Do Hackers Have No Brains?

[the_brein]

I'm not a fan of seeing a couple new threads asking for advice on cheaters. Or opinions on whether a player is a hacker/cheater. Why not sticky a thread or something? Dump all inquiries there?

To the point however, are cheaters/hackers really this dumb? Why obtain all the most powerful weapons. Why upgrade impossibly hard buildings to ten? Why obtain multiple top items from the daily scratchers?

At least make it believable. I'm sure that the all or nothing mentality is not the best approach.

[Ins0mn1ac]

I'm not a fan of seeing a couple new threads asking for advice on cheaters. Or opinions on whether a player is a hacker/cheater. Why not sticky a thread or something? Dump all inquiries there?

To the point however, are cheaters/hackers really this dumb? Why obtain all the most powerful weapons. Why upgrade impossibly hard buildings to ten? Why obtain multiple top items from the daily scratchers?

At least make it believable. I'm sure that the all or nothing mentality is not the best approach.

Don't give them ideas brein, the more flagrant the cheating the easier it is to actually get Gree to take action on them. Your right, it is pretty moronic to what lengths they give themselves items.

[sister morphine]

You shouldn't underestimate how uninquisitive some people are. I wish I had £10 for every message I've seen on a cheater's wall saying how great their stats are; even from people you'd think would know better, lol

[Dipstik]

Gree can track people by the comments on their wall. I think it works even if your comment is deleted, but if you ever see a comment from me on an obvious cheater's wall saying "Wow, great stats!" or something similar, it's probably accompanied by a report email noting that I posted the message on their wall.

[Dipstik]

I'll tell lupo to watch where he drops it.

[CJ54]

I'm not a fan of seeing a couple new threads asking for advice on cheaters. Or opinions on whether a player is a hacker/cheater. Why not sticky a thread or something? Dump all inquiries there?

We don't want people putting these up on the forum PERIOD. Half the time, the person being accused isn't even cheating (just beating on the poster because they have better stats) and it turns into a giant harassment/hate-fest. I've been lax about warning bans for this previously because I understand the sentiment, but I'm about to start just to get the point across.

If you think someone's cheating, REPORT THEM TO SUPPORT. That's all you have to/should be doing.

[derchef]

sorry to call you out CJ , feel your stress bout

[the_brein]

Potatoes gonna potate I guess.

[Ak Killah]

We don't want people putting these up on the forum PERIOD. Half the time, the person being accused isn't even cheating (just beating on the poster because they have better stats) and it turns into a giant harassment/hate-fest. I've been lax about warning bans for this previously because I understand the sentiment, but I'm about to start just to get the point across.

If you think someone's cheating, REPORT THEM TO SUPPORT. That's all you have to/should be doing.
Well Cj you may be right about a lot of reports being about legitimate players, but sometimes these reports are of blatant hackers and they are still roaming the streets, the fact gree are so secretive on there action makes players think they are not proactive. Customers must feel informed and also believe gree are doing everything they can to stop cheats. It's easy to say most reports are falsely accused but unfortunately the numbers of cheats have grown considerably.

[Ins0mn1ac]

Well Cj you may be right about a lot of reports being about legitimate players, but sometimes these reports are of blatant hackers and they are still roaming the streets, the fact gree are so secretive on there action makes players think they are not proactive. Customers must feel informed and also believe gree are doing everything they can to stop cheats. It's easy to say most reports are falsely accused but unfortunately the numbers of cheats have grown considerably.

This is so true, how bout Gree throws us a bone or statement saying they are at least working on anti-hacking/cheating measures? I find a hacker every couple of days and I'm not so high in level, and it is EASY to tell. I don't care how high a level you are, you cannot have hundreds of doomsday frags below the lvl cap, it is mathematically improbable, and a quick checksum into a database can target these cheaters so quickly. Even at lvl 200+ it is a stretch.

[Steve0]

Sorry CJ your cheating staff need to go back and check out people better. Here are some pics of people I have reported and STILL playing. Except for the one with the archers. If it's legit we all are playing wrong.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/steveyboy419/015992FA-9561-47DA-9B39-22325B060219-4890-0000056E368915C3_zps7ea5976f.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/steveyboy419/9D539A98-FC71-4DFA-A1F5-CAEAF25DA90C-4890-0000056D6A0CEAAA_zpsdd2fd459.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/steveyboy419/E3A847D3-38D8-43AD-A6E7-2BB379A1C86C-4890-0000056DC81A3E4A_zpsc246823a.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/steveyboy419/5FD7DA7A-49CB-42EB-AEA0-22F4D59551DB-4890-0000056DEDD6A9E8_zps84eaa855.jpg

[Ak Killah]

Yup steve0 I've lost hope in the support team, even when I replied to a ticket saying that the issue was resolved. They said they looked into it and now the issue is resolved, until they explain how these blatant cheats are legitimate, they will continually get rant after rant.

[derchef]

easy going , shame on gree ,no more $

[Steve0]

Yup steve0 I've lost hope in the support team, even when I replied to a ticket saying that the issue was resolved. They said they looked into it and now the issue is resolved, until they explain how these blatant cheats are legitimate, they will continually get rant after rant.100% agree no more hope. I have sent in so many pics of hackers my phone has more pics of bad inventory than family photos. And to say they are mostly legit with Billions of new stuff and multi mill in respect points whats the point on reporting at all. When they are legit. Like I said we all must be playing the wrong way.

[the_brein]

I once thought I came across what's thought was a cheater. His stats seemed so high compared to what I was used to seeing. Then I asked around and a couple friends told me that those stats were very possible. Kinda blew my mind.

So I can see why Gree says that the majority are false reports. Researching a player's account, pulling all transactions, history, time played. I can totally see this taking several hours to research for one account alone. I haven't come across any legitimate cheaters yet. Though I'm only level 53.

But showing a screenshot of improbable, even impossible loot/stats does not automatically trigger the ban button. I'm sure Gree does other things with the information. Perhaps researching how the cheat occurred. Try to find ways to plug it. I guess since I haven't encountered it myself then I don't see it as a big problem.

[Grimmy11]

We don't want people putting these up on the forum PERIOD. Half the time, the person being accused isn't even cheating (just beating on the poster because they have better stats) and it turns into a giant harassment/hate-fest. I've been lax about warning bans for this previously because I understand the sentiment, but I'm about to start just to get the point across.

If you think someone's cheating, REPORT THEM TO SUPPORT. That's all you have to/should be doing.

Thanks CJ, the amount of times people around here get falsely accused and then harrassed and stalked is ridiculous. I really do hope you get tough with the people who accuse others of cheating and even start to ban them from the forums.

It is really bad to get harrassed and stalked in the forums and I'm glad you guys are doing something about it.

[Dipstik]

He wasn't talking about you, grimmy.

[Grimmy11]

He wasn't talking about you, grimmy.

Don't hate, appreciate!

[bald zeemer]

Are you planning on doing anything worthy of appreciation? You haven't yet.

[dudeman]

So instead of teaching people how to hack, let's list all of the things cheaters should avoid if they don't want to get caught.

Yes, much better.

[the_brein]

So instead of teaching people how to hack, let's list all of the things cheaters should avoid if they don't want to get caught.

Yes, much better.

Well, we said cheaters weren't very smart. We never said we were any smarter!

[CJ54]

Well Cj you may be right about a lot of reports being about legitimate players, but sometimes these reports are of blatant hackers and they are still roaming the streets, the fact gree are so secretive on there action makes players think they are not proactive. Customers must feel informed and also believe gree are doing everything they can to stop cheats. It's easy to say most reports are falsely accused but unfortunately the numbers of cheats have grown considerably.


This is so true, how bout Gree throws us a bone or statement saying they are at least working on anti-hacking/cheating measures?

Fair enough.

By my estimate, I have spent around 10% of my employed hours at this company investigating cheat reports at the request of the players, or heading off potential exploits, or arguing with banned players who used an exploit of some type as to exactly why they don't get to play anymore. This is use of time is not uncommon here. Across several departments, we are pretty much constantly engaged in patching things to head off exploitation or improving detection tools to keep up with the latest thing some wannabe hacker with zero life is coming up with. We do this because our customers across the board have made it clear that they want this taken seriously. This eternal game of cat and mouse with the latest security-punching breakthroughs is the best case scenario for almost every game company (for the ones who care about it, anyway. You think *we* don't care? I could tell you some stories) and in most tech industries, to the point that there are actual mathematical studies on it.

We don't like it being discussed on the forums because then people go looking for it, and then we have to ban more people or (way more commonly) people royally screw up their accounts or computers downloading some jailbreak program that does who-knows-what to their device. I could point you at five or six "cheats" that the use of which would mean you have to buy a new phone just to regain basic functionality just because of what else the program does to your device (a lot of them are essentially malware). And we can't fix that from here.

I can understand how the "don't drive more people in this direction, or harass people intentionally or unintentionally" policy on the forums could lead to this sort of assumption that we don't care or don't do anything, but it is wrong. Flat out, dead-spanking wrong. You have my word on this as someone who has spent an inordinate amount of their own time working on this on your behalf.

Now, can we please stop talking about this altogether. Thank you.