I don't want to add too much to the fire here, but I'm curious what you guys think about hackers that aren't idiots.
So far we've all been talking about hackers that blatently go up in your face in god-mode and kill you, literally screaming "I am a hacker".
But what about the hackers that don't do that? How much faster can they blow through the grind and upgrade that much faster than legit players?
It seems to me a smart hacker would do all their hacking in PVE and then come and own you "legit" with their overpowered gear.
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good luck finding one of those!
Either way most hackers slip up sooner or later, or just get bored and move on.
This have been a good conversation
The problem is and ALWAYS will be server side versus client side and no game is going to nor can it run 100% client side nor can it constantly check client side files.
SO what is the answer??Well as already witnessed a developer would have to RISK utilizing lawyers and try to convince a judge that the cheating hacking has cost them money allowing for lawsuits that would deter the cheats.Also ACTIVE/proactive GM's instead of LAZY reaction GM's goes a long way to deter cheats,especially if you ban their account within a day or two making it a costly endeavor to cheat and reboot a new account.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The trick is to remain merely "above average" in your progress/results. The moment you start looking "godly" is when the axe falls. Not many players have the required patience and restraint though. Thankfully !
Believe me, I find it crazy that this is true but it seems to be (and it's not unique to BDO either, it seems most games do not have the capability to trace gamebreaking behavior)..
So my question is- how can the player initiative work if hackers are actually careful and don't hack when other people they don't trust are around?
It is strange. I know in Elite they require proof when people log off during combat to avoid getting their spaceship blown up but seeing the player to player instances are peer-to-peer and it's a specific type of activity being exploited it's understandable to ask for proof, which we know they then verify via server logs etc.
To have so many things exploitable in a server->client model and require player reporting/proof for all? of these things is a bit worrying.
Hopefully they can get on top of it asap.
Few companies would put the kind of energy into stopping cheaters that WoW did and yet they still had thousands of cheaters. Good luck with BD.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Players seem to think that there are "smoking guns" to solve the cheating problem but I suspect that there are just many tools in their arsenal.
It's like the posts where someone says "just put a gm on chat and every time there is a gold seller ban them. Why don't they do that it would solve their problem".
That won't solve anything. that's what? a handful of gold sellers among hundreds or more? Now, I'm all for having in game gm's that monitor chat but that's not about solving cheaters/gold sellers. That's about PR.
It shows that the game company is being vigilant. This actually doesn't negate that game companies ARE being vigilant by using other tactics that flag thousands of cheaters/gold sellers but players don't see that. All they see is chat and they think that nothing is being done.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Whatever tools they have will have to be automated at this point considering how many videos the GM team is going to be going through.
Keep in mind I'm not saying this is exclusive to BDO, although the extent that hackers can interfere with your gameplay may be more significant than most MMOs since the game is based on OWPVP at endgame, not to mention I'm not aware of another MMO that has hp/mp on client side.
What's especially strange is that everyone that plays this and BnS literally has an additional program installed on their computer that logs all activity on the computer. But apparently these programs are completely inept at doing anything, which further begs the question wtf are they doing on my computer logging all my activity?
It's really not a pretty picture.
Both Daum and NcSoft are big enough companies that they would easily be able to divert resources to do what Octagon7711 said Blizzard does in this thread. Sure you'll never get rid of everything, but you should be able to get rid of the most obvious stuff at least.
The only reason they wouldn't is they perceive net losses from hacking are less than the cost of dealing with it. That's a crappy attitude. Say what you want about Blizzard but they care about their games.
Daum and NcSoft would do well to look at Blizzard's profits and how they treat their games and reflect on their own portfolios.
I think these companies are too greedy. It reminds me of a recent topic I made on BnS reddit suggesting that hongmoon skills be unlocked for Arena to promote "true equalized PVP". NcSoft actually made a reply, but their answer was, "The real question is do you think serious PVPers would be interested in having these skills in the cash shop?"
Tons of threads about bots and hackers and the one they choose to respond to is mine, only to ask if we think they could sell new stuff in the shop.
I do think Daum's player initiative is a good thing. It is at least a response. My point in this thread is just asking how much will it really do.
1) It ruins the game.... like using drugs, it's amazing at first, then it just starts to suck.
2) After using it, you feel like you can't live without it. You usually feel naked when you don't have the cheat but you know other people are using it.
3) Never, ever do anything obvious. Offensive cheating is a bad idea, defensive cheating is a lot more productive.
4) Agree with people who call you a hacker and mock them, yeah... I'm hacking LOL if that makes you feel better about yourself l2play n00bz0r.
5) I never got caught because I was always vigilant about who was online and what they were in to. If I've never seen a guy before, there's no way I'd ever do anything close to looking like a hack.
So anyway, yes there are hackers that aren't idiots. Many games actually tolerate these people. On the game I hacked while playing for 7 years I used to give my exploits to the player GMs in exchange for being overlooked.
Anyhow, that's been more than 8 years.