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Multi player FPS games are dead and cheaters killed it.

BloodBath

You may have seen more articles lately about this topic but it's not being talked about enough. The problem of cheaters in online multiplayer games is getting out of hand. FPS games being the worst culprit, especially the FTP variety.

A few years back the majority of cheating was on PC and was of the game hack variety which was often obvious and detectable by some anti cheat software. Modern cheats are completely undetectable by the OS or game as it's being done externally either through a plugin device or on the mouse or controller itself.

A recent survey had nearly 50% of voters saying that they use or have used third party tools to cheat in games. Even consoles aren't safe from it anymore. There are plugin devices that allow for all kinds of scripting and cheating that plugs into all consoles that allows improved aim assist, no recoil scripts, auto spotting etc and is completely undetectable. These devices sell out constantly and have waiting lists to receive 1. These same scripts have been used on PC for years.

Steam's recent ban wave for CS-GO banned over 1 million accounts for cheating in a single month. 13 million pubg accounts have been banned to date for cheating. Warzone has banned far less but the game is plagued with cheaters. Destiny 2 cheaters are up 50% since January this year according to Bungie.

These are people using detectable software cheats. The numbers for the undetectable scripts is far higher.

The problem is only getting worse every year. So much so that I have completely gone off the genre. At least 10-20% of players in many FPS games are using some type of cheats. That's 15-30 players in every warzone lobby. Many people might not notice or care but imo it's going to kill the genre.

Unless they can come up with some advanced ai based anti cheat system that can detect these scripts then the genre is doomed as the number of cheaters is only increasing dramatically every year.

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gimli2112

I do think it's particularly bad in WZ but because SBMM puts the cheaters in the top brackets I don't see it as much. I mean what cheater is going to have a 0.9 KDR like me?

Stone Deaf 4evr

In the couple of hundred hours of warzone I've played, I think I've only come across 3 sets of genuine cheaters.
I'm not debating that they're not out there, but I don't feel its as much of an issue as streamers and youtubers make out - also, they're on the game all day, every day, so they're going to have more opportunity to bump into them.

The problem is when a games playerbase starts to dwindle, old call of duty games on console were notorious for having hacked lobbies. The hunger to keep the experience pure was never there from the devs/ publishers as, by and large, everyone else had moved on to the next game in the series.

The cynic in me also thinks that some of it is quietly tolerated, as even though the games are free to play, cheaters are still spending money on skins etc, so banning an account just means they'll buy their stuff again.

Potential-Monke

gimli2112 wrote: »

maybe not the death penalty

Nah, feck 'em. If they cheat in a (usually F2P) MP game, imagine what kind of people they must be in real life. No loss I reckon.

gimli2112

i really don't understand it.
make a game against bots and set the timer for 10 minutes
you'll be bored before the end
honestly there should be consequences, bricked consoles, account bans etc maybe not the death penalty

BeerWolf

I pretty much haven't played competitive fps games in a long time for this very reason, cheaters. So now I just stick to co-op FPS, and RPGs generally when it comes to online play.

I avoid F2P games like the plague that let people make another free account whenever they get banned. And for bought games I want to see repercussions for these assholes, have their entire gaming library locked.

Mr Crispy

I'm hoping machine learning/AI can be leveraged eventually, but in the meantime I agree with the lads above - penalties need to be far stricter. Also, the platforms, publishers/devs need to do more as well. It's put me off most forms of MP bar the handful of games where co-op with friends is the way to go.

Canis Lupus

Bans need to be harsher as well. None of this banned for cheating but just make a new account and you're good to go again bull**** of the highest order.

Link games to phone numbers, hardware and IP and you cheat and you're gone forever. I'd even go so far as to say banned from a platform. You cheat? Thanks for the all the fish but you can no longer use your steam account to activate/buy new games.

BloodBath

Here's a little look at the top 20 players in warzone. Most are long term cheaters, all mainly using consoles. I could show the top 100 and it would be the same.

Potential-Monke

One must lead a fairly sad existence to want/have to cheat in online MP games. I've no issues with cheaters in offline games, as that doesn't affect anyone else, and sometimes can be fun (unlimited ammo/unlock all guns in GTA 3), but online is different. I've no doubt it could kill genres, but with numbers that CoD, etc have playing it's not as noticable to a lot of players.

Something will have to be done, and I think the only way is console/MAC bans, but I'm sure there's ways around that too. But as you said, it's detecting it will be the problem. Right now I'd say they're still depending on their users to report it, which isn't a great way. Surely they could have some kind of software that picks up when a gun or something doesn't act the way it should (referring to increased auto-aim and no recoil specifically, that surely changes code as the game is being played and should be detectable, ie: a shotgun with increased range cheats, etc). I dunno, I don't know enough about coding to know.