Cheaters still ruining your game

@BalladalidilaI got your point yet you might have not gotten mine instead.

The long story short about Diamond 4 wall / hardstuck case of mine is such that somehow when crossing this borderline of P1->D4 I as a player (and in this case also my friend I played with as well as many more people I have teamed up more often than not) suddenly become newb(s).

By no means I am expecting to be the best around, I agree that I would classify at this point as an above-average casual player of Apex who plays on a regular basis, with an aim to win not "to just have fun" etc. Top 5-8% of the community or whatnot.

Based on the available data online rank distribution is usually ~25% of players in Platinum, 5-8% in Diamond, <1% in Master and Predator level.

So my expectation based on that when reaching Diamond would be that I still play mainly vs Diamond players (given 5-8% from 100 million? is still a huge player base), some Masters/Predators (mainly lower-ranked unless they are all offline and have massive lack of players to play against) and probably at least twice as much Platinum players than Masters/Predators.

What happens instead - yesterday I get into my 3rd game in Diamond and I face a set team of Predator #39, #35 and #293... plus there were many more in the lobby, this squad was just champs and without a much of a surprise also killed me thus I saw them twice in my screen.
And the overall lobby was 50% Master/Predator squads, yes with Masters dominating the majority of players but still... when I play Diamond I expect to play vs Diamond most of the time same as I do in Platinum not suddenly just leap 1.5 levels and be this one random Diamond dude in the community of top <1% players.

As for hacking when I spectate people who kill me:
- they are on the controller
- they have zero recoil 9 out of 10 times (I don't believe in miracles)
- they somehow know exactly the best angle of attack, prefire me quite constantly, start hitting me what feels like even before I duck out from cover (headglich I guess it is called)

Sure I see some players who display a skill set on a totally another level - rotation knowledge, movement, map knowledge etc. Many happen to also stream - I can rewatch those episodes from their point of view as well.

Yet when I do look at those streams what I see often is some kid (and I mean age-wise not "kid" like Apex slang = player who does not know what he is doing) running Diamond lobby talking about his hangover, badges, randoms stuff = lack of focus on the game, yet still somehow be 100% accurate on all of the above said, maintaining game sense, somehow he and his team are on the same page on what to do, where to go with close to none communication (related to the game not hangover and stuff).

When I see that in combination of perfect reoil "control", crazy shots etc. dude I just can't believe that is pure skill.

I have lived 36 years on this earth, I have worked with people, people management for ~15 of those years and I just know from that experience that there are a lot of common traits when it comes to humans e.g. if you drink often out of sorrow you will probably be very aggressive in turn if you have a wife you will beat her etc.

The same goes with hackers - here you are, upset player, about losing, then you start using one loophole e.g. dropping grenades from inventory when opening locked weapon boxes to save it, then you go to no-recoil because why not your aim is good enough already without it as well, then wh as you anyway know where people are or could play Bloodhoud/Seer and have that ability anyway...just fair right, then aimbot and so on.

Greed and core values of a person just take over and players like you mentioned of your friend who is Predator from the beginning of the game (if that is true and he is indeed not hacking, exploiting something) is a very rare exception same as those trusted friends you are with during the whole life or employee who spends 10+ years with the company not because it pays the most but because his values align with company's.

@Eshshshss 

The entire Diamond discussion is ofc a bit non-topic, but just a short comment on that; Yeah I agree with that assessment; Diamonds start to fight preds and masters at some point. When I grinded out of Diamond three splits ago, it was around D2 or D3 but that might have changed. But if you just think about it logically, this is a necessity for the ranked balance!  Because if ONLY Diamonds were matched against each other, from Diamond4 to Diamond 1, then the influx of Diamond players reaching Master would be unlimited! EVERY Diamond player would then eventually reach Master because such system would quite fast decrease the overall skill level of the Diamond division as the split goes on.

Just think about it: as the group of players, which currently  are the "best" Diamonds, continuously reaches Master and therefore are removed from the Diamond-only queue, then the current "next best" diamond players now become the "new best" diamonds and the "average" diamonds become the new "next best" and the current "bad" diamonds become the new "average" and so forth. This mechanism already exist to some extent but since the current system forces players who want to reach master to actually having to prove that they can handle lobbies would increasingly numbers of masters as they get closer and closer to getting promoted, it at least reduces this mechanism.  So the only thing your suggested system with Diamonds only fighting diamonds would just de-value what it is to be a Master which imo is a bad thing. The current rank system is easy enough. A player who struggles in fights in gold can still reach Diamond4 by just hiding and grinding.

But on the cheating topic, which this threat is about, I can once again just that I am sorry that you feel that way since it must be frustrating to feel that people use hacks to kill you. I honestly rarely feel that someone is winning over me because of dirty play. Why? Because in pretty much EVERY 1v1 I lose, I usually manage to do at least 75% dmg or more of his dmg dealt in return to that player. So if you think about it; how narcissists and sad would I be to start blaming every player who just is SLIGHTLY better than me to be a cheater? And if people want to call me blind or too bad to recognize the cheaters then its fine by me =)

@Balladalidilawell if you do 75% of the damage that is great, you probably have some skill, but then I am not sure why are you "just" d2/d3 not higher, because I reached D4 mid way while doing more like 75 DAMAGE to enemies in 1v1 in Diamond lobbies...and that is what is frustrating, as I lose:

1) initial shoot - they almost always preshot me first e.g. before-mentioned cases of head glitching and what felt like instant aimbot reaction time. <- easily achievable with aimobt or the most popular hack in Apex (as developers claim) that draws a big border around you, so the enemy can see which direction you are about to take even while being behind cover.
2) battle of accuracy - no recoil helps a lot here e.g. even if I land half a mag, the enemy usually lands the whole thing plus headshots on top of that e.g. I was in the open 1v1 vs Gibby, he had Volt and I had L-star and even shot first. While I landed <100 damage (he was not using shield) he landed 180 on me and knocked me of course. Again huge gap between what I experience in Plat vs Diamond lobbies.
3) in absolute majority of the cases I just get rushed by players who magically land 3 Eva or Wingman shots, above mentioned #39 predator did it in a room full of Caustic gas while I was doging and shooting back at him. Again wallhack and/or soft aimbot would be really helpful. Actually yesterday we even had a situation where a dude jumped on me and my mate (dude on Diamond jumped into 1 vs 2!!!!) hit him while looking at me, at least animation in game was like that, pity we did not record that. How we realized that - my mate who though he has clear shot on him died first even though he was behind me at an ~90 degree angle. And guess what - dude 3 shot us both with Eva while we landed ~120-130 on him combined. Makes you wonder.

@Eshshshss 

I identify myself as a "Diamond4+" player because I CAN get out of Diamond 4 by myself but I dont see myself as a master player because the one split that I got to master I:

1) only played with the same two premades, both of them a bit better then me when it comes to fighting, not night and day better but still considerably better, With that being said, I think I had the best "game sense" of us three, like I was usually the one who knew where enemies where, based on previous fights we had heard, the new circle location and areas we just been to and cleared etc. But still, I know that I would never had got out of Diamond without them.

2) We really had to play tactically, like always looking for cheezy third parties where we tried to swoop in right after the fight was over or sometimes just get one or two knockdowns from far away and then change position/rotation and hope they would finish each other, giving us Kill points. 

4) Because it took us pretty much the entire split to do this. 

5) Simply because I know that I am more likely to lose vs a current Master or Pred. I will still usually do said "75%" dmg to them and I will ofc also sometimes win fair and square. But my overall experience is that I am just below the average Master player, skill wise.

But honestly, what you are describing is exactly what I experience but maybe just one or two ranks above your such rank... If what you described in 1), 2) and 3) start to happen to you in Diamond 4,  then same things started to happen for me at maybe Diamond 3 or 2 (thats why I needed my premades and cheezy tactics to progress). And some other player, who is worse than both of us, maybe experience this in Plat2 etc etc.  I still dont ubuy why this would be a proof of cheaters. Everyone has his individual "peak rank" where his individual skill isnt enough to progress further and need other variables in their favor to progress, like my premades for instance.

And btw, You mentioned that you get one clipped by L-star alot.. Its actually OP even after the nerf. I have not played with L-star much at all until this season but I can still manage to control in decent enough to one clip also on longer range. Here is a clip with the L-star on approx 30 meters with no attachments except mag. Its max dmg is 468 not counting HS so you only need to land less than 50% of the shots to one clip a red armor so imagine how OP it is in the hands of a Predator or just someone who practiced with it alot..

@Balladalidilaok in that sense then we are on the same page regarding ranking and difference between D4 and 10000 RP Masters. Well more or less on the same page.

As for the L-star - sure it was OP, especially after Respawn removed flashes so you can actually see what you are shooting at, and I like the weapon before given it is a familiar thing since I played Quake and there was a plasma gun which was basically no recoil version of L-star and also was good weapon of choice in mid/long range.

Yet your recoil control is somewhat amazing for me. Here is me now with the same setup: https://youtu.be/5WHVUaBG86U

As you can see close range is not a problem, yet not dead on as yours. But for me the frustration and the deal breaker is the recoil control in mid/long range that you can see in the end of my video. I can't control recoil well enough to hit even standing bots from the range, yet people in Diamond lobbies manage to hit me with it even when I am on the move, dodging...that's the mystery for me (unless that is a better or worse no-recoil macro) same as the question how on earth you manage to negate the initial kick of the L-star while maintaining your cursor almost pixel perfect????

@Eshshshss 

I am glad we're starting to see eye to eye on many topics now, also on recoil. Because my point with the recoil videos was not some kind of hidden brag (ty for the compliment btw =) but to show that even a "diamond4+ but no real master"-player like me, who spend very little-to-no time to learn and practice the exact recoil patterns, can control even hard ones decently. So perhaps you at least can accept that some players, I would say 3-10 in every casual lobby, are just are crazy good at recoil control and trace aiming which is the reason they can do those crazy 30m+ m sprays etc. It doesnt have to be no-recoil scripters or soft/hard hackers all the time =)  

But speaking of video clips as proof.  I just recorded 4 consecutive causal games, 2 duos and 2 trios, just to show you what my games look like and to prove that at least I pretty much  never see anything fishy going on at all. To be on the safe side, all names are censored, even if the purpose isnt to "name and shame" to begin with. But like  @Midnight9746  said; the mods can be quite strict. If you have time (both of you) plz take a look and tell me if you can see anyone of those no recoil scripter and hackers. The match is sped up 10x during uneventful parts and only slows down when I actually fight someone.

And just to be clear; I know its only 4 games, but they are all in a row and I can only guarantee that THIS is pretty much what ALL my matches look like. You just have to take my word for it.

And also; my goal when I played these matches wasnt to win or to do good, but to expose all these cheaters you speak about. To do this I play quite aggressively, trying to force 1v1s trades and  o take fights totally exposed out in the open etc.  As you can see, no one is beaming me. In most 1v1s I do equal or greater damage. Even when I recklessly jump infront of two enemies, I manage to do considerable damage to one of them before they manage to kill me etc etc. Now maybe you can see why I dont understand this talk about "40% cheaters in every game" =)

@Eshshshss 

But if you dont play pubs because you dont like to run into and die to the few 10-15 ex diamonds/masters in the lobby, then how can you say that there is an influx of hackers in Diamond lobbies since ALL of them are MINIMUM diamonds, but also many exmasters/expreds/current masters and preds? Sorry but this entire argument just doesnt make sense.. Once again; at Diamond I also agree that people are usually equally good or better than me, but to draw the conclusion that the reason for this is that many of them must be hacking is so strange. To say this, its like saying "I am at  the peak skill of what a human being can reach; everyone who is better is probably cheating......" At diamond, you play against the top percentile of the players and in a situation where you would survive in pubs, due to the average lower skill level, you will now lose. Why? Because everyone in the Diamond lobby can dish out 100-200 dmg per mag instead of just one such player per squad on average in pubs. 

I dont know how your way through Platinum looked like but this ranked system is actually quite badly designed. It is possible for a player of  "gold fighting skills"  to advance to through Platinum from just hiding and grinding because of the RP gain through placement in relation to the RP entry cost which still is quite low in Platinum.  I honestly think your issue is that the average skill of the lobby takes a huge leap from Platinum1 to Diamond 4 which ofc requires a huge leap of your own skill to keep advancing once you get to D4.

Recoil control takes a lot of practice. When someone can 1 mag you it does not mean they are cheating. Even if you 1 mag an entire team. As example here I show what good recoil control looks like. Can even watch my hand as i control the recoil. This is how i perfect my aim. So when i see someone easily wipe my team i know dude is good or there could be cheating involved. I have been killed by some of the best and ive killed some of the best. Everyone is built differently. Some are just crazy good. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXLcxw6P4VI&t=2s

@E9ine_AC, why I use as comparison Diamond lobbies, is because I think those are the most consistent ones:
- number of hackers per lobby = they are always there
- number of people in a lobby who actually are trying
- level of overall game sense, movement = you rarely see a person who has no clue in these lobbies and when you do you know he/she is 99.9% boosted account or just stoned/drunk

Otherwise sure I agree that there are people with potential to be higher ranked no matter be it Silver or Diamond, who just don't play ranked, but at the same time given I don't play public and arenas, I don't play vs them so we basically know about each other's existence only from a theoretical point of view, nothing useful for the forums 🙂

And to finalize my point/reply to you or @Balladalidila - everyone says "it is possible", yet no one says how.

In my opinion, a player who has mastered recoil control should be able to quantify and identify what it took for him/her to reach that level, and it should be replicable as any skill humans acquire by others - maybe not to 100% extent but at least to see significant progress e.g. with this "jiggling" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8_vqOo9dHw I can't hit all mag to the target seen in the clip, yet I went from hitting <10 bullets to constantly hitting half a mag or more only after ~20 min of training in the range. <- in my opinion clear sign that ok this technique works at least so much that it is not a complete scam, bs, fake news, etc.

@Midnight9746 

But just out of curiosity ;lets assume you are correct. You are sorted into different lobbies than me: I get handicapped in Bronze/Gold lobbies whereas you get lobbies of "full on master or preds fully stacked". Why would it be so? Is it because I have worse stats than you? My main is banned (I said the f-word once and got banned for 168 hours =) but this is the account that I played the matches in the clip. Maybe you have 8+ K/D and thats why you get these  "full on master or preds fully stacked"? . Or do you buy into the ongoing theme of some of this threads on this forum that suggest that the game is rigged against some specific players and in favor of some? 

With respect, your reasoning  seems very much like tin-foil hat conspiracy theories to support your argument. I honestly think that we get the EXACT same lobbies when we play solo pubs (the matchmaking is considerably hotter when I play premade duo or trios btw).. And here is a proof of that: This is the jump trail of, I believe the 3rd match in the video... I count at least 5 Diamond trails and 2 masters and this wasnt even the hot drop of the map; at LEAST as many diamond/masters and some preds went down to Countdown and staging before this. 

I dont know how good you are, perhaps you are way better than me but it honestly seems to me that this entire "hacker/no recoil" discussion is a matter of RELATIVE SKILLS. Some guy that perhaps has about 1.7 K/D might one clip  someone who struggles in Gold and that players thinks he just got killed by a no-recoil cheater... But when I fight that 1.7 K/D, I one clip him before he even lands a shot on me, which happens a couple of time in my clip, and THAT guy think I am a no-recoil cheater. And then I run into the #40 Predator and he one clips me before I even spot him.. Should I also assume he is a cheater or should I accept that I am not the biggest fish in the tank, i.e that just l like I can one clipped and totally out-play some players, so can I get one clipped and totally outplayed ?

@Eshshshss 

"everyone says "it is possible", yet no one says how"

I think the most simple explanation to that is also the most accurate. Some kids (not 30+ like me =) spend countless of hours playing games like CSGO and has exceptional muscle memory of recoil controlling and some are just very talented gamers. I am old and quite casual when it comes to gaming so I usually just learn the first 30-50% of a pattern and then just pulls down the rest of the mag... I think gaming is just like any other sport or activity; some are just born to do it and some must just accept that they never will reach a certain level. I know that I will NEVER be close to be good enough to get out of Master 10.000 RP so I am happy being a "Diamond3+ player =)

But if you want a concrete tip how I like to look at it; I rather see the spray as a melody rather than a series of bullets with a certain RPM and recoil.  So for L-star for instance, I listen to the sound and know the first " pew pew pew", the recoil pulls up and strongly to the left, the following "pew pew pew", i.e the forth, fifth and sixth shot, goes up and strongly to the right and the rest of the clip I just pull down. But other than that, I say its just practice I guess. 

@Midnight9746 

Yeah I got the same guys in my lobbies and since I also have 4k, 20 kill badges, I am one of them I guess.  And since I get beamed by some masters and predators, probably in the same lobbies as you play, then perhaps its not that hard to accept that these guys would super beam you (since your K/D is quite lower than mine, not even 1)?  But anyways; I do understand it must be frustrating to play this game if you are an "average" player, or even slightly above average. I mean, I get teammates who barley can do 300 dmg in a 15 min match after we (or I) have wiped 4-5 enemy squads). How fun can this matchmaking be for those guys? I guess this is just the type of very mixed matchmaking that Respawn chose for this game for better or worse. EOMM at its best =) 

@Eshshshss 

Yeah getting a full premade if you want to climb Diamond is so important. Playing ranked with randoms at the rank where the average opponent is near or above your own skill level is a nightmare and probably not very good for your mental health so I would not even attempt it haha.

And the level 142 is bugged. I didnt play one single game with this account from S3 to like S6 but then I got banned for 24 hours on my main so when I waited for the ban to run out, I used this account again for one night of gaming where I played in Bronze. I got like 8 K/D, 2000 average damage and 50% win rate on those 10-12 matches and I guess thats why I was falsely perma-banned and when they unbanned me, they reset the account level to 100 for some reason. In reality, and according to apex tracker, the account is lvl 504 =)

Just FYI under this topic - yesterday reached D4 level and in the first game there went all the way to the last circle and TOP 4, was killed by a person I have reported before:

• dude has no recoil 100%
• potentially uses wh
• was trolling discord server (Apex one) and I reported him there as well

But oh well guess what who won the game and who is in D4 earlier than me and runs the game.

Again another case where unfortunately title of this thread proves to be 100% accurate aka good go be back in Diamond lobbies! 😬

If you suspect someone is cheating do try and report it in game. Also if you can clip them you may use this discord to post the video. Be sure to use your proper region channel when posting where it happened. 

https://discord.gg/ZYNk5dA6