I know you guys got a black eye for not having Battle Royale out when the game released. Personally it is no big deal to me, I can wait. But I tell you what, you think cheating destroys a game in modes like conquest or breakout. Think about how ONE CHEATER in battle royale will kill the game for 100 people, every time. You think the community is angry about cheating now, wait until battle royale comes out if its not addressed. My advice, don't release it until it is. Even if it takes 6 months.
This. This cannot be emphasized enough. Cheating will kill Battle Royale. Full stop. This should be of the highest possible priority. If EA/Dice cannot or will not recognize this, then, well...
Don't be surprised if Firestorm uses completely different Anti-Cheat and policing measures than BFV. I bet it does. I'd ask but I don't expect a straight answer so why bother.
In bf1, I reported several players with video evidence of extremely obvious cheating, for example, one video was of a medic standing on the bridge on argonne, ressing players on his team the instant they were killed, their player models were teleported to the cheaters location and ressed in midair, falling off the bridge. 100% incontrovertible evidence, literally no room for "maybe he was just good" since no matter how good of a player you are, you can't teleport people from across the map to you when ressing them -_-
Another video was of a guy taking 3 times as much damage to die as other players, but the most telling was that he had endless grenades, he spammed both gas and fire grenades (at the same time, he could use any type of grenade he wanted regardless of loadout) over and over at the objectives much, much faster than what is possible with the normal resupply. Another example where it can't be dismissed with "but he's just good".
The result in both cases, nothing happened, accounts just stayed active regardless, kept racking up battle reports on battlefieldtracker for months afterwards.
Those kinds of incidents convinced me that the reports are never actually seen by a human being. What I assume could be happening is that the reported player gets checked by fairfight, and fairfight goes "nope, no strange accuracy or superhuman k/d ratio here, this player is legit" and the case ends there.
So, while the points listed in the blog sounds good on paper, I'll hold my applause until something actually gets done.
As a company policy EA allowed cheating in BF1 by not actually banning anyone. If you were caught cheating all you had to do was give a "dog ate my homework, sorry, won't happen again response to support". Poof. Player account restored. If you got caught a second time you might get a stats reset or a week ban or both. Then, poof, account restored. They would continue to warn "one more time and you're done" and it just wouldn't happen unless you were breaking other parts of the TOS.
This was so well known around the community that people would use it as a way to get their stats reset when they felt like starting over. They would even start complaining when it would take so long to finally get banned. It's why EA is trying to make such a big deal about a "zero-tolerance" policy for BFV. That's absolute fiction too.
"Investigating supplementary deterrence methods which can work alongside banning accounts.", is the exact opposite of a zero-tolerance policy and is number three on the list of supposed things EA is doing.
I'm quite glad EA has fostered an environment that is so cheater friendly at this point, it's like a big ole honeypot that takes these bottom barrel people away from competing company's games by enticing cheaters to play Battlefield games.
I wonder if this post will be considered "constructive feedback". If it needs to be simplified to be understood, don't create an environment that is cheater friendly and you won't have as many cheaters.
As @RRedux said, at the moment the reporting system seems to be mostly useless. Obvious cheaters, that don't do any effort to hide their cheating, get massively reported, but don't get banned. Some insight on how the reporting system works would be welcome.
Great call-out. While we cannot discuss actions taken on accounts for privacy reasons, we can definitely be more transparent on how the reporting process works.
Let me work with our anti-cheat admin and our TOS team to get a write-up that provides a bit more clarity.
Appreciate the comment.
-Braddock512-
As a suggestion,
I'm hoping that DICE can implement an in-game reporting feature instead of an origin overlay hidden in a drop tab. I think the ease of reports will benefit everyone and hopefully help cheaters be caught quicker.
"After the launch of Battlefield V last year, all bans for cheating in the game are now permanent. No more one-week suspensions."
Yay, should have been that way from the beginning. In all the years I've played BF I only saw one guy I reported who got a suspension/stats wipe, kept the same account and apparently didn't cheat afterwards, his stats were ordinary from then on. I'd bet the vast majority of cheaters, virtually all of them, will try it again because they think next time they'll be smarter and not get caught. So giving them a second chance is pointless, FairFights' policy of "Cheaters are customers too" was always a dumb idea.
Gee when I call cheaters I get bombarded with whinger, you're a crap player, lag, just better than you. I even got cautioned for calling one player out. Oh well it makes me feel better EA is out there looking through the bottom of a broken coke bottle for cheaters. Fact is you'll never stop cheats its human nature for some to steal more than their fair share.
1. Talking about cheating hacking parasites that have RUINED BF3, BF4, BF1 and now BFV, in a constructive manner is VERY difficult!
2. I think Dice/EA either misunderstand privacy laws or are abusing it in a dirty and underhand manner. Meaning privacy laws apply to legal birth names. Not aliasis or game names. Naming a cheaters public gaming name is NOT unlawful or illegal and never has been.
3. In roughly two Months I've personally reported over 3,000 cheaters hackers in BFV via origin. I would pay a premium of say around £30 ontop of game price for Dice/EA to employ staff purely to play BFV or future new games, with them having the ability to instantly suspend/ban cheaters.
4. Plenty of bfv cheaters own up to cheating in a huff/tantrum when I out them, even if their score is around a constant 25-4 which many think is normal clean score when actually even that isn't. BFV isn't BF4, you simply cannot get high kd without using wallhack and/or aimbot/damage modifier etc.
5. I have mixed views about having "admins" as lets not beat about the bush, many "admins" in BF4 for example are indeed cheaters/hackers themselves that cover for their hacking cheating mates. Many that have "VIP" slots are known cheaters that can't be votekicked or votebanned. Meaning actual banning should be done by Dice/EA Origin themselves.
6. Want to add that the censorship nonsense has gone to far. Can't even type "Tea Bag". BFV is a war game about killing.... it's an oxymoron to attack freedom of speech. You need to protect the childrens (sic).... I don't think so at all.
7. I play bfv in 4k on a 10 bit, 1,512 nit Samsung 43ks7500 tv, sure stuck at 60hz but BFV is a visually stunning game at times. Meaning, imagine the kudos headlines if BFV could truly became cheater free? Your stock/share prices would SURELY increase as there's MILLIONS of clean players sick to death of cheating hacking parasites! You would attract players that would not normally try the battlefield games, simply for the enjoyment and pleasure of playing a cheater free game.
To do list:
- in game few clicks report method. Also If cheating player gets for example 20 reports from 64 playing on that server ppl, he should be kicked from server and notification sended to EA\DICE support crew;
- maximum cruel panishment for cheaters, i mean origin account ban;
In my opinion, (suspected) hackers should not be banned from Origin. This is because some people might just be good, and seem like hackers. This would basically get legit, skilled players completely locked out of their Origin games. Of course, this could be a good method if the player is CLEARLY hacking, but milder hacks, such as WH (if it's hidden very well) can be hard to spot and good players can seem like hackers due to their awareness and aim.
I'm was not speaking about suspected players, i'm speaking about ppl which shoot in the skys with MG and killing enemys at another end of the map etc. 100% confirmed cheater should be punished very hard, as much as devs could do it in theory. Unfair game lovers should clearly understand what will they recieve after using cheats. At the moment we have cheaters because the got ban only on one server, and nothing stops them to just join to another one. Full account ban will fix it.
Yeah, right....usually people like you who try to defend suspected players are usually a cheater.....gotta love it..."please don't ban me for being a good player" when in fact your a pos that can't play without cheating making the game suck for righteous players. I been gaming ( EA BF series for 20 years ) and love the whining that goes with being banned.... miss Punkbuster, still believe it's a great anti cheat engine.....but I will say this: if EA don't get a handle on this soon, they'll be taking a worse than they already have hit cause we'll find something else to play... not like there ain't a ton of **** out there..
Cheating issue cannot be taken lightly... You probably know better than all of us what is the effect on a game population when every games are ruinned by a single cheater.
Not considering cheat detection (which for me is a priority) that will never be perfect because cheat devs will alway do their best to avoid their hack being detected. The most important thing IMO is adding a better way to signal suspicious behavior. It is actually not convenient at all to report a cheater. We, Customers, paid to enjoy a game and chill, not to endure cheating issue nor spending hours strugguling with report system that is , in it actual state, a real mess.
One other thing we disscussed a lot (we are long time online gamer community) is the fact actually it really seems absolutely nothing is done to avoid cheaters.
-People can deal up to 10x legit damage with a weapon without the game preventing it? How is that possible, even the more basic anti-cheat system should be able to detect this. I met a few, they stayed in game as long as they wanted. (MAttiace did a video about it, this kind of cheater arn't even afraid to be detected, because there are nothing preventing this)
-People can land more than 60 headshots per minutes, simply running thru the map with a medium machin gun, killing people with a single bullet. You can argue this may be a really good player behavior. But in some case, this is just blatant use of cheats. Same fact, player get reported days ago, and this account is still active. The case i'm speaking about is a player running in rotterdam (bombed maps in ^part 3/3 of grand operation) with a lewis, instantly killing every single player that enter his field of view, able to land more than 5 headshots/second to players at various distance and far one from an other... This account is still active!
How the most basic anti cheat engine can't even detect that? Even player in his team where leaving not to be involved in that mess.
Maybe some communication, in a fair and honnest way could happen on thoses issues. Better admiting nothing was made until now to prevent cheating or admitting anti cheat engine was really broken. LAck of communication is leading to rumors that can hurt more than a dispointing truth.
We are not undereducated idiots, most of us can understand issues happen, but having an anti cheat system that on a AAA game that is not even able to detect what most basic indi games anti cheat can dois totally disapointing.
I know people working on anti cheats are not the same as who thoses are working on game content. but IMO, having new content is pointless if it cannot be enjoyed the way it was made for.
This game is not perfect, but IMO, it's great when you can enjoy it the fair way. But it's hard to enjoy it when 20-30% rounds are ruinned by one to several cheaters. Moreover, it's increasing suspicion within community and now, every single "lucky shots" every single "on fire player" (which can happen to anyone at some point) become instantly suspicious to everyone, wich is not helping to keep the geme fun and entertaining.
I hope improvment will come very soon, It's really needed.
Today we released "Our Anti-Cheat Approach to Battlefield V" blog, providing some insight into our efforts for fair play in Battlefield V, our goals on constantly improving detection, and dedication to the Battlefield community.
What are the top five things DICE is doing to prevent cheating in Battlefield V?
Working on better prevention, hardening the PC client against exploits.
Scaling up detection efforts.
Investigating supplementary deterrence methods which can work alongside banning accounts.
Investigating methods of improving the reporting flow, including easier reporting.
Keeping up to date with the latest cheat developments and reacting to them in a faster and leaner manner.
We definitely want to work with the community on improving our anti-cheat efforts as an ongoing commitment to our Battlefield V community as part of our Live Service.
We'd love to have your feedback, suggestions, questions, so we've opened this thread to gather all of that. We ask that you keep it constructive and productive. Together we can continue improving Battlefield V for all of us.
So, read through the blog and come back to share your feedback.
Jeff Braddock
North American Community Manager - Battlefield
War lost course this week, only cheater with no damage and aim bot. Mode with 32 player has no way to complete the quests because of those unfortunate. Look at the South American servers.
The blog post mentions that Spectate is the best bet to catch a cheater. Did you know that the hack developers have added the ability to see if you are being spectated? So this way you turn off the cheats and play normal for a bit to avoid being caught out.
Sure hope EA can spectate without being seen, otherwise "Getting into Spectator mode and observing the player is your best bet to spot cheaters." isnt going to work.
-->And do you truly think relying on your player base to spectate potential or suspected cheaters is appropriate?
-->I paid to play this game, not to act as your manual cheat detector.
Shout out to DerMathiasNLD who spelled out several methods EA could be using to limit cheaters. He just made your job easier, now do what he says.
@rockin_master
Not sure you understand the meaning of "Constructive feedback", but it looks like a mod felt you needed a timeout to pause and reflect on it.
Take care.
-Braddock512-
The very simple short answer is this
invest in Easy Anti cheat for now..
as a game company I am sure you are aware of most of the hacks cheats for your games.. these sites still make loads of cash and since you can not hardware ban.. a person simply buys a new origin account with even the same information and starts fresh cheating again..
One thing you do not see on even the paid hack sites is.. hacks or cheats for GAMES covered by Easy Anti Cheat I am sure it is comparable or even less of a cost of useless fairfight that The battlefield series uses now..
there is a game that has less then 5000 players that uses this anti cheat system so if they can afford it i am sure the big bucks at dice can as well
if you want a nice sheat free shooter experience get RS2 Vietnam uses easy anticheat and is a nice game to play
Today we released "Our Anti-Cheat Approach to Battlefield V" blog, providing some insight into our efforts for fair play in Battlefield V, our goals on constantly improving detection, and dedication to the Battlefield community.
What are the top five things DICE is doing to prevent cheating in Battlefield V?
Working on better prevention, hardening the PC client against exploits.
Scaling up detection efforts.
Investigating supplementary deterrence methods which can work alongside banning accounts.
Investigating methods of improving the reporting flow, including easier reporting.
Keeping up to date with the latest cheat developments and reacting to them in a faster and leaner manner.
We definitely want to work with the community on improving our anti-cheat efforts as an ongoing commitment to our Battlefield V community as part of our Live Service.
We'd love to have your feedback, suggestions, questions, so we've opened this thread to gather all of that. We ask that you keep it constructive and productive. Together we can continue improving Battlefield V for all of us.
So, read through the blog and come back to share your feedback.
Jeff Braddock
North American Community Manager - Battlefield
sorry brother fairfight is long since bypassed and it on the very low tier of anti cheats for coders to defeat
when DICe grows up maybe they will implement something like Easy Anticheat. you see ZERO paid hacks for games using that anti cheat
and if a small game like Rs2 Vietnam with less then 5K players can afford it DICE can also
As a COSTRUCTIVE comment, if EA / Dice are going to continue to make multi-player FPS games, then you need to form a PARTNERSHIP with other FPS developers and develop an INDUSTRY solution to face cheaters head-on.
(1) partnering with other developers to share data into a centralized, well-governed database, documenting IP addresses, MAC IDs, and other valid data to assess the location and source of cheaters. If a person is cheating in BF5, it is probably likely that they are cheating in other FPS games; sharing this data in a collaborative and effective fashion could be super effective. Notably, this shared database could also track other forms of abuse that players encounter such as extreme inappropriate behavior, which is also important to share information about. Ironically, this concept is already in place in our criminal justice system where if you commit a crime in one state, other states (if you live in the US) can access the data and see what you have done. A very similar analogy to the gaming community where it seems that each "state" (e.g. each developer) is not sharing data with the others, and big offenders and bad characters are doing the same "crimes" in each and every state, without any consequence.
(2) on a related note, sharing RESOURCES to develop and foster a sophisticated anti-cheat software program would be money well-spent on a collaborative basis. There are, of course, several companies doing this currently, but the industry consortium could perhaps fund a special project with all of these developers to create something really special. In my opinion, the anti-cheat industry is doing the best that it can on limited resources, and trying to stay ahead of some very sophisticated developers of cheating software (aimbots, ESP, wall hacks, etc.), who are always a step ahead. The industry needs to develop a true coalition to fund and defeat cheaters, which are a cancer to the entire industry.
From a financial perspective, I would suspect that each developer could simply allocate the same $$$ that they are currently spending on this issue and if it were to be consolidated and shared between several developers, the synergistic effects could be huge.
Note - realistically, not all developers would immediately sign onto this platform, but even if 2-3 did, it would create vast economies of scale and effectiveness for those in the ecosystem.
Very frankly, many of the ideas that you mention above are just touching the tip of the iceberg, without addressing the bulk of the problem. Basic solutions may win you a bit of positive PR and may make some of your members feel good for a bit, but if cheaters are still there day in and day out, then the player base will continue to get frustrated and leave the game. Something big needs to be done long-term. I encourage you to share this idea with senior people that can truly implement this, because it is a very strategic initiative that only senior management can pull off. No offense to all of those hard-working people on the front-lines dealing with the cheaters, but this needs a vast and material shift in thinking.
Many thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts.
Fix the Lag Compensation giving high Ping Players (increasingly more and more) so they don't get the advantage in gameplay. Better matchmaking for localised regions ie Players play in appropriate regions would also be a good step forward. Clearly, you are trying to cater for everybody but those low normal pings/latency should not be penalised when grouping with players who are benefiting from high ping due to your lag compensation and the known netcode issues.
From what I've personally experienced in the game, I think there are several issues to be solved, some more easier than others.
It can be broken into 2 categories
- blatant ground rule breaking that should be hardcoded on server side, such as dealing 10x damage in a single shots than a weapon can actually do
- discrete cheating such as seeing the position of all players on the minimap or mild aim-assist cheats that raise little or no suspicion
Mandatory 2FA would probably help with rampant reselling of hacked accounts, but another step can also be hardware-based profile linking. Basically, connect specific PC configuration with the specific owners account. Yes, it would make it more complicated to change or upgrade your gaming rig, but if there's a built in threshold that would allow for example to change your GPU and a disk, but not at the same time with the rest of the components, it could work. Or if the account ends up falsely flagged, revert to 2FA as backup.
I don't think there's a way to completely stop cheaters, what needs to be done is to make their cheating so hard and complicated and risky that it simply doesn't pay off. Right now a cheater will buy a new account for a few $ and continue with his trolling as if nothing happened. I'm sure it'd be a different story if every time they were banned meant that they need to buy a full price account.
Community can certainly help with the reports, which should definitively be made easier - most users don't even know how to report a suspected cheater. But there has to be some sort of filtering, since people will sometimes assume that someone is cheating while the cause of the situation can be something entirely else. Yesterday I was shot through a stone wall. I knew I was in full cover and I also knew that there's no way the person that shot me could've done it from their position. So I went and looked at the shadowplay video I saved. I received 2 shots while I was exposed and 2 while I was in full cover. At least that's how it looked like from my perspective. But this person wasn't cheating. His stats are completely average, there's absolutely nothing to indicate foul play - It was simply a netcode error and if I didn't have the recording, I would've cried "wall hack".
There should probably be some sort of cumulative reporting system that would kick offline players that get a large number of cheating reports within the same couple of hours. Flag their profile, put them offline and have someone review the case. If it's all legit, return the profile. If not, ban them.
Most importantly: run a continuous PR campaign addressing this issue. Right now Youtube is FULL of cheating videos, which causes a sense of paranoia within the community. If you guys would come out and say "we banned these 10 people last week, our legal team has taken action against them" and do this week after week it would help with the current feeling like nothing is being done about it. You simply need to acknowledge there's a problem, educate the community on how to spot cheaters, how to help, why is cheating bad etc. and create a positive community reaction.
Why do not you just copy how PS4 and XBOX prevent cheating, or is this just a too simple approach suggested by someone that does not understand computers?
Why do not you just copy how PS4 and XBOX prevent cheating, or is this just a too simple approach suggested by someone that does not understand computers?
Well because PC is a much more open environment with a lot more variables they cannot control.
To do list:
- in game few clicks report method. Also If cheating player gets for example 20 reports from 64 playing on that server ppl, he should be kicked from server and notification sended to EA\DICE support crew;
- maximum cruel panishment for cheaters, i mean origin account ban;
In my opinion, (suspected) hackers should not be banned from Origin. This is because some people might just be good, and seem like hackers. This would basically get legit, skilled players completely locked out of their Origin games. Of course, this could be a good method if the player is CLEARLY hacking, but milder hacks, such as WH (if it's hidden very well) can be hard to spot and good players can seem like hackers due to their awareness and aim.
I'm was not speaking about suspected players, i'm speaking about ppl which shoot in the skys with MG and killing enemys at another end of the map etc. 100% confirmed cheater should be punished very hard, as much as devs could do it in theory. Unfair game lovers should clearly understand what will they recieve after using cheats. At the moment we have cheaters because the got ban only on one server, and nothing stops them to just join to another one. Full account ban will fix it.
Yeah, right....usually people like you who try to defend suspected players are usually a cheater.....gotta love it..."please don't ban me for being a good player" when in fact your a pos that can't play without cheating making the game suck for righteous players. I been gaming ( EA BF series for 20 years ) and love the whining that goes with being banned.... miss Punkbuster, still believe it's a great anti cheat engine.....but I will say this: if EA don't get a handle on this soon, they'll be taking a worse than they already have hit cause we'll find something else to play... not like there ain't a ton of **** out there..
Yeah lets get back Punkbuster! It used to be great or atleast a lot better than this
Why do not you just copy how PS4 and XBOX prevent cheating, or is this just a too simple approach suggested by someone that does not understand computers?
Well because PC is a much more open environment with a lot more variables they cannot control.
Okay, fair point. However, nothing can be recreated that would prove helpful in this dicussion, even if it is for future releases?
I must admit that playing on console, tes I have BFV on console and PV, feels kind of satisfying and safe.
What is stopping EA from banding with other game producers to request the removal of cheating related videos from YouTube and taking down websites ore removing them from searches?
Will EA lobby governments to specifically outlaw the production of cheats in video games and work with law enforcement and the courts to pursue those who do make them?
Comments
Don't be surprised if Firestorm uses completely different Anti-Cheat and policing measures than BFV. I bet it does. I'd ask but I don't expect a straight answer so why bother.
As a company policy EA allowed cheating in BF1 by not actually banning anyone. If you were caught cheating all you had to do was give a "dog ate my homework, sorry, won't happen again response to support". Poof. Player account restored. If you got caught a second time you might get a stats reset or a week ban or both. Then, poof, account restored. They would continue to warn "one more time and you're done" and it just wouldn't happen unless you were breaking other parts of the TOS.
This was so well known around the community that people would use it as a way to get their stats reset when they felt like starting over. They would even start complaining when it would take so long to finally get banned. It's why EA is trying to make such a big deal about a "zero-tolerance" policy for BFV. That's absolute fiction too.
"Investigating supplementary deterrence methods which can work alongside banning accounts.", is the exact opposite of a zero-tolerance policy and is number three on the list of supposed things EA is doing.
I'm quite glad EA has fostered an environment that is so cheater friendly at this point, it's like a big ole honeypot that takes these bottom barrel people away from competing company's games by enticing cheaters to play Battlefield games.
I wonder if this post will be considered "constructive feedback". If it needs to be simplified to be understood, don't create an environment that is cheater friendly and you won't have as many cheaters.
As a suggestion,
I'm hoping that DICE can implement an in-game reporting feature instead of an origin overlay hidden in a drop tab. I think the ease of reports will benefit everyone and hopefully help cheaters be caught quicker.
Yay, should have been that way from the beginning. In all the years I've played BF I only saw one guy I reported who got a suspension/stats wipe, kept the same account and apparently didn't cheat afterwards, his stats were ordinary from then on. I'd bet the vast majority of cheaters, virtually all of them, will try it again because they think next time they'll be smarter and not get caught. So giving them a second chance is pointless, FairFights' policy of "Cheaters are customers too" was always a dumb idea.
And reported players never get banned. And he is obvious cheater
1. Talking about cheating hacking parasites that have RUINED BF3, BF4, BF1 and now BFV, in a constructive manner is VERY difficult!
2. I think Dice/EA either misunderstand privacy laws or are abusing it in a dirty and underhand manner. Meaning privacy laws apply to legal birth names. Not aliasis or game names. Naming a cheaters public gaming name is NOT unlawful or illegal and never has been.
3. In roughly two Months I've personally reported over 3,000 cheaters hackers in BFV via origin. I would pay a premium of say around £30 ontop of game price for Dice/EA to employ staff purely to play BFV or future new games, with them having the ability to instantly suspend/ban cheaters.
4. Plenty of bfv cheaters own up to cheating in a huff/tantrum when I out them, even if their score is around a constant 25-4 which many think is normal clean score when actually even that isn't. BFV isn't BF4, you simply cannot get high kd without using wallhack and/or aimbot/damage modifier etc.
5. I have mixed views about having "admins" as lets not beat about the bush, many "admins" in BF4 for example are indeed cheaters/hackers themselves that cover for their hacking cheating mates. Many that have "VIP" slots are known cheaters that can't be votekicked or votebanned. Meaning actual banning should be done by Dice/EA Origin themselves.
6. Want to add that the censorship nonsense has gone to far. Can't even type "Tea Bag". BFV is a war game about killing.... it's an oxymoron to attack freedom of speech. You need to protect the childrens (sic).... I don't think so at all.
7. I play bfv in 4k on a 10 bit, 1,512 nit Samsung 43ks7500 tv, sure stuck at 60hz but BFV is a visually stunning game at times. Meaning, imagine the kudos headlines if BFV could truly became cheater free? Your stock/share prices would SURELY increase as there's MILLIONS of clean players sick to death of cheating hacking parasites! You would attract players that would not normally try the battlefield games, simply for the enjoyment and pleasure of playing a cheater free game.
Yeah, right....usually people like you who try to defend suspected players are usually a cheater.....gotta love it..."please don't ban me for being a good player" when in fact your a pos that can't play without cheating making the game suck for righteous players. I been gaming ( EA BF series for 20 years ) and love the whining that goes with being banned.... miss Punkbuster, still believe it's a great anti cheat engine.....but I will say this: if EA don't get a handle on this soon, they'll be taking a worse than they already have hit cause we'll find something else to play... not like there ain't a ton of **** out there..
Not considering cheat detection (which for me is a priority) that will never be perfect because cheat devs will alway do their best to avoid their hack being detected. The most important thing IMO is adding a better way to signal suspicious behavior. It is actually not convenient at all to report a cheater. We, Customers, paid to enjoy a game and chill, not to endure cheating issue nor spending hours strugguling with report system that is , in it actual state, a real mess.
One other thing we disscussed a lot (we are long time online gamer community) is the fact actually it really seems absolutely nothing is done to avoid cheaters.
-People can deal up to 10x legit damage with a weapon without the game preventing it? How is that possible, even the more basic anti-cheat system should be able to detect this. I met a few, they stayed in game as long as they wanted. (MAttiace did a video about it, this kind of cheater arn't even afraid to be detected, because there are nothing preventing this)
-People can land more than 60 headshots per minutes, simply running thru the map with a medium machin gun, killing people with a single bullet. You can argue this may be a really good player behavior. But in some case, this is just blatant use of cheats. Same fact, player get reported days ago, and this account is still active. The case i'm speaking about is a player running in rotterdam (bombed maps in ^part 3/3 of grand operation) with a lewis, instantly killing every single player that enter his field of view, able to land more than 5 headshots/second to players at various distance and far one from an other... This account is still active!
How the most basic anti cheat engine can't even detect that? Even player in his team where leaving not to be involved in that mess.
Maybe some communication, in a fair and honnest way could happen on thoses issues. Better admiting nothing was made until now to prevent cheating or admitting anti cheat engine was really broken. LAck of communication is leading to rumors that can hurt more than a dispointing truth.
We are not undereducated idiots, most of us can understand issues happen, but having an anti cheat system that on a AAA game that is not even able to detect what most basic indi games anti cheat can dois totally disapointing.
I know people working on anti cheats are not the same as who thoses are working on game content. but IMO, having new content is pointless if it cannot be enjoyed the way it was made for.
This game is not perfect, but IMO, it's great when you can enjoy it the fair way. But it's hard to enjoy it when 20-30% rounds are ruinned by one to several cheaters. Moreover, it's increasing suspicion within community and now, every single "lucky shots" every single "on fire player" (which can happen to anyone at some point) become instantly suspicious to everyone, wich is not helping to keep the geme fun and entertaining.
I hope improvment will come very soon, It's really needed.
War lost course this week, only cheater with no damage and aim bot. Mode with 32 player has no way to complete the quests because of those unfortunate. Look at the South American servers.
Sure hope EA can spectate without being seen, otherwise "Getting into Spectator mode and observing the player is your best bet to spot cheaters." isnt going to work.
-->And do you truly think relying on your player base to spectate potential or suspected cheaters is appropriate?
-->I paid to play this game, not to act as your manual cheat detector.
Shout out to DerMathiasNLD who spelled out several methods EA could be using to limit cheaters. He just made your job easier, now do what he says.
The very simple short answer is this
invest in Easy Anti cheat for now..
as a game company I am sure you are aware of most of the hacks cheats for your games.. these sites still make loads of cash and since you can not hardware ban.. a person simply buys a new origin account with even the same information and starts fresh cheating again..
One thing you do not see on even the paid hack sites is.. hacks or cheats for GAMES covered by Easy Anti Cheat I am sure it is comparable or even less of a cost of useless fairfight that The battlefield series uses now..
there is a game that has less then 5000 players that uses this anti cheat system so if they can afford it i am sure the big bucks at dice can as well
if you want a nice sheat free shooter experience get RS2 Vietnam uses easy anticheat and is a nice game to play
sorry brother fairfight is long since bypassed and it on the very low tier of anti cheats for coders to defeat
when DICe grows up maybe they will implement something like Easy Anticheat. you see ZERO paid hacks for games using that anti cheat
and if a small game like Rs2 Vietnam with less then 5K players can afford it DICE can also
(1) partnering with other developers to share data into a centralized, well-governed database, documenting IP addresses, MAC IDs, and other valid data to assess the location and source of cheaters. If a person is cheating in BF5, it is probably likely that they are cheating in other FPS games; sharing this data in a collaborative and effective fashion could be super effective. Notably, this shared database could also track other forms of abuse that players encounter such as extreme inappropriate behavior, which is also important to share information about. Ironically, this concept is already in place in our criminal justice system where if you commit a crime in one state, other states (if you live in the US) can access the data and see what you have done. A very similar analogy to the gaming community where it seems that each "state" (e.g. each developer) is not sharing data with the others, and big offenders and bad characters are doing the same "crimes" in each and every state, without any consequence.
(2) on a related note, sharing RESOURCES to develop and foster a sophisticated anti-cheat software program would be money well-spent on a collaborative basis. There are, of course, several companies doing this currently, but the industry consortium could perhaps fund a special project with all of these developers to create something really special. In my opinion, the anti-cheat industry is doing the best that it can on limited resources, and trying to stay ahead of some very sophisticated developers of cheating software (aimbots, ESP, wall hacks, etc.), who are always a step ahead. The industry needs to develop a true coalition to fund and defeat cheaters, which are a cancer to the entire industry.
From a financial perspective, I would suspect that each developer could simply allocate the same $$$ that they are currently spending on this issue and if it were to be consolidated and shared between several developers, the synergistic effects could be huge.
Note - realistically, not all developers would immediately sign onto this platform, but even if 2-3 did, it would create vast economies of scale and effectiveness for those in the ecosystem.
Very frankly, many of the ideas that you mention above are just touching the tip of the iceberg, without addressing the bulk of the problem. Basic solutions may win you a bit of positive PR and may make some of your members feel good for a bit, but if cheaters are still there day in and day out, then the player base will continue to get frustrated and leave the game. Something big needs to be done long-term. I encourage you to share this idea with senior people that can truly implement this, because it is a very strategic initiative that only senior management can pull off. No offense to all of those hard-working people on the front-lines dealing with the cheaters, but this needs a vast and material shift in thinking.
Many thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts.
It can be broken into 2 categories
Mandatory 2FA would probably help with rampant reselling of hacked accounts, but another step can also be hardware-based profile linking. Basically, connect specific PC configuration with the specific owners account. Yes, it would make it more complicated to change or upgrade your gaming rig, but if there's a built in threshold that would allow for example to change your GPU and a disk, but not at the same time with the rest of the components, it could work. Or if the account ends up falsely flagged, revert to 2FA as backup.
I don't think there's a way to completely stop cheaters, what needs to be done is to make their cheating so hard and complicated and risky that it simply doesn't pay off. Right now a cheater will buy a new account for a few $ and continue with his trolling as if nothing happened. I'm sure it'd be a different story if every time they were banned meant that they need to buy a full price account.
Community can certainly help with the reports, which should definitively be made easier - most users don't even know how to report a suspected cheater. But there has to be some sort of filtering, since people will sometimes assume that someone is cheating while the cause of the situation can be something entirely else. Yesterday I was shot through a stone wall. I knew I was in full cover and I also knew that there's no way the person that shot me could've done it from their position. So I went and looked at the shadowplay video I saved. I received 2 shots while I was exposed and 2 while I was in full cover. At least that's how it looked like from my perspective. But this person wasn't cheating. His stats are completely average, there's absolutely nothing to indicate foul play - It was simply a netcode error and if I didn't have the recording, I would've cried "wall hack".
There should probably be some sort of cumulative reporting system that would kick offline players that get a large number of cheating reports within the same couple of hours. Flag their profile, put them offline and have someone review the case. If it's all legit, return the profile. If not, ban them.
Most importantly: run a continuous PR campaign addressing this issue. Right now Youtube is FULL of cheating videos, which causes a sense of paranoia within the community. If you guys would come out and say "we banned these 10 people last week, our legal team has taken action against them" and do this week after week it would help with the current feeling like nothing is being done about it. You simply need to acknowledge there's a problem, educate the community on how to spot cheaters, how to help, why is cheating bad etc. and create a positive community reaction.
Well because PC is a much more open environment with a lot more variables they cannot control.
Yeah lets get back Punkbuster! It used to be great or atleast a lot better than this
Okay, fair point. However, nothing can be recreated that would prove helpful in this dicussion, even if it is for future releases?
I must admit that playing on console, tes I have BFV on console and PV, feels kind of satisfying and safe.
What is stopping EA from banding with other game producers to request the removal of cheating related videos from YouTube and taking down websites ore removing them from searches?
Will EA lobby governments to specifically outlaw the production of cheats in video games and work with law enforcement and the courts to pursue those who do make them?