How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly)

  • CapnLimbless

    This is not a post adding to the complaints about cheaters. These things exist and the best thing we can do is identify cheaters accurately. I am an experienced modder and I was able to learn the basics of how these hacks work with just a little forum reading. Use these guidelines to be certain someone is actually cheating and not just a skilled PC player with high end peripherals.

    Aimbot (cannot name hacks specifically, you'll know it when you see it):
    On the basic level this cheat allows perfect auto-aim, but it's not much better than a skilled PC player, so hard to identify like that. It also shows boxes around players, chests, enemies and fort keys that are visible through objects. This is the way to spot people using it. If they forget to turn off local chat, you may hear them describing player or chest locations when they are at a distance or out of sight. You may also see them looking through an island when players are on the other side. If you know your teammate is behind an object from the player and they still appear to be tracking them, they are probably cheating. Most players using the aimbot also use the Eye of Reach without scoping. If a player instantly ratchets around 180 degrees or so and headshots you at an odd angle without using the scope, it's probably the aimbot. Skilled players are not so Terminator precise when doing the same thing, though they can do it.

    Flagged as Friendly
    This one is much less common, but you will see it. I didn't look up the fine details, but like many other games, it is possible to flag yourself as friendly to other players with a hack. There are two ways that players use this to their advantage. One is to be invincible to everything but your cannon balls and exploding Gunpowder Barrels. The other is to team up with other cheaters, without worrying about friendly fire. This one is harder to spot, because players using lag to their advantage can also avoid damage without hacking. If a player is hit directly with a sword thrust and a shot to the head, but doesn't seem at all bothered, they may be cheating. There is only one way to be absolutely certain, so be very careful not to report players who are just luckier than you. If a player is using this hack and has flagged as friendly to your crew, if you sink their ship, they will respawn near yours instead of at their new boat. If you are absolutely certain you sunk them and killed them after the boat was all the way down and they still respawn nearby, they are cheating. This appears to only work for a limited time. They will eventually be forcibly respawned at a new boat, even if they don't die.

    That's my report so far. I thought instead of cheaters just being bogeymen, we should get scientific. Please add anything you learn.

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  • Sytoki
    Marauder
    Insider

    I will say thanks for the info, specifically with the friendly flagging, it’s now confirmed my suspicions about one group of individuals that seemed to continue respawning after their boat was sunk inside the fort that we were doing.

    I think the next step is for Rare to make an easier system for us to report such people, since in its current state it is very difficult to get their names, locate them on Xbox app, and report them for cheating.

  • CapnLimbless

    @elite-assasin87 said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    I will say thanks for the info, specifically with the friendly flagging, it’s now confirmed my suspicions about one group of individuals that seemed to continue respawning after their boat was sunk inside the fort that we were doing.

    I think the next step is for Rare to make an easier system for us to report such people, since in its current state it is very difficult to get their names, locate them on Xbox app, and report them for cheating.

    True, though I don't blame Rare for XBL's system. The best route is to screenshot their gamertag, then confirm it by finding them on your "recently played with" list. It will show other players you have been near, even if they weren't in your party or crew. If you don't see them, search for the gamertag on XBL. As long as you are sure you found the right person, you can report them.

    Even better is to just save a clip of the behavior you believe to be cheating. Let Microsoft analyze it. Rare should also have server-side metrics. So they should be able to review wireframes of past sessions and look for suspicious behavior.

  • Sytoki
    Marauder
    Insider

    @capnlimbless I’m just hoping for them to have a lobby board at some point, I can recognize the names of alleged cheaters, but I wouldn’t be able to necessarily write that name out myself to report. As for recent players list, eh it works sometimes but half the timeI find that it doesn’t update the info for a whole day, and by then I might forget about the incident

  • BaronStinkbeard
    Marauder

    @capnlimbless There is no friendly fire in this game...

  • CapnLimbless

    @baronstinkbeard said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    @capnlimbless There is no friendly fire in this game...

    Not sure if I understand. People on your crew are not damaged by your weapons. So when people use this, neither are they.

  • TheBostonbean

    @capnlimbless

    A game wouldn't be complete without the cheater/hacker meme.

  • Blam320
    Legend
    Insider

    @baronstinkbeard said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    @capnlimbless There is no friendly fire in this game...

    That's the point of the second hack. It flags you as "friendly" to other players, letting you avoid damage from them, but letting them still damage you, with the added bonus of them being able to respawn on or near your ship for a while, even if theirs sinks.

  • BaronStinkbeard
    Marauder

    @blam320 said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    @baronstinkbeard said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    @capnlimbless There is no friendly fire in this game...

    That's the point of the second hack. It flags you as "friendly" to other players, letting you avoid damage from them, but letting them still damage you, with the added bonus of them being able to respawn on or near your ship for a while, even if theirs sinks.

    I see what your saying...

  • CapnLimbless

    @thebostonbean said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    @capnlimbless

    A game wouldn't be complete without the cheater/hacker meme.

    We should definitely try to keep our sense of humor about it :) We should also be precise and on top of our reporting though. The jerks who made the aimbot are selling it for $15/month. That is even worse than it existing in the first place.

  • TheBostonbean

    @capnlimbless

    Anyone who would a monthly fee for an aimbot is an idiot. If anyone is going to get hacked it would be him.

  • CapnLimbless

    @thebostonbean They are definitely idiots. Unfortunately there is a sad reality in gaming that a lot of people only feel like they win when others lose. For $10/mo for game pass and $15/mo for that hack, they can ruin your day until they get bored and move on to another game. That's honestly less than I spend on games in an average month, so it would be pretty affordable if I were an evil version of myself who only thrived on the tears of others.

  • a13on
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    Any talk about cheaters just makes more people use them that weren't aware such a thing existed and more people to report possible cheaters when they are just better players. Personally, in 40 hours with the game I haven't seen a cheater, at least not an obvious one.

  • CapnLimbless

    @x1-two said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    Any talk about cheaters just makes more people use them that weren't aware such a thing existed and more people to report possible cheaters when they are just better players. Personally, in 40 hours with the game I haven't seen a cheater, at least not an obvious one.

    That is why we need to specifically report people using known hacks. The aimbot is advertised right on YT and they know it will be closed up as soon as we give Rare enough data. That's what we need to do.

    I am almost certain I have seen one crew using the aimbot. We thought all of it was really weird, but that they were just expertly using bugs and lag to their advantage somehow. Once I saw the thread here and watched the video for it, I immediately found the answers to the strange events in the game. So it is definitely out there.

  • SnakeyHeadNL
    Ship Mate
    Insider
    Founder

    If reported some websites on to the support ticked i hope they do something about it but dont forget xbox player have a little advatange on pc payers they have aim assist

  • CoolerBravo
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I would just add that the powder kegs can kill the same way as the canon balls do in my experience with these individuals.

  • CapnLimbless

    @coolerbravo Thanks! I will add that to the OP and bold the important sections.

  • CoolerBravo
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @capnlimbless Anytime. Another addition would be that some aim enhancement users are purposely having two crew members snipe instead of using canons off their moving ships to clear anyone off the decks, as 2 eye of reach shots will take out anyone. Be prepared to go below deck if being chased to avoid getting swacked...

  • CapnLimbless

    @coolerbravo I think that falls under the part about using the EoR without scope. If someone is shooting you ship to ship, without the scope, and successfully getting headshot after headshot, they are using the aimbot. I know some pretty good players, I've watched their streams, they still don't pull this off with a high degree of success. Even with gaming mice that could almost be considered hacks themselves.

    I may update it later to make it more specific about that.

  • Phantom139
    Commander
    Insider

    Indie dev here (I've worked with both UE4 and another game engine), so I can offer at least a suggestion to Rare to fix these problems.

    1. Friendly Players
      This one's actually a relatively easy fix. The game engine stores a public accessible list of players in your party, this needs to be changed internally as the hack is likely editing a client-table that is then being pushed up to the server. A simple fix is to have the server handle the party handshake instead of the clients. Basically, party joining becomes a message handshake where a client seeking to join a party pings the server to test for the opening (And whether or not it was an invitation that was allowed), if available it allows the join and messages back the client to handle the rest, if not, the handshake is denied. A more generalized fix to the problem as the above will take some more time is to simply test if there is room in the "party" and deny the friendly flag is there is not, this is a simple timer update that can run every 5 seconds.

    2. Aimbot / Wireframing
      This is a bit more difficult to patch, and one of the big issues of using a pre-made engine versus an in-house solution (Hackers can write or use a generalized tool that works on other games of the same engine (IE: Borderlands)). The big problem here is that the engine grants clients access to a lot of debugging tools and console access for debugging purposes. In order to patch this, you'll need to edit the internal engine calls to remove access to the console, and debugging functions. I can't point out exactly where these callpoints are so I'm afraid this is all I can give you guys in terms of that.

    Hope this helps, but for the time being, as others have said, reporting is the best thing we can do.

  • CapnLimbless

    @phantom139 For point number one, Friendly Players, do you know if the reason for having it that way has anything to do with XBL policies? This is my first XBL Windows game since Dark Souls was moved over to Steam servers. I've just heard devs complain about the way MS requires them to do matchmaking and servers. I'm completely ignorant about XBL games, besides what I've learned about this in the past few days.

  • Phantom139
    Commander
    Insider

    @capnlimbless Not likely, it's just the way the engine is coded that player lists are publicly instanced. As for "matchmaking", I'm not entirely sure as I down own the XDK to see for myself how challenging it would be, but I would assume that it works like an API where you need to assign the links from the API calls to your game.

    The fix isn't too hard from the perspective of the game side. You can just have the server handle the group handshakes (as mentioned above), or have the clients handshake each other to test for it.

  • SoleMagician506

    @capnlimbless said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    @elite-assasin87 said in How to spot people using hacks (aimbot, flagging as friendly):

    I will say thanks for the info, specifically with the friendly flagging, it’s now confirmed my suspicions about one group of individuals that seemed to continue respawning after their boat was sunk inside the fort that we were doing.

    I think the next step is for Rare to make an easier system for us to report such people, since in its current state it is very difficult to get their names, locate them on Xbox app, and report them for cheating.

    True, though I don't blame Rare for XBL's system. The best route is to screenshot their gamertag, then confirm it by finding them on your "recently played with" list. It will show other players you have been near, even if they weren't in your party or crew. If you don't see them, search for the gamertag on XBL. As long as you are sure you found the right person, you can report them.

    Even better is to just save a clip of the behavior you believe to be cheating. Let Microsoft analyze it. Rare should also have server-side metrics. So they should be able to review wireframes of past sessions and look for suspicious behavior.

    Have they done anything about the reported cheaters?

  • SirTortomon
    Marauder

    @capnlimbless Hey, how do I report a cheater, like this guy [mod edited], hitting 100% of his shots, hitting no scopes after 90/180 degres turns in less than 1 sec (again all perfect hits). I report him on the xbox app. Anything more that can be done?

  • CardShark 360
    Commander
    Insider

    @sirtortomon Naming and Shaming is not tolerated on the forums as per the Forum Rules and as such has been moderated from your post.

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