Cheating in APEX LEGENDS and the solution of dealing with it

[Chisato Wick]

TL;DR Cheating problem in APEX is not Respawn's fault, as the problem is an ongoing
war between the cheat developers and game developers.

I am not a professional, I do not work in a game development company, and I just want
to note that I can't tell anyone what to do in any given company. I'm writing this article
to hopefully provide some insights on how and what we, the Apex Community, can do
to prevent more cheaters in the game. Cheaters has already ruined the public lobbies
for us, and now even ranked lobbies. All the information that are provided in this article
are materials that I gathered online with a little bit of light reading the past few months.

Cheating and hacking have been a huge problem for every game ever since online
games are introduced. While developers are trying to prevent more cheating in their
respective games, they created what I like to call, a pattern, in tackling this issue, which
is the implementation of anti-cheat software.

To provide some information on anti cheat software that game developers use,
companies usually use "anti cheat system" which does almost nothing but analyzes

statistics. According to an article, commonly, anti-cheat software initiates a signature-
based scanner to detect possible cheats and vulnerabilities within a computer’s

memory and processes. If the scan detects any abnormal activity or abnormal
software running in the background, an incident report is sent to the gaming company’s
engineers for analysis, where a match between the cheat and the engineers’ database
will lead them to flag the account, whereas any new cheats discovered will be added
for future investigations.

However, I'm positive that all of the players are aware that the anti cheat system that
Apex uses is Easy Anti-Cheat. What this software does is while you’re playing an
online game that uses Easy Anti-Cheat, it runs in the background. According to its
marketing materials, Easy Anti-Cheat is “focused on disabling the root cause of
cheating on a technical level.” Rather than simply banning cheaters, this tool is

designed to stop cheats from working at all. This explains the reason why we are not
seeing cheaters banned in the middle of the game often.

However, implementing the anti cheat software is no where near effective, let me tell
you why:
As long as there is demand for cheats, there will always be a new cheating software
that bypasses the current patch of the anti cheat software.
Cheat developers always earn money for the cheat they developed, according to this
article, a good majority of cheats cost anywhere from $60 to $150, depending on the
program. And for popular titles like APEX, a larger player base brings in a larger
demand for cheats. And while game developers are always finding solutions, trying to
tackle the problem, cheat developers will always find a way to bypass the wall.

"The developers are not taking the cheating problem seriously." But are they not? Or
are they really?
According to an article, Respawn Entertainment has taken banning cheaters to the
next level by banning their hardware, also known as HWID ban. What the HWID ban
does is preventing the cheaters to create a new account on the same hardware that
they were using, to continue cheating in the game. The HWID ban brings good results
at first, but there are already forums and threads about bypassing the HWID ban on
the internet. When there are cheaters not taken care of, it is always the developer's
lack of interest, as when it comes to security methods used though, that's usually
decided by the higher ups that own the development team. They are likely going to
spend the money how they see fit on what security they want to use.

So, what can a developer do to tackle this problem? If the game is single-player only,
then the developers have nothing to worry about. But if the game is multiplayer only,
the success of the entire product is at stake.

Why do people cheat in game?
There are two common types of cheaters, which are cheaters who openly try to wreak
havoc, but the majority really want to dominate and crush opponents, trying to make
other players think they are gods at the game.

According to another article, the most common excuse of cheating in a game provided by
cheaters are trolling, just doing it for the fun of annoying people. But to understand the
psychology behind this, trolling is coming from spite or cynicism. Either they’re trolling
to actively annoy the community of a game, or trolling because they’ve been beaten
by cheaters too often themselves. Being beaten too many times by someone cheating
in a game might be enough to convince players to try out cheating software themselves.

We have to consider the anonymity of people online. People have shown a greater
tendency for bad behavior when they’re going to be anonymous. Online games
provide a space to cheat with anonymity, it’s also part of the reason behind so many
toxic players. The anonymity lowers the risk of something bad happening for cheating.
Besides, there are several articles that says cheaters cheat for the sake of cheating,
its just for fun, which every legit players do not understand.

Solutions? Or not actually solutions?
There are several solutions provided by the APEX community on what the developers
should, or could have done, to tackle the problem, the gathered solutions provided
below are only a few that I gathered, feel free to comment more solutions that comes
to your mind.

>Implementing a phone number verification for ranked<
To quote Respawn Live Technical Designer Exgeniar: "Phone number verification is
super easy to spoof, or just get a new number such as Google Number, which results
it to be unlikely an effective solution."

>Stop spending money on APEX to bring attention to the developers<
If the whole community come together and not spend a single dime on the game, it
will only cause the game to die out, as soon as a game cease to become financially
viable, the server is switched off, and the game dies. I'm NOT SAYING nor
ENCOURAGING players to start spending money on APEX, I'm just saying it would
not be a viable solution.

>Make ranked matchmaking available for players only after 100 hours of gameplay<
This solution will only improve the quality of ranked matchmaking and the public
lobbies will be neglected so much, that will only result in the decrease of new players.

>Implement in-game replay review system that lets the community regulate itself by
allowing qualified and experienced members of the community<
This solution provides results, but not efficiency. Players boot up the game to play the
game, not deciding whether the reported player is a cheater. While I myself believe
there will be players who are willing to spend some time on it, but not in the majority.

>Disable streamer mode for an account once it was reported, which makes the
potential cheater feel unprotected<
Most streamers are good at the game, and if one particular legit streamer is reported,
it will only result in more stream sniping and will ruin the game for that particular
streamer, which makes it not a viable solution.

Legal Methods
To make cheating in games illegal, the whole gaming community plays a big part in
doing so, as it takes effort and result to bring E-Sports to the attention of the
government of each country. For example, South Korea, which has a very strong

gaming culture, made it illegal for cheat developers to create and distribute cheats,
and breaking the law can land the developers in jail for five years. Law enforcement
agents in China have arrested people for making or distributing cheats in PUBG and
having a legal framework for the issue can go a long way.

The BITTER Truth
As for now, the players should accept their fate in shooters. Every solution that are
implemented, or seen in other games, especially online FPS games has not stopped
the cheating problem, however, it is a start, and if Respawn Entertainment implements
any of the solutions, it will show more to the community that they actually care about
the game, because at the end of the day, the consumers are always right.

But do not lose hope, as one of the most ever changing and technological industries
anymore is cyber security, of any kind. And one possibility that a user in a forum
thought of is eventually going to thumbprint logins vs passwords. Password accounts
are easily hacked and also conceal identity to the point of hiding hackers as well, by
implementing thumbprints for every account for a game, it is almost impossible for a
cheater to create a second account just for cheating. However, to implement this,
every gaming rig has to be equipped with a fingerprint scanner. As more laptops are
already equipped with fingerprint scanners nowadays, there should not be a doubt it
will happen in the near future.

Thank you for reading.

[OoShellshock]

No disrespect. But I'm surprised someone would type something this huge.

[Danson]

Seriously, slow down champ. Two paragraphs, not an essay. Would've gotten your point across just the same.

That being said, I don't think the "big" problem is even cheating. Everyone assumes people are cheating if they look like they don't have any recoil, but first off, recoil patterns for every gun are identical every time you shoot and can be very easily learned and mastered. Sure people could make macros to do the subtle movements for them, but getting lasered doesn't mean they were using macros. They also could just be good.

The more serious issue is the fact that wiggling the mouse back and forth completely compensates for the recoil pattern of every single gun. So you don't even have to learn the patterns of each gun, you just need to shake your mouse when you shoot and voila, no recoil. It's not that people are cheating, it's that there is a massive flaw with the gunplay in this game that makes it way too easy for experienced, competitive players. It's really a joke.

[Dwane Dibbley]

EA cares more about banning ppl for typing bad word in the chat than about banning cheaters. Says it all without absurd wall of text.

[OoShellshock]

Originally posted by Dwane Dibbley:

EA cares more about banning ppl for typing bad word in the chat than about banning cheaters. Says it all without absurd wall of text.

I don't know if that's true, but it makes sense it would be. You don't know how people think or how old they are and how susceptible to online abuse they are. Kids have killed themselves due to online abuse. I would think that's more important.. And if action is taken on a cheater, you don't get notified about anything.

[RustyFleshLight]

Good job the devs will read this and take note. I sure did........................

[hammercranc]

Really tl;dr but:
Respawn should make two factor identification to play and the battle pass to play ranked mandatory. Problem would be gone in an instant.

[OoShellshock]

Originally posted by hammercranc:

Really tl;dr but:
Respawn should make two factor identification to play and the battle pass to play ranked mandatory. Problem would be gone in an instant.

It wouldn't. With this method there would still be cheaters in un-ranked. And there's ways to bypass two factor identification with multiple phone numbers and or emails...

[Memag]

Originally posted by hammercranc:

Really tl;dr but:
Respawn should make two factor identification to play and the battle pass to play ranked mandatory. Problem would be gone in an instant.

So you have to purchase BP in order to play comp?
How would this still be considered a F2P game then?
Doesn't it introduce more ways in which EA can lock up certain aspects of the game behind the paywall? Look, if I have to pay to play I want everything in the game attainable by playing. No more MT's no more locked up ♥♥♥♥.

[StopItGetSomeHelp]

Post this on reddit if you actually want the devs to give two ♥♥♥♥♥. Devs have NEVER been on the steam forum.

[hammercranc]

Originally posted by Memag:

So you have to purchase BP in order to play comp?
How would this still be considered a F2P game then?

BP is "free" anyway, cause you get the coins to buy the next one. Why not? You can still play free - in casual lobbies.

Originally posted by OoShellshock:

there's ways to bypass two factor identification with multiple phone numbers and or emails...

True, but with phone numbers it's a lot more complicated.

[opAw←G]

Originally posted by Danson:

Seriously, slow down champ. Two paragraphs, not an essay. Would've gotten your point across just the same.

That being said, I don't think the "big" problem is even cheating. Everyone assumes people are cheating if they look like they don't have any recoil, but first off, recoil patterns for every gun are identical every time you shoot and can be very easily learned and mastered. Sure people could make macros to do the subtle movements for them, but getting lasered doesn't mean they were using macros. They also could just be good.

The more serious issue is the fact that wiggling the mouse back and forth completely compensates for the recoil pattern of every single gun. So you don't even have to learn the patterns of each gun, you just need to shake your mouse when you shoot and voila, no recoil. It's not that people are cheating, it's that there is a massive flaw with the gunplay in this game that makes it way too easy for experienced, competitive players. It's really a joke.

I agree with you bro, some people are just born with amazing aiming skills.

https://youtu.be/TrHfgXtnOmM

[OoShellshock]

Originally posted by hammercranc:

Originally posted by Memag:

So you have to purchase BP in order to play comp?
How would this still be considered a F2P game then?

BP is "free" anyway, cause you get the coins to buy the next one. Why not? You can still play free - in casual lobbies.

But you have to buy the one before that. And grind your way through like a job to earn the next one. Even still making people purchase a battlepass isn't going to stop anything. Look at the countless games you have to purchase that have a plethora of cheaters on it... Doesn't do anything.

[OoShellshock]

Originally posted by hammercranc:

Originally posted by Memag:

So you have to purchase BP in order to play comp?
How would this still be considered a F2P game then?

BP is "free" anyway, cause you get the coins to buy the next one. Why not? You can still play free - in casual lobbies.

Originally posted by OoShellshock:

there's ways to bypass two factor identification with multiple phone numbers and or emails...

True, but with phone numbers it's a lot more complicated.

Not really. I know how to get multiple phone numbers for free. It isn't hard or complicated at all. And I'm sure if someone's hacking on a game they've likely cheated before on another game and know workarounds for bans etc. Simple stuff.

[Spit on that thang 8-D]

I am sure these cheat makers are doing it without paying taxes on the money they earn or else the game makers would be able to go after them for violating the EUA.

so get the govt involved and find who they are and arrest them for tax evasion, problem solved!!

[iamtakingcontrolofthedrummachine]

Originally posted by Ƭ̵̬̊ Quicksand Jesus Ƭ̵̬:

I am sure these cheat makers are doing it without paying taxes on the money they earn or else the game makers would be able to go after them for violating the EUA.

so get the govt involved and find who they are and arrest them for tax evasion, problem solved!!

lol, what ?
who said cheat makers aren't paying taxes ?