How many CMDRs really cheat in PVP?

[CMDR 1936]

I know this is a controversial topic, and an issue that comes back from time to time, but it is a real question, not a rant, as I don't have the answer and I'm genuinely interested in having opinions.

The reason I raise the issue again is because over the past year there has been quite a few bans from CMDRs who were once seen as great fighters, some that I was friend with and respected, but cheated nonetheless. So the question is out again: how many people really cheat in Elite PVP? I don't talk about those who one-shot you in a Hauler or have infinite shields, because they're easy to spot and are swiftly banned. I'm talking about people who do it the smart way by adding a few % here and there, and won't be detected. The muted reaction from the PVP community (making it sound like everybody knew and it's part of the game) also got me uneasy. It unpleasantly reminded me of what I saw in the speedrun and no-damages runs community which I used to belong, where cheating slowly became ubiquitous, and players reluctantly condemn hacks because they know they are doing it/might be doing it/might have done it at some point. Another disturbing point is that these CMDRs were still losing fights... Assuming they were cheating while losing, what does that tell you about their opponents? Yeah they might be much better, but the issue is, the banned were often genuinely excellent fighters. Can others be THAT better than someone who is both excellent, and cheating? I have my doubts.

Out of curiosity I've checked hacking materials on the internet and it took me 2 clicks to find the right software, which you can use to do pretty much anything, like boosting FSD, doing instant scoop/scans, multiply your supercruise speed, getting maxxed materials, go to Beagle Point in one jump, receive infinite fuel... On the PVP side, I was staggered to see what is possible: you can tweak pretty much any aspect of your ship: increase DPS, increase your shield, hull, module's integrity, decrease heat, put a class4 equivalent weapon in a class1 slot, have a 2E PP with 1000 integrity, 0 heat and more power than an 8A PP, modifiy your resistances, increase piercing on any weapons, boost your capacitators, etc... I actually didn't realize how easy it was, and how precise it is. And it is pretty much undetectable: who could prove that your shield and DPS are boosted by 20% or that your SRB build dosen't produce enough heat? Nobody. But you'll still win, because at high-level it will make a huge diffeence. I know Frontier takes it very seriously, but they largely depends on our reports: who can report something he dosen't even see?

I mean, look at some guys posting ED videos on YT (no names): some stuff is really hard to believe, and dosen't pass even rough calculations. During videos opponents regularly accuse some players of cheating. Could they be wrong all the time? Some players are accused all the time, while others are never accused of anything, despite a superior win ratio. Can't mean nothing (on the other hand, some players accuse everybody of cheating every time the lose).

Truth is, some high-level fighters are probably less skilled and more "boosted" than it appears: this is something I've seen in many other games where for example some OGs can't accept to be caught-up by newer players and start using tools to keep their "skill margin". I know the classical answer to that remark is something along the sarcastic lines of "git gud" or "skill issue" or "you're a noob" so that there is no debate, but the funny thing is that it is the same exact answer I got not long ago from someone who got recently perm banned for cheating... In reality asking these questions has nothing to do with your skill level once you've passed a certain experience treshold. Don't get me wrong: of course skills and builds make the difference in general, but cheating, if used, is more powerful than skills. Cheating has always been a reality in gaming and it has never been easier than it is today as you don't even need coding skills anymore. So the question is not: is there any cheating in PVP but: what is the scale of it? Here I don't have any answer, only a growing sense of uneasiness, hence that post to know if I'm the only one (maybe I am). What do other CMDRs think about it? Has anyone more knowledge about it that I have? Is it just a few black sheeps here and there, or is it a systemic issue? I'm sure most CMDR never cheat, but I know some of them do: I just can't figure out how many, and I'm concerned it might be much more than generally thought. What is the point of a rigged PVP? I prefer to win, obviously, but I don't mind losing, as long as it's fun, and, more importantly, FAIR.

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Edit: after I posted this, I spent quite some time on discord servers dedicated to hacks and cheats, and on the SPEAR "network", and there are actually people there who discuss about that and provide evidence that cheating is, sadly, very likely to be common in PVP....

 

[Morbad]

I suspect hacking is fairly common, but that the number of false positives dwarfs the number of actual hacks observed and that most cases of hacking go unnoticed. However, Frontier doesn't share much in the way of details, so there really is no way of knowing.

Also, I don't think Frontier takes cheating all that seriously, nor do I believe most cheaters that are caught are indentified via reports.

 

[CMDR 1936]

I suspect hacking is fairly common, but that the number of false positives dwarfs the number of actual hacks observed and that most cases of hacking go unnoticed. However, Frontier doesn't share much in the way of details, so there really is no way of knowing.

Also, I don't think Frontier takes cheating all that seriously, nor do I believe most cheaters that are caught are indentified via reports.

I don't know.. Can Elite possibly monitor every player? I know they have tools, but when you ask them something that requires them to go look into your past logs, it often takes days even though they know what they're looking for and what time period is to be considered... So can they identify cheats that are burried into billions of lines of codes by simply scanning things? It would be much better of course, but as you say they don't communicate. It would be nice that they reports monthly or yearly statistics about that.

"Fairly common" is what I fear, yeah. And once you have doubts, it tend to go past reality...

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

im not to sure about this post,but im te and have played quite a few years,BUT am always curiuos how getting intridicted can pull me down instantly,i have grade four wide angle intridictor i cant do it that fast.its to fast almost instant , if they are that good i want to know how.

 

[CMDR GUARDIAN]

Why Cheat?

 

[Elpapo]

Someone with a really lot of experience of PVP, can tell any diffrence, even slight ones, to point where I can rightly guess whenever they using premiums, have increased shielding or speed, above what such bulids normally capable are. I am someone who fought countless times against preety much any bulid that can be used in PVP, so I know very well any ship with its bulid what it can do or not.


For cheaters in PVP, most common Ive seen, was some expert or master ranked FDLs with 5 plasmas, who could fire all of these nonstop, doing dmg as if those where atleast OC with TC+ premium, while they were permaboosting all the time, and they also could tank dmg as if they keep 4 SYS at same time as if with atleast 4000mj shields all of it, when they permaboosting and keep firing thier 5 plasmas with max rate of fire. And they did no suffer heat issues as well. But those cmdrs never lasted too long around, so that keep me belive that reporting them had some impact.

Or adders or dbs with shutdown fields who rail oneshot 10k shielded cutters.

Funny detail to cheaters is that they are by 99% of times low combat ranked. As if they where some regular PVP'ers who had simply used "alternative" account or something along these lines. Poor of them, I pity anyone who is like that.

Thats one obvious ones.

The less obvious include slightly increased stats across board, but those can be spoted, more if using mirror bulids or really paying attention to subtle details. But anytime I spot something shady, I do report. Most of regular PVP'ers who are around for years, I doubt that many of them doing that, because when I fight with them, I dont notice anything out of ordinary.

 

[Elpapo]

Why Cheat?

Why indeed. They want feel strong, and pretend being good, I guess.

 

[CMDR 1936]

Why Cheat?

High-level PVP is very competitive: lots of ego involved. Have a look at Youtube channels: how many of them post lost matches? Most of them appear to win all the time, because they only post victories.... but then you watch another channel and you see them lose to the owner of the channel... who never posts losses either.

 

[CMDR 1936]

Someone with a really lot of experience of PVP, can tell any diffrence, even slight ones, to point where I can rightly guess whenever they using premiums, have increased shielding or speed, above what such bulids normally capable are. I am someone who fought countless times against preety much any bulid that can be used in PVP, so I know very well any ship with its bulid what it can do or not.


For cheaters in PVP, most common Ive seen, was some expert or master ranked FDLs with 5 plasmas, who could fire all of these nonstop, doing dmg as if those where atleast OC with TC+ premium, while they were permaboosting all the time, and they also could tank dmg as if they keep 4 SYS at same time as if with atleast 4000mj shields all of it, when they permaboosting and keep firing thier 5 plasmas with max rate of fire. And they did no suffer heat issues as well. But those cmdrs never lasted too long around, so that keep me belive that reporting them had some impact.

Or adders or dbs with shutdown fields who rail oneshot 10k shielded cutters.

Funny detail to cheaters is that they are by 99% of times low combat ranked. As if they where some regular PVP'ers who had simply used "alternative" account or something along these lines. Poor of them, I pity anyone who is like that.

Thats one obvious ones.

The less obvious include slightly increased stats across board, but those can be spoted, more if using mirror bulids or really paying attention to subtle details. But anytime I spot something shady, I do report. Most of regular PVP'ers who are around for years, I doubt that many of them doing that, because when I fight with them, I dont notice anything out of ordinary.

Well, I doubt that, you can never tell exactly how much impact the angle/relative speed/pips will have on your DPS, and this makes a huge difference. You also not know for sure what your opponents runs as a build, and you def sure can't know if he has a perm 4 pips everywhere, a +100 integrity on his modules or a heat capped to 50%. And of course there are these stupid premium ammos, which should be gotten rid altogether because they add nothing to the game and lead to endless controversies: you neer know who use what: if you use premium on just one large weapon it will be impossible to notice but your opponent will still have a (legal) disadvantage. This can be used to hide pretty much anything. Of course you can find something weird, but not to the point that you will fill a formal complain. You said you did, have you received any feedback from Frontier? I had many cases where I could not reconcile damages to shields for example. But at high-level you only need a few % more to make a difference. How many time have I heard "instancing" "lags" "desync" to justify weird things. And truth is, it might be true too, so how can you differentiate?

But if you are right, then most high-level PVPers cheat... Indeed, most of them were accused at some point by some other player to cheat, you can even see that in videos that they themselves post. So yes, some is just ego speaking (nobody likes to lose, so cheat accusations are frequent), but again, how can we differentiate?

Again I don't know, I'm really asking. But I've been spooked by the massive non-reaction to recent high-profile cases: from my experience in competitive gaming, other player are angry whenever they realize they have been cheated. Here, nobody cares, and most of them even protect the guys who got perm-banned! It really sounds like real sport, where everybody knows, everybody does the same, and nobody dares to be too vocal about it as it could backfire.

 

[Northpin]

I suspect hacking is fairly common, but that the number of false positives dwarfs the number of actual hacks observed and that most cases of hacking go unnoticed. However, Frontier doesn't share much in the way of details, so there really is no way of knowing.

basically this

Also, I don't think Frontier takes cheating all that seriously, nor do I believe most cheaters that are caught are indentified via reports.

To take cheating seriously in a p2p pvp game, a company needs to invest quite an amount of money and resources.
FDev is running the game with minimal expenses which is to be expected given the fact playing ED is Free (except for an initial minimal cost investment)

However, i do think they get the most cheaters in pvp following a report, while they may get other cheaters automatically if they do impossible but easily measurable things, like jumping a ship 400 Ly

Someone with a really lot of experience of PVP, can tell any diffrence, even slight ones, to point where I can rightly guess whenever they using premiums, have increased shielding or speed, above what such bulids normally capable are. I am someone who fought countless times against preety much any bulid that can be used in PVP, so I know very well any ship with its bulid what it can do or not.

Funny detail to cheaters is that they are by 99% of times low combat ranked. As if they where some regular PVP'ers who had simply used "alternative" account or something along these lines. Poor of them, I pity anyone who is like that.

Yea, an experienced PVPer can easily spot a dumb cheater.

But you'd have a hard time spotting a good and smart pvp-er that is cheating in an intelligent way
For example running a 35% damage increase for weapons - you could easily take that for premium ammo or a slight increase in shielding, you could easily take that as good pip management and so on.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Unless you're involved heavily in PvP, it may be difficult to tell. If you're getting absolutely spanked, but you're new, I expect much of that comes from an immense skill or build disparity. Nothing wrong with that, as it does take time to get good at that sort of thing. Even with the best possible setup, a new pilot will likely struggle against somebody really sweaty. Hell, I've been playing for years, and still struggle to hang with the very best.

After some time around, you get a pretty good idea of what the general builds are, and what they're capable of. You know what your weapons will do to an enemy within various ranges and pip positions. It goes both ways.

Now, there are videos out there of people blatantly cheating, like a Corvette tanking three or four entire wings of players, or a guy running around using thargoid shutdown attacks on people, but this sort of thing is understandably easy to notice. I suppose if someone were to do very minor cheats, they could get away with it, but I don't believe I've encountered it much, if at all personally. I think there was some cheating for materials some time ago, but I forget.

I will say this. The very top guys on Xbox will smoke me in 5 minutes or less most times, without any sort of cheating possible. On PC, those guys can hang with some of the best PC guys just fine, and they still totally kill me super fast regardless of platform.

 

[CMDR 1936]

Unless you're involved heavily in PvP, it may be difficult to tell. If you're getting absolutely spanked, but you're new, I expect much of that comes from an immense skill or build disparity. Nothing wrong with that, as it does take time to get good at that sort of thing. Even with the best possible setup, a new pilot will likely struggle against somebody really sweaty. Hell, I've been playing for years, and still struggle to hang with the very best.

After some time around, you get a pretty good idea of what the general builds are, and what they're capable of. You know what your weapons will do to an enemy within various ranges and pip positions. It goes both ways.

Now, there are videos out there of people blatantly cheating, like a Corvette tanking three or four entire wings of players, or a guy running around using thargoid shutdown attacks on people, but this sort of thing is understandably easy to notice. I suppose if someone were to do very minor cheats, they could get away with it, but I don't believe I've encountered it much, if at all personally. I think there was some cheating for materials some time ago, but I forget.

I will say this. The very top guys on Xbox will smoke me in 5 minutes or less most times, without any sort of cheating possible. On PC, those guys can hang with some of the best PC guys just fine, and they still totally kill me super fast regardless of platform.

I agree with all that but I was refering to the top level only, actually. In a high-level fight, you win or lose by a slim margin, and yes, any % in any of the parameters makes a big difference. Again, if your opponent limits his ship's heat to 150% you won't have any clue, but in a heat-heavy build it will make the difference between a loss and a win. Same thing can be said of DPS: 20% more, you will never know for sure, as there are many ways to get these 20% and the angle of your shot alone has that big an influence on DPS.

The simplest proof of what I'm saying is the wild number of cheat accusations in-game: most of the are probably "ego-injuries" but if people could really assess everything in such a precise way, there would not be that many suspiscions out there. And don't think top-guns don't raise accusations: plenty of them do, on Discord, on YT, on chats, even in-game, but most of the time off-the-record, or they end a ticket to Frontier. Yes you can, as you say, have a pretty good idea, but I'm precisely talking about the cases when the margin is so thin that "general" dosen't cut it anymore.

But again, I don't pretend to know: I just have doubts, sometimes, I might be 100% wrong, and that is actually worse as doubt is a poison...

 

[Chaparral]

I haven't looked up the cheating apps, but I am curious - can notoriety be scrubbed off with these apps or is it just personal ship modification?

 

[BelExandor]

I've played in open for about eight thousand hours and in that time I've encountered only three Cmdrs that I suspected were cheating while I was fighting them. I've been in a lot of random fights and I know how much damage a certain loadout SHOULD do against the defenses of my ships. I also have a good understanding of what various fully engineered builds are capable of in terms of agility and handling because I test them a lot. I'm not the best PVPer by any stretch, but I'm not inexperienced at it either. Sometimes a Cmdr's ship will perform in such a way as to make me suspicious. I don't call "CHEAT!" though unless I can be sure beyond all doubt because there are some REALLY high level combat Cmdrs in this game that never post youtube videos and they don't boast on social. If you run across one of them in open though, you'll know it as soon as the fight starts. They aren't cheating (at Ieast I don't think so) they're just really, really good at it.

There has only been one occasion where a Cmdr absolutely cheated against me beyond all doubt (front facing interdiction from distance) and that cmdr is now perma-banned. I didn't report him but apparently others did.

I agree with Cmdr Morbad on there being more false positives than actual instances of cheating.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

It much healthier to assume they aren't cheating, than it is to assume people are cheating when you get beat.

 

[CMDR 1936]

It much healthier to assume they aren't cheating, than it is to assume people are cheating when you get beat.

You are obviously right, but why do you assume you have to be beaten to talk about the subject? This is the classic "git gud" answer that people use to avoid discussion, by trying to belittle you. Most reports come from excellent players, not noobs as they won't even know something was wrong. Then, I might be more concerned because of my own experience: I used to do sport at a very high level. When I was young I really thought doping in sport was a anomaly, by a few cheaters not good enough to win without any help. Then I grew up, climbed the ladder, and realized that passed a certain level, 100% of athletes are under heavy doping: it is the norm, not the exception: you absolutely CAN'T win without it. Either you accept it and do the same, or you get the f... out. Then I was into speedruns and records on computer, and then again, I realized cheating was everywhere (I mean: solid cases, documented and publicized, not my own impressions).

Now, of course in ED it is NOT the case, I assume very few people cheat, but experience tells me that cheating in games is more prevalent than what is generally thought. I don't want to be naive that's all. But you CMDRs seems to think everything is ok, so I find it reassuring.

 

[Martin1970]

Two player groups have recently (3 days ago) released separate videos showing that hacking in the PvP scene is well-organized and extremely common. I won't link the videos here, but you can just google "Akuma Tebori" and go to his youtube channel. From there you'll see his video, and he also includes a link to a much larger video that exposes the cheating.

 

[GroG79]

Another reason to stay away from PVP. Especially those who claim to be the 'best'

Toxic behavior, cheaters, big ego's.. I rather live in my own LaLa land

 

[Northpin]

ED Trainers (cheats that alters game variables stored in the system memory while the game runs) are well known to exist for many years.
And in a competitive PVP part of a game which is largely unpoliced and has no anti-cheats in place, cheating should be expected to be rather common.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

For balance, obviously do your own research around the reputation, account status, history and motives of those calling "cheats", and their groups. They're pretty well-known so you shouldn't have to work hard.