EA! You are losing honest players! There are too many hackers in the game!!

I am not defending hackers and cheaters. I want them gone as much as everyone else.

Am merely pointing out that not all high scores are the result of cheating. In the examples provided, 305,000 seems perfectly doable. The leader at 338,000 might raise an eyebrow, but I wouldn’t say beyond doubt that he cheated.

What many players don’t realise is the task points aren’t the same for everybody. So whilst you might be getting lots of 1,600 and 1,800-pointers thinking it’s a slow week, the random generator might lavish another player with lots of 2,000 and 3,000-pointers instead. Extrapolate that over 75 tasks and you can see how they might build what seems an unbelievable lead over you.

Myself, I got extremely lucky the past week with my Golden Tickets tasks, which repeat in an A-B-A-B pattern if you keep selecting the newly spawned task (and not touching the existing ones).

My first was Earn 2,450 Fin Simoleons for 2,450 points. Second came Earn 2,450 Leaf Simoleons also for 2,450 points. Rinse and repeat for 15 tasks and I breezed through it in about half a day. 

I keep large numbers of Fish Sandwiches in Frosty Fjords and Yoga Mats in Green Valley (sometimes up to 50 of each), so it was only a matter of waiting for the City Advisor offers to pop up and claim the Simoleons. When they didn’t appear, I simply built and demolished Heating Plants and Organic Food Markets to earn the Simoleons (you lose half the original cost, but for me it was a worthwhile hit). And to make up smaller sums, I simply completed Regional Deliveries or upgraded residential zones.

I kept track of my nearest competitors and saw them adding to their totals in 2,000 point increments. So despite doing the same number of tasks as I did, they were handicapped to begin with and had no chance of catching me. It’s not fair, but that’s how the task generator works.

As I earned my points cleanly, it would be unfair to me if they had a kneejerk reaction and reported me for cheating, would it?

Trust me, I know where you’re coming from. Few months back I was sitting pretty atop Mega with 175,000 thinking I should win this. Out of nowhere comes two others in the final few hours, breezing past me with scores of 205,000 and 192,000. Now that, I can certainly say is highly dubious. 

@NotHere2237 If you read the previous posts, you would’ve seen that the example of 305,000 points was from a Double Points week.

Have also played this game for several years and am fully aware that such totals aren’t possible during normal times. My personal all time best is 175,000, so I would guess the region of 180,000 (give or take a few thousand) is the upper limit without cheating. And perhaps 350,000 to 360,000 during Double Points weeks.

The highest points task I know of is 3,240. It’s rare, but I think I’ve had it twice - produce 18 drills.

Once again, I’m not making excuses for cheaters. Just to put things into perspective and not let people have tunnel vision and get carried away thinking that all high scores are the result of cheating. 

Some are perfectly achievable if the task generator favours you (for example, when Golden Tickets give you 15x repeating 3,000 point tasks). But sometimes players do not fully understand this, and cry ‘cheat!’ when they only get repeating 1,800 pointers and cannot catch up. 

I totally agree 

Game now is completely overtaken by cheaters now.

Developers just ignore this fact and not wanting to communicate with us.

I spend more time reporting cheating players now than playing the game.

Which is pointless as I keep an eye on reported players and see them continue to play. Which means nothing is being done.

EA is well known in the video game industry for just wanting your money by creating big titles where in order to progress you have to buy loot boxes.

Here they have even bigger potential because video game players are better in gathering together and being heard. 

Here, people keep paying to keep up with the cheaters so EA promotes cheating.

I've spent reasonable amount of many on game over the last 5-6 years of playing but enough is enough. I've stopped now.

It's all about the money. I understand it's business but you need to keep the balance. Find a way to ban hacked towns if you want our money.

Hackers have unlimited resources. They don't pay for game. We do to try keep up with hackers.

I'm going to start a new topic in forum encouraging honest players to stop paying for the game until it's fixed.

New Shield Buster attack....made cheaters unstoppable.

My very active club just stopped playing and paying real money for the game.

Players, let try to build a community to be heard by developers.

Our club has discussed a moratorium on any EA purchase in game until we see positive action from them regarding cheaters.

The problem is that EA tries to stop any similar initiative.

I've opened a separate topic in which I've encouraged all players to gather together and take some actions. 

Mainly stop paying for the game until it's fixed.

The post was deleted immediately and I was blocked to post a new topic on the forum.

That's how EA fic the problem.

Ban people who speak out on the forum.

We also stopped paying a while ago. It was mainly due to unaddressed by developer number of cheaters in this game.

The new attack just made it worse and we are not planning to spend a penny more.

If anyone recalls Battlefield Play4Free, they did exactly as OP suggested. The cheating got so bad that one day they popped up and said The Game Will Be Shutting Down In Four Days. Thanks For Playing! and that was that. So, it could happen here, too.

@smadath  Your analysis is quite interesting and could eventually become reality...however there is a tremendous difference between the level of participation in Battlefield Play4Free and SimCity Buildit. The revenue generated is exponentially greater and I believe it will take much more than cheating and hacking for them to make that move. Which makes their failure to take corrective action that much more mind boggling. My advice is spend the resources, get rid of this ridiculous privacy policy and cleanup the game before more folks decide to walk away.

i agree with most of what everyone posted. i too spent alot of time reporting cheaters and received the "general" response too. re: privacy topic - it reminds me of criminals who have more rights than victims in real life. at this point i don't care to know where the cheater lives or his name because i just want to see the cheating stop. that kind of response from customer service only deflects the real issue anyways. now i just hope and pray the cheaters will be banned.