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

@laynyd To be fair, most of the player base agree wholeheartedly, but the vocal minority tend to speak out specially here on the forums.

@captain-falcon8 the thing is : why would i lie ? like what does that bring me exactly and i wont go out of my way tryingto find al lthe video ive reported and deleted on my pc just to make him happy i know what im saying its so tiring.

@laynyd

Well i mean, i can't speak for them because i don't know them, but in general there is a subgroup of the sot fandom that really just WANT to pretend that everything fine and Rare's handling things great. Whether that's because they're afriad of the game collapsing, or because they're just being contrarian, or some other reason i don't know, but i think that's what it often is, i mean make no mistake, if you go on the discord and get talking EVERYONE knows this game has had a rampant cheating problem, and that rare have handled it poorly the "UMMM ACTUALLYS" in the forums are VERY small minority.

@captain-falcon8 reasuring tho lol

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

@captain-falcon8 the thing is : why would i lie ? like what does that bring me exactly and i wont go out of my way tryingto find al lthe video ive reported and deleted on my pc just to make him happy i know what im saying its so tiring.

I never asked for videos, and I never said you lied. It seems like you are interpreting things as being directed at you when they are not.

You also do not seem to fully understand how game development, servers, and software systems work, but you are expecting developers to fix issues immediately on day one. That is not realistic in real-world development.

Yes, hackers can create tools quickly. However, they are often working individually or in small groups and do not have to follow the same processes as professional development teams. Game developers need to handle research, planning, testing, and ensuring that fixes do not introduce new problems.

Hackers might work with relatively small codebases, while game developers are working with systems that can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of lines of code. Because of that complexity, anti-cheat responses like ban waves are often used. This allows developers to understand patterns properly and apply fixes in batches, rather than reacting instantly and risking wider system issues, while hackers may still be able to produce new tools quickly.

When I said that recording gameplay would help support claims about cheaters, that was a general suggestion for anyone making that argument, not directed at you specifically. It was not meant as a demand.

So if the goal is to reduce claims that issues are caused by lag or other factors, providing clear evidence helps strengthen the argument. Otherwise, it can be difficult to separate perception from what is actually happening.

@laynyd brother he loves to be the contrarian, he hasn't advocated for anything to ever change and he isn't much interested in actually discussing so much as condescending. Don't pay much attention to him.

@uluckyhitreg "I never asked for videos" yes you basically did, you were implying that unless a load of live proof was compiled you'd doubt the cheating rampancy.

"You also do not seem to fully understand how game development, servers, and software systems work, but you are expecting developers to fix issues immediately on day one. That is not realistic in real-world development." No one was expecting them to fix it on day one, but how about, oh i dunno, day 365? or day 500? it was YEARS of largely uncontrolled cheating.

All of the rest of what you said is true.... but also applies to EVERY game ever made, and almost every other game somehow manages to stop cheating much more effectively than rare. At one point i, as well as others, were averaging about one cheated match per 5-6 games, that is LUDICROUS, if cod was that bad then statistically EVERY match would have one or MORE cheaters present. Those were sloop lobbies mind, so just 2 players other than us each time.

@captain-falcon8 said in Cheaters ! When will we be hearing about the cheaters in your great videos update !:

@uluckyhitreg "I never asked for videos" yes you basically did, you were implying that unless a load of live proof was compiled you'd doubt the cheating rampancy.

"You also do not seem to fully understand how game development, servers, and software systems work, but you are expecting developers to fix issues immediately on day one. That is not realistic in real-world development." No one was expecting them to fix it on day one, but how about, oh i dunno, day 365? or day 500? it was YEARS of largely uncontrolled cheating.

All of the rest of what you said is true.... but also applies to EVERY game ever made, and almost every other game somehow manages to stop cheating much more effectively than rare. At one point i, as well as others, were averaging about one cheated match per 5-6 games, that is LUDICROUS, if cod was that bad then statistically EVERY match would have one or MORE cheaters present. Those were sloop lobbies mind, so just 2 players other than us each time.

LOL

@uluckyhitreg If iv'e got you down to "LOL" then i guess i made my point ;)

In HG cheaters are part of the game, big part of it.

I'm confused. When did HG become a major part of the game? I can get the same feeling of PvP by sailing around (as intended) and fighting a ship in a battle. Sailing around in adventure without using HG I should find the same amount of cheaters, but I never do.

It not the whole game, its a small part. MAYBE you should try focusing on the rest of the game and see if you encounter cheaters; you will be happier. HG brings out the worst of people; once you avoid it and see that truth, you will be a lot better off.

The way I see it at this point, this post has run it course and should be locked before it dives to deep and people get themselves into trouble.

@captain-falcon8 said in Cheaters ! When will we be hearing about the cheaters in your great videos update !:

@uluckyhitreg If iv'e got you down to "LOL" then i guess i made my point ;)

No, reading your messages. All I hear is that YouTube Captain Falcore voice, and I get even more bored than I do watching his videos. To be fair, all I read was you saying I was right, and I skipped everything else, lol.

@burnbacon "Sailing around in adventure without using HG I should find the same amount of cheaters, but I never do." UHHHH what? of course you won't find as many: A. The general adventure pool is far more diluted. B. cheating in adventure is often a lot less rewarding to cheaters because it's far slower paced. C. Most adventure grinds don't even need you to be good at pvp, infact what, 80 percent of it doesn't need any pvp at all? Hourglasss is ALL pvp, so it's far more of a magnet for cheaters, and then D.: the gold curses are possibly the hardest single or double grind in the entire game, and almost entirely unobtainable to those not willing to get at least GOOD at the pvp, so there's a colossal incentive to cheat to them, either directly, or usually, by being boosted, that simply doesn't exist elsewhere.

" When did HG become a major part of the game?" probably around the time they devoted resources to updating aspects of it more than once, and even giving it its own repeatable event? Heck, even when im just sailing normally in adventure i see hourglass games pop up in my server often, more than once even in a session.

" I can get the same feeling of PvP by sailing around (as intended" implying hourglass isn't intended? what?.

"The way I see it at this point, this post has run it course and should be locked before it dives to deep and people get themselves into trouble." All right Dad ill do my very bestest to be on my best behavior so i don't upset you.

@uluckyhitreg "No reading your messages. All I hear is that YouTube Captain Falcore voice, and I get even more bored than I do watching his videos. To be fair, all I read was you saying I was right, and I skipped everything else, lol.

If you're so bored stop replying lol

@burnbacon read again

@burnbacon and again im a completist, ive done almost everything in the game im at 98% having the 1000 curse is one port of the completion, i will even have to the the 10 000 at one point justfor title so :D

Maybe for clarification, please refer to which platform you're sailing on. I might be mistaken, but as far as I recall, @BurnBacon is on Xbox and therefore naturally hardly, if ever, encounters cheaters.

@look-behind-you Thank you !

@chlodovicus

This is why I wished on the forums; it showed what platforms players used. This would help solve a lot of issues and control over conversations.

So in this case, it's a Steam/Pc problem with cheaters which is a common and frankly normal thing in video games. Worse console players have to deal with is KB users :P
With that, there nothing left to discuss.

There's a cheating problem, only in Hourglass and best way to solve it is allow the Dev team of the game know what cheats are being used, Report it and continue on.
Or stop using Hourglass to find PvP and sail around the map like normal and do battle. Blaming the Dev of the game is the easy excuse; saying nothing is done when we the players dont know what goes behind the curtains is another poor excuse.

The best course is to repeat: Report the known cheats and give actual feedback that details how to combat the cheating problem that every video game with MP has dealt with but never fully solves. So it become a fix that every company can throw out and block every known cheat that is active or ever will be,

But here we are, just a bunch of players with zero degrees or knowledge of how to solve or handle it but will throw out blames and arguments about why Devs are at fault, how they have the resources to do it, fail the game and or will die if they dont do something sooner. drinks grog

I remember when the double-gunning meta began to dominate in The Arena. With a quick swap at around 0.3 seconds combined with macros. Cheats and aimbots were introduced and the mandatory crossplay was removed shortly after launch, presumedly to spare the xbox players. The Arena was however, in my humble opinion, the best anti-cheat SoT has ever had. First, the double-gunning cheating tdm-folk were absolutely deadly if they managed to board, yet they never could handle naval combat. Second, when cheaters were identified, the rest of the crews in the lobby would gang up on the cheaters at all costs. It was glorious. Furthermore, in the concentrated area inside The Sea Dog Tavern, toxic people were easily identified and reported. Besides, by playing defensively and strategically, cheaters were quite easy to beat. The community banding together against cheaters like in the glorious days of The Arena is unfortunately not possible anymore.

With how the game meta works in HourGlass, it’s far better and easier for cheaters to take advantage of, compared to The Arena. With limited options and no “community support” in HourGlass, it’s near impossible for even the most skilled of crews to defeat an enemy ship full of cheaters.

I’ve been Captaining an emissary hunting Galleon since launch (since before emissaries existed). In the beginning shortly on Xbox, but on PC ever since The Arena was launched. We do still see cheaters occasionally in Adventure these days. I’ve also had cheaters crash the servers a couple of times when they threw their tantrums. In Galleon HourGlass, cheaters are always quite prevalent although they seemingly come in waves. There is however also an assumedly legit HourGlass tdm-crowd who’s up for the challenge, but rumour has it, that it has become “acceptable” to use undetectable macros, not just for the quickswap, but also for bilging, however that works. Any and all exploits are also considered fair play.

While The Arena wasn’t perfect, it still gave new players a fighting chance to at least compete and train their crews. Unfortunately, loss farmers and serious matchmaking issues eventually ground The Arena to a halt, apart from when it was announced it would close, where it was suddenly alive again. New players get demolished in HourGlass however, and many of them can’t tell the difference if they’re fighting skilled crews or cheaters. Apart from maybe introducing some kind of AI anti-cheat combined with gameplay recordings, changing the game-meta might be one of the best ways to mitigate cheaters.

@chlodovicus slay

@burnbacon

You keep stating it's a general problem with pc/steam gaming.

I can assure you, specifically to the level hourglass had it for it's lifetime, it is not.

Is it a problem in general? Yes. To hourglasses level (historically at least)? The past 2 months or so aside, sot in hourglass has easily been one of the worse competitive online gaming experiences for cheating in pc gaming, alongside the likes of tarkov and dead by daylight, if a game like say, Cod, or Halo, had the same statistical number of cheaters you wouldn't have been able to get a SINGLE game with 10 or 12 people present without at least one cheater, my personal average was about 1 blatant (so far from even subtle) cheated match in about every 5 games, give or take on a day, those were sloop lobbies, so not including us, that's one or two individual cheating players present in a pool of 10-12 people granted it will somewhat vary based on location, stamp, ect, but that number seems roughly consistent across who I've spoken to across the past 2 years .

Ill give you the benefit of the doubt and assume perhaps you got lucky and never experienced many cheaters in hourglass, but that's not my experience, nor the experience of most people... or anyone for that matter, that iv'e spoken to in the sot discord. Again, the past 2 months have been a significant improvement, but before that?

The way I see it at this point, this post has run it course and should be locked before it dives to deep and people get themselves into trouble.

sips grog jus keeps going I see.

@d3adst1ck does not make it more acceptable and less urgent !

@Laynyd
I totally agree. I am sick of cheaters. They can try a better anticheat service, or enforce it by being more strict and having cheat detection software that can tell when code is being breached. BUT NO!!! They always just say "Oh, don't worry, just report! We will deal with them!" reports player 2 days later... exact same guy sinks you I have had a lot of cheaters recently, spwaning in kegs and TPing on my ship. I feel your pain. If you are on Xbox, you can MASSIVELY reduce cheating by switching to "Xbox only" in game settings. Otherwise, you cooked, cuz Rare certainly isn't trying.....