Notice A statement on cheating in Elite Dangerous.

[Northpin]

As far as what you see I'd ditch the headgear!

The headgear might be defective, yea... or maybe not. Luckily, it's not comfortable at all, so not wearing it much.
Anyway, i'm not a native english speaker - had to google up that pearl clutchy thing - nice expression btw, everyday learning something

 

[Riverside]

It is possible to be extremely irritating while remaining entirely within the rules

 

[znôrt]

and the results? way more cheaters than before as far as i see

a consequence of a defect of the game being exposed, which should be a good thing for anyone that somehow values the game.

now it can be fixed.
(and here's where we need your seemingly inconditional faith in frontier to bear fruit. brothers! let's all gather and pray!)

 

[Northpin]

now it can be fixed.

Not if it costs money, a complete re-write of the netcode and a monthly subscription.
All those being already decided against in the kick-starter phase.

 

[Slade Greymane]

First off i didnt rage quit, nothing to rage about cheaters have made the game unfun and i simply stepped away, as for reporting said rear ends i have on several instances reported said rear ends and nothing has happened to them after 6 months of the same cheaters still playing so why bother its easier to boycott frontier than it is to do their damn jobs for them.

Like i said if all of us honest players stepped away from all of frontiers products and store purchases for 30 days they would deffinately step up to the plate and do whats needed because their wallet is taking a hit and bottom line for any company is money, even frontier because if they gave a damn we wouldnt have this issue as wide spread as it is.

Again all my opinion and if ya dont like my opinion thats your right but dont assume or place words in my posts that i never said or implied ( rage quiting as stated a few posts ago ) .

 

[Screemonster]

a consequence of a defect of the game being exposed, which should be a good thing for anyone that somehow values the game.

now it can be fixed.
(and here's where we need your seemingly inconditional faith in frontier to bear fruit. brothers! let's all gather and pray!)

This sort of thing is standard practice in the infosec community. Find a vulnerability, inform the developers, and give them a deadline before going public with the vuln if they don't do anything to fix it. It motivates developers to fix their products before the public disclosure allows every dog and his uncle to exploit the problem - the problem is, "if you don't act we'll go public" has to be an actual threat with teeth in order for it to work. If people get yelled at for going public, that only encourages devs to sit on problems forever when they're told about them because it'll be the reporting parties that are considered the "bad guys" for exposing them, rather than themselves for allowing a vulnerability to exist without doing anything about it.

 

[ryan_m]

This sort of thing is standard practice in the infosec community. Find a vulnerability, inform the developers, and give them a deadline before going public with the vuln if they don't do anything to fix it. It motivates developers to fix their products before the public disclosure allows every dog and his uncle to exploit the problem - the problem is, "if you don't act we'll go public" has to be an actual threat with teeth in order for it to work. If people get yelled at for going public, that only encourages devs to sit on problems forever when they're told about them because it'll be the reporting parties that are considered the "bad guys" for exposing them, rather than themselves for allowing a vulnerability to exist without doing anything about it.

Exactly. It's not my problem that FDev has active hacks in the game, it's theirs. Best I can do is inform them of it and motivate them to fix it, which I did.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

What do you think FD will do then?

I think they will keep doing what I think they are doing. Looking for ways to stop the current version, looking to prevent future versions (because even if they shut this version down, there will be new hacks), and ban people they find to be cheating, hopefully though with a bit stronger punishments than before.

What do i think the community will do?

Keep raging for a few more weeks, until it all blows over. Toys will be thrown out of prams, dummies spat out. The usual.

What do i think the hackers will do?

They will continue churning out new versions with new features as long as they are interested in it. If FD stops a hack from working, that's a challenge, they will make a version which bypasses the current protection. FD might concievably make some protection that stops them for a few weeks or months. Forever? Not likely, but a possibility.

What do i think the cheaters will do?

Those who care about their accounts, might, if they get a permaban, stop cheating, very possibly stop playing altogether (look on the cheat forums how many say the game is boring without cheats... because somehow flying with god on mode isn't boring?). Those who don't care about their accounts and have a bit of spare cash will just fire up alt accounts and keep cheating.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Exactly. It's not my problem that FDev has active hacks in the game, it's theirs. Best I can do is inform them of it and motivate them to fix it, which I did.

So you are claiming that without your "motivation" FD wouldn't be trying to fix the hacks? Interesting point of view. Not even slightly egotistical! /s

 

[epicbubble]

So you are claiming that without your "motivation" FD wouldn't be trying to fix the hacks? Interesting point of view. Not even slightly egotistical! /s

I strongly doubt pointless bickering will help fdev resolve this situation sooner.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I strongly doubt pointless bickering will help fdev resolve this situation sooner.

Fair point, but there again, neither will the hysterics or claims people are making either. Devs will do what the devs will do.

 

[Troopi]

People, calm down. Hackers are a deadly bunch. Don't think that you can get ahead of them in the long run. At best, you can force a hacker to sweat for a week, if he is an average one. I don't think there's any sure-fire way to beat them at all. Anti-cheat procedures are always a race against the hacker's patience.
The real problem here with ED, is that the "competitive" ambiance it is based upon is a lure to hackers and cheaters. If ED really wants to stay ahead of them, they'll have to invest A LOT of resources in anti-cheat measures.
But I don't think that such pressure was their intent in making the game. So, once again I must tell you, create your own pvp groups. Play there with your friends. Forget BGS and PP, the game plays well enough without it. Make your won journeys, Role Play your factions, old style. Have fun outside of the cheaters' reach.

 

[Kavendish T.]

I am not good at programming. Please do not judge strictly. The game keeps a log and records all the parameters of the pilot and his ship, which have a limit to n development when playing fair. Unless it is impossible to automate the verification of compliance of these parameters if someone uses a cheat giving + 20% damage / shield recovery / acceleration speed and so on beyond the maximum allowed?

 

[Hanerib]

Active cheats in the game is not a fair, safe environment. How am I supposed to know I am not instanced to someone hacking the game, or what they can do? I don't want to have anything to do with this game until the issue is solved. Good summer to you all.

 

[domingo]

I am not good at programming. Please do not judge strictly. The game keeps a log and records all the parameters of the pilot and his ship, which have a limit to n development when playing fair. Unless it is impossible to automate the verification of compliance of these parameters if someone uses a cheat giving + 20% damage / shield recovery / acceleration speed and so on beyond the maximum allowed?

The game is de-facto designed as single player with some modifications to enable peer to peer playing.

Then there are 'servers' - but their function is mostly only:

• remotely store player data
• pairing with other players (Open, PGs)

The client has the highest say in this architecture, that's why cheating/hacking is so successful - trick the client by memory manipulation and you've 'won'.
While this architecture is quite effective when all clients play fair, it is fragile when at least one don't.

The server does not yet check whether the status updates by client are consistent - either design decision, design oversight or budget cuts.
It is possible to implement some sanity checks - whether the state change is consistent with last know player state (like jump range check) ...
BUT it will increase load on servers, thus the Elite Dangerous infrastructure will be more expensive to maintain.
And it won't solve all cheats - those where server is not involved at all - when you are already instanced / fighting / mining etc ...
There it would be possible to use other instanced clients to perform some checks and send warnings to servers.

But we are back at: developer time == money to put into the game. For not-so-visible feature.

You can't sell same game with only new feature anti-cheat protection.
Anyway that would be continuous battle ...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Active cheats in the game is not a fair, safe environment. How am I supposed to know I am not instanced to someone hacking the game, or what they can do? I don't want to have anything to do with this game until the issue is solved. Good summer to you all.

Then you might as well never play any online game.

 

[Hellfire85]

What I am actually wondering is, how many cheaters have been spotted? How many cheaters have disrupted your gameplay?
Tbh, I have met one obvious hacker in almost 3000 hours and one showing up recently after the whole live stream thing.
So the question is: is hacking really such a big issue or does Frontier indeed do as they say?
If hacking was such a big problem wouldn't the CGs and hotspots be overrun by them? Wouldn't everyone have dealt with this several times a month?
I for one think that Frontier is doing something right since, like I said, I have met only one hacker in 3k hours of playtime.
And before someone asks, I play exclusively in Open.

 

[CMDR Arkanoid]

Only last night I had an NPC jump away from me when mass locked on a 2.15G planet. I was attacking from above and I was mass locked so gawd knows what is going on with NPCs. He appeared to fly into a mountain and explode but when I got close I found a High Wake signal.
So this isn't just a player problem, looks like the NPCs can use an instant jump exploit too.

 

[ryan_m]

So you are claiming that without your "motivation" FD wouldn't be trying to fix the hacks? Interesting point of view. Not even slightly egotistical! /s

Well, without my "motivation" no one in this thread would be discussing it...

 

[The Replicated Man]

What I am actually wondering is, how many cheaters have been spotted? How many cheaters have disrupted your gameplay?
Tbh, I have met one obvious hacker in almost 3000 hours and one showing up recently after the whole live stream thing.
So the question is: is hacking really such a big issue or does Frontier indeed do as they say?
If hacking was such a big problem wouldn't the CGs and hotspots be overrun by them? Wouldn't everyone have dealt with this several times a month?
I for one think that Frontier is doing something right since, like I said, I have met only one hacker in 3k hours of playtime.
And before someone asks, I play exclusively in Open.

Thing is the vast majority of players haven't encountered any hackers/cheaters, but are bested by a superior pilot and just don't want to admit they've been bested, or they have been screwed over by frontier's shoddy netcode.

Plus it's so easy to sling cheating accusations, and even easier to hop on the bandwagon.

Sure, there are the obvious hackers/cheaters, but it's a very rare thing. Since the publicization and exposure of said cheats, it's more common to encounter someone using the cheats however it's still rare.

I think I have encountered 2-3 obvious cheaters in my time in Elite. The real question I keep asking is How many players that I have fought in the past, who know the ships and modules inside and out, had been using these cheats to get an advantage? How many fights have I lost due to the other guy being dishonest? 100? 1000? I don't know.

The real big problem that has been kinda pushed aside due to these more blatant cheats being exposed is the age old problem of Combat Logging/Taskkilling. I consider it just as bad as using a cheat engine to exploit an advantage over others in this game. If I've said it once I have said it 1000 times, Frontier should implement a 3 strike combat log system against taskkillers. We know where Frontier stands on the logout timer, and I accept that (even though I may not agree with it). Still, it would be nice if they took it more seriously than they have been. I have friends who get logged on every day. So far nothing is discouraging this, and it's just as frustrating as someone using a cheat engine to beat me in a video game.

Only last night I had an NPC jump away from me when mass locked on a 2.15G planet. I was attacking from above and I was mass locked so gawd knows what is going on with NPCs. He appeared to fly into a mountain and explode but when I got close I found a High Wake signal.
So this isn't just a player problem, looks like the NPCs can use an instant jump exploit too.

Sounds like a netcode issue. Always been there since the game was launched. Buggy instancing and shoddy npc code.

I hear frontier are hiring someone for AI and NPC programming. Hopefully they know what they are doing.