Cheating in Elite Dangerous

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I don't understand why some people here try to downplay the issue of cheating. This is an MMO, and a lot of it is of a very competitive nature. FD should invest a lot of their focus to fairness and equal terms. I'm all for perma ban for all cheaters.
Because they either don't see it as an important issue for whatever reason (I play in solo, I play on a console, I don't do PvP, it's not (yet) widespread etc.) or the see it as an important issue, but believe that FD is doing enough about it.
 
I don't understand why some people here try to downplay the issue of cheating. This is an MMO, and a lot of it is of a very competitive nature. FD should invest a lot of their focus to fairness and equal terms. I'm all for perma ban for all cheaters.
Who downplays the issue of cheating? What some people are doing is downplaying the "FDEV will never and can never do anything about it because they hate us" thing.
 
Because they either don't see it as an important issue for whatever reason (I play in solo, I play on a console, I don't do PvP, it's not (yet) widespread etc.) or the see it as an important issue, but believe that FD is doing enough about it.
I don't know how much they are doing, therefore I don't know if they are doing enough either. What I do now is that they fought against cheats and hacks in the past, contrary to many claims in this thread.
 
The problem I see due to FDev's lack of response is that they are directly allowing their community to become highly polarised. I have witnessed players in Open accusing other players of hacking without any proof, and I truly believe in most cases there that this is pretentiousness: "You beat me, so you must be hacking!" – I hate to think how many butthurt/snowflake reports have been sent to FDev this week that reek of a witch hunt mentality... "Ban X player, he beat me in PvP!! He must be cheating!! I want my mommy!!" There is little to no chance of FDev dealing with a high rise in reports, which means the genuine ones will be passed over along with ones being spammed by immature players looking to protect their own inflated egos and sense of self-righteousness.

I personally don't think we owe SDC anything for being the catalyst that triggered this social division – they have a long history of exploiting things to their own benefit and only reporting it when it suits them, i.e. when it becomes known to others. This is all smoke and mirrors on their behalf, to protect themselves from the fact they have taken advantage of many exploits, even it was only for a short period. It works like this: a man finds a gun, he shoots someone, he turns the gun into the authorities only stating "I found a gun". Their lack of tact in this matter, crowbarring their pretentious ideals into the community via Reddit, of all places, is not really diplomatic or praise-worthy. Their superiority complex is disturbing, we all paid for this game, we all put in the hours, but they still act like they are the "ruling class" when it comes to opinionating on anything and everything the game offers, they don't respect others, they don't have the view that we all start this game equally with the same steep learning curve and grind, they sabotage people's efforts and celebrate thier "ganks", whilst I expect the larger community thinks of them more like a tumour – an ugly, invasive, predatory player group that mobilises its experience to harass and inconvenience fresh fish. They are a selfish group of players who endeavour to put their enjoyment of the game above everyone else by molesting other players and manipulating the developers into celebrating their play style with veiled threats and bullish tactics. You could have done a lot more with regards to dealing with FDev instead of resorting to tactics that result in a mob mentality and a breakdown of community spirit and consensual game play. Hacking and exploiting is a problem in most games, but going to war with developers is not the solution... in doing so, you have jeopardised the fragile balance that kept ED going for these past 4 years and have made Open play even less pleasant an experience by encouraging paranoia, friction and finger-pointing. Your pretence at being "holier than thou" SJWs is unconvincing and warrants condemnation. There are many routes you could have taken but you appear to have taken up a battering ram and charged FDev's door. It's little wonder they're caught like a deer in headlights. Uncivil. brute force behaviour warrants no response. For the educated: reread Ryan's OP/Reddit post, look at the precise way it was written – hyperbolically phrased, opinionated, designed to trigger, conclusions drawn on your behalf, demands made rather than solutions offered. Ryan is a master of deception and I personally don't thank him for his heavy-handed approach nearly as much as he thinks we all should, not that raising awareness of this matter is bad in itself, but because creating open hostility towards FDev is counter-productive. There are toxic elements to all social media platforms, Reddit being no exception, and he's relying on that to push his agenda. SDC's decision to expose hacking is loaded with ulterior motives and since they can't be trusted to play fairly themselves they can't be thanked with sincerity.

Yes, we all know there is a serious issue with hacking here, and yes, the FDevs are fully aware of it. The ball is in their court now... let them deal with it, that's their job, it will take time. Posting a daily "level of dissatisfaction" post and arguing with other players on this forum doesn't make FDevs look any worse or SDC any better, repeating the phase "canned response" to provoke another response is growing old fast. It's just beating a dead horse with a stick. This matter isn't about SDC and doesn't revolve around them... they're just a dozen small-minded semi-skilled players, a tiny fraction of the whole player base, an insignificant blade of grass in a lawn, a voice in a crowd. Game development isn't a democracy, it's capitalism, they don't have to respond in a set manner and SDC laying down terms is not going to make them more inclined to do so. If SDC had more sense they could have sought legal advice and considered a class action law suit (though I doubt their chances), or simply arranged a face-to-face meeting with FDevs, brought evidence, recordings, etc. and painted a picture for FDevs. But as it turns out, they slapped a post on Reddit and left it to mob mentality to blindly believe their every word and become enraged. Sound like the mentality of a certain POTUS and his Tweets? Except the difference here is that no-one has elected SDC to speak on our behalf, and I imagine few would...

TLDR; SDC is making this matter more about them and their "heroic" exposure of something which happens in all games, instead of simply posting evidence of hacking in a dignified manner and letting FDevs address the situation without pressure, threats or systematic abuse from the community. SDC are fanning the flames and making matters worse.
 
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I don't know how much they are doing, therefore I don't know if they are doing enough either. What I do now is that they fought against cheats and hacks in the past, contrary to many claims in this thread.
When they'll steal your car in Berlin and it'll never be found, I'll tell you that the police is obviously doing something because every 9th is found again...
 
The game changes so much that it's almost more like parallel universes than a living galaxy. One day you can collect materials from Belugas pretty easily. The next the Belugas have prox mines and jump away as soon as you open fire. One day you can haul passenger for 40m a trip. The next you cannot get 2 mil. One day your A rated ship that you spent a year trying to achieve is made obsolete by the next level of grind power creep, which is made almost obsolete by yet another. One day you find a great slave trade route. The next day the magical hand of god kills that for you.

The game changes exponentially more due to hand of god things than BGS things. I can cross the galaxy and nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing that you have ever done will be apparent to me. The only things that are apparent are things the hand of god has done. You cannot so much as leave a footprint on a planet surface, for as soon as you leave that instance you didn't exist.
Been there, done that - And the variety isn't really big. Sure, you list the variety of how to make money. I hauled plenty of passengers, including to SagA*. And the trip there was me watching movies while I jump/honk/scoop.
The BGS doesn't really do much. If you want to make money, currently you go mining until you reach the desired level of wealth. I'm at 7bn atm, made 6 from Mining. Made plenty of cash from lugging gold, ferrying snobby demanding money bags to see geysers and nav buoys in space. But tell me: How is one nav buoy different from another? Other than the text wall you get?
"Here, this person did this" - you are in the middle of nowhere. The same section of space could have been seen 200Ly closer to where you left off.
"Funny geysers" - Uhm, the same as the ones on the planet we just came from. But thanks for the 6m.

The mission board has become a joke since they removed board flipping. Payout has gone from bad to 10% more bad, risk and reward are far from balanced, and the wing missions don't make sense at all. Reward should be split, not everyone gets THAT share. Doesn't work that way, anywhere.
And praising the RNGeezus for the "variety" of the mission board just doesn't cut the mustard. Different text wall, same spiel, repeat.

You sound like you're obsessed with "physical" impact.
And how would the consequences be between sessions? Someone blew up a planet in Open, would I not be able to find that planet in Solo? Me and my 10 friends in a private session pushed Abraham Lincoln Station in Sol further beyond Pluto, would that trolling be noticed by anyone in Open?

All your examples would mess up the game to some extent. Any examples on positive impact?
Everything you do in solo would also impact the other instances, just as is now.
The only reason I picked "physical" impact is because it would have a visual effect. Nothing else really does. Leave a system in famine for 3 months, you'd expect population to decline. Does that have a visual effect? Any effect on the BGS? The answer is a big fat NOPE!
Let a system starve for a year, don't supply ANY food at all. The system will remain exactly the same as it is now.
Even prices for food won't go through the roof, as there is a limit to that. Besides, if you'd deliver 700t of food to a starving system, you should be the one dictating the prices, not them. Don't want to pay 1m for a ton of food? No worries, feel free to starve. And they'd gladly starve to... oh wait, no they won't because 6bn people will remain 6bn, even after 3 months of famine.

That's the whole idea! That you CAN make an impact, for better or worse. Move Hutton closer to the star! No more 90 minute trips.
Sure you can troll a system by pushing a station to the far end - go for it, make an impact. Change the galaxy! I'd do it if it would be possible. Or probably move them closer to the star so one wouldn't have to wait for 5 minutes in SC just to "get there".

I'll follow your line of logic: any ship after the Sidewinder is optional. Playing this game is optional.
Correct. You can do everything in the Sidey. You can get to triple Elite in a Sidey. Will take a while, but you'll get there.
 
When they'll steal your car in Berlin and it'll never be found, I'll tell you that the police is obviously doing something because every 9th is found again...
And that's a consolation prize to all the other 8 who will never see their car again?
It would be more impressive if it'd be the other way around: 8 out of 9 cars are found again. Then I feel sorry for the 1 guy who loses his car this way.
 
It affects everyone in this game. But select groups try to shut their eyes to this out of convenience and to nurse a grudge.
It always has affected everyone in the same way it does now, just as spamming the exploited god rolls affected everyone. There are always parallel, unintended game things happening and it affects everyone. The sudden escalation of concern though seems odd.
 
Cheating is a cancer because it erodes trust, that's the biggest problem. It is not a big problem if a cheater kills me from time to time (until it becomes really rampant), but it's a big problem if I yell: "CHEATER" every time someone kills me.

When a company doesn't do enough to protect both its business and me as a player, then the trust is lost as well and I start getting a feeling that I am not being treated as a respected customer, but as someone who's only good enough to be milked for money.

When a company doesn't stop cheats after 6 months and when it doesn't say anything even when it (shadow) bans cheater, then people start thinking that cheating in their games is not a problem and they'll start doing it more and more.

Since both us players and FD are on the same side because we all love this game (both for us and for DB this game is the game of the lifetime), it would be awesome if:
  • FD would start better protecting their business by being more diligent in implementing anti-cheat measures.
  • FD would have a permanent communication and active communication with players that discover bugs. Many of us are developers and I'm sure it would be both fun for us to discover security holes and profitable for FD's business to increase security of their product.
  • FD would show us that they are doing their best to protect both their business and us as players by either periodically stating (no, 6 months isn't good enough) how many players have they banned and in which way, or by showing everyone in real time in their clients who has been banned and why.
Cheating has become a big problem in the gaming industry, and many other companies are using everything available to them to the maximum possible extent in order to give their players safe games, free of cheaters. Even legislators are slowly starting to recognise how big the problem is. In South Korea creating cheats and hacks for games is a criminal offence.
I understand your point(s). But the problem is cheating, not the difference of opinion as to the effects of it.

To me, there's no noticeable effect. If someone told me "cheaters are making those crystalline structures disappear without falling" then that would certainly be an effect that really dampens my gaming experience, but unless I am pushing to get some change in system X, and cheaters are hampering that, then the real issue isn't how they affect my game but how the fact that you can cheat unimpeded, so any gain made the "honest" way is diminished by anyone but the one making the gain. Everyone is seen as a possible cheater.

My point is that it's always been the case. I've visited systems 20000 LY away that were undiscovered except that one ELW. Someone shows up to a system and the one high payout planet is discovered and none other, then the notion instantly arises that someone just instantly jumped there, scanned it and left. Same with other discoveries, and if someone discovered Raxxla suddenly, there'd be some skepticism as to the method used.

This is one of the reasons I don't get involved in player groups. I've done so in the past and invariably someone in the group was exposed as a cheater, or a squad we battled were exposed after they owned the entire squad base for a couple years. It's like Lance Armstrong confessing that he cheated, but he still had the glory and experience of 7 straight TDF victories and those who lost will never recover those losses, they won't go back and ride the Champs again as a do-over. So I just piddle around in solo. It's truly my trail being blazed there, not crossing anyone else's trail. I also dabble it some PG but rarely anyone is available to play.

I don't care to read FDev lists with random XXX)(&%777666BEASTXXX was banned strings. We can block players we encounter in the game and AFAIK there's no cheat to get around that. It doesn't block their efforts to undermine yours though.
 
I don't think it is helpful to let people's opinion of SDC - correct or not - interfere with their opinion of the issue of cheating, hacks and botting.

Don't shoot the messenger, and all that. SDC and others raising this publicly or privately are doing a service to the entire player base.

BTW, hacks and bots are related, as the bots use these hacks... Fix the hacks, you probably impact botting as well
 
Everything you do in solo would also impact the other instances, just as is now.
The only reason I picked "physical" impact is because it would have a visual effect. Nothing else really does. Leave a system in famine for 3 months, you'd expect population to decline. Does that have a visual effect? Any effect on the BGS? The answer is a big fat NOPE!
Let a system starve for a year, don't supply ANY food at all. The system will remain exactly the same as it is now.
Even prices for food won't go through the roof, as there is a limit to that. Besides, if you'd deliver 700t of food to a starving system, you should be the one dictating the prices, not them. Don't want to pay 1m for a ton of food? No worries, feel free to starve. And they'd gladly starve to... oh wait, no they won't because 6bn people will remain 6bn, even after 3 months of famine.

There have been instances of extreme market variation based on oddities like proximity to other stations and such, but the HOGs ate it. (Hands of God). They change these things and create a cardboard galaxy where everything is as much like everything else as possible, because players cry that task A in system A should pay exactly the same as task A in system B, or task B in system A. So intstead of randomly generated market swings that entice trading, it's just a HOG wave moving around the bubble artificially raising prices here, lowering them there.

The tourism station I'm at now has 500K passenger missions for Colonia. 22000Ly away, for 500K. Meanwhile the bouy next door pays 2 million if you go there to see it and back. It's really become a game of ignoring the silly and focusing on the entertaining. Instead of blazing your trail, you're avoiding the FD government intervention effects as much as possible. There are a lot of things in the game, thousand different paths it seems, but these days it feels more like a caricature of the galaxy it was when things were more chaotic. It could just be that I am too familiar with it now, not as magical as it was.
 
I'm a member of HackerOne, and we protect more than just your bank account.
I know you are, and I think that HackerOne is a very good example of employing white hat hackers. Many companies do it, they even leave notes hidden with instructions how to contact the company.
Such white hat hackers could be employed by FD as well, as I already suggested it. I'm sure that many of us would gladly do it for a paintjob or ship kit.
 
And that's a consolation prize to all the other 8 who will never see their car again?
It would be more impressive if it'd be the other way around: 8 out of 9 cars are found again. Then I feel sorry for the 1 guy who loses his car this way.
Well it's not me that claims that both FD and Berlin police do their job. ;)
 
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