competively, often at a reasonably high level, no, Rare is definitely to blame at least in large part: While cheating IS a universal problem, Rare have handled it exceptionally poorly, very few other games, with really only Tarkov and dead by daylight coming to mind off the top of my head, have anywhere near this level of problem, recently, Rare HAS done a MUCH better job with whatever they've changed, which for the past month or two have turned that around, but the past couple of days seem to be turning around a bit again, but we'll see, that said, prior to whatever they changed, the past few YEARS cheating have been abysmal.

@BurnBacon It honestly seems like you will just ride or die anything Rare does from what I've seen of you on these forums, or maybe you're just being a contrarian the replying to OP and saying that the fact that she SPOKE to them, is what keeps them cheating is crazy to me, beyond the fact that it's crazy you're SOMEHOW leveling the blame towards the VICTIM of the cheats , there's also the fact that while SOME cheaters thrive of being spoken to, MANY MANY more, either want levels for themselves, or to boost. Ive come across multiple boosters in this game over the past year, it's a serious problem. The whole "report and move on" attitude is unhelpful, because it CLEARLY doesn't help much and never has.

,

@burnbacon lol its deep inside of you i cant even put it out with arguments

@laynyd said in Cheaters ! When will we be hearing about the cheaters in your great videos update !:

@uluckyhitreg Honestly i am tired of those answers, go HG you will see, everyone talks about it, you are not even playing anymore so please dont make assumptions of what is going on trought streamers. Im not a new player i have 7400hours on this game i know what im talking. Cheaters never been this active and this perfect than right now with as i said on other comment and as i will do again here, daily weekly update on their cheats as you could see it here a screenshot of a cheats update on a cheater discord ! https://www.reddit.com/user/Laynyd/comments/1sjff86/sea_of_thieves_rare_please_do_something/#lightbox

I can see you keep posting that image listing what a bot or cheat is supposedly capable of, but that still does not prove anything about how common or real it actually is in live games. An image like that could easily be fake, outdated, taken out of context, or even made just to push a narrative. It is not solid evidence on its own.

I am not saying there are no cheaters, but a lot of the time when players feel like they are running into many of them, it comes down to things like skill difference, server desync, or ISP lag being mistaken for cheating.

Even with thousands of hours played, personal experience is still a limited sample and does not reflect overall cheating rates across the whole player base.
If you are running into cheaters that often, the most convincing way to support that claim would be actual recorded gameplay showing it clearly. Without that, it is hard to separate perception from what is really happening.

If there was clear, verifiable evidence showing a real spike in cheating across matches, that would be a different discussion. But what is being shown here is not enough to support that claim.

@uluckyhitreg im gonna do a reddit post with a video on it so you can actually see what im talking about and after you gonna tell me if its skill gap :D Many tickets i did are '' perma ban '' cause of what im sending. Why not just trusting what im saying ? my experience of HG is a lot of cheaters : thats it. Not only mine tho. I am tired of people saying to me that evidence im bringing are not enough while i experience it everyday. SC is not enough ? Im just telling yo uthats what they update, no its not to push a narratives thats just facts. Why is it so hard for you to not believe it ? Again do yo uguys want all the screenshots of the perma ban tickets because of cheats ? Ive Been clipping all the time sending tickets and stuff. Crazy that i cannot be believe on whatever im saying about HG experience. Not only mine. HERE a video that my friend cliped 5 days ago, ive called it '' skill gap '' just for u ! : https://www.reddit.com/user/Laynyd/comments/1skn6hh/skill_gap/ !

@uluckyhitreg

The problem is that it's almost impossible to provide what you're asking for, well, for most people anyway. By which i mean, proving that there's a certain number of cheating happening across the player base, as in providing a clear number, would be extremely difficult.

To be sure the, the cheating problem has been a LOT better in the past 2 or so months, and yes, there IS a problem with falsely accusing of cheats.

However, i can say from personal experience, and the experience of basically everyone i talk to, that it HAS been overwhelmingly prevalent the past few years, and that it has gotten a bt worse again within the pats couple of days, not as much as before, but somethign changed.

Can i provide a scientific study of that? No, but it's known anecdotally well enough.

@captain-falcon8 What it is impossible? to post videos to show what someone class as cheating? lol

@laynyd said in Cheaters ! When will we be hearing about the cheaters in your great videos update !:

@uluckyhitreg im gonna do a reddit post with a video on it so you can actually see what im talking about and after you gonna tell me if its skill gap :D Many tickets i did are '' perma ban '' cause of what im sending. Why not just trusting what im saying ? my experience of HG is a lot of cheaters : thats it. Not only mine tho. I am tired of people saying to me that evidence im bringing are not enough while i experience it everyday. SC is not enough ? Im just telling yo uthats what they update, no its not to push a narratives thats just facts. Why is it so hard for you to not believe it ? Again do yo uguys want all the screenshots of the perma ban tickets because of cheats ? Ive Been clipping all the time sending tickets and stuff. Crazy that i cannot be believe on whatever im saying about HG experience. Not only mine. HERE a video that my friend cliped 5 days ago, ive called it '' skill gap '' just for u ! : https://www.reddit.com/user/Laynyd/comments/1skn6hh/skill_gap/ !

That is just one video of the same players, i never said there was no cheaters . just do not think there is as many what you are trying to say.

@uluckyhitreg

No you said "I can see you keep posting that image listing what a bot or cheat is supposedly capable of, but that still does not prove anything about how common or real it actually is in live games. " That is what i meant, providing proof that it's rampant across live games is next to impossible in the way you're asking. Most people can only just show there individual instances of being cheated.

@uluckyhitreg how many video you want darling ? put the sound on to on the video ! im tired of people denying my experience so i will stop answering to you sicne you cant accept my truth.

@captain-falcon8 no but bro want me to find again all of my clips of cheaters so he is happy, even if i send 20 video of different people cheating, he still wont be enough so i wont bother answering anymore. In HG cheaters are part of the game, big part of it. Thats it; Tiring talking to wall that wont accept the truth, i love this game but the player base refuse to see the truth and its crazy.

@laynyd

I never said there were no cheaters.
Why do you think people would just take your word for it?
You make it sound like you run into cheaters all the time, but you’ve only shown one video of the same players cheating. If it is really happening all the time, then show proof from different matches. If it is only 2 or 3 times now and then, then it is not a big deal, especially since they will get banned in the next ban wave.

You seem a bit upset about this. Maybe a couple of hours offline would do you some good.