So this game on PC has insane problem with cheating right now. And basically it can't be stopped because they can't detect the difference between player input to adjust for things like recoil/aim and a software/hack doing it for them.HOWEVER, has Respawn considered the fact that they have stat trackers for headshots etc. I'm pretty sure you could easily auto detect cheating by simply tracking shots fired, shots landed, percentage of headshots landed out of those and I'm sure you would see a massive obvious difference in these basic, trackable statistics that would differentiate between cheaters and the TOP Legit Predator players of Apex Legends.Like statistically legit top predators won't hit those headshots the same way cheaters will. I'm pretty sure Respawn CAN figure out how to first study these statistics of known cheaters, and THEN see which statistics clearly show the difference the most and boom, they now have an Auto Algorithm that doesn't have to detect any software (which they can't) they just need to track stats like this.Wouldn't this work? Wouldn't they also reliably be able to track movement within the game?As for how these cheaters get into pred Lobby with Smurf accounts, what is the problem there exactly?Set up a barrier so that accounts younger than a week CANNOT GET TO PREDATOR. Just make it a hard lock that the account has to have reached a higher player level to even get to enter?Or why does their barriers fail in keeping them out of Pred lobby to begin with? I can't believe there is NO way for the Developers to beat cheating 🤨Surely there's a way to fix their game to make it impervious too it? I think they are just dumb honestly 😑 figure out what variables you can control, and study that. Like make a freaking effort to figure it out.

@Metr🤭din If it was that simple they would be doing it. Simply put there is more to it. If you have a program that detects headshots, you then have someone get lucky and land a bunch of headshots, they get wrongfully banned. Now the TOS team has to deal with reviewing that persons account and unban them. Some of the very high skill players aim for nothing but headshots. They are extremely good at as well. I've bumped into top 100 preds in matches, they land a ton of headshots, it's really insane. Some of them I have heard of and I can tell you they do not cheat. They just have really good aim, really good recoil control and are really good at the game. If they did not have the top 100 pred badges I would assume they were cheaters at the death report. But when I spectate them it's clear they are high skill players. Their movement, their play, the way they rotate, everything is top notch.

@E9ine_AC That sounds fine to me. Have you ever heard of shadow banning? Where basically a person who is reported enough times is dumped into a weird high ping lobby of bots and I'd they continue to cheat it becomes obvious.

Why would they look at stats when they have the whole log of the match? With what they log they can simulate the match from any perspective they like, at any speed they desire, generate all sorts of graphs that could reveal unusual discrepancies. They are probably using AI as well, to go through certain checks faster. All in all , the system behind is a lot more complex than just reading from stats, but there's a crucial problem: time. In order to review a case or a match with reported cheaters, they probably need hours. With Apex reaching over 100 million players, it's not hard to deduce that there are millions of matches, of which hundreds of thousands may be with reported players. This is why cases can take months to get resolved.AI is the future for having a chance in the fight against cheaters, but right now it's not reliable enough to take complete control, humans are still needed to validate findings and decide on the verdict.Also, since you call them dumb, you do realize that those stats come from the same logs of a match, right?

@DarthValtrex Maybe cuz you haven't come across aimbot on PC like we PC players have. Besides OP is talking about PC cheats here, so console experience is of no consequence here.Can a person get lucky that every shot he takes against each enemy in the entirety of one game is a clear headshot? No. I am not talking about killing 1 guy with all headshot, but killing like say 10 with a 100% headshot accuracy. Not even preds can do that.

@Metr🤭din This would work for blatant head shot cheaters but then again they are blatant and easily dealt with. I've seen cheaters that opt for a more "realistic" approach and just beam people's body and by god while I was spectating them it was hard to discern their aim from good players.Regarding rank I think adding more requirements is a must. It's so easy to just make a new account and since they're most likely cheating they'll breeze on through the level 10 requirement. Not to mention realistically level 10 accounts won't know the map well enough for those players to even think about playing rank.I think devs needs to up their security more. It's really weird how some cheaters are able to go "god like" and alter the game itself. I've seen cheaters fly around and use charge rifles like lightsabers.

Stopping cheating by simply tracking Stats?

25 Replies

DarthValtrex
Hero (Retired)
5 years ago
@Metr🤭din If it was that simple they would be doing it. Simply put there is more to it. If you have a program that detects headshots, you then have someone get lucky and land a bunch of headshots, they get wrongfully banned. Now the TOS team has to deal with reviewing that persons account and unban them.

Some of the very high skill players aim for nothing but headshots. They are extremely good at as well. I've bumped into top 100 preds in matches, they land a ton of headshots, it's really insane. Some of them I have heard of and I can tell you they do not cheat. They just have really good aim, really good recoil control and are really good at the game. If they did not have the top 100 pred badges I would assume they were cheaters at the death report. But when I spectate them it's clear they are high skill players. Their movement, their play, the way they rotate, everything is top notch.
GRiPSViGiL
Seasoned Ace
5 years ago
@DarthValtrex I call BS on your claim. You can't tell if people don't cheat!

Stats are a great way to identify cheaters.

Tell me AI and machine learning cannot be leveraged to analyze and combat the problem? They could absolutely do testing with Pro's and compare against cheat programs in controlled environments to get good data. The cost of doing is probably the deterrent.

You can't play against similar skill player pools and maintain the gaudy stats and high headshot percentage cheats will register. Most competitive games match with some kind of MMR so the skill rises past the cannon fodder groups. Why do you think cheats can be tuned to land less HSs? Because stats were being used to ban people on good clan run servers for a lot of different games!
BaldWraithSimp
5 years ago
@DarthValtrex Maybe cuz you haven't come across aimbot on PC like we PC players have. Besides OP is talking about PC cheats here, so console experience is of no consequence here.

Can a person get lucky that every shot he takes against each enemy in the entirety of one game is a clear headshot? No. I am not talking about killing 1 guy with all headshot, but killing like say 10 with a 100% headshot accuracy. Not even preds can do that.
Daze623
5 years ago
@Metr🤭din This would work for blatant head shot cheaters but then again they are blatant and easily dealt with. I've seen cheaters that opt for a more "realistic" approach and just beam people's body and by god while I was spectating them it was hard to discern their aim from good players.

Regarding rank I think adding more requirements is a must. It's so easy to just make a new account and since they're most likely cheating they'll breeze on through the level 10 requirement. Not to mention realistically level 10 accounts won't know the map well enough for those players to even think about playing rank.

I think devs needs to up their security more. It's really weird how some cheaters are able to go "god like" and alter the game itself. I've seen cheaters fly around and use charge rifles like lightsabers.
BaldWraithSimp
5 years ago
@Daze623 Bodyshot aimbot cheaters are so funny lol, they will try to act like good players and yet fail at it miserably. And then that one stray bullet will hit someone they are not even aiming at, giving them away. 🤣
Daze623
5 years ago
@BaldWraithSimp Yeah that's how I caught him. I gave him benefit the doubt when he looked like he's tracking people through walls but when he immediately pointed at another enemy is when I knew he was cheating.
BrokenCompile
5 years ago
They could use machine data analysis to form a red flag and then have a team of professional spectators observe gameplay of those players.
Surely EA has enough money to do something like that.
But they do not care so much to be willing to spend money on it. Game looks pretty, there will always be new players coming to game, getting hyped about it and buying one of the packages. That's all it matters really.
hayhor
Hero
5 years ago
@DarthValtrex You wouldnt ban someone for a few lucky shots. You would look at an overall trend and look for the blatant ones first. As your algorithm improves maybe you can figure out the soft cheaters. The one who dont only do 90% headshots but maybe their cheat makes a pattern to try and throw the automated anticheat off.

I could see doing this and we dont know if they are or are not at least trying to now. I'm pretty sure it isnt just one guy or a few people reviewed videos to ban people though.
DarthValtrex
Hero (Retired)
5 years ago
Sure and they are working on AI to combat cheating. Most gaming companies are investing a ton of resources into it. Putting an end to cheating would be a golden goose for a gaming company, especially if it's something they can get intellectual property protections on. Every FPS game on the market is plagued with cheating. If a gaming company could provide an FPS game that had an anti cheat system that was let's say 95 or even just 90% effective, they could dominate the FPS market. It would be worth tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of dollars.

Unless the cheating is really egregious, it can be hard to detect. There are forum members here who have KD's above 8 and they do not cheat. I played a few rounds with an old forum member who had a KD above 7. I have a BFV friend, I used to play BFV with him almost daily when I was into it. He's one of the top BFV players in the world for console. He uses a standard controller, he just has crazy skill. Just to give an idea, this guy used to be a professional baseball player.. He has reactions time most people simply do not have. His stats in game are just unbelievable. Every lobby we would go into, he would get endless accusations of cheating.

Just to give an idea what I'm talking about.. It takes .4 seconds for a fastball to go from the pitchers hand to catchers glove. In that .4 seconds he can judge how fast the ball is traveling, the direction of the ball and still make contact with most of the pitches thrown. Keep in mind it takes a human .3-.4 seconds to blink.

@BaldWraithSimp I have dealt with the cheaters in PC lobbies I frequently play with forum members who are on PC. So I completely understand the gripe.. I want it fixed just as much as you do.
DarthValtrex
Hero (Retired)
5 years ago
@hayhor I think if it were up to me and I was trying to write the system. I would focus on AI that documents the software instead of the individual player.

Recoil patterns, TTK, just about every point of data I could come up with. Have the AI analyze the data and look for patterns that we can't see/comprehend. Now have the AI create definitions based on those patterns and so on. I think that is what they already do.. The issue is they find a way to detect said cheat, it becomes useless, people who make the cheat update their cheat to get around the detection method. Thus it's a constant battle for gaming companies.

I think it sort of depends on the type of cheat being used though. Detecting wallhacks is much different than detecting aimbot.