EA keeps referring to the 'Report article' but the complaint is about reporting

I'm playing games in the Battlefield franchise since Battlefield 2. Now I'm playing Battlefield V for a while.

But the amount of cheaters is horrible in the game. I've read several posts about it in this forum and EA answers every time that they take it seriously. However, In Game I don't see this taking into action.

Some DICE servers are full of very 'skilled' players. Shooting through walls, knowing where everyone is, using software to help aiming and so on.

I also report suspected players, but by accident I ran into a cheater for the second time, two weeks later. Other players were complaining about the same player too. Other players also said the same thing, they reported the player several times, also weeks back and the player was still playing.

So I tried to report a player outside the In Game report function. EA support started to ask me questions like, my EA account, my Origin ID, my player name and where I bought the game. While I do not have any issues answering these questions I just wanted you to look into a player that was cheating. My details are not important.

I also see the same behaviour with those players. Playing one round and leave the server. Over and over again.

One example is the player *snip*  playing normally and average until 25 Februari with a K/D around 0,5 or lower.

On 25 February this year, during the day, this player suddenly gets 'skilled' and his K/D of 0,5 is changing to K/D > 5 and has never changed since then.

This player has been reported several times, by multiple players. Also during the game it is very clear the player uses hacks to help him. You can also see the difference in skill out of nothing. The evidence is very very clear.

But despite all the reports of this player, he is still playing and cheating. EA, if you take this so seriously, why is a player like this able to keep on cheating week after week?

And why isn't there a cheat detection system anymore? Where is the Punkbuster plugin. Why are we not able to kick vote players in game? How is it possible that hackers can shoot through walls with wall hacks and getting a kill while the game has a client and server hit registration which should match with each other.

It is just utterly frustrating. 

I'm just an average player, and I don't mind to play against players that are really more skilled. But it is just removing all the fun from the game that people are cheating massively and EA doesn't do much about it.

(CM: Edited to remove names. Please do not share your or others names on the forums. It is considered naming and shaming)

Can I see my In Game reports? Who I reported and what the status is of that report?

There are a lot of assumptions going on here and I understand why as it's not crystal clear on what is going on from our side. @GuiltyNL

Each report player report gets investigated by our teams and it's not a throwaway comment to chase everyone away aka trust me, bro. The team do take cheating very seriously in our games. But the more transparent we are on how x works, the more info we give cheat makers making our jobs harder.

One common issue we are seeing in the industry is perceiving it's the same player all the time because it's the same name, it's very common for players to change names on accounts.

How reporting works changed a fair bit in Battlefield 2042 if you have the game you can see how it works there.

There is no silver bullet to catch all cheaters it doesn't matter for what game it is, it's a never-ending arms race that just gets more and more complicated.

You cant, we dont have a tracker or a case update on what is going on with the report. 

/Atic

Isn't making cheats for this game go against the (breaking the end user license agreement policy?)  Is cheating not an illegal act by altering a Copy right protected game? 

Why doesn't EA go after these cheat makers and file law suits?  It should be made illegal as it is in  South Korea and Australia. These two countries fine you a stiff penalty and jail time.  Because lets be honest it is a form of stealing. It is stealing fair game play form those who do not cheat!  

Agree with everything you said Well stated! 

This pretty much sums up what will happen to a companies game and reputation because of cheating and not using a better way to police it! 

"The facts are that cheating is a major concern for online gamers; a study showed that
66 % of the participants complained about there being too many cheaters.  And when it
is a problem for the players it becomes a problem for the developers and the publishers. It
is all in the brand. If a game gets a reputation for containing too many cheaters, players
will leave the game. In all likelihood, they will not buy expansion packs, they will
certainly not pay subscription fees and it is doubtful if they will return to the next
instalment of the game. The brand will lose value, and the companies behind the game
will lose money."

source: 

http://www.game-research.com/art_online_gaming.asp.

That's a lie and i know for a fact there has been so many reports for obvious cheaters in particular that have been roaming around for months even years and still doing it on the same account (yes they change their name but are easily being traced back)  that you can't just dismiss it with ''there is no silver bullet'' be straight about it this is just lying to community, and I'm not talking about the run and gun cheaters that abandon their accounts after 20 hours of  game play i'm talking about cheaters with 1000 hours of play time and still go free and they aren't even hiding the fact that they are cheating is blatant shooting everything that moves in a aimbot sight.

And this is especially in Firestorm Solo and squad.

and we don't ask for transparency about how you ban cheater we just want them banned technical stuff behind isn't even relevant to be public.

I even got banned for reporting to many cheaters (that's a fact) did it on a daily basis because I've seen them on a daily basis.
  

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@EA_Atic wrote:

There are a lot of assumptions going on here and I understand why as it's not crystal clear on what is going on from our side. @GuiltyNL

Each report player report gets investigated by our teams and it's not a throwaway comment to chase everyone away aka trust me, bro. The team do take cheating very seriously in our games. But the more transparent we are on how x works, the more info we give cheat makers making our jobs harder.

One common issue we are seeing in the industry is perceiving it's the same player all the time because it's the same name, it's very common for players to change names on accounts.

How reporting works changed a fair bit in Battlefield 2042 if you have the game you can see how it works there.

There is no silver bullet to catch all cheaters it doesn't matter for what game it is, it's a never-ending arms race that just gets more and more complicated.

You cant, we dont have a tracker or a case update on what is going on with the report. 

/Atic

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Ok, @EA_Atic First of all I do appreciate that you reply to this topic and that you are willing to give an explanation. I also appreciate it that this topic is not closed immediately so there is some room to reply. 

You don't need to tell how you hunt down cheaters, but at this moment your procedure does not seem to work very well. In every round there seem to be multiple cheaters. Some with aim bots, some with wall hacks, but the most with a hack that is exposing enemies telling where they are. Sometimes I'm playing a round and 30% of the enemy knows instantly where I am, without being spotted they just walk up to me and directly aim towards me. I've tested it, hiding in spots or corners that are really unusual, out of the place where the fights are happening at that time. I hear them walking towards me while there is no reason to go to that place in the map.

If it is difficult because of name changes, there is something wrong in the logic of the game, as a name should not be important, but a player ID number or the connected Origin ID should be the leading thing to follow. I can change a name of one of my customers, but his  customer ID stays the same.

Also that it takes weeks or months to ban someone that is shooting with a bot and a sniper gun is something I really don't understand. It is so obvious if someone gets a 99/1 K/D score within 10 minutes or so. 

The same for people shooting with a bot AND a wallhack, like the player I mentioned. But his name has been removed, because of the name and shame policy.Now I lookedup the user and it seems to be gone, but I saved some URLs of some gamereports and this player is still playing, even now, under a new name. First he had a male name, now he has a female name.

I clicked some game reports before 25 February and most have a k/d of 0.25 or lower... The last game of today has a K/D of 5.38 with a Score/Min of 817. While on Feb 25 this player (already started cheating during that day) had a score of 189 per Min. 

And some are even more worrying:

This player has been reported by multiple users, in multiple rounds. It is really not difficult to mark him as a cheater. He is cheating for three weeks now and keeps doing so. 

You are not getting skilled in one day, this player does before Feb 25, it was like this:

I mean going from 3.7% accuracy to 40% accuracy in a day? How does that sound to you? And not once but since that day it is like that.

I will keep following this player, my guess is that he will still be playing next month. And maybe next year also... That is the my pain at the moment.

@EA_Atic You wanna see something funny?

[Link removed by moderation - Name and shame not allowed]

Every time he shows up, he blatantly goes 100-0 or something like that, aimbotting with LMG or Sniper (he has spent almost all his time playing with 2 weaps). Just follow that link and check individual game reports - you'll see he always has ridiculous scores.

This guys has been cheating NON STOP, EVERY SINGLE GAME, ALMOST EVERY DAY since October 2021. Now it's March 2022. That's 6 months.

He's lvl 318 now with 306h hours played. He has literally ruined thousands of games for others.

He's been reported countless times in every game I've met him.

This is just one example - almost every game has a 100-150 ping russian / chinese guy with ridiculous scores, especially on weekends.

You have all the data you want at your disposal. Someone routinely achieving 50-100 kills per game and 15-20 KDR as infantry should end up on a special list to be reviewed.

We're not talking about a smart, subtle cheater - I understand those can be hard to catch. These people don't even try to hide their hacks, that's why this whole situation is so pathetic.

On top of that, reporting cheaters is overcomplicated. It's not obvious at all how to do it (PC), so much that players often ask how to do it. Something so important should be obvious in the UI, so that's another failure of the game's design.

BF5 is a fine game and it could be great if cheaters if anyone actually cared.

You'd think they'd at least have a better canned response by now.

Oh and before some dull bulb chimes in with the "no anti cheat is perfect" response... no one is asking for perfection.

Back when we had active server moderation with RSP cheaters were a rare issue fixed quickly. 

The claim:

"we take your reports seriously... trust us & read this post about how serious we are"

But the game is still rife with blatant cheaters who remain on for months.. many top out lvl cap. BLATANT!

That in mind... only one of the 2 responses can be correct:

1) EA is lying and they do not take any bit of the reporting seriously. 

2) EA is grossly incompetent. 

Don't get a warm fuzzy about either.