Hacking in PvP: An Unofficial Investigation

[Falkenhausen]

I also play on Jedi Covenant and have reported about 8 cheaters to Bioware in April alone. I don't know if reporting does any good.

 

For those who don't think it's a problem: http://www.***********.com/forum/swtor-hacks-bots-cheats-exploits/index2.html or this http://www.**********.com/

 

or just do your own google search

 

Noto bene...speed hacks are ubiquitous.

 

If you do not believe hacking is rampant then either you have been extremely lucky in your wz experience, or possibly you are quite naive.

 

Yes cheating is rampant on JC. Your links are blocked by the forum, but you make a good point.

[Natharon]

I also play on Jedi Covenant and have reported about 8 cheaters to Bioware in April alone. I don't know if reporting does any good.

 

For those who don't think it's a problem: http://www.***********.com/forum/swtor-hacks-bots-cheats-exploits/index2.html or this http://www.**********.com/

 

or just do your own google search

 

Noto bene...speed hacks are ubiquitous.

 

If you do not believe hacking is rampant then either you have been extremely lucky in your wz experience, or possibly you are quite naive.

 

You are on jedi convenent and speaking of others pvp naivety. The world just blew up from the irony.

[key-largo]

The first few times I experienced what may have been hacking, I chalked it up to game bugginess. The next few times we spoke about it in the ops channel, and still were inconclusive.

 

However, in the past few weeks it has become too obvious to ignore (unless of course you are Bioware, or Biounaware)...

 

The google search results are telling.

Edited May 1, 2013 by key-largo

[Cole-clark]

You are on jedi convenent and speaking of others pvp naivety. The world just blew up from the irony.

 

I am on JC because thats where BW transferred me..how is that ironic or naive?

[Falkenhausen]

Two camps apparently: Those who find cheating to be a big problem, and those who have never seen cheating at all...kind of intriguing.

[mhobin]

Two camps apparently: Those who find cheating to be a big problem, and those who have never seen cheating at all...kind of intriguing.

 

I think a lot of it comes from the PvP community on JC being pretty small. It is the same people winning matches. If you showed me the two Ops lists before a given game, I bet I could pick the winner 90% of the time. People who are not on that winning side call hacks because they can't buy a win. But it is more because the hardcore PvP crowd plays more, and therefore knows that they are doing, ie they use trans/pred in huttball, and pop cds at the right time. Knowing people in the higher end PvP guilds (on our server please refrain from the "there are no high end pvpers on a pve server" comments) , I can pretty confidently say there are little to no hacks.

 

Cheers,

Hobi

Prime Defense

Jedi Covenant

[Stanimir]

I've only seen hacks on rare occasions. The most common one is being un-tab targetable and resolve/cc hacks. They aren't as common as people say they are, though.

[Cole-clark]

Your experience with JC and mine are completely different. and I can confidently say:

 

There are way too many hackers.

 

I've been pvping in various games for 11 years. I have pvp 'ed here since launch, It is not a L2P issue.

[Falkenhausen]

Hacking is a problem. It ruins game play. It is hard to quantify, but I see it happen often enough to know that it needs to be addressed.

[ShatteredVision]

I've seen plenty of hacks over my time here, but they're far from prevalent at this point. I've see them much less than I used to, in the last couple of months. I'm not a particularly big fan of the devs right now, but they certainly improved the game in this aspect.

 

I think a blanket denial of hacking's existence is pretty silly. Just as silly, is the idea that people are constantly cheating. I think a lot of people don't know the difference between gameplay mechanics and legitimate hacks. Even so, they do occur. I'd say 10% of cases are probably true hacks, with the other 90% being people confused with class abilities or the game simply having some hiccups.

 

Had any interesting voidstar the other day, where both teams started spawned on the catwalks around the place that are normally quite unreachable. Some folks glitched behind doors, giving them a free cap. It certainly wasn't pleasant, but it also wasn't hacking. We were all just kind of confused and having a laugh. The point of that story, is that it's probably more unusual to see a genuine hack, than it is for the game to suddenly get schizophrenic on its own.

[XxLegendaryxX]

I have never seen a single hack in PvP (The Shadowlands). Anyone that cries about hacks either is mad because they lost or don't know everything about the game *i.e saying that they are speed hacking when it is really transcendence/predation*

[Asvarduil]

I know my experience dosen't help the investigation: if I have seen cheating, I have no idea what it looks like.

 

This question might help the investigation: what does cheating in a warzone actually look like? Bonus points if you present video evidence.

[ShatteredVision]

I have never seen a single hack in PvP (The Shadowlands). Anyone that cries about hacks either is mad because they lost or don't know everything about the game *i.e saying that they are speed hacking when it is really transcendence/predation*

 

So, your position is, that bioware is lying during the times they've addressed the known hacking? Not a very tenable position, but I admire your blatant disregard for what's in front of you. As I said, it's pretty silly to think there are no hacks, just as it is silly to think they're prevalent. Either way, you show your ignorance well. I'd love to hear why bioware would admit to hacking in their game, if it wasn't going on. Are you suggesting that even bioware is part of the conspiracy to defeat this game and ultimately...bioware? I'm sure your response will be fascinating.

Edited May 2, 2013 by ShatteredVision

[Polymerize]

So, your position is, that bioware is lying during the times they've addressed the known hacking? Not a very tenable position, but I admire your blatant disregard for what's in front of you. As I said, it's pretty silly to think there are no hacks, just as it is silly to think they're prevalent. Either way, you show your ignorance well. I'd love to hear why bioware would admit to hacking in their game, if it wasn't going on. Are you suggesting that even bioware is part of the conspiracy to defeat this game and ultimately...bioware? I'm sure your response will be fascinating.

 

What an eloquent post. Owned.

[Falkenhausen]

What an eloquent post. Owned.

 

word....total pwnage

[entropicdecay]

I have not personally seen any untargetable players or speed hacking. I have seen videos on youtube of them though.

 

I've seen many people cheating using bugs, although not a lot recently as most of them were fixed. Example, the > 8 player in a WZ bug was heavily abused when it was still possible.

 

I saw people abuse the bug to get into the field in voidstar before the game started a few times. I've seen people bypass the bridge in voidstar when the forcefields were still up a few times.

 

I'd say hacking exists (due to the fact I've seen youtube videos which make it VERY clear) but it's not a very rampant problem since I've never personally noticed it and I've done a LOT of WZs.

[Paitryn]

A lot of examples I see are things that are working as intended. CC at full resolve? sever force from a sage or sorc equivelent does that. many shadows would sprint jump across the gap if they hit the speed boost in time in voidstar. being stuck invis after force camoflage? happens to my sent all the time.

 

I'm not going to say that hacking isn't out there at all, I may not have noticed it or seen it, but I'm sure if anyone is willing to do anything to win, they will hack without a doubt. But lets not confuse lack of class knowlege with hacks. I was guilty of it once too when I was ready to scream Hax watching an Assassin walk across a fire pit in huttball immune to damage and CC. (lesson learned I started learning what all classes do)

[Wainamoinen]

So, your position is, that bioware is lying during the times they've addressed the known hacking? Not a very tenable position, but I admire your blatant disregard for what's in front of you. As I said, it's pretty silly to think there are no hacks, just as it is silly to think they're prevalent. Either way, you show your ignorance well. I'd love to hear why bioware would admit to hacking in their game, if it wasn't going on. Are you suggesting that even bioware is part of the conspiracy to defeat this game and ultimately...bioware? I'm sure your response will be fascinating.

 

Allow me to amend his post so that it is correct:

 

I have never seen a single hack in PvP (The Shadowlands). Almost everyone that cries about hacks either is mad because they lost or don't know everything about the game *i.e saying that they are speed hacking when it is really transcendence/predation*

 

I imagine the poster (who if he's in Carnage Gaming is from a decent guild and will have some PvP experience) is just tired of muttonheaded posts that claim SWTOR is a hackfest when it isn't, and carelessly exaggerated for effect.

 

There are a few documented occasions of hacking, none that I've seen outside the first couple of months of the game back in Jan/Feb 2012 or Gingers. I've seen reports of individuals otherwise, but any real cheating seems to get quickly squashed by Bioware.

 

There are many, many examples of people claiming hacks when they don't know how they were legitimately beaten. They don't know because a) they're inexperienced and don't know how classes work; b) their egos will not allow them to accept that they were beaten fair and square; c) they are conspiracy theorists, immune to rational thought.

 

Bioware have confirmed that they are making efforts to combat hacking. This is good, I'm glad they take it seriosuly, but it's only to be expected. What it isn't, is evidence that hacking is widespread. Neither are out of date youtube vids, nor google results to scam sites.

 

Sure, there are always people who will try to cheat if they can. Report it if you see something funky. But the chances are that it's a bug in the game, lag or just something you don't understand. The self-perpetuating "cheats are everywhere" posts are tiresome, depressing. And wrong.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Wainamoinen

[HelinCarnate]

 

There are a few documented occasions of hacking, none that I've seen outside the first couple of months of the game back in Jan/Feb 2012 or Gingers. I've seen reports of individuals otherwise, but any real cheating seems to get quickly squashed by Bioware.

 

There are many, many examples of people claiming hacks when they don't know how they were legitimately beaten. They don't know because a) they're inexperienced and don't know how classes work; b) their egos will not allow them to accept that they were beaten fair and square; c) they are conspiracy theorists, immune to rational thought.

 

Bioware have confirmed that they are making efforts to combat hacking. This is good, I'm glad they take it seriosuly, but it's only to be expected. What it isn't, is evidence that hacking is widespread. Neither are out of date youtube vids, nor google results to scam sites.

 

Sure, there are always people who will try to cheat if they can. Report it if you see something funky. But the chances are that it's a bug in the game, lag or just something you don't understand. The self-perpetuating "cheats are everywhere" posts are tiresome, depressing. And wrong.

 

This^^^.

 

Everything I have personally seen can either be explained or there is not enough evidence to say there is hacking going on and it is inconsistent enough to say it probably is not. People claim teleport and speed hacks in huttball all the time but for the most part that is just game issues.

[Cretinus]

There are cheats and hacks in every MMO, specially in PvP, and I don't see a single reason why SWTOR should be an exception.

 

I agree that people often see hacks where there aren't any. Lack of knowledge of other classes abilities might lead to this.

 

But if your framerate drops below 10 each time when a certain marauder enters the scene, while being above 70 when he's not around, then that's a cheat.

If it's always the same toon that seems to teleport around you so that you can't even target him properly while all others behave normally, then the odds are that this is a cheat.

 

I don't understand why some people refuse to admit this.

[xxIncubixx]

never seen anyone hack on swtor, seen some weird stuff of course, people failing thro the floor becoming untargeted on huttball and scoring (game bug/lag issue), seen a marauder warping around (most likely predation with bad client syncronization), never seen anything else i would call "cheat" or "hack" and i pvp all day.

[Falkenhausen]

There are cheats and hacks in every MMO, specially in PvP, and I don't see a single reason why SWTOR should be an exception.

 

I agree that people often see hacks where there aren't any. Lack of knowledge of other classes abilities might lead to this.

 

But if your framerate drops below 10 each time when a certain marauder enters the scene, while being above 70 when he's not around, then that's a cheat.

If it's always the same toon that seems to teleport around you so that you can't even target him properly while all others behave normally, then the odds are that this is a cheat.

 

I don't understand why some people refuse to admit this.

 

That about sums it up.

[TheronFett]

I've never run into a hacker.

 

Neither has 95% of the people playing this game. And 99% of the people posting about hacks.

 

In the thousands of warzones I've played, I've only ever seen ONE actual hacker. Several others saw this instance as well, screenshots and video were posted confirming it, and the offending player was banned. The player was capping a node from stealth in Civil War.

[Octagon]

I used to play on JC and to be honest aside from one guild that was real fond of /stuck I never saw any hacking. I'm not saying that it absolutely doesnt exist but most of the time things are explainable.

 

Now I play on Shadowlands and have never seen anything flaky. Although I have seen people accuse others of hacking, but it's always because they don't know the other class. I usually just laugh at them and move on.

[cripito]

There is a jedi knight ability that requires 30 stacks of centering and grants a speed boost to everybody in your group. I've been in a voidstar match where that ability was active on my side for practically the whole time (although it was the shortest voidstar victory I have ever experienced). I couldn't explain it. We just outran the defenders all the way to the end. Is it possible to keep that ability active all the time? Lots of knights using it in a coordinated manner perhaps? I was just PUGing, so perhaps I got in with a pre-made group that were cycling that ability extremely effectively. This was about 2 weeks ago, so I can't remember many details. The match was extremely brief.

 

If you stop playing smash u will understand.