Cheating

[Defibrillator 132]

7 minutes ago, Darkzero3802 said:

Part of cheating is also jump dashing with the objectives and jump opening doors. Each one goes against a gameplay mechanic and for yrs has been accepted and encouraged by the community. These 2 things should be patched up to prevent further bug abusing.

What next, Blocking ladders with shield?

Cheating is gaining an unfair advantage over others, whats jump kicking gonna do with the unfair advantage?

[Darkzero3802 611]

Just now, Defibrillator said:

What next, Blocking ladders with shield?

Cheating is gaining an unfair advantage over others, whats jump kicking gonna do with the unfair advantage?

Once upon a time you couldnt jump kick doors in APB. You had to stand infront of it and sacrifice urself so the team could get to the obj. Fast foward abit and a bug appeared where ppl could kick on doors while jumping moving out of the way as the door opens to stay alive. Its not an intended mechanic of door opening and as such is considered a bug. Doesnt matter if u can kill someone doing it or not a bugs a bug at the end of the day. Not to mention its against the TOS at the end of the day as well.

[Shini 251]

4 hours ago, Darkzero3802 said:

Once upon a time you couldnt jump kick doors in APB. You had to stand infront of it and sacrifice urself so the team could get to the obj. Fast foward abit and a bug appeared where ppl could kick on doors while jumping moving out of the way as the door opens to stay alive. Its not an intended mechanic of door opening and as such is considered a bug. Doesnt matter if u can kill someone doing it or not a bugs a bug at the end of the day. Not to mention its against the TOS at the end of the day as well.

Oh you posted here too, I'll just post my response in this thread here too.

 

"To be honest, while you have a point that they're exploits those things don't take much effort for anyone thats willing to learn it to master it. With mission timers being a low as they are and ttk being as low as it is every single mobility trick is beneficial. Normal players can learn how to do it easily and that in itself is a skill.

 

Some of the best bugs were not fixed in other games and they became features in upper ends of competitive play. One bug/exploit that springs to mind is Counter Strike's bunny hopping is one bug that could have easily been neutered but valve kept it and it's still here to this day and seen in pro league play."

https://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/7320-state-of-the-game-apb-2018/?do=findComment&comment=91759

 

[Haganu 104]

4 hours ago, Darkzero3802 said:

Once upon a time you couldnt jump kick doors in APB. You had to stand infront of it and sacrifice urself so the team could get to the obj. Fast foward abit and a bug appeared where ppl could kick on doors while jumping moving out of the way as the door opens to stay alive. Its not an intended mechanic of door opening and as such is considered a bug. Doesnt matter if u can kill someone doing it or not a bugs a bug at the end of the day. Not to mention its against the TOS at the end of the day as well.

When a significant amount of people exploit a bug the line between norm and exception starts fading. When the vast majority to everyone exploits a bug, such a thing stops being an exception and becomes the norm. You can't really call it cheating anymore, since you're given a safe choice. You can't ban the majority for exploiting a bug. Why do you think LO isn't banning the people dethreating?

 

I think for a concept like APB, bugs like this are detrimental for its value, but it's up to the devs to do something about it, and it's kinda dumb to call the players that make use of a bug like that to their advantage bad.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Haganu

[SKODEN 2]

On 12/18/2018 at 2:28 AM, MattScott said:

I am surprised that any hacker feels APB is worth their time to make cheats for.

This line bugged me alot, why did you say this? Do you not feel that APB is a worthwhile game? I don't understand.

[Monolillity 45]

Still a serious issue. This drives away new players as well.

[SKODEN 2]

I also think better matchmaking system which will be hard to do will drastically help this "skill gap" gotta stop basing on threat because to many people DT but instead maybe base off K/D ratio or something like that.

 

Merged.

3 hours ago, Monolillity said:

Still a serious issue. This drives away new players as well.

Very much so, alot of new players assume everyone is cheating and just take off because its near impossible to kill anyone already adjusted to the game, more so Tho I find that new players get chased out because they just get thrown into the game with NOT A CLUE on what to do, yea there is a tutorial but its not a forced tutorial and is easily overlooked. I think maybe a separate server that all new players get tossed into that they need to graduate from with a forced tutorial, do this do that etc.. to learn all the mechanics once completed, the player automatically gets shoved into an action server with a pop up UI that explains again how to get started that needs to be read and accepted before closed.

[vsb 6171]

19 minutes ago, SKODEN said:

This line bugged me alot, why did you say this? Do you not feel that APB is a worthwhile game? I don't understand.

cheat making is a pretty big business, it seems odd that a cheat maker would put in the time and effort to maintain cheats for such a low population game

[Fortune Runner 796]

On 12/29/2018 at 6:15 PM, Rade said:

No disrespect Kevkof and BXNNXD but I'm after solid answers from Matt himself.  6 months ago it was indicated bans "may" be permanent, and now it seems the notion of a permanent ban is non existent.

 

I want clarification on the ban policy. Will permanent bans be issued, and under what circumstances. 1st time temp, 2nd time temp, 3rd time perm. How long are the ban periods.

 

 

Matt said on a different thread somewhere that Little Orbit does permanent bans when appropriate for the situation.

They do not just drop a ban hammer just because they can but review case by case.

Does this help you any?

3 hours ago, Haganu said:

When a significant amount of people exploit a bug the line between norm and exception starts fading. When the vast majority to everyone exploits a bug, such a thing stops being an exception and becomes the norm. You can't really call it cheating anymore, since you're given a safe choice. You can't ban the majority for exploiting a bug. Why do you think LO isn't banning the people dethreating?

 

I think for a concept like APB, bugs like this are detrimental for its value, but it's up to the devs to do something about it, and it's kinda dumb to call the players that make use of a bug like that to their advantage bad.

if everyone holds up a liquor store then it must not be holding up a liquor store its just shopping right?

 

Merged.

3 hours ago, Shini said:

Oh you posted here too, I'll just post my response in this thread here too.

 

"To be honest, while you have a point that they're exploits those things don't take much effort for anyone thats willing to learn it to master it. With mission timers being a low as they are and ttk being as low as it is every single mobility trick is beneficial. Normal players can learn how to do it easily and that in itself is a skill.

 

Some of the best bugs were not fixed in other games and they became features in upper ends of competitive play. One bug/exploit that springs to mind is Counter Strike's bunny hopping is one bug that could have easily been neutered but valve kept it and it's still here to this day and seen in pro league play."

https://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/7320-state-of-the-game-apb-2018/?do=findComment&comment=91759

 

While I have no opinion on the door being kicked open bug (I'll shoot at people regardless) , I do have to say that I can not agree with "other people do it so its ok" type of mentality of exploiting bugs.

That sort of mentality is how cheaters began botting because someone else was and they wanted it to be fair.

It's just to easy to become toxic from that again and another way should be found for the sake of APB and all of us who like how it has somewhat become less toxic around here.

This is not directed at you personally to argue or any other means , just an observation.

2 hours ago, BXNNXD said:

cheat making is a pretty big business, it seems odd that a cheat maker would put in the time and effort to maintain cheats for such a low population game

pretty much baffles a lot of us.

[Darkzero3802 611]

3 hours ago, Shini said:

Oh you posted here too, I'll just post my response in this thread here too.

 

"To be honest, while you have a point that they're exploits those things don't take much effort for anyone thats willing to learn it to master it. With mission timers being a low as they are and ttk being as low as it is every single mobility trick is beneficial. Normal players can learn how to do it easily and that in itself is a skill.

 

Some of the best bugs were not fixed in other games and they became features in upper ends of competitive play. One bug/exploit that springs to mind is Counter Strike's bunny hopping is one bug that could have easily been neutered but valve kept it and it's still here to this day and seen in pro league play."

https://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/7320-state-of-the-game-apb-2018/?do=findComment&comment=91759

 

As I said in the other one I do agree on door opening, that should stay however I dont feel the same for ojb dashing as it is an unfair adv to the team without the obj. Obj dashing by the time your team respawns the other team is already 200m away driving away and by the time you finally get ur team togeather and get cars they are long gone 300+ m away. 

[Rade 54]

What some of you don't grasp is what was said in the past about permanent bans is being contradicted by December's 2018 statement.

 

When I read this;

 

We do temp ban for a window long enough that my staff can review the data and then decide whether to extend the ban or remove it.

 

 

That doesn't explicitly state or imply bans for cheating are permanent. There are only 2 options here, remove or extend.

 

All I'm asking for is clarification.

 

@MattScott

 

Will cheating ever result in a permanent ban and under what conditions? Eg 1st ban temp, 2nd ban temp, 3rd ban perm?

 

On 12/30/2018 at 4:12 PM, Fortune Runner said:

Matt said on a different thread somewhere that Little Orbit does permanent bans when appropriate for the situation.

They do not just drop a ban hammer just because they can but review case by case.

Does this help you any?

if everyone holds up a liquor store then it must not be holding up a liquor store its just shopping right?

Edited January 1, 2019 by Rade

[CookiePuss 5379]

7 minutes ago, Rade said:

What some of you don't grasp is what was said in the past about permanent bans is being contradicted by December's 2018 statement.

 

When I read this;

 

We do temp ban for a window long enough that my staff can review the data and then decide whether to extend the ban or remove it.

 

 

That doesn't explicitly state or imply bans for cheating are permanent. There are only 2 options here, remove or extend.

 

All I'm asking for is clarification.

 

@MattScott

 

Will cheating ever result in a permanent ban and under what conditions? Eg 1st ban temp, 2nd ban temp, 3rd ban perm?

 

Give me a sec... I'll link the quote where Matt says that so far, 100% of cheating bans have been made permanent. 

[Rade 54]

If its dated before the December 2018 statement dont bother. Understand my concern.

 

1 minute ago, CookiePuss said:

Give me a sec... I'll link the quote where Matt says that so far, 100% of cheating bans have been made permanent. 

[CookiePuss 5379]

Just now, Rade said:

If its dated before the December 2018 statement dont bother. Understand my concern.

 

I'm afraid I don't understand your concern. Nothing in your quote contradicts anything said before. 

 

P.S. you do realize that a permanent ban is an extension on a temp ban, right?

 

[vsb 6171]

22 minutes ago, Rade said:

What some of you don't grasp is what was said in the past about permanent bans is being contradicted by December's 2018 statement.

 

When I read this;

 

We do temp ban for a window long enough that my staff can review the data and then decide whether to extend the ban or remove it.

 

 

That doesn't explicitly state or imply bans for cheating are permanent. There are only 2 options here, remove or extend.

 

All I'm asking for is clarification.

 

@MattScott

 

Will cheating ever result in a permanent ban and under what conditions? Eg 1st ban temp, 2nd ban temp, 3rd ban perm?

 

if they decide to extend it it’s permanent, if they decide to remove it it’s temporary

 

you’re overthinking this really hard my dude

[Rade 54]

Yes I am, and it is intentional.

 

I very well know I could be totally wrong but equally I am not willing to make assumptions based on past statements. Going forward LO is either going soft on cheating or not.

 

1 minute ago, BXNNXD said:

you’re overthinking this really hard my dude

[Shui 225]

8 hours ago, Darkzero3802 said:

Part of cheating is also jump dashing with the objectives and jump opening doors. Each one goes against a gameplay mechanic and for yrs has been accepted and encouraged by the community. These 2 things should be patched up to prevent further bug abusing.

So you can hit easier with your OPGL ?

You cant even reach gold but try to make suggestions which affect gameplay ... smh

[Fortune Runner 796]

1 hour ago, Rade said:

Yes I am, and it is intentional.

Why is a butterfly a butterfly?

Why is the sun the sun and the moon the moon?

Because that's how it is.

Thinking more wont change the answers only the journey to that answer.

so if you already have the answers.... and the journey was already shown by you and others.......then why ?

[TheJellyGoo 343]

It's a tricky one. The game clearly intends for the player to be restricted in his movement speed by applying a speed penalty when carrying items.

Jumping with it circumvents those restrictions by the simple use of basic functions implemented and provided by the game.

Two ways to classify them:

1. Clearly not intended so patch it and add restrictions that prevent the circumvention (eg as happened with large items)

2. Not a bug but a feature. It can add to games by leaving these gimmicks in the game to increase skillcaps

The issue with APB is that those functions heavily influence the balance of gameplay for the better. 

Missions with large items have been a disaster since the "fix" (this is also an issue of mission balancing (imba droppoints, ...). The game is to fast paced to slowly walk items through whole areas.

Being able to jump with them made it possible to be faster and take shortcuts over certain props.

Same would happen with doors. Being a sitting duck on those choke-points is to much of a disadvantage and can already ruin an attack wave of a stage where you only get +-3 chances. 

Not reaching endstage shouldn't be the norm and should only happen when teams are of much different skilllevels (to easy to defend).

Usually a solution somewhere between those two options delivers the best results. Provide a certain level of gimmicky to nurture the games learning experience while not providing a complete nullification of set restrictions as they are there for a reason. It takes knowledge and experience to balance and fine tune those games mechanics hence we were stuck with those problems for years.

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by TheJellyGoo

[iRawwwN 283]

@MattScott so, not sure if you even read this on a Sunday/Monday night, but there's a ruski cheat that got released recently.  fix game please

[AgentRick 38]

Cheating is never the way to go, and it takes all the fun out of the game for everyone else. Having run a clan and dedicated servers in various games across various anti-cheats for almost 16 years now, I can agree that gathering definitive evidence on someone who is cheating takes time and isn't simple or cut and dry.

 

While people become frustrated and angry that they see the same people they believe to be cheating day in and day out (I'm one of those people at times who gets impatient), allowing Little Orbit to investigate reports and gather sufficient evidence to reach a final conclusion is important. In my servers' case, banning someone who we adamantly believed to be hacking didn't really harm the player- they would go find another server and we would likely never see them again, whereas in APB there is a lot more at stake, such as progression and purchases through Armas.

 

"Evidence" that people submitted to me when I was running the game servers, and when I was involved with various anti-cheat organizations, was never 100% conclusive on its own. Some "evidence", and by some I mean perhaps 10 - 15%, presented enough suspicious behavior to merit further investigation into the player in question.

 

Back in the old days, we were able to force client-side screenshots using archaic anti-cheat software such as Foresight in MOH and Punkbuster in Battlefield. I'm not sure if this is still a viable method, however, the Punkbuster client took the screenshots and automatically sent them to the server administrators without the player ever knowing. The administrators were then able to evaluate the screenshots to have a much better idea of what the player was seeing.

 

As Matt Scott said, "snapping" by looking behind you while running, then shooting, would mimic a cheat in another game, but in that scenario, no cheating was likely involved at all- just proper manipulation of the player's camera.

 

I have seen some pretty blatant cheaters throughout the years in APB, and I have seen a couple as recently as this week. That having been said, I'm hopeful that they will find their rightful place on a ban list some time in the near future.

 

@MattScott thank you for your continued communication and transparency with the APB community. As I've previously stated, I've played since open beta and I never once even heard the name of the CEO of Gamersfirst, let alone read any correspondence from him/her. I hope you and the rest of the LO team have a Happy New Year and we are all looking forward to the big changes coming up in APB 2019.

 

Regards,

 

Rick

[Kanashimi 39]

LOL, I know a long time veteran player, who is godly, and he has been temp-banned 4 times for the same offense. He was yet to be banned perm. I don't think Matt, will ever ban someone perm,  even if that person continues to do wrong-doing.

[LChristy 27]

Happy new year everyone.

[vsb 6171]

6 hours ago, AgentRick said:

As I've previously stated, I've played since open beta and I never once even heard the name of the CEO of Gamersfirst, let alone read any correspondence from him/her.

not that orbit isn’t doing exponentially better at communication, but techmech used to be the one writing the blogposts and he was active on the forums (especially in the early “beta” days)

[Fortune Runner 796]

On 1/1/2019 at 3:33 AM, AOSCMP said:

LOL, I know a long time veteran player, who is godly, and he has been temp-banned 4 times for the same offense. He was yet to be banned perm. I don't think Matt, will ever ban someone perm,  even if that person continues to do wrong-doing.

how you worded this can be taken too many ways.

Are you hanging with a cheater?

Was the person flagged for language? For some sort of customized artwork?

Was he eating tapioca pudding?

 

.....you worded this real obscure