Solution for cheaters problem

That just addresses people that don't care (and often times are one or two steps ahead of the ban strats anyway)

Whatever main account cheating that may exist would largely be the issue on cheating in this game. Rarely hear about many main accounts getting popped. So either not as many people cheat as people think or they have been ahead of the game for a very long time.

Some pretty obviously use macros but that doesn't mean they use downloaded cheats like aimbot/esp/whatever. Just like exploiting doesn't necessarily mean anyone downloaded anything.

@ixxxoloff Untill you suddenly find your account perma blocked because a cheater 'used' your IP adress to hide his own.... You realy think cheaters won't hide their IP adresses to prevent that? You will only hurt innocent people with that, because cheaters used their IP adresses to cheat.

@wolfmanbush said in Solution for cheaters problem:

Rarely hear about many main accounts getting popped. So either not as many people cheat as people think or they have been ahead of the game for a very long time.

I disagree, I think the opposite, a lot players cheat and people don't realise just how bad the problem is.
I mad a video about this topic 2 days ago on my YT:

[mod edit]

I made it/edited it in under 12 hours. So its a pretty basic face value video regarding cheating in SoT, and I could of made a much longer 40 minute mini documentary about cheats.
(This topic interests me but I never use or have cheated in video games.) It really peaked my curiosity when I was encountering cheaters left & right on a daily, not only that but players in community discords that I hang out with mentioning cheaters on the daily, these are also players that play SoT AS their main game and some are in competitive teams so have a better understanding if people are using cheats vs not on average... and seeing people on this forum stating that cheating is rare to come by, I just face palm. I did a bit of research and realized just how common it is in this game.

most people that use ESP/FoV like you stated theres really no way of telling if they are using cheats.

But the general gist of it, is that you can pretty much download a whole suite of cheats and not be banned/caught if you are not blantly using aimbot and teleporting around AND self-snitching yourself to other players.
The last banwave they have done regarding cheating was for cosmetic unlocking, nothing to do with actual cheats that impact other players gameplay.

And sure they are patches that disable a feature of a cheat such as insta-repair, but theres 10 more that crop up...

@ix-indi-xi said in Solution for cheaters problem:

@wolfmanbush said in Solution for cheaters problem:

Rarely hear about many main accounts getting popped. So either not as many people cheat as people think or they have been ahead of the game for a very long time.

I disagree, I think the opposite, a lot players cheat and people don't realise just how bad the problem is.
I mad a video about this topic 2 days ago on my YT:

I made it/edited it in under 12 hours. So its a pretty basic face value video regarding cheating in SoT, and I could of made a much longer 40 minute mini documentary about cheats.
(This topic interests me but I never use or have cheated in video games.) It really peaked my curiosity when I was encountering cheaters left & right on a daily, and seeing people on this forum stating that cheating is rare to come by, I just face palm. I did a bit of research and realized just how common it is in this game.

most people that use ESP/FoV like you stated theres really no way of telling if they are using cheats.

But the general gist of it, is that you can pretty much download a whole suite of cheats and not be banned/caught if you are not blantly using aimbot and teleporting around AND self-snitching yourself to other players.
The last banwave they have done regarding cheating was for cosmetic unlocking, nothing to do with actual cheats that impact other players gameplay.

And sure they are patches that disable a feature of a cheat such as insta-repair, but theres 10 more that crop up...

It is very very very unlikely that any known name on a main that is cheating without consequence is just using the free cheats around that people regularly claim. They almost certainly would be using private cheats with low population access.

Free to download and highly advertised cheats are always detectable and have an extremely high chance of being released for reasons other than just cheating. Data mining/malware

Cheating has 2 entirely different worlds. Public cheats that are typically dirty programs and detectable and private cheats that have lower access and last longer without bans (typically)

The "cheats are so easy to download and not get caught" narrative really doesn't have a history of being true in gaming or anything else involving programs that violate ToS.

The alt thing literally became a thing because of people getting banned repeatedly...

@wolfmanbush
Thats a good point.

Outside that ESP/Aimlock and depending on what software you are using FoV, cheats are really common and a lot of people are still not banned, years after using them currently...
I have a previous friend who uses ESP (Screen shared on Discord about 2 years ago) Their main has 2k+ hours and I cannot report them simply because I do not have hard evidence of them using ESP (I didn't record them showing the ESP program to me) So support said they didn't have sufficient evidence. This player still plays and uses ESP btw on their main.
ESP is free and is the most common SoT Cheat years later...

The alt thing literally became a thing because of people getting banned repeatedly>

That is because once you are redbearded, any other alt gets flagged automatically through IP (Possibly?) and Hardware (HWID), I know for a FACT that they are using Hardware bans now. So if your main gets redbearded and you start making alt accounts EVEN with zero cheating software intended, sooner or later those alts get banned to.

Look I don't want to get to deep into this topic as people would think I associate/trying to ban evade with cheats. (even though this is my main account and always have been since the very first month or so from SoT launching).

But talking to people that use cheats in the community to get a more understanding for the video I made (They put trust in me), it's clear as day that even the more popular/free cheats are largely undetectable.
And majority that to get popped is because of neglect such as screen sharing, bragging to friends with pics showing their GT etc. Once your busted for that, it becomes a lot harder to maintain alt accounts for larger periods of time.
(Of course theres methods to mitigate that which I will not be getting into)
Theres also a lot of talk/methods on how detection works for alts etc on cheating forums specifically for this game, and it pains me to say that compared to modern games out theres, Sea of Thieves has always been lacking in catching up with cheaters...

The mission is to not eradicate every cheat in existence because that is impossible, it's simply to mitigate cheating as much as possible, and so far, they have failed...
I honestly lost count of the amount of encounters me and friends have seen of players cheating since HG update. Sure theres periods where cheats come and go due to patches etc.
But what is realistically stopping someone from making their 5th alt account in a few minutes and continuing on their behaviour?

@ix-indi-xi said in Solution for cheaters problem:

@wolfmanbush
Thats a good point.

Outside that ESP/Aimlock and depending on what software you are using FoV, cheats are really common and a lot of people are still not banned, years after using them currently...
I have a previous friend who uses ESP (Screen shared on Discord about 2 years ago) Their main has 2k+ hours and I cannot report them simply because I do not have hard evidence of them using ESP (I didn't record them showing the ESP program to me) So support said they didn't have sufficient evidence. This player still plays and uses ESP btw on their main.
ESP is free and is the most common SoT Cheat years later...

The alt thing literally became a thing because of people getting banned repeatedly>

That is because once you are redbearded, any other alt gets flagged automatically through IP (Possibly?) and Hardware (HWID), I know for a FACT that they are using Hardware bans now. So if your main gets redbearded and you start making alt accounts EVEN with zero cheating software intended, sooner or later those alts get banned to.

Look I don't want to get to deep into this topic as people would think I associate/trying to ban evade with cheats. (even though this is my main account and always have been since the very first month or so from SoT launching).

But talking to people that use cheats in the community to get a more understanding for the video I made (They put trust in me), it's clear as day that even the more popular/free cheats are largely undetectable.
And majority that to get popped is because of neglect such as screen sharing, bragging to friends with pics showing their GT etc. Once your busted for that, it becomes a lot harder to maintain alt accounts for larger periods of time.
(Of course theres methods to mitigate that which I will not be getting into)
Theres also a lot of talk/methods on how detection works for alts etc on cheating forums specifically for this game, and it pains me to say that compared to modern games out theres, Sea of Thieves has always been lacking in catching up with cheaters...

The mission is to not eradicate every cheat in existence because that is impossible, it's simply to mitigate cheating as much as possible, and so far, they have failed...

Just about every cheat since the 90s has been marketed as undetectable

and every mass ban wave was full of people using their "undetectable cheats"

So people can high risk/low reward gamble all they want but it's not gonna end different than it did for all anyone else that fell for it lol

@wolfmanbush I get that, but honestly at this point, call me when there next proper anti-cheat banwave happens.
Because as far as I know, it hasn't happened yet in LITERALLY half a decade of this games existence.
(I don't count this years cosmetic unlocker banwave as being a big success)

In which you were there when it happened, Quoting your post from 4 months ago when it occurred:

If there is truth to the fairly widespread chatter of a ban wave it's gonna be a public cheat
which is what I've always said, easily detectable, not safe, don't use them, don't buy into the narratives of "free and easy and safe"

You were correct that it was a public cheat, and yes a few members from the competitive community got busted (less then 5 realistically out of hundreds that played comp back then/currently) 1 player that Ive known/played with in the past that was in a good EU comp team. (They perma quit the game which I respect instead of making alts with alternative hacks and ruining peoples gameplay)

That cheat in particular was KNOWN to have huge risks involved prior to the banwave, simply because it dealt with the game files directly putting cosmetics into your account, where it could get flagged with dates, someone Injecting NAL sails into their account in 2023 for example is an automatic redflag as those sails are impossible to acquire as it currently stands.
Or BMP hat, Guilded Phoenix weapon set, when their accounts where never flagged as winners.

It was a cheat that really showed everyone how poor SoT security is since it was undetected for months prior...
I also heard some people actually avoided getting banned from that banwave somehow.

Again until SoT impresses me by banning ESP/ATHENAWARE and every other external software etc. tag me...

@ix-indi-xi said in Solution for cheaters problem:

@wolfmanbush I get that, but honestly at this point, call me when there next proper anti-cheat banwave happens.
Because as far as I know, it hasn't happened yet in LITERALLY half a decade of this games existence.
(I don't count this years cosmetic unlocker banwave as being a big success)

In which you were there when it happened, Quoting your post from 4 months ago when it occurred:

If there is truth to the fairly widespread chatter of a ban wave it's gonna be a public cheat
which is what I've always said, easily detectable, not safe, don't use them, don't buy into the narratives of "free and easy and safe"

You were correct that it was a public cheat, and yes a few members from the competitive community got busted (less then 5 realistically out of hundreds that played comp back then/currently) 1 player that Ive known/played with in the past that was in a good EU comp team. (They perma quit the game which I respect instead of making alts with alternative hacks and ruining peoples gameplay)

That cheat in particular was KNOWN to have huge risks involved prior to the banwave, simply because it dealt with the game files directly putting cosmetics into your account, where it could get flagged with dates, someone Injecting NAL sails into their account in 2023 for example is an automatic redflag as those sails are impossible to acquire as it currently stands.
Or BMP hat, Guilded Phoenix weapon set, when their accounts where never flagged as winners.

It was a cheat that really showed everyone how poor SoT security is since it was undetected for months prior...
I also heard some people actually avoided getting banned from that banwave somehow.

Again until SoT impresses me by banning ESP/ATHENAWARE and every other external software etc. tag me...

Here is the issue I have and why I regularly participate on this topic

There are a bunch of young people that are regularly told that many around them are cheating, that the cheats are free and easy to download and use, that people don't get banned for them

they go out there and they download this nonsense, they get banned at a minimum and who knows what the programs will mess with beyond that. They lose access to the game because the community around them wasn't looking out for them in any real way. Then they are mocked/disrespected for it when we as a community contributed to the path they took.

This isn't cheaters setting them up to fail that is us as a community doing it with the drama of it all. We are putting exaggerated and unhelpful narratives out there that are setting younger people up to fail and that is unacceptable conduct in my personal view.

@ixxxoloff You do know you can just change those right? You don't even have to physically have to change them, you can just 'mess' with the numbers. Surely someone who makes a huge effort out of cheating, can also do that. It's not like it is that hard to do. In fact: you could even deliberately change your numbers off that hardware to mimic that of someone you don't like, so he/she gets the hardware ban. And that person might not know how to change that. There is a reason game devs are very reluctant to use those type of bans.