Topic: Anti-Cheating Controls

[Mike Bobbitt]

Folks, I'm disappointed to admit it, but there are some who are exploiting soft spots in the game to boost their rank faster than intended. Some have benefited by accident, and several have reported issues to me rather than exploit them, which I appreciate.

In a nutshell, the issue is that if you rapidly reload, or 'stack' clicks, the game doesn't always keep up and will sometimes allow you to conduct missions when you are out of CR. The game will catch up and you may end with negative CR, but if you can sneak in enough missions, you'll get promoted and your CR will be regenerated again. Rinse, repeat. I observed one player boost 15+ levels in one evening.

I've been working on ways to address the issue for some time, but due to the complex nature of the problem, I can detect but not easily prevent the situation from occurring. Today, I've made some changes to the game to help dissuade cheating. When the game detects someone has cheated, it will stop loading that page/action, and zero out their CR to stop the cheater in their tracks. As I mentioned, I have been able to detect this situation for some time and from what I've seen so far, I don't believe anyone will be affected by accident.

If however you get the error indicating that a cheat has been detected and you feel it was out of place, please let me know and I can check into it.


Cheers
Mike

[GAP]

these clowns losers guys/gals cheating?.....I would never have believed it!!!   

[NFLD Sapper]

Its pretty bad that there are ppl out there that do that.......

[PuckChaser]

Sad panda jpeg makes this post awesome.

Can we throw a post in the news on the game for the people that play but don't read the forums???

[Journeyman]

Can the cheaters be outted, so they're subject to public scorn and ridicule? 


I mean, I don't even play the game, but I'm certainly not adverse to a bit of mocking the down-trodden   

[dapaterson]

Can the cheaters be outted, so they're subject to public scorn and ridicule? 


I mean, I don't even play the game, but I'm certainly not adverse to a bit of mocking the down-trodden anyone and everyone   

Don't sell yourself short.

[ObedientiaZelum]

observed one player boost 15+ levels in one evening.

Ban from game or reset level to 0 plz 

[MPgonnabe]

I'm one of those who accidentally benefited. I posted it when I realized I had negative CR, I thought I broke the game

[ballz]

I'm not sure what would lose you the most friends, cheating or breaking the game for the rest of us

[PuckChaser]

I'm one of those who accidentally benefited. I posted it when I realized I had negative CR, I thought I broke the game

It does actually break the game for a minute. I found out its possible to go up an enormous (read: 30-40) levels with the max CR I had, until the mission simply cost too much CR. You can see my milpoints history for the proof, its fairly serious and I detailed it to Mike and Alex (hence why I got to do level 127 twice, its a victory lap). At least now they can see who's using it, and if they're not being honest and reporting it.

[ArmyVern]

I'm not sure what would lose you the most friends, cheating or breaking the game for the rest of us

Why not!!?? I broke the Army.ca Photo Gallery enough times that Mike finally had to decommission it from the site. 

As for the cheaters, I say bounch them back double the number of levels they skived through on. Thought of such occurance makes Vern a Happy Panda.

But heck, I consider those who are using whatever program "it" is to keep them logged in to the game (some are in the millions already  ) and thus garnering those medal incentives (for time spent playing) very quickly and without actually doing anything "real" in the way of clicks to earn them to be cheating too.

[Journeyman]

But heck, I consider those who are using whatever program "it" is to keep them logged in to the game.....

First step in dealing with an addiction is to admit it   

[ArmyVern]

First step in dealing with an addiction is to admit it   

Yep. I'm addicted, but not cheating.     Remember, I'm the insomniac in the bunch - and I miss a ton of clicks to keep my timer going. Am going to slow down though until the page loading issues are corrected ... it is absolutely sucking the bandwidth up re-loading every time and is costing me a small fortune on my rocketstick.

On the other point, you know something's up when someone's played 24/7 for over a week straight without so much as a single miss on clicks for timing - especially when they are at work during the day where they can't even access the game. Yep, something's quite fishy about that.

[crooks.a]

It does actually break the game for a minute. I found out its possible to go up an enormous (read: 30-40) levels with the max CR I had, until the mission simply cost too much CR. You can see my milpoints history for the proof, its fairly serious and I detailed it to Mike and Alex (hence why I got to do level 127 twice, its a victory lap). At least now they can see who's using it, and if they're not being honest and reporting it.

I believe that it is technically possible to exploit this to achieve infinite levels or more (really anything you click...).

Fortunately, I made a quick script that will disable buttons after they are clicked once. It should be in effect tomorrow if all works out.

[recceguy]

I was wondering how some people were rocketing by me

[ObedientiaZelum]

I was wondering how some people were rocketing by me

yea it got pretty ridiculous  pretty fast

[Exarch]

I was wondering how some people were rocketing by me

Keep in mind it is possible to gain 10+ levels in a day legitimately, by reaching a "critical mass" whereupon a combat readiness refill is enough to gain another level, and another, etc. I believe I once gained 9 or 10 levels in one day back around rank 60, and I've never experienced this negative CR bug.

But heck, I consider those who are using whatever program "it" is to keep them logged in to the game (some are in the millions already  ) and thus garnering those medal incentives (for time spent playing) very quickly and without actually doing anything "real" in the way of clicks to earn them to be cheating too.

For the most part I have earned my "total time played" by manually refreshing AO; it wasn't until I saw several others post on the forum about using browser plugins to keep themselves logged in (example: ReloadEvery in Firefox), with no negative reaction, that I began doing the same. As it stands I only use the plugin when I am at my computer doing other things (PC is turned off if I'm sleeping or at work), but if Mike can tell us it is disallowed I will cease immediately.

[Mike Bobbitt]

I can tell you that none of the top 10 players have been cheating, so while some have rocketed up quickly it never brought them up that far.

As for tools like ReloadEvery, it's a split decision in my mind. The intent of the game is to create some enjoyment by providing a balance of work and reward. I can understand the urge to upset that balance - at least a little bit - to gain the rewards with less effort. In the end, the time played medals won't swing the balance of power too far, so I'm not overly concerned.

I should also note that cheating wasn't rampant... and in most cases those who encountered it fessed up and asked to have their stats tuned back down.

[3VP Highlander]

I personally think that being logged in for 24 hr periods is abusing the game.  It results in you gaining 185 AtD pts, which then increases your Int finds, allowing you to take out targets sooner and then progress up the chain a bit quicker.

My 2 cents.

Cheers

[Strike]

Mike, I've noticed that our good friend Hacker Cracker is ranked at 116th with only 59 missions completed.  the next closest person to have single-digit mission completion is Test User (who seems to be a member here without any posts that I can find), who is 160th with 43 missions and 59,985 Int!?  After that the next double digit mission completion comes from one of our own members who posts regularly and who's numbers seem a little more reasonable.

By the way, I noticed that Hacker Cracker still has all the medals he got when he was caught cheating.

[Mike Bobbitt]

Strike, test user in actually a test user... and his stats are skewed because I have created some artificial scenarios to test various aspects of the game.

As for Hacker/Cracker, most of the medal incentives were temporary boosts and have expired. I have also adjusted his other stats downward, so releasing the medals at this point would only allow him to re-acquire them.

At any rate, I have re-adjusted both accounts to make them more realistic and fair. Please let me know if you see any others that are out of whack!


Thanks
Mike

[SevenSixTwo]

There are people in the top 20 I have never even heard of before how'd they get up there so fast.

[kratz]

I know all the members in the top 20.
One has been banned from participating in this site, but is still playing AO.

Of the top 50, there is only a few names that are not familiar to me.

There are incentives to participating in both sites, but nothing requiring someone to be part of Milnet and AO. So it is easy for someone to be playing a fair game and still get ahead of others without being a member here.

[Larry Strong]

And another one got punted

[KJK]

Excellent, I'm now 23rd. I meant to ask you Larry, what happened? You were neck and neck with me for quite a while and then you started to fade?

Due to issues with Facebook with some of the companies I contract for I play under an alias.

KJK

[NinerSix]

How do you find out who got punted?

[KJK]

I noticed Test User is missing from the lineup.

KJK

[Larry Strong]

That's who it was eh....That would be Mike I guess..

I meant to ask you Larry, what happened? You were neck and neck with me for quite a while and then you started to fade?

So your Dave Yeah i was trying to stay ahead of you..then I stopped to smell the roses and burn off missions as I want the "5000". I am doing 1 or 2 jumps a day at the moment trying to get ahead.....

[ArmyVern]

I noticed Test User is missing from the lineup.

KJK

I believe that Test User is the moniker that Mr Bobbitt uses when checking out/verifying the mechanics of this site and Afghan Ops; I presume 'he' can appear and disappear at any time.

[Mike Bobbitt]

Yep, Test User is a rather poor disguise for... well, my test user. I had cloned another user's stats to that account to help track an issue they were having, but that left Test User way up on the leaderboards. The issue has been resolved and so I finally got around to dropping Test User down to a reasonable spot.