How many people actually cheat?

Kordai

I know there are the more obvious infinite ult/mag/stam/sets stuff. But are there a lot of stuff to increase dmg too? Or is it just pure damage stuff with modded regens?

Nemeliom

Either I am too naive, or I just haven't found any cheaters (at least lately).
There are just pro players and regular/new players. Pro players are really hard to kill, but they all die and tons of times.

EmperorIl

I've seen and reported blatant cheating captured on video and no one at ZOS even bothers to view the private link I send them. Still remains at the same views as when I report. So since they are obviously not caring enough to even look at evidence, I highly doubt anyone is getting in trouble for it. With that, you can bet your butt there is a ton of cheating going on because why not? No one gets banned anyway.

xylena_lazarow

A couple months ago there was someone abusing a NB shade exploit to climb over keep walls, a number of EP players saw and reported this, and the bug was said to be fixed in the u32 patch notes. The devs seem to be on top of cheating and exploiting. Many of these issues are players not understanding combat mechanics, or lag.

Nemeliom

Ok. When I hear "cheating" I understand using 3rd party software. Ex: I remember years ago people could have unlimited Ultimate points or could even fly.

Exploiting is a totally different, and more common, issue. Ex: using Take a Flight to climb a castle wall.

Kordai

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

A couple months ago there was someone abusing a NB shade exploit to climb over keep walls, a number of EP players saw and reported this, and the bug was said to be fixed in the u32 patch notes. The devs seem to be on top of cheating and exploiting. Many of these issues are players not understanding combat mechanics, or lag.

Like I said, was talking about the less obvious stuff. Lag doesn't allow you to ult freely with no respect for actual ult gen without the use of arkasis or being a nb using pot cd reduction glyphs. Nor can you dodge roll 30+ times in a row. Nor can you have perma cc immunity while not using unstoppable.

I'm talking about when fighting players just get plain weird with no coherent build. Can you take very little single target unblocked damage while not running an defensive sets and no HA? I've fought plenty of good players, and then there are the extremely "good" players who's builds can't be replicated.

I've fought you and you are a good player, but at no point was I completely dumbfounded by what was going on. Also some of those same players seem to be significantly worse whenever they are fighting known streamers.

divnyi

Calculations are server-side. I'm yet to see a video that proves that cheats exist today.
Exploits, tho, surely exists. Players, well, exploit them. Broken sets that do more then they should (undertaker, hrothgar), skills that can cause bugged states etc.

EmperorIl

divnyi wrote: »

Calculations are server-side. I'm yet to see a video that proves that cheats exist today.
Exploits, tho, surely exists. Players, well, exploit them. Broken sets that do more then they should (undertaker, hrothgar), skills that can cause bugged states etc.

You can literally find this stuff all over the internet if you look for it. Won't link any for obvious reasons. It's real, it exists, and they don't care. If they did they would have viewed my videos reporting it. At least if they viewed them I would give them the benefit of the doubt, not even one view though?

Kordai

Nemeliom wrote: »

Ok. When I hear "cheating" I understand using 3rd party software. Ex: I remember years ago people could have unlimited Ultimate points or could even fly.

Exploiting is a totally different, and more common, issue. Ex: using Take a Flight to climb a castle wall.

You can still fly, granted its more superman jumping across the map/over keep walls than true flight.

divnyi wrote: »

Calculations are server-side. I'm yet to see a video that proves that cheats exist today.
Exploits, tho, surely exists. Players, well, exploit them. Broken sets that do more then they should (undertaker, hrothgar), skills that can cause bugged states etc.

Yeah alot of the calculations are server side but as far as I know procs and such are still client side. I am pretty bad at computer stuff so a lot of the how is over my head. I also play on an old-ish laptop so recording myself is less than ideal, and when I do I just submit to zos directly.

This all just came up after one of my friends who recently stopped playing (with no intention of coming back) said that he used alot of this stuff. I was surprised because I always respected him as being a great player and didn't even notice anything blatant over the few years we've played together (but it was a fringe guildie, not someone I fought besides alot).

Vizirith

Kordai wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

A couple months ago there was someone abusing a NB shade exploit to climb over keep walls, a number of EP players saw and reported this, and the bug was said to be fixed in the u32 patch notes. The devs seem to be on top of cheating and exploiting. Many of these issues are players not understanding combat mechanics, or lag.

Like I said, was talking about the less obvious stuff. Lag doesn't allow you to ult freely with no respect for actual ult gen without the use of arkasis or being a nb using pot cd reduction glyphs. Nor can you dodge roll 30+ times in a row. Nor can you have perma cc immunity while not using unstoppable.

I'm talking about when fighting players just get plain weird with no coherent build. Can you take very little single target unblocked damage while not running an defensive sets and no HA? I've fought plenty of good players, and then there are the extremely "good" players who's builds can't be replicated.

I've fought you and you are a good player, but at no point was I completely dumbfounded by what was going on. Also some of those same players seem to be significantly worse whenever they are fighting known streamers.

Well are you using fossilize?

Kordai wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

A couple months ago there was someone abusing a NB shade exploit to climb over keep walls, a number of EP players saw and reported this, and the bug was said to be fixed in the u32 patch notes. The devs seem to be on top of cheating and exploiting. Many of these issues are players not understanding combat mechanics, or lag.

Like I said, was talking about the less obvious stuff. Lag doesn't allow you to ult freely with no respect for actual ult gen without the use of arkasis or being a nb using pot cd reduction glyphs. Nor can you dodge roll 30+ times in a row. Nor can you have perma cc immunity while not using unstoppable.

I'm talking about when fighting players just get plain weird with no coherent build. Can you take very little single target unblocked damage while not running an defensive sets and no HA? I've fought plenty of good players, and then there are the extremely "good" players who's builds can't be replicated.

I've fought you and you are a good player, but at no point was I completely dumbfounded by what was going on. Also some of those same players seem to be significantly worse whenever they are fighting known streamers.

Well everybody is using well-fitted now that impen is much less useful but that seems a bit extreme. Also are you using fossilize because I think it is still broken when dealing with people with immov pots.

I think alot of the issue is how obvious everything is. For example movement cap is 200%, anything over that would be speedhacking, but if you could say have 200% movement speed without sacrificing infused jewelry traits it would be very hard to tell. Same with alot of things. With build variety lends itself to harder to easily tell "too good" things. In WoW you have very little build variety and therefore all people of X class hit about the same. You don't have that in eso.

Gilvoth

EmperorIl wrote: »

I've seen and reported blatant cheating captured on video and no one at ZOS even bothers to view the private link I send them. Still remains at the same views as when I report. So since they are obviously not caring enough to even look at evidence, I highly doubt anyone is getting in trouble for it. With that, you can bet your butt there is a ton of cheating going on because why not? No one gets banned anyway.

exactly the same experience i have had.

divnyi

EmperorIl wrote: »

Won't link any for obvious reasons.

Obvious reasons being?

Larcomar

It's really hard to disentangle what's cheating, what's exploiting and what's someone who's just got a better ping than you. And you're aiming where they were two seconds ago... while they're desynching you.

That said, I think we've all seen people in cyro who have impossibly good stats - they can dodge infinitely, take no damage, have infinite sustain yet have enormous burst on command.

Is it alot of people? I think there's a fair number, but tbh I suspect it's just that the people who will do it are inevitably the people who play more. They're a minority of the playerbase, you just see them more because they pvp alot of the time.

Yes, I know, they must be running Merida's. Or daedric trickery. Or one of the umpteenth other sets that people on these firums like to trot out to pretend it's all skill. Git gud and all that...

Ten minutes of googling, it's not hard to find people selling "trainers," videos of hacks and indeed, people boasting about using them. Or complaining that this "trainer" is way too expensive because they can get x elsewhere for less. I dunno, maybe people feel it invalidates their achievements to admit it or something.

Either way, if you come across someone who's too good to be true, just leave and go somewhere else. If they show up again, well, it's probably time to log.

You can try reporting if you want, but honestly I woulnd't bother. Bottom line, zos exists to make money. It's way more cost effective to just sweep the issue under rug than spend alot of cash trying to fix it. Which would probably make performance even worse...

It's not a problem, it's just part of playing on line games. I don't want to just say "Deal with it" but, common, how many other games are cheat free?

PS if you're asking because you want to do this stuff, well, I suspect it will just trivialise the game for you and you'll get bored, but hey, I'm not judging. But don't do the whole flying around, dropping ulti's on people. That is going to get stepped on. Just jack up your stats, you're defense, you're sustain etc and if anyone challenges you, just say, "deadric trickery..."

xxslam48xxb14_ESO

Only cheating I see is macroing. Lots of people macroing block onto any ability that can be cast while blocking. Pretty obvious when you see someone inside a safe keep constantly flashing block on and off while buffing. No reason to randomly keep blocking when there is no one around to even attack you.

xylena_lazarow

Why is it easier to believe "cheating" than the game being poorly balanced?

Amottica

.

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Why is it easier to believe "cheating" than the game being poorly balanced?

I suppose it is hard for some to understand why others do much higher damage or play so much better. It is no different than blaming a skill because it is what was in the death recap or blaming a skill for why one could not kill a player.

baselesschart

Trust me you would know if someone was cheating. To my knowledge there has not been very many cheaters in the games lifespan. Easy to bust too, most people have access to recording software that has a "record last 5 minutes of gameplay" feature.

Merlin13KAGL

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

Only cheating I see is macroing. Lots of people macroing block onto any ability that can be cast while blocking. Pretty obvious when you see someone inside a safe keep constantly flashing block on and off while buffing. No reason to randomly keep blocking when there is no one around to even attack you.

Have you never been ganked? Have you never engaged a NB?

Keeping block up when in any area to potentially get hit is hardly a bad thing. Doesn't take a macro to hold RMB.

EmperorIl

divnyi wrote: »

EmperorIl wrote: »

Won't link any for obvious reasons.

Obvious reasons being?

Pretty sure it would be against TOS to link cheat engines and websites telling you how to hack Python lol.

EmperorIl

baselesschart wrote: »

Trust me you would know if someone was cheating. To my knowledge there has not been very many cheaters in the games lifespan. Easy to bust too, most people have access to recording software that has a "record last 5 minutes of gameplay" feature.

I have busted people doing it and have used my 5 minute record, posted it on youtube (privately) and sent the link in with my ticket. Guess how many views it got? ZERO.

So while it is easy to bust and record and report....doesn't do much good if they don't even look at the video.

WuffyCerulei

Maybe? Though using 3rd party programs to cheat isn't as common as using an exploit to gain an advantage in ESO it seems. HOWEVER, I've been seeing some suspect people in Cyrodiil lately. Not many, but they stick out like a drunk Nord at an Altmer soiree with how bursty or tanky they are.

baselesschart

EmperorIl wrote: »

I have busted people doing it and have used my 5 minute record, posted it on youtube (privately) and sent the link in with my ticket. Guess how many views it got? ZERO.

So while it is easy to bust and record and report....doesn't do much good if they don't even look at the video.

I have played the game since launch and I honestly have never personally seen a cheater. I've watched youtube videos of people flying around but no doubt in my mind those people got banned quick. Obviously with the scarcity of cheaters, one could conclude that there must be a pretty big deterrent to cheating. And I don't consider exploits necessarily cheating, even though I don't condone those. I'm mainly referring to outside software being used to gain unfair advantages, which I have not seen personally in my years of playing.

EmperorIl

baselesschart wrote: »

EmperorIl wrote: »

I have busted people doing it and have used my 5 minute record, posted it on youtube (privately) and sent the link in with my ticket. Guess how many views it got? ZERO.

So while it is easy to bust and record and report....doesn't do much good if they don't even look at the video.

I have played the game since launch and I honestly have never personally seen a cheater. I've watched youtube videos of people flying around but no doubt in my mind those people got banned quick. Obviously with the scarcity of cheaters, one could conclude that there must be a pretty big deterrent to cheating. And I don't consider exploits necessarily cheating, even though I don't condone those. I'm mainly referring to outside software being used to gain unfair advantages, which I have not seen personally in my years of playing.

Do some searches and you will find forums where people are talking about using them...it's real.

Merforum

EmperorIl wrote: »

baselesschart wrote: »

EmperorIl wrote: »

I have busted people doing it and have used my 5 minute record, posted it on youtube (privately) and sent the link in with my ticket. Guess how many views it got? ZERO.

So while it is easy to bust and record and report....doesn't do much good if they don't even look at the video.

I have played the game since launch and I honestly have never personally seen a cheater. I've watched youtube videos of people flying around but no doubt in my mind those people got banned quick. Obviously with the scarcity of cheaters, one could conclude that there must be a pretty big deterrent to cheating. And I don't consider exploits necessarily cheating, even though I don't condone those. I'm mainly referring to outside software being used to gain unfair advantages, which I have not seen personally in my years of playing.

Do some searches and you will find forums where people are talking about using them...it's real.

Exactly right, the dude that creates the speeder hack has now also ruined New World PVP like he ruined ESO. Question if someone can move a max speed without using any speed enhancing gear, enchant, race and also do it without having to sprint (meaning no stam lost) is that OK or cheating?

If someone uses a hack to remove the delay in between attacks and/or cancel animation so they can do more attacks per second than anyone else, is that cheating, I know in ESO this is accepted as light attack animation canceling but when it is automated with a macro is it cheating (BTW in New World these dudes are doing like 2-3 light attacks for every 1 attack, wonder who will win that duel)?

As someone said above people using macros to either block/cast using one button click, and/or doing a perfect LA AC while pushing each skill is RAMPANT and simple to do, don't even need to buy cheat engine. I tested on a simple programmable controller and was able to do it, although with my LAG, it is totally inconsistent, but these dudes with high end systems and super connection and best programmable keypad/mice this is trivial to do.

But this isn't cheating and no one ever saw anyone do any of this stuff, either the people saying that don't play often, don't know what to look for or are the ones doing the cheating so are trying to derail the topic.

These dudes cheat so much they actually have a secondary term for it called exploiting. Notice how they say 'well that isn't exactly cheating but I'd call it exploiting' as if it isn't the exact same result. I don't play eso any more or watch any vids for about 2 months because I'm over it, BTW I wasted about 6 months watching streamers every day. And I can tell you they all cheat like crazy, whether it be using totally broken sets, for instance, no one ever used undertaker then it had a bug and all of a sudden all these 'good' players were running it.

Also if you watch several different streamers you will notice other little tricks, saw a guy in IC and he was trying to 1vX about 10 dudes, he started to get overwhelmed then ran into a cage, guess what he too NO DAMAGE but could hit them from inside, WHAT. Also say another dude in Cyro by a bridge, had 5 guys about to kill him, then ducked into a little corner, where he healed up without anyone able to hit him at all. There are glitch areas all over the place like this and these dudes know exactly where they are, is that 'good' player or exploit/cheat.

I've seen several people who run top speed (lose no stam cause not in sprint), have 8K weapon damage, 35K health, using ALL damage sets, 3-4 procs, can take almost no damage but even when they do, go from 5K to 35K in 1-2 seconds. But at the same time when they try to 'solo' BGs/IC/Cyro they get completely stomped over and over but with a pocket healer in group BG/IC/Cyro they kill almost everyone.

All this cheating creates a vicious cycle
1. first people find a cheat, but say it doesn't exist (I'm just so good I can run at max speed at all times or do LA or block and skill each second)(BTW of course I do a perfectly timed block in the middle of nowhere or surround by teammates every time I cast a buff, or LA AC/skill, it's muscle memory dude don't you get it)
2. when they can't lie any more they downplay it, no it's just an exploit (ESO would fix it if it were that bad, to be fair sometimes they do fix/remove bug/exploits)
3. then it becomes rampant, Yeah it's bad, yeah it's a probably a cheat but if I want to be competitive I have to do it too
4. eventually so many people use it, it becomes part of the game

These games are supposed to be fun but toxic folks aren't in it for fun. I actually find it fun to point out FakeNews like many people spread on forums otherwise I wouldn't waste my time. I know most people don't care or will flame me. But my advice is if any game isn't fun find something else to do, and don't take this stuff too seriously.

baselesschart

Merforum wrote: »

As someone said above people using macros to either block/cast using one button click, and/or doing a perfect LA AC while pushing each skill is RAMPANT and simple to do, don't even need to buy cheat engine. I tested on a simple programmable controller and was able to do it, although with my LAG, it is totally inconsistent, but these dudes with high end systems and super connection and best programmable keypad/mice this is trivial to do.

But this isn't cheating and no one ever saw anyone do any of this stuff, either the people saying that don't play often, don't know what to look for or are the ones doing the cheating so are trying to derail the topic.

These dudes cheat so much they actually have a secondary term for it called exploiting. Notice how they say 'well that isn't exactly cheating but I'd call it exploiting' as if it isn't the exact same result. I don't play eso any more or watch any vids for about 2 months because I'm over it, BTW I wasted about 6 months watching streamers every day. And I can tell you they all cheat like crazy, whether it be using totally broken sets, for instance, no one ever used undertaker then it had a bug and all of a sudden all these 'good' players were running it.

Using macros in pvp is honestly not even a good idea. You have to be dynamic and play around lag which a macro isn't going to do.

Having a high end system with good connection and hardware doesn't remedy the poor servers lol. I've seen gameplay of people with the highest end graphics cards and with super fast internet packages lag just as hard as everyone else.

Contrary to popular belief, cheating and exploitation are NOT the same thing. Sure they can both give you unfair advantages but they are entirely different. Using a broken set is not cheating lol. Exploits are inherent in games and are entirely the developers fault for their existence. Cheating involves using outside software.

divnyi

EmperorIl wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

EmperorIl wrote: »

Won't link any for obvious reasons.

Obvious reasons being?

Pretty sure it would be against TOS to link cheat engines and websites telling you how to hack Python lol.

Nobody shown proofs from the other side, like getting killed by cheater. It's not about showing how to cheat at this point. I literally never seen cheaters up from the moment when they introduced server side thingy.

divnyi

xxslam48xxb14_ESO wrote: »

Only cheating I see is macroing. Lots of people macroing block onto any ability that can be cast while blocking. Pretty obvious when you see someone inside a safe keep constantly flashing block on and off while buffing. No reason to randomly keep blocking when there is no one around to even attack you.

I blockcancel skill cast animations all the time. Probably bad habit when I play those Gaze of Sithis builds, that it can potentially cost me resources for nothing.

Soris

Some years ago it was possible to tweak your attributes with cheat engine. Many people got banned because of that and Zos made some things calculated on server-side to prevent the issue happening again. But.. Procs are still calculated player-side and I think it is still possible to tweak your attributes by using different methods. And probably no one would ever recognise if you set your stam recovery to 5k and weapon damage to 10k...Unless maybe someone in Zos checks your character specificly.

maxjapank

baselesschart wrote: »

Contrary to popular belief, cheating and exploitation are NOT the same thing.

No, they really are. In the end, you are using something that is unintended to unfairly effect the outcome.

baselesschart

maxjapank wrote: »

No, they really are. In the end, you are using something that is unintended to unfairly effect the outcome.

Maybe if I suggest I don't condone using exploits will help you perceive my point. Case in point, if said exploit exists in the game, and can be used by anybody it is technically fair game. And to punish the player for using it is ridiculous, it would be the developers fault after all.

And many things in ESO's history unfairly affected outcomes lol. For the longest time you could argue playing a warden unfairly advantaged one player over the person not playing warden. Using overtuned sets gave a clear objective advantage over someone who wasn't using them. But none of those were considered cheating because they weren't.

Merforum

baselesschart wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

As someone said above people using macros to either block/cast using one button click, and/or doing a perfect LA AC while pushing each skill is RAMPANT and simple to do, don't even need to buy cheat engine. I tested on a simple programmable controller and was able to do it, although with my LAG, it is totally inconsistent, but these dudes with high end systems and super connection and best programmable keypad/mice this is trivial to do.

But this isn't cheating and no one ever saw anyone do any of this stuff, either the people saying that don't play often, don't know what to look for or are the ones doing the cheating so are trying to derail the topic.

These dudes cheat so much they actually have a secondary term for it called exploiting. Notice how they say 'well that isn't exactly cheating but I'd call it exploiting' as if it isn't the exact same result. I don't play eso any more or watch any vids for about 2 months because I'm over it, BTW I wasted about 6 months watching streamers every day. And I can tell you they all cheat like crazy, whether it be using totally broken sets, for instance, no one ever used undertaker then it had a bug and all of a sudden all these 'good' players were running it.

Using macros in pvp is honestly not even a good idea. You have to be dynamic and play around lag which a macro isn't going to do.

Having a high end system with good connection and hardware doesn't remedy the poor servers lol. I've seen gameplay of people with the highest end graphics cards and with super fast internet packages lag just as hard as everyone else.

Contrary to popular belief, cheating and exploitation are NOT the same thing. Sure they can both give you unfair advantages but they are entirely different. Using a broken set is not cheating lol. Exploits are inherent in games and are entirely the developers fault for their existence. Cheating involves using outside software.

Yeah but like I said I have even programmed my cheap controller to do LA + skill on one key as a test and it works sometimes. I tried because I have arthritis, not to beat people in PVP and act like a 'good' player, but I didn't use it other than testing. I know people with better equipment who actually use the macros fully like I said, ON EVERY SKILL, either adds block or LA. It has NO detrimental effect to their gameplay, I wish people would stop lying because you can still do everything you can without the macro, but with it either it works and they benefit or it doesn't and they lose nothing.

This is [snip], I have watched 6-12 hour vids of streamers who get maybe 1 or 2 lags that are noticeable during the whole time, meanwhile I have to push my ultimate 4 times to get it to go off in a dungeon. Please do NOT try to claim that lag is the same for everyone at all times. That is just NOT the case.

You can define it any way you like, it is ALL the SAME THING. And lets be clear, what people like you MEAN is that anything YOU personally are doing is perfectly alright and it's someone else's fault for allowing you to use it to your advantage, and cheating is whatever someone else is doing or doesn't exist. [snip]

[edited for baiting & profanity bypass]