Forum Discussion

Re: Apex Legends' Anti-cheat is too weak. Policy improvements needed.

@TheGreenFellow 

I think that they have been quite open about the challenges the anti-cheat faces and the progress they have made. Some of the numbers involved are colossal. Let's not forget that EA is a video game publisher and Respawn are a game development studio. They use EAC to ensure players have a fair game. But the players themselves keep cheating. So it's a never ending battle.

  • The recently added in-game reporting tool has had a big impact on discovering new cheats, including previously undetectable cheats that are now being found automatically via EAC

  • Total bans are now at 770K players

  • We have blocked over 300K account creations

  • We have banned over 4,000 cheat seller accounts (spammers) in the last 20 days

  • Total affected matches on PC impacted by cheaters or spammers has been reduced by over half in the last month due to recent efforts

Source.

Cheating is frustrating for all honest players but until players decide to stop cheating it's always going to be something of a circus.

There really isn't an awful lot that the forums can do regards cheating other than provide relevant information as most of what the anti-cheat does is secret.

7 Replies

  • I don't mean to step on toes here but I feel like you neglected to actually read the majority of my post, which addresses a large portion of what you point out here.

    Bottom line, the numbers and sympathizing with faced challenges is neither here nor there. Success or failure is what I'm discussing. Right now, it is not succeeding. I've detailed why, and detailed on how I believe it needs improvement.

    Just waving it off as a neverending circus that won't end unless "players decide to stop cheating" is not and never can be the answer. You might as well claim that a roof can't be stopped from leaking because there will always be rain in the future.

    Lastly, "there isn't a lot the forums can do"? These forums exist precisely to provide this kind of feedback for the developers and EA to read. I'm using the forums for their explicit purpose. Nowhere did I ask fellow forum users to somehow step in and solve the cheating problem.

    To sum up, I don't feel your response was, on the whole, appropriate.
  • warslag's avatar
    warslag
    7 years ago

    The facts that we know are what we have from the updates and check ins from Respawn.

    Statistics that have been shared with us show that the anti-cheat does work and is very successful.

    The best thing to do is to report any cheats you encounter using the in game report feature or along with any evidence to EAC here.

  • From lurking cheat forums I've read a lot of people are getting banned with the free cheats.  From what they said they get banned about a day or 2 later.  So that still gives a day or 2 of cheating that effects the normal players.

    Paid cheats are still rampant and undetected as these people make cheats as a full time job.  I am seeing less aimbots on the asia servers recently... maybe it is just RNG from matchmaking. 


    I would personally hire these very talented cheat creators to work on the anti cheats,  I'm pretty sure a lot of these programmers don't have a steady jobs that's why they are in the cheat business.  If they are talented at creating cheats I'm sure they will be just as good at preventing them. 

    Another thing that has been said before is high level accounts should be match made with higher levels so new cheating accounts do not effect steady player base. 

  • @warslag  the facts they have shared - just some raw numbers - are not meaningful. It's understandable that they cannot say or share much, and they have plainly explained as much, but it doesn't matter how many have been banned. It's not a sign of success, it is only a statistic. That is not remotely the same thing.

    What matters is whether or not Apex's anti-cheat & the policies for it are effective, and currently, they are not.

    Reporting cheats ingame or through the online EAC reporting ticket system is all well and good, but that doesn't have anything to do with the policies of Respawn & EA at the decision-making level on how to proceed and what goals to pursue.

    And as you'd have noticed at the very start of my first post, I've intimated that it does not feel like Easy Anti-Cheat is accomplishing much of anything, which means that performing this reporting action feels like a futile placebo effect. Again, I've also already attempted to explain the particulars of why it feels this way.

    The lack of active response server-side to boot cheaters is a significant factor in this feeling. This is why I've recommended a focus on pre-emptiveness, as well as pushing the game to be as server-side as can be made feasible, and ensuring the server can "see" and react to cheating when it occurs in an automatic on-the-fly fashion.

    Unless the people at the decision-making level for Apex Legends can see and understand this message, it's quite likely nothing is going to change from the current status quo, which is not ideal in the slightest and likely will result in me and many others walking away from the game primarily because of this.

  • Vdstrk's avatar
    Vdstrk
    Seasoned Ace
    7 years ago
    Just a thought.
    What if those cheat makers are in fact devs from competing games, and their only purpose is to hinder the success of other games?
    I do believe that there could be the random talent out of luck that turns "criminal" due to necessity. Romantic and sad story. Possible, but quite uncommon -imo.
  • Heh, it's a fun conspiracy, but I rather doubt it's intentional sabotage so much as individual entrepreneurship (so to speak).

    There's certainly plenty of 'talent' out there as regards doing nefarious things by whatever means necessary, that's for sure. Just means there needs to be attractive incentives for more talent to be applied to ensuring those nefarious things can't take place.

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