Is Exploiting Rampant?

SBFord · May 2016

Is Exploiting Rampant?

It appears that exploiting is a thing in Black Desert Online. Although I’ve never seen anyone use an exploit, there have been plenty of threads, posts and comments in recent months to suggest it is happening. That’s not entirely surprising as players will always cheat, in any genre, as long as there are gains to be made.

Read the full story here

Alomar · May 2016

I've always taken a strong anti-exploiting standpoint in the over 30 mmo's I've played to date. Even ones that are simple and don't affect others simply serve to ruin the foundation of what was "intended gameplay/progression" from developers. If a game has horrible systems and features, then don't play them, there's never the need to cheat. Even when certain classes, weapon-types, skills, items, etc. have been broken and offered temporary advantages in pvp I stay clear of them and that is as a hardcore pvper. It's human nature for there to be a segment, usually small, who are deviant in nature and simply wish to be destructive in whatever form they can, for nerds that's exploiting in video games or hacking.

Regarding BDO, I haven't seen any hp or resource based exploits like were mentioned on the official forums last month. Yet, that is something that is much more difficult to tell seeing as we're only able to see a small and not clearly defined hp bars of enemies and not able to see their resource bars at all. Though I have encountered at least 10 individuals who are able to spam powerful abilities in combat that normally have a cool down, shotgun for rangers has been the most common. Their guilds know about them and use them to their advantage in pvp, no punishment has been handed down to them even though I've seen videos and countless support tickets placed on them.

I'm a huge fan on perma-bans, yet that appears to be the least common form of punishment from game companies these days. While I dislike WoW, I admire Blizzard's strong stance against cheating. If a company feels like they would loose too many costumers with perma-bans, then they're out of touch. The setting/atmosphere of a game that most mmo players wish to have in the mmo's they spend not just the few months after launch in, but years post launch is not one riddled with rampant cheating.

Ozmodan · May 2016

Duh, how could you have played this game and NOT seen someone exploiting it? It is a rather common experience in Black Desert. I guess if you wear blinders while playing you might miss all the bots, but pretty hard to miss those hacking it.

If you write an article about a game you should at least be familiar with it and it's mechanics. I was bored and logged in yesterday and saw 3 bots in 5 minutes and someone else using a obvious power hack. Oh and it is complete waste of time to report them.

SpottyGekko · May 2016

Cheating in all types of online games is widespread nowadays, not just BDO.

It must be, because there are several third-party websites that sell cheat programs and some even charge a monthly sub to use their cheat tools, lmao

Finally I understand why nobody wants to play subscription-based MMO's anymore, lol, they need those sub fees to pay for their cheat programs !

Most of those websites have very active forums, so evidently they have plenty of customers.

ceratop001 · May 2016

Quote from your Story:

My Answers:

Have you encountered exploiters in Black Desert Online?

Yes I have.

Do you think it’s prevalent?

A bit more than usual.

Does it even bother you if it is?

Honestly It does not bother me at all. I could care less about hacking because I have internally accepted the fact it exists in all games and I can't change it.

How do you think those who exploit should be treated? Let me know.

If caught they should be permanently banned. A good old school hacker will remain very low key and never get caught. This type of hacker rarely upsets anyone. So I say ban them forever because they got caught.

Iselin · May 2016

All of those cheat sites that show up at the top of google searches when you search for the name of any MMO plus the word cheat or hack have been around for many years and their forum activity is directly proportional to the popularity of the game. This is not new.

Hacking and botting has been a thing in MMOs ever since there have been MMOs, and so has been dissing games you don't like on the basis of the cheating in it. It's a more effective way for trolls to try to ruin the reputation of games they would troll for any reason they can think of.

So how common is it in BDO compared to other games? I honestly have no idea. By the OP's own rationale of cheating being something you grow out of as you mature, it makes sense that the younger the demographics are for a game the more cheating there will be in it. So is it a younger demographic playing BDO? IDK that either.

pantaro · May 2016

Ozmodan said:

Duh, how could you have played this game and NOT seen someone exploiting it? It is a rather common experience in Black Desert. I guess if you wear blinders while playing you might miss all the bots, but pretty hard to miss those hacking it.

If you write an article about a game you should at least be familiar with it and it's mechanics. I was bored and logged in yesterday and saw 3 bots in 5 minutes and someone else using a obvious power hack. Oh and it is complete waste of time to report them.

because i'm, too busy with my head down crafting all the things lol

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5022221/uploads/editor/0h/kb4h6tv1v46f.jpg

Iselin · May 2016

DMKano said:

Iselin said:

Hacking and botting has been a thing in MMOs ever since there have been MMOs, and so has been dissing games you don't like on the basis of the cheating in it. It's a more effective way for trolls to try to ruin the reputation of games they would troll for any reason they can think of.

You keep leaving one very important part out - the severity of BDO exploits

HP/energy/skill cooldown - this is well beyond what's been done in other games. It's on a pretty epic-fail scale IMO

Speed hacking - it's common, AH sniping - common, teleporting - common, even duping is relatively common - but BDO takes the crown as far as allowing HP/energy and skill cooldown to not be checked by the server.

I'm not leaving it out, you are. I clearly said in the part you didn't quote that I really don't know.

What I do know is that I've seen hacking and botting first hand in other MMOs I've played to a greater extent than I've seen in BDO with my own eyes. That includes WOW, ESO and Archeage.

It simply could be that I'm just oblivious and clueless... or it could be something else.

holdenhamlet · May 2016

Exploiting and hacking are two different things. I personally do neither, but I do think they should be punished differently, but both severely. Long term bans for exploiting and perma-bans for hacking.

To hack, you have to write or install a program to manipulate the game. Exploiting is done just using flawed in-game mechanics, so I don't know if permanent bans are warranted. Sentences should be given based on severity imo (but again, they should be at least like a month for using a known exploit).

"When you have companies such as Blizzard, ArenaNet or Epic providing instant, lifetime bans for exploiting - while often publicly shaming - it seems bizarre that Daum haven’t followed suit."

I do think Daum is not setting enough of a precident for harsh punishment. People should be afraid to hack or exploit, and some are not currently (although I wouldn't feel safe doing it since they can change their softer stance anytime they wish and your account would be at risk).

But compared to say NcSoft who says virtually nothing and does the same, Daum is at least being fairly vocal and have started a player-run initiative to find hackers.

Anyway, I haven't seen an exploiter or hacker, but I'm not high level yet so that may change.

Regardless, I'll play the game like I play any game- legit. If it turns out I can't compete at endgame because of hackers/exploiters, I'll simply quit at that point. It certainly wouldn't be worth it to become a hacker/exploiter myself as that would ruin any sense of accomplishment I get from the game.

Viper482 · May 2016

DMKano said:

The answer is it rampant or not will highly depend on the player's exposure to it which is based on each players style of play.

Solo players under level 50 who mostly craft/level horses/fish - not rampant at all - because you'll likely never see a single hacker. This entire hacking thing might seem like a complete fantasy to player like this.

50+ players hunting in highly contested areas - you've probably been near hackers and not even realized - you may have seen people blatantly hacking if hunting Ogres/Susans or World Bosses. Chances of seeing hackers are moderate.

55+ PvP players - you probably know people who are hacking, might even have some in your guild - might even be hacking yourself - this is where the Rampant category fits, as you're likely to see it every night. Pirate island people call Hacker's island lol - because it's that bad

But how rampant is it really as far as OVERALL playerbase?

If you go to popular forums where MMO hacks are sold and used - you'll notice that there are thousands of users in BDO forums, and since only a small % post in forums - the real number is significantly higher (also there are several flavors of the hack - so a single forum doesn't even encompass it all - you'd have to go to multiple forums).

This is my guess - out of 100K active concurrent nightly users in BDO (lets assume this number didn't go down in the last couple of months) - what % are running hacks?

I'd say anywhere from 5% (assuming 5K active hack forum posters are all there is) - to 25% - assuming that there are many more who us the exploit but never post in hack forums.

My personal gut feeling is that probably a 10% are hacking - it's widespread - because guilds are sharing the hack with their members now so it keeps growing.

Why did it get this bad - well the hack itself is super easy to do - and the godmode that it provides is just crazy good - HP that doesn't go down and being able to spam skills at will without cooldown - gravy train.

Add Daum's very poor response so far (they are severely understaffed to tackle this problem with GMs) which forced them to basically ask the players to do the work for them (hacker hunting program) - it's not good.

As long as Daum doesn't address this in code - it's going to get worse. I know they delayed Valencia to work on the hacking issue - I hope they can pull it off

I fonly we got this much out of you concerning AA hacking and lack of response by Trion.

kyse2 · May 2016

if mmos in NA would just make us sign up using our ssn then i think we would have less cheaters :P

LIOKI · May 2016

It's Hack Desert Online no?

MrMelGibson · May 2016

DMKano said:

The answer is it rampant or not will highly depend on the player's exposure to it which is based on each players style of play.

Solo players under level 50 who mostly craft/level horses/fish - not rampant at all - because you'll likely never see a single hacker. This entire hacking thing might seem like a complete fantasy to player like this.

50+ players hunting in highly contested areas - you've probably been near hackers and not even realized - you may have seen people blatantly hacking if hunting Ogres/Susans or World Bosses. Chances of seeing hackers are moderate.

55+ PvP players - you probably know people who are hacking, might even have some in your guild - might even be hacking yourself - this is where the Rampant category fits, as you're likely to see it every night. Pirate island people call Hacker's island lol - because it's that bad

But how rampant is it really as far as OVERALL playerbase?

If you go to popular forums where MMO hacks are sold and used - you'll notice that there are thousands of users in BDO forums, and since only a small % post in forums - the real number is significantly higher (also there are several flavors of the hack - so a single forum doesn't even encompass it all - you'd have to go to multiple forums).

This is my guess - out of 100K active concurrent nightly users in BDO (lets assume this number didn't go down in the last couple of months) - what % are running hacks?

I'd say anywhere from 5% (assuming 5K active hack forum posters are all there is) - to 25% - assuming that there are many more who us the exploit but never post in hack forums.

My personal gut feeling is that probably a 10% are hacking - it's widespread - because guilds are sharing the hack with their members now so it keeps growing.

Why did it get this bad - well the hack itself is super easy to do - and the godmode that it provides is just crazy good - HP that doesn't go down and being able to spam skills at will without cooldown - gravy train.

Add Daum's very poor response so far (they are severely understaffed to tackle this problem with GMs) which forced them to basically ask the players to do the work for them (hacker hunting program) - it's not good.

As long as Daum doesn't address this in code - it's going to get worse. I know they delayed Valencia to work on the hacking issue - I hope they can pull it off

While you make good points. I find it funny when very similar hacking (probably still to this day) was happening in AA and all I ever saw was you defending the game and publisher. Yet, with BDO you seem to be on a crusade. Not sure why that is. Maybe you are finding people in your guild or gaming circles leaving trion to go to BDO. Maybe you had a bad experience while in BDO. No one will really know. Either way, its hard to take what you're saying as genuine and not just an axe to grind with BDO.

fodell54 · May 2016

I don't mean to offend anyone or cause any problems. However, isn't posting an article with pictures of a hack that says the creators name "Hags-Club" a violation of your own terms of use? I mean your almost promoting it for someone that wouldn't know where to get the hack.

Under Medium Infractions is says,

3rd Party Programs
MMORPG.com does not allow forum discussion concerning programs that go against a game's EULA. This includes, but is not limited to, third party programs to automate gameplay or gain an unfair advantage over other players. Please check with your specific game's EULA for more details on what is or isn't allowed.
mmorpg.com/disclaimers.cfm#conduct

Isn't that what is being done here?

arrgy · May 2016

Just last night, OSG was camped at a World Boss taking out people in one shot left and right. It got so bad that the World Boss crashed. He even went on general chat to brag about it. AH bots are even worse. So does it happen, yes and it happens too much. Problem is the damage is already done, these players are already well ahead of the curve. So I don't even know how they intend to fix it, if they want to fix it at all.

This game never should have had so much client side abilities, spells, stats, etc. is almost completely client side driven in this game.

MrMelGibson · May 2016

DMKano said:

MrMelGibson said:

DMKano said:

The answer is it rampant or not will highly depend on the player's exposure to it which is based on each players style of play.

Solo players under level 50 who mostly craft/level horses/fish - not rampant at all - because you'll likely never see a single hacker. This entire hacking thing might seem like a complete fantasy to player like this.

50+ players hunting in highly contested areas - you've probably been near hackers and not even realized - you may have seen people blatantly hacking if hunting Ogres/Susans or World Bosses. Chances of seeing hackers are moderate.

55+ PvP players - you probably know people who are hacking, might even have some in your guild - might even be hacking yourself - this is where the Rampant category fits, as you're likely to see it every night. Pirate island people call Hacker's island lol - because it's that bad

But how rampant is it really as far as OVERALL playerbase?

If you go to popular forums where MMO hacks are sold and used - you'll notice that there are thousands of users in BDO forums, and since only a small % post in forums - the real number is significantly higher (also there are several flavors of the hack - so a single forum doesn't even encompass it all - you'd have to go to multiple forums).

This is my guess - out of 100K active concurrent nightly users in BDO (lets assume this number didn't go down in the last couple of months) - what % are running hacks?

I'd say anywhere from 5% (assuming 5K active hack forum posters are all there is) - to 25% - assuming that there are many more who us the exploit but never post in hack forums.

My personal gut feeling is that probably a 10% are hacking - it's widespread - because guilds are sharing the hack with their members now so it keeps growing.

Why did it get this bad - well the hack itself is super easy to do - and the godmode that it provides is just crazy good - HP that doesn't go down and being able to spam skills at will without cooldown - gravy train.

Add Daum's very poor response so far (they are severely understaffed to tackle this problem with GMs) which forced them to basically ask the players to do the work for them (hacker hunting program) - it's not good.

As long as Daum doesn't address this in code - it's going to get worse. I know they delayed Valencia to work on the hacking issue - I hope they can pull it off

While you make good points. I find it funny when very similar hacking (probably still to this day) was happening in AA and all I ever saw was you defending the game and publisher. Yet, with BDO you seem to be on a crusade. Not sure why that is. Maybe you are finding people in your guild or gaming circles leaving trion to go to BDO. Maybe you had a bad experience while in BDO. No one will really know. Either way, its hard to take what you're saying as genuine and not just an axe to grind with BDO.

Even if I had an axe to grind with BDO, you could still focus on and debate the points I am making instead of focusing on whatever personal bias.

When people have an axe to grind the points they bring up don't hold up to scrutiny.

The points can be scrutinized on their own, pretend that it was written by an anonymous poster and see if they hold any water.

If the message is full of false information then that will reveal the messengers malicious intent.

Funny, I don't recall you being so objective with AA and it's horde of problems. So, I'll just stick with you have an axe to grind. BTW, if it was another poster. I would of came to the same conclusion based off that posters (you) post history.

Tiamat64 · May 2016

Whether or not people stick around in BDO despite it being a hack-filled mess just because some people think DMKano has an axe to grind doesn't really matter anyways, I suppose. Daum already has their money. Hooray for buy-to-play!

JDis25 · May 2016

Best way for companies who need to stop this kind of stuff short term is to hand out hefty bans. fear is a hell of a motivator to stop shit like this while you work on how work the tech to prevent it.

Razeekster · May 2016

Daum is a very small company compared to the scope of their game too. I can honestly see how they are unable to get a handle on bots, they need more staff. Don't understand it when they've made a killing off of the game.

Razeekster · May 2016

MrMelGibson said:

DMKano said:

MrMelGibson said:

DMKano said:

The answer is it rampant or not will highly depend on the player's exposure to it which is based on each players style of play.

Solo players under level 50 who mostly craft/level horses/fish - not rampant at all - because you'll likely never see a single hacker. This entire hacking thing might seem like a complete fantasy to player like this.

50+ players hunting in highly contested areas - you've probably been near hackers and not even realized - you may have seen people blatantly hacking if hunting Ogres/Susans or World Bosses. Chances of seeing hackers are moderate.

55+ PvP players - you probably know people who are hacking, might even have some in your guild - might even be hacking yourself - this is where the Rampant category fits, as you're likely to see it every night. Pirate island people call Hacker's island lol - because it's that bad

But how rampant is it really as far as OVERALL playerbase?

If you go to popular forums where MMO hacks are sold and used - you'll notice that there are thousands of users in BDO forums, and since only a small % post in forums - the real number is significantly higher (also there are several flavors of the hack - so a single forum doesn't even encompass it all - you'd have to go to multiple forums).

This is my guess - out of 100K active concurrent nightly users in BDO (lets assume this number didn't go down in the last couple of months) - what % are running hacks?

I'd say anywhere from 5% (assuming 5K active hack forum posters are all there is) - to 25% - assuming that there are many more who us the exploit but never post in hack forums.

My personal gut feeling is that probably a 10% are hacking - it's widespread - because guilds are sharing the hack with their members now so it keeps growing.

Why did it get this bad - well the hack itself is super easy to do - and the godmode that it provides is just crazy good - HP that doesn't go down and being able to spam skills at will without cooldown - gravy train.

Add Daum's very poor response so far (they are severely understaffed to tackle this problem with GMs) which forced them to basically ask the players to do the work for them (hacker hunting program) - it's not good.

As long as Daum doesn't address this in code - it's going to get worse. I know they delayed Valencia to work on the hacking issue - I hope they can pull it off

While you make good points. I find it funny when very similar hacking (probably still to this day) was happening in AA and all I ever saw was you defending the game and publisher. Yet, with BDO you seem to be on a crusade. Not sure why that is. Maybe you are finding people in your guild or gaming circles leaving trion to go to BDO. Maybe you had a bad experience while in BDO. No one will really know. Either way, its hard to take what you're saying as genuine and not just an axe to grind with BDO.

Even if I had an axe to grind with BDO, you could still focus on and debate the points I am making instead of focusing on whatever personal bias.

When people have an axe to grind the points they bring up don't hold up to scrutiny.

The points can be scrutinized on their own, pretend that it was written by an anonymous poster and see if they hold any water.

If the message is full of false information then that will reveal the messengers malicious intent.

Funny, I don't recall you being so objective with AA and it's horde of problems. So, I'll just stick with you have an axe to grind. BTW, if it was another poster. I would of came to the same conclusion based off that posters (you) post history.

It doesn't even seem like you read his post at all. I don't even know why you'd call it out as him "having an axe to grind" with BDO when the points he made were valid and he just wants the game to be bot free. He wants what's best for the game... yet he obviously is just hating on BDO. Sorry, that train of thought is not logical at all.

Deltois · May 2016

Sounds fun, lol.

blutm8 · May 2016

someone once told me in (some) asia countries you have to use your personal id to register on the mmo website. to be honesti think it's a very good idea. it would make things easier for the company to punish players. because hacks / cheats / exploits can (just can) ruin a game and it's company and they would be able to take legal actions against players in real-life. i think that would be the only real possibility to stop players from cheating, hacking and exploiting. and it would make it easier to perma-ban players. at the moment if you get perma banned you can still make a new account with false personal informations, VPN for fake ip and the company will (most likely) not recognize it. if you are forced to register with your personal id the complete thing would change (in many ways)... on the other hand i think a huge amount of players would stop playing mmo's because of that... which would be better in my opinion

so again i think the only real possibility to stop cheaters, hackers and exploiters is a registration with personal id

Dr_Binks · May 2016

Yes there is a lot of both going on from marketplace bots to speed hacking. In fact just tonigth our guild was talking about this and we're not happy with it at all. As a PvP guild we run into speed hackers all the time and beleave me it's not fun fighting anyone who has no cool downs and can just spam their altie all the time. It also effects the drops you will get at world boss because of the amount of damage these hackers are doing.
Black Desert is a fun game, and if they cannot get this under control it will kill the game.

To me a exploit is just as bad as a hack if peeps use the exploit too get more of what ever, if they dont report it, and I think the hackers and such should be perma ban. We all have to realalize that this is a cancer that if its unchecked will just run the honest peeps out of the game

Darkcrystal · May 2016

SpottyGekko said:

Cheating in all types of online games is widespread nowadays, not just BDO.

It must be, because there are several third-party websites that sell cheat programs and some even charge a monthly sub to use their cheat tools, lmao

Finally I understand why nobody wants to play subscription-based MMO's anymore, lol, they need those sub fees to pay for their cheat programs !

Most of those websites have very active forums, so evidently they have plenty of customers.

not true, I was a long time MMO gamer and had a community for 17 year, the reason why we dislike sub base is because people are not playing them for years like we used to, people play for a few months and leave, and many play more than 1 game these days..Another reason, alot of people can't play games like this every single day... like we uses to we have lives ..

So I for one used to love sub based games, now I hate free to play but I can't stand sub based one I refuse to play them...I like Guild War way of doing it and ESO does it right, they do big updates and sell it... Which is fine by me...

Darkcrystal · May 2016

Dr.Nicktu said:

Yes there is a lot of both going on from marketplace bots to speed hacking. In fact just tonigth our guild was talking about this and we're not happy with it at all. As a PvP guild we run into speed hackers all the time and beleave me it's not fun fighting anyone who has no cool downs and can just spam their altie all the time. It also effects the drops you will get at world boss because of the amount of damage these hackers are doing.

Black Desert is a fun game, and if they cannot get this under control it will kill the game.

To me a exploit is just as bad as a hack if peeps use the exploit too get more of what ever, if they dont report it, and I think the hackers and such should be perma ban. We all have to realalize that this is a cancer that if its unchecked will just run the honest peeps out of the game

They need to perma ban people and take a stand, I been saying this about games period issue is, to many big shots run the show and only care about money, so this is what happens I got into the development field to help make games better but I see what the issue is, its the people up stairs that get in the way of developers...This is why more indie companys are coming around, so we do not have people like that in our way... Black Desert Must take a stand, or they will regret it..

Darkcrystal · May 2016

blutm8 said:

someone once told me in (some) asia countries you have to use your personal id to register on the mmo website. to be honesti think it's a very good idea. it would make things easier for the company to punish players. because hacks / cheats / exploits can (just can) ruin a game and it's company and they would be able to take legal actions against players in real-life. i think that would be the only real possibility to stop players from cheating, hacking and exploiting. and it would make it easier to perma-ban players. at the moment if you get perma banned you can still make a new account with false personal informations, VPN for fake ip and the company will (most likely) not recognize it. if you are forced to register with your personal id the complete thing would change (in many ways)... on the other hand i think a huge amount of players would stop playing mmo's because of that... which would be better in my opinion

so again i think the only real possibility to stop cheaters, hackers and exploiters is a registration with personal id

Being someone who has studied Game development and been in the field for 15 year, I also have been in business for many years, this does not work....There are to many laws and country to country is hard to go after anyone.... I have contracted people from Canada and ran into issues on that end, where I got screwed and had no way to go after them..... I had a contract as well..But every country , state, city etc has there own laws... So good luck there... This is very limiting, since many hacks come from over seas's...

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