IS this game still full of hackers?

[BoomsticK]

just wondering if I should play again

[aiko]

Yes, nearly 2k hours, from my experience, since mid season from Season 5, things got insufferable in NA, so much that I just stopped playing it, now I'm just having "some" fun in SA, here in SA there's no queue for ranked or WT, just the casual modes, but still, there is people cheating in casual, mostly in Powershift. Lately I'm playing like I'm gambling, just playing 3-4 matches and closing the game, just before the matchmaking system kicks in and puts me in a team of new accounts (or people who doesn't play well) and against high level/stats accounts (either for cheating or playing well/stacking).

If u don't give af about Ranked/WT and their exclusive rewards, is still worthy playing some casual matches before the matchmaking system kicks in.

[Kay_Cypher]

There was a meta-analysis done by some tech-lab in partnership with several big game studios that provided them with in-house statistics and databases regarding cheating in their respective games and licenses in all its shapes and forms.

That analysis / investigation was motivated to further explore the hacks / cheats industry and its technical evolutions over the years and the income it generates for the developers of said technologies.

All games, studios, and anti-cheat measures and technologies to combat the cheating industry were kept anonymous in this meta-analysis, as to not give hacking devs more ways to circumvent those protective measures, obviously... But also to not blow the whistle upon game studios that tend to minimize or partially ignore the cheating problems on their IP to not tarnish their public image furthermore.

To be honest, this is data only used / talked about by professionals of the industry (mostly game devs and anti-cheats devs), and I don't know if it's publicly available somewhere or if it's under NDA somehow given how detrimental it could be for game studios that don't do enough, I've only found some partial data on ResearchGate website with too low of a sample to be significant, at least in my view.

That being said, at the end of the day, over a representative roster of dozens of many popular active and discontinued multiplayer/competitive games spanning 20+ years, it appears that OVERALL, the ratio of players cheating in video-games is fairly stable, about 30% with a variance value of +/-15% depending on the game, meaning depending on the game you play, you will find that between 1/10 to 1/2 players are cheating...

Those numbers are apparently quite consistent and stable over time, and the quite new "overwhelming blatant influx of cheaters" feeling that some of you may have is rather due to the fact that there are way more players than 20+ years ago, with way easier and prominent communication platforms than 20+ years ago to complain about it.

Sources talking about all this on the top of my head : Anh-Vu Nguyen and André Pimenta from "Anybrain" (top edge anti AI cheats solution devs), Martin Balch (former PRIVATE hacks developer who sold directly to esports pro players), Martin Bruder (game dev), Youtubers @Ryscu and @gOat and their amazing custom work and videos on cheating techs, in which you can find a cascade of other sources and so on...

Just remember we, as customers, have the power to change things with our decisions =) If we stopped buying / consuming / playing games that we deem unworthy of our standards, the studios behind them would disappear eventually, or be forced to adapt and actually put in the work to provide the best experience possible...

Cheers.

[Заяц]

Originally posted by Kay_Cypher:

There was a meta-analysis done by some

Those numbers are apparently quite consistent and stable over time, and the quite new "overwhelming blatant influx of cheaters" feeling that some of you may have is rather due to the fact that there are way more players than 20+ years ago, with way easier and prominent communication platforms than 20+ years ago to complain about it.

Buddy. 60% of players cheat in Finals now. At least from level 50. And the feeling of an overwhelming influx of cheaters is not related to the number of players, but to the spread of neural networks and open-source cheats created on their basis. There are plenty of them on GitHub and all for free. A huge number of programs that help aim and shoot. And they are impossible to track. Because they don't touch the driver code or the game. They just use the image. There are already cheats that mark players through walls by sound. Until the developers introduce an anti-cheat with AI analytics, they will not get an influx of new players. This shooter is too toxic. It has become simply impossible to play. These cheats do not provide an absolute advantage, but they increase the K/D by two times. And many even teammates' movements seem natural. If you have a lot of experience in shooters, you can easily recognize those who use AI assistant. And one of my two teammates is a cheater. Always. Absolutely always. Some even with cheats are so bad that their score is not suspicious. But they are cheaters.
Now with the help of AI. Such as GPT and Deepsek any schoolchild can develop their own programs. In particular cheats.

[KianFloppaMAIN]

I speak for the behalf of everyone on steam with pleading you guys to please remove the clown award; its disrespectful and offensive.

[omordior]

Originally posted by KianFloppaMAIN:

I speak for the behalf of everyone on steam with pleading you guys to please remove the clown award; its disrespectful and offensive.

nice try clown

[Captain Explodo]

i hate to tell you this .. but there is no such thing as a FPS game that isn't full of cheaters , you have to accept you are playing with cheaters or stop playing online fps games .
the cheats for all these games is a multi million dollar industry now . it's the worst genre for cheating period .. some have more blatant cheats than other games but they all have cheaters . the research claims 33 percent of all fps players are cheating.. so that is something you have to come to terms with or move on.

[ŠHÏN BRËÃKÊR]

No cheaters. People just suck and can't accept it when they lose.

[Заяц]

Originally posted by Captain Explodo:

i hate to tell you this .. but there is no such thing as a FPS game that isn't full of cheaters , you have to accept you are playing with cheaters or stop playing online fps games .
the cheats for all these games is a multi million dollar industry now . it's the worst genre for cheating period .. some have more blatant cheats than other games but they all have cheaters . the research claims 33 percent of all fps players are cheating.. so that is something you have to come to terms with or move on.

we need AI GM
(GM AI)

[Kyral]

season 6 is worse than the past 2 seasons in terms of cheating.
embark doesn't even care anymore, they don't ban blatant cheaters aimboting like crazy

[Honey Bun]

Never seen a cheater in this game, smash everyone super easy, just pew pew pew

[Pootispencerhere NOW!]

Originally posted by Zippy-14:

every one who say the game is full of cheater are noob and have no skill that's it

The only thing I can see here is that you need some English classes.

[Blagan]

There are cheaters on every FPS game sadly, I don't know why it's so difficult to stop these vermin.

[Kay_Cypher]

Originally posted by Blagan:

There are cheaters on every FPS game sadly, I don't know why it's so difficult to stop these vermin.

I think it objectively costs a lot of money to do it effectively...

[Roux]

Originally posted by Kay_Cypher:

Originally posted by Blagan:

There are cheaters on every FPS game sadly, I don't know why it's so difficult to stop these vermin.

I think it objectively costs a lot of money to do it effectively...

I think valve coined it as a "Treadmill" problem, where it requires constant upkeep and attention to ensure that cheaters don't overwhelm the game. The unfortunate part is that Embark probably only has a skeleton crew working on The Finals at the moment, (look at the poor excuses we get in place of updates) and that crew likes the game too, but it's just not enough to keep this ship afloat.

The game's a cash-grab and anyone spending real hard-earned cash on it has been scammed.

[Roux]

Originally posted by Kyral:

season 6 is worse than the past 2 seasons in terms of cheating.
embark doesn't even care anymore, they don't ban blatant cheaters aimboting like crazy

oh, but call someone the R-word in voice chat and you'll get a 2 day temp ban, cheats are fine tho!