I always thought cheating wasn't possible in this game because everything is run server side..This is the current leaderboard for the free daily on PC: 4 holes, first place went for -12:IIRC it was 1xpar5, 2xpar4, 1xpar 3, adding up to 16.. minus 12 equals 4.. so they took one shot per hole, including the Par5 first hole, and i shall believe that's legit?Maybe somebody can explain what i am seeing here and why my assumptions are wrong, but as it stands i am pretty much shocked.All names blanked for privacy reasons.

Basically, in any given tournament, someone can shoot one under for each par 3 & each par 4 longer than say ~375 yards, and 2 under for each par 4 under ~375 yards and each par 5 fairly easily.Any lower than that requires a hole out from a full swing shot. While hole outs do happen, it starts to get suspicious if more than one happens in a 4-hole tournament (especially if it's always the same person).So for the tournament in your example, -5 is the expected score. -6 will be shot by a few people, and maybe even one or two people will get a -7. -12 is essentially impossible and likely a glitch, but certainly fair to report for cheating so that it is investigated.

@IrieGibbonzI have stayed out of this discussion because I am not going to claim anyone is cheating.People here insist they are just that good. My only argument is that with the built-in RNG there is still a random element to the game. So being deadly accurate and consistently holing out (for hole in ones) seems unlikely, even if you had access to power and spin post shot.

@7AnimalMother wrote:Basically, in any given tournament, someone can shoot one under for each par 3 & each par 4 longer than say ~375 yards, and 2 under for each par 4 under ~375 yards and each par 5 fairly easily.Any lower than that requires a hole out from a full swing shot. While hole outs do happen, it starts to get suspicious if more than one happens in a 4-hole tournament (especially if it's always the same person).So for the tournament in your example, -5 is the expected score. -6 will be shot by a few people, and maybe even one or two people will get a -7. -12 is essentially impossible and likely a glitch, but certainly fair to report for cheating so that it is investigated. That's exactly why i'll never point my fingers at somebody shooting -5, or even -6 or -7 for that matter. I KNOW there's people capable of hitting -5 in an avg 4-hole tournament (1xpar3, 2xpar4, 1xpar5) rather consistently, and 100% legit. -6 and even -7 is those players being lucky, or as you mentioned there being a short par4 in between and them being lucky.However if the -12 turns out to be not legit (and not glitched scoreboard as some suggest), it makes me wonder if ALL them -5 scores are legit. Obviously some are, maybe even all, but prior to this i was sure they all been legit, right now i can't be. But yea, maybe there was a glitch and that person's scores had been carried over from other events, coincidentally matching up to 1 shot per hole. I'm still going to report, once i figure out that system because obviously it must be hard to report someone for a suspicious score in PGA Tour. Either that or i'm just too blind to follow instructions.With regards to reporting, i'm talking about the -12 here alone, nobody else, just making sure this is understood.

Hey Everyone, I wanted to pop into this thread again and remind everyone while we love the feedback and discussion around the game we do need to remain respectful of one another. For more information check out our community guidelines & rules. If the thread continues to go off track or violates the above guidelines we will need to lock it. Thanks!

@IrieGibbonz -9 is leading on daily arcade 4 hole tournament st Wolf Creek right now.Seems a bit suspect to me

Some of the Leaderboard scores...

22 Replies

-Roasted513-
Seasoned Ace
2 years ago
@IrieGibbonz cheating IS in the game, and theres nothing EA will do about it, i see it ALL of the time. some people are more obvious than others
IrieGibbonz
2 years ago
@-Roasted513- wrote:
@IrieGibbonzcheating IS in the game, and theres nothing EA will do about it, i see it ALL of the time. some people are more obvious than others
That means we have a BIG problem with this game.. Cheating is bad in any game, but in EA Sports PGA Tour we have Entry Fees for tournaments, and a payout system that will actively punish people for not performing in the top 50-60% iirc, depending on the tournament.

If the majority of cheaters are not as blatant as this person is, but we also know there's people actually capable of hitting -5 more or less consistently in something like the free 4 hole daily, it begs the question: How many of these -5 are legit? I am pretty sure quite a few, but is it all of them?

By now i'm not so sure anymore, but wouldn't dare to point my finger at anyone - because again i know there's people out there capable of consistently producing these numbers without cheating.

This is really messed up. EA has a lot of the money and power, and i know combatting cheaters for every company is a nightmare - but some manage to do a lot better than others. One would think EA should be one of those that do better.
ELF014
2 years ago
@IrieGibbonzI have stayed out of this discussion because I am not going to claim anyone is cheating.

People here insist they are just that good. My only argument is that with the built-in RNG there is still a random element to the game. So being deadly accurate and consistently holing out (for hole in ones) seems unlikely, even if you had access to power and spin post shot.
EA_Barry
Community Manager
2 years ago
@ELF014 @IrieGibbonz @-Roasted513-

If you suspect a player may be playing unfairly you can use the steps detailed at the following link to report them.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment/

Thanks.
ELF014
2 years ago
@EA_Barry I would never say anyone is cheating ... but when online tournaments consistently have scores of -7 or -8 for a 4 hole event, I would think it would raise some red flags, especially when RNG is in play.
BlackCat09522
2 years ago
It has been the case that scores from another event have bled over into the wrong place which is probably what happened here.
If you are going to accuse people of cheating, have evidence to back it up.
IrieGibbonz
2 years ago
@EA_Barry wrote:
@ELF014 @IrieGibbonz @-Roasted513-
If you suspect a player may be playing unfairly you can use the steps detailed at the following link to report them.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment/

Thanks.
Thanks, i will report the minus 12 because that is absolutely blatant, specially when considering i was told elsewhere that the same person had another "impossible" score in a different tournament that same day.

But as i said previously, that incident opened the floodgate for much bigger problems in my mind. I always thought i was playing a game that genuinely doesn't have cheaters in them, when apparently that's not the case. Now when there's one, there's probably more?
Albeit a bit smarter in making sure they don't have impossible high scores, so they can't be pointed out because other people achieve the same scores as them legitimately.

Point in case, i know some of the -5 are 100% legit, but i also cannot believe all of them being legit anymore. Which ones aren't? There's absolutely no way to know for us players, and that sucks big time. And that's where we need EA to ramp up anti-cheating measures.

Honestly all i did play yesterday was that 4 hole daily and after discovering that -12 i simply stopped playing - and tbh i'm not in the mood to play any PGA Tour today, neither. That's a shame because i was playing the game quite a lot up until yesterday - now i'm all about "why should i buy a pro pass when the next season comes? Will i even be playing by then?" when before i was 100% committed to support EA with this live service endeavor.

That incident really sucked the air out of the game for me, and some of them replies here apparently are trying to make sure i will not return at all.
IrieGibbonz
2 years ago
@EA_Barry wrote:
@ELF014 @IrieGibbonz @-Roasted513-
If you suspect a player may be playing unfairly you can use the steps detailed at the following link to report them.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment/

Thanks.
I just tried.
There is no way to report players for "in game" activities in the provided link as the list of games under "in game" does not include EA Sports PGA Tour or any variation of this.

So i guess we cannot report people at all unless they post on the forums or whatever?
EA_Illium
EA Staff (Retired)
2 years ago
@IrieGibbonz wrote:

@EA_Barry wrote:

@ELF014 @IrieGibbonz @-Roasted513-

If you suspect a player may be playing unfairly you can use the steps detailed at the following link to report them.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment/

Thanks.

I just tried.
There is no way to report players for "in game" activities in the provided link as the list of games under "in game" does not include EA Sports PGA Tour or any variation of this.

So i guess we cannot report people at all unless they post on the forums or whatever?

Hi @IrieGibbonz To confirm if you are playing on a console please follow the steps under the section "PlayStation and Xbox" and if you are on a PC you can use the section "Reporting if there's no in-game option" (which you can still use for console play as well!)

Cheers!
IrieGibbonz
2 years ago
@BlackCat09522 wrote:
If you are going to accuse people of cheating, have evidence to back it up.
Same goes when you accuse people of lying. The difference is me blanking out all the names in the screenshot, but you accusing me directly.