Re: Convo with an admitted aimbot user

@GRiPSViGiL As I chew on this topic, waiting for the solution cause I just wanna play a proper ranked game; I am in the same place as you, every big streamer, and many others, Grips. I have had many conversations like this one with cheaters just to confirm my suspicions. I also like to make sure I'm going to report them for the right reasons. I have had a few people I've had a heart-to-heart with, and decided that they really weren't. So either they were great liars 😃 or they really weren't.

I would say every opposed cheater says, "What? I don't cheat." first and foremost. They deflect and deny saying that they don't whether they were small ttv streamers and had perfect, no recoil aim, snapping headshots, also knowing where to go to find each enemy the entire game without gunfire, not obvious at all. I've seen those same players delete clips after I posted in their chat, go offline, etc. Most of them on ttv are over 30 so it's wild to me that they're cheating. They'll say, 'I've been playing fps games for most of my life, think I would cheat?' or .. 'I have 5000 kills, how could I be cheating?' like those things even matter. What is clear is the aim, the play style, and when they toggle for even a few seconds; I get to see their actual aim.

It can be entertaining to see a rat escaping a trap, but very sad.

Heh, I was about to start a topic, asking about some in-depth articles or interviews regarding the cheating topic in modern multiplayer games. I found this video that explains nicely some basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQEAmpQScMk . 

Now, Apex is a unique kind of experience, I'd say. I think the huge number of cheaters is not because there's not enough effort to clean up. The complexity and fast pacing make this game feel very competitive and hard, I can't recall any other game I played over the last two decades to have such intensity. Wins, even kills are hard to get, I'd say the average kill / death ratio is well below 1, while top placement happens only once every 20-40 matches for a mid core / casual player. It's safe to assume that frustration gets really high, making a lot of players turn cheats to get their daily dose of reward.

My first few hours in Apex were horrible, I kept dying often before emptying the first magazine, sometimes not even knowing where the shots came from. I'm not afraid to say that even I got  tempted at one point to give a try to an aimbot, being curious of how much does a cheat alter the experience, but also because I felt the need to survive more, to learn some aspects of this game and do some damage. Luckily, I had a few great randoms that carried me to the win and explained to me how to approach things better, so I'm still here 380 hours after, with a horrible kill / death ratio, but enjoying the battles a lot more and feeling that my skills have improved significantly, which is arguably the greatest reward a game can offer.

@DoYaSeeMeI had a bit of a steep learning curve here adjusting to the TTK. Coming from BF series where TTK is within 3 to 6 rounds typically and a well placed HS can end someone real fast. I have been adjusting and my K/D is steadily rising and my frequency of wins is slightly increasing even as I just hit Gold. I have never been tempted to actually install a 3rd party bot though. I value my original account and gamer name tag that has served me for going over 20 years at this point.

The BR game style is definitely a niche I enjoy in the Apex format. PUBG, Fortnite and even BFs Firestorm were not compelling enough for me to really get into the niche. Apex however had the right formula and mechanics to get me though.

I know part of the problem for the influx and heavy population of cheaters is the newness of it. Any game gets flooded with hackers at release. Over time people move to the next new game and trash the gameplay with cheats then move to the next new thing and  I am sure this will go the same route. BF4 is is a really clean game since it's age and it is refreshing to stay behind the curve once hackers move to now BF1, you get the picture.

I think respawn is doing a good job addressing this issue and adding more people to combat hackers is the reason I still login. It is obvious they see they have the right formula for a game that can keep people interested for a long time.

I love the game for the same reasons.  Not a fan of battle royals before. I do think they could have been more proactive about the cheaters and dropped the ball. But heck, they didn't even think the game would be the success it has been so go figure they didn't expect this level of cheating.  I disagree that it will go away with time.  Not if it continues to be a hit game.  The hackers will follow the money and popularity of a game is $$$$$ to them. 

It's impossible to know in advance how much cheating will occur in your title. But even if you expect the worst, bulletproofing is an enormously difficult process. Nobody makes games from scratch, devs reuse code from previous projects, using engines and tools that are older and come with a lot of unresolved issues. A new engine would take many years to develop, with no guarantee that the end result will be significantly more hackerproof.

The best way to eliminate most cheaters is to have everything on the server, like Google Stadia, but, even then, someone will probably develop some clever AI to process the video stream to detect targets faster than the human eye and adjust the input accordingly. 

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@DoYaSeeMe wrote:

Heh, I was about to start a topic, asking about some in-depth articles or interviews regarding the cheating topic in modern multiplayer games. I found this video that explains nicely some basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQEAmpQScMk . 

Now, Apex is a unique kind of experience, I'd say. I think the huge number of cheaters is not because there's not enough effort to clean up. The complexity and fast pacing make this game feel very competitive and hard, I can't recall any other game I played over the last two decades to have such intensity. Wins, even kills are hard to get, I'd say the average kill / death ratio is well below 1, while top placement happens only once every 20-40 matches for a mid core / casual player. It's safe to assume that frustration gets really high, making a lot of players turn cheats to get their daily dose of reward.

My first few hours in Apex were horrible, I kept dying often before emptying the first magazine, sometimes not even knowing where the shots came from. I'm not afraid to say that even I got  tempted at one point to give a try to an aimbot, being curious of how much does a cheat alter the experience, but also because I felt the need to survive more, to learn some aspects of this game and do some damage. Luckily, I had a few great randoms that carried me to the win and explained to me how to approach things better, so I'm still here 380 hours after, with a horrible kill / death ratio, but enjoying the battles a lot more and feeling that my skills have improved significantly, which is arguably the greatest reward a game can offer.

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^^^^ This. I came from faster TTK games (mainly Cod & TF2) and I was, and still am getting melted by better players.

Apex is tough imo, and the learning curve is definitely steep. People see streamers play and it looks so effortless and they want to emulate that straight away without having to put the hours in.

It's a sad state of affairs that people cannot just accept their skill level and deal with it. They'd have more fun if they did, I'm sure. Who will be talking about a 4KD in Apex in 3 years time? Nobody lol.

Great post and you echoed my sentiments.

So it has been a few days and the hacker didn't unfriend me so I see when he is online playing and every time I have logged in since the initial encounter he is on playing.  I know others have reported seeing the same hackers from way back when Apex first dropped so no surprise there but what gives?  I report and the hackers said he had been reported before by video evidence so how is it not a slam dunk to ban the account?