Cheater & hacker update 11/18

"Boov;c-1696088" wrote:
I'm honestly a bit curious why everyone seems to be so happy about this. Do you guys really dislike other players buying an account or getting crystals cheaper so much? I mean, i get that you don't want other guys to get things cheaper or still face an account of a player who stopped playing because they're your competition in arena, but it's not like you can notice a difference while playing between a legit whale and a crystalfraud/bought whale account. What leaderboard you're placed on when you started playing most likely plays a far bigger roll in your ingame performance than these accounts that are getting banned ever did.
Maybe i'm completely wrong about this, but the way i see it is that ea/cg are mostly protecting themselves against theft instead of banning cheaters who're actively ruining the game by hacking.
Don't get me wrong, i do think "thiefs" should be punished, but it's not like i'm cheering when the local supermarket busts a thief or anything like that (eventhough pricess may go down if theft goes down, wich would be in my interrest).

Very much, yes. I work hard and I follow the rules. I don't finish at the top of arena because I don't spend much money on the game (I've been playing since February of 2016 and would estimate I've spent maybe $300 in total) and I don't mind that I finish around 100 most days because I earned that placement.

If you buy an account you didn't earn the placement. Someone else earned it and you just came along to profit from it.

Crystal fraud is a whole other matter, and one that affects everyone. The fraudster rationalizes it by thinking that the only person they're hurting is the company, and that's okay to them because the company is a faceless entity that's making millions of dollars. Thing is, they're making millions of dollars because this is a good game, and it's a game that they've been working on for years--it cost millions of dollars to get the licensing, build the infrastructure, maintain the servers, pay their employees, and do all the other things it takes to create a game that won't actually make a dime until it goes live after months and months of labor to go live. And, even once it goes live, it's not guaranteed to be a success. Look at the app store and see how many games come and go and never turn a profit--for every Galaxy of Heroes or Clash of Clans there are a dozen games that flop. This is all a long way of saying that folks at CG worked hard to get this game started and maintain it, they deserve to be paid.

Fraud affects us as players more directly, because we're competing with the fraudsters on an uneven playing field. But also because it means the company has to make up for the revenue lost to fraud somehow, and that usually comes from raised prices, fewer giveaways, or other methods that basically mean a slightly worse experience for the users.

"Ikey;c-1696252" wrote:

"CG_LucifersDaddy;c-1695817" wrote:

"Dk_rek;c-1695778" wrote:

"CG_LucifersDaddy;c-1695731" wrote:

"Keithkia;c-1695688" wrote:
Are these bans permanent?

For the most part yes.

In the past we've tried to rehabilitate these types of abuses with intricate and severe account adjustments... but with so many this go round we're just going to a perma-ban.

We may entertain reevaluations in a few months, but I can not emphasize enough how low of a priority it is to set aside time to accommodate cheaters. They cheated, they're gone.

LD

Just so you know on Reddit they are posting something like 2 week bans...or even in the past..

That's crazy they can buy themselves to first by cheating get 2 weeks off then get to go right back to first place.....

That would almost BE AN INCENTIVE to go out and try to cheat....that would be INSANE..

It HAS to be permanant or everyone in their brother is going to go out and try to do this..

I know better than to let reddit rile me up but those guys have a point about temp or suspensions that woudl allow them to come back would just encourage more people to cheat.

Yeah I read those reports. It gives me pause, knowing the truth and such.

We don't share specific account information, but I can tell you that at no point has an account that was found guilty of crystal fraud been released back into the game without a serious, and I mean serious adjustment.

This can and often would include the removal of event exclusive characters. Which in the case of our game means they will never be able to obtain them (e.g. BB8, Yoda, CLS...) Oh and all currencies, items, a bunch of gear and a smattering of high value heroes.

But really, if they got back into the game in a couple of weeks, the account was a shell of its former self.

Also this was likely during a time when we were still grasping at the magnitude and reach of such violations, thus release said accounts for further monitoring helped to yield much needed information.

LD

@CG_LucifersDaddy This isn't true at all. I know a bunch of people last year that you caught cheating using the very same method, and a soft ban was sanctioned. They're still very much playing today.

That was last year. Read LD's posts again--they've been looking into this for a very long time and didn't realize the full extent of it when they first started last year. Those punishments are going to escalate.