Hackers: I hope you had fun.

[shadowtabby]

A few days ago I was invaded by someone named Big Hacker in Shadowkeep (DLC). Me and my co-op got teleported under the map, an error message appeared, he got disconnected from my world and eventually I died. After every respawn, I would fall through the map and die. I was shocked, but luckily restarting fixed this. I kept playing and got to Messmer, died to him a few times, and logged off. The next morning, I decided there are things I still need to do before beating Messmer, like Count Ymirs quest. I went to start it, and learned that any key items I now pick up don't go into my inventory. I discovered Bonny Gaol, and the boss was killed. Not sure how many other bosses are killed now. I never got the haligtree medallion half yet on this ng, yet when I went to roundtable hold royal remains invaded. I still have two elevators left as I've only got as far north as rennala on the base game map.

So, basically what this all means is that my save file is completely broken. Thank you Big Hacker.
I've been in contact with bandai namco support, showed them a clip of the invasion, and everything wrong with my save so far in detail. They've given me a somewhat vague but sure response that my issue has been documented, will be "escalated to the appropriate contacts", and that "sanctions will be placed accordingly".

I've asked for clarification, as this is vague at best. So, I'm really making this post, after years of on and off play, after a pre-order of both the base game and dlc, 145 hours on my one character, every base game side quest complete, and nearly a decade of being a devout FromSoft fan.

What is wrong with you people. Those of you who choose to do this. I didn't even get to finish the DLC once. I did nothing to you. I've seen the odd godmode, whatever. But those of you who choose to brick peoples saves, you are truly disgusting. It's clear that you don't care about the game at all, if bandai cannot offer me a solution and my only one is to make a new character, I will quit. I'm glad you get off doing that to people. I've honestly cried over this, you terrible terrible sad vile people.

Nothing I can do but move on if it doesn't get fixed, as much as I don't want to. Just wanted to put this out there, maybe warn people, I'm not taking it very well and it should be known. I had a lot of trouble researching this, but I did eventually come across similar situations on reddit from within the last month or so. Don't engage with the multiplayer right now, back-up your saves everyone, please.

[shadowtabby]

For anyone who would like to see the encounter, here is my minute-long clip I originally sent to support.

https://youtu.be/ya-nbckjTQk

[Lord Bob]

I'm sorry to hear it. It's too late now for this but see this thread to find out what you can do to protect yourself against cheaters:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1245620/discussions/0/4751948774782774034/

Unfortunately, the guy has corrupted the save file if a lot of players lately. Did you by any chance create manual save file back upspeior to this happening? Also, it's good you already provided a clip to Bandai Namco support.

[Lord Bob]

Are you able to identify the steam profile of the player who did it? Open the in-game overlay, and go to players. This should open a list containing all steam profiles of the players you've met online, showing the most recent one at the top. If this is the last time you played, the player named Big Hacker who joined you as a hunter should show up on top.

Do not post the steam profile here, as it will get you banned from the forum. Instead, feel free to post it on my profile wall.

Take care!

[Artek [General]]

Yeah, we're suffering some sort of aggressive influx of these kinds of individuals right now. It appears their software got upgraded to ignore block lists and they're testing it in the field.
Especially the guy you met - he's been on a quest recently, made meta rune levels unplayable as he's in every 3rd to 4th session right now.

If you want to coop with buddies - it seems seamless coop mod with PvP turned off is the way to go and the only way to be sure these days.

Otherwise - either play offline, or do not summon anyone ever, or make a back up of your save after every major milestone. Defeated a particularly rough boss? Redeem the rewards, swap gear, upgrade what you wanted to upgrade, quit game, back up, go back in. Do that every hour or so. Its inconvinient, but better than the alternatives.

And yes - death row for all of them, i am completely out of any sympathies. Psychopaths gonna psychopath.

[Lord Bob]

Originally posted by Artek General:

And yes - death row for all of them, i am completely out of any sympathies. Psychopaths gonna psychopath.

*in Minecraft, Bruce, in Minecraft.

[Draknalor]

I don’t even know how to be invaded.

People talk as if it’s something that just ”happens”

But i’ve never been invaded.

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by Draknalor:

I don’t even know how to be invaded.

People talk as if it’s something that just ”happens”

But i’ve never been invaded.

A) Taunter's Tongue,
B) Summon someone.

Solo-players are protected, but once they summon a cooperator - they become "free game" for invaders.
(They don't - invaders just get jumped)

[Lord Bob]

Originally posted by Draknalor:

I don’t even know how to be invaded.

People talk as if it’s something that just ”happens”

But i’ve never been invaded.

You need to be logged in to From's servers and have one of the following two conditions: there's at least one cooperator present in your world (regardless of them being a NPC or an actual player), or you activated the Taunter's Tongue. Both will open your world up for invasions.

[Darth Invader]

That sucks man. I hate a cheater too.

Kudos on providing the video though. That makes a huge difference in understanding these problems.

My only advice to you and anyone else out there reading this is to alt-f4 out immediately the second you see cheats and weird stuff happening. Don't stand around to wait and see what happens next. This will also annoy the cheater to get the disconnect before their magnum opus transpires.

What you want to do is avoid auto-saving and loading screens. Then, after you've exited, immediately load up your clean, recent backup save that hopefully you have on hand.

Also, blocking the player through Steam's recent player list should prevent you from connecting with them again, although I've heard reports recently that this might not be working at the moment.

As for the why, it's an unfortunate situation where somebody can't beat Margit, gets mad and installs cheats, then gets drunk off the insta-kill power, and then sadly gets good at cheat engine instead of the game itself.

This condition is known as smol pp syndrome.

Anyways, good luck to you, and if you hear anything else from Bamco, please post it here to help keep us informed on how these matters are handled by customer support.

[Fahrenheit]

"Escalate". Fromsoft: No, I don't think I will.

To answer your question about their motivation: They cheat because they are angry they cannot win in PvP. They choose to invade but can't go up against a team and get salty, so they go on a demonic crusade to destroy people's saves.

[LUMINOUS_VANGUARD]

its constant. almost every coop they just either invade and damage save files some of them even get inside fog wall

[Sabaithal]

"EAC working as intended" - Someone probably

This has been an issue with pretty much every souls game after a long enough period of time passes. Eventually someone figures out how to bypass whatever crap method Bandai decided to use to anticheat and starts destroying people's saves, then people stop going online (because backup saves eventually start getting people banned), then the entire MP scene goes to hell.

To clarify, this isn't on FROMsoft necessarily (not entirely anyway), this is on Bandai for using EAC as their "solution" which clearly only served to delay the problem, not stop it.

[dark-breed]

as long it is possible to workaround eac in linux it is a unfixable problem. other eac secured games do not allow to play online in linux (or at least to play official servers) and i think fromsoft will never solve the coding rookie mistake to allow bidirectional variable share between host and invader.

[csand]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

"EAC working as intended" - Someone probably

This has been an issue with pretty much every souls game after a long enough period of time passes. Eventually someone figures out how to bypass whatever crap method Bandai decided to use to anticheat and starts destroying people's saves, then people stop going online (because backup saves eventually start getting people banned), then the entire MP scene goes to hell.

To clarify, this isn't on FROMsoft necessarily (not entirely anyway), this is on Bandai for using EAC as their "solution" which clearly only served to delay the problem, not stop it.

EAC actually does work just not on Linux/Proton. It as much Valve's fault as it is From's tbh. Neither are fixing the implementation issues. We would see almostnno cheaters of this type if it was working properly on Linux

The best solution here would be to either ban Linux/Proton from online play, or have a separate matchmaking serber for them

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by csand:

EAC actually does work just not on Linux/Proton.

Doesn't matter, because linux/windows/mac (god forbid) is irrelevant whenever people are getting their saves compromised regardless of system as a result. Therefore it doesn't work.

I give it a year, maybe two, before most of the problems plaguing the Ds3 multiplayer end up coming back in ER, just like the "infinite death bonfire/teleport" glitch has.