Sitrep: Is That Guy Cheating?

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In the world of FPS gaming, Toby's aim is legendarily bad. But even an incompetent such as he cannot fail to recognise a cheater when he sees it - or can he?

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[nit3hunt3r]

Lol I feel your rage Toby. I've had several instances like that as well. It's difficult to tell a hack from a godly player. For instance sometimes I spec players in CS:S that can apparently predict or aim at players not in their field of view. But the argument always is, maybe he has good headsets/hearing. Even so, sometimes walking players are still predicted. You then get suspicious that he/she is using a hack...

... and then you realise you're just butthurt, and your rage doesn't mean jack in context.

Ideally Punkbuster or VAC should catch 'em all, but I think realistically I can only pray that a plane does indeed crash into a hacker in RL.

/end rant

[Unworthy King]

Yeah, was playing BF3 TDM recently and there was one guy that was just too damn good. My team had on avg about 20ish kills to 10ish deaths - he had about 50kills and 5-6 deaths. No matter how you came at him, he would always get you. And it's not like he camped, but I could have sworn that he knew where everyone was.

Did it ruin my gaming experience? Nah, not really. Did it ruin someone else's? Yeah, definitely. I've never seen more people flaming in my entire FPS-playing life.

[Toby McCasker]

Lol I feel your rage Toby. I've had several instances like that as well. It's difficult to tell a hack from a godly player. For instance sometimes I spec players in CS:S that can apparently predict or aim at players not in their field of view.

THIS.

Maybe I need to gear up hardcore? I've got new stretches in at the moment though and wearing headphones for more than 5 seconds is a bit of a trial.

[Nexi]

This whole article is me in a nutshell (the average FPS player who will concede that most people are better than him, not the cheating arab) I am usually pretty fine with hackers, sure they ruin a game or 2 here and there but I can usually claim a moral victory of getting a kill on them then go home happy. As far a picking the hacker, watch the kill cams, if they snap to a headshot with perfect accuracy it's probably an aim-bot, if there is some hesitation/human error, perhaps not with the shot itself but the lining up thereof then you are probably dealing with someone who is just flat out better than you.

My comfort? knowing that I once hit a mid air target with a rocket launcher in COD:UO and that my FFVIII file had lvl100 characters before I had Irvine

[iambeanie]

I feel the pain too =-(. Unfortunately theres a particular hack, so far undetectable, that it seems most people like to use. It has all manner of abilities that can be used to make it as subtle or as prominent as you like. Note: i haven't used it myself but i have seen it used. By now i think we've all read that post on reddit, for those that haven't http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield3/comments/t7201/im_a_hacker_and_i_have_some_information_for_the/, but essentially the ones that i find on my server the most are the 3D radar (you can see everyone on the map at any time) and 1 hit kill with any weapon (common amongst long range snipers and pistol users) but rarely do they use an actual aim assist. Makes it very very difficult to pinpoint these people =-(.

[Toby McCasker]

my FFVIII file had lvl100 characters before I had Irvine

Respect (although Irvine = lol why, am I correct?).

[cyclobs]

i used to get flamed on UrT for 'hacking' a lot. Thing is people were using laser lights and footsteps were pretty loud. Using your ears and eyes it's not hard to know where players are.

Often if i saw a laser light i can just about pin point where the source was coming from depending on it's angle. It drove this one guy mad.. many lols

hearing footsteps around the corner and jumping around firing just as they're about to come around really messes up their day, usually because they are dead before the realise what's happened.

And using spray and prey tactics around popular corners works quite well too

Lots of people bitched about me 'hacking' but really it was just the strategy I was playing that made it seem like I was hacking.

surround sound really helps pin down gun shots too. i got a fair few kills cause i could hear gunshots behind me

[Long John]

I find the ~9 hours working + living each day interfears with becoming a gaming god. Some players just get to spend an epic amount of time in the games.

[Pearl]

Nice read.
As long as ya having fun, just smile n keep playing.
Theres definitely hackers out there, and a lot of em arent blatant about it.

[Theyleon]

As someone who gets their share of hackusations, it's a tough thing to deal with really. The line between hacker and legitimately good player is a tough one to judge, especially with most spectate options having some (relatively) large lag compensation issues that make it hard to judge (e.g. in TF2, it makes everyone's mouse movements look weirdly smooth, as well as hitscan weapons appearing to get hits when they weren't aiming at the target).

It gets compounded by most players not seeming to be aware of the number of awareness tools that most games give you, such as sound, radars, or simply paying attention to where teammates are dying and by what weapon. That, combined with map knowledge can make aware players seem like wall hackers.

In COD, I'd get accused of walling because I'd come around a corner with my sights up on a camper, but if they'd watch me they'd see I go around most corners with my sights up and trained on the most popular camping spot, whether there was anyone there or not.

[Capt.no0b]

I don't understand hackers, how can it be fun one shot killing everyone without any effort? You're basically just clicking the mouse...

I remember one from CoD4 called "The King". As soon as this player joined everyone quit. Lols.

[RSOblivion]

I hear ya Theyleon. While the competitive side of gaming has it's shady players (cheaters at the top usually know how to cheat almost invisibly unfortunately) there are a lot of extremely good players. Stick 5-6 of these players into a 18 player CoD Blops public server or a large BF3 server and you'll see them at the top every map. Then the hackusations fly something chronic.

I'm pretty sure it's the same with any sport, if you stuck Premier League footballers in a field game with some mates on a weekend, the mates would tire quickly of the insanely good players dominating the game, though obviously they couldn't call hacks

What's even more galling for the average player though is that some of these players have what I'd term universal skills. They can be good no matter the game, be it virtual or physical. Most would call it natural talent, but in gaming it seems natural talent is to be abhorred by those who want a fair game to be a bunch of similar level players, rather than a tough learning experience.

The best laugh I have though is when going to a new game which hasn't been hacked yet and people still yell hacks even though it's just the naturally talented players learning the new game and the average players just can't see how they can do what they do. It's pretty simple though, awareness is everything, firing the gun on target is only 10% of the challenge. 90% is using every available piece of information to locate the target(s).

A fantastic example is a guy I know who's played MW3 since release pretty much every day for most of the day. He has about 2000hrs clocked in steam (probably more now) yet he still doesn't play well against the good players because he hasn't learnt by playing against them. Whenever he encounters one, he leaves citing hackers. A simple adjustment to his mentality to beat the guy who's got the best Kill's or K/D and he'd be so much better...

[DodgyGeezer]

By now i think we've all read that post on reddit, for those that haven't http://www.reddit.com/r/battlefield3/comments/t7201/im_a_hacker_and_i_have_some_information_for_the/

Makes for an interesting read. This software would be an excellent vector for malware due to the way it updates and doesn't have a disk footprint. Given the skills required in the malware and hax scenes I am pretty sure at least some of these tools will be dual purpose, so take that as comfort when you see a hacker.

I know they are out there, but I think the number of false positives outweigh them greatly. Some players are just good. They watch where bullets come from,they listen, they know all the maps like the back of their hands and they utilise every last drop of information they can wring from the game. And above all, they come around the corner already firing when they have a fair idea you are there.

It takes just 300ms to kill someone at close range with an assault rifle in BF3. If both players have a 50ms lag it can often seem like people are godlike.

[RSOblivion]

TBH that guy saying he's a hacker is actually highlighting something extremely ironic. The hacking software he is using is actually the best anti-hacking tool out there. If server admins used it to determine those using cheats like aimbotting (using that nifty what percentage a shooter has on their target part of it) then it would be really useful to them. Problem is it lights up the user as a hacker if they get caught, even if it was for anti-hacking purposes...