How common is hacking/cheating?

[Dillybar]

so many people ask in games and some deaths feel unfair for sure but nobody ever talks about the actual state of squad and its hacking/cheating status.

[Onimaho]

Rare, but it does happen and caught fairly quickly.

[Chaos]

Just today, in another thread, a player described how to use several tricks outside the game to make other players more visible, with the goal of getting easier kills:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/393380/discussions/6/2944747978658767740/#c2944747978661989294

Is this cheating? Is it hacking? Is it common?

Nobody can give you an honest answer, either because a) they don't know or b) they have an interest in propagating misinformation.

However, IMO, kills are not the most important thing in Squad. Outsmarting your opponents and coordinating with your allies is much more effective.

There is however, a ton of stream sniping. I have recently counted 100 distinct streamers in a 24h period, and have noted that most full servers have at least one live streamer at any time, and sometimes more than one. In any match you play, you can scan the player list when you join, and recognize the streamers, then simply go their stream, and pause any time they open their map, and bingo, no need to hunt for their fobs.

[Radegast\12/]

i think this is not an issue in any way, never seen a single cheater nor felt someone know our team fob positions in 2000+ hours, and anyway if you allow one guy/cheater to destroy your fob, you failed at defending your spawn point. one good spotter with binos can find your fob faster than a cheater.
how would you battle lets say two friends talking on teamspeak, each playing in different team?
impossible

[Chaos]

Your team's fob locations get marked on the enemy team as soon as they go up. For attack fobs on objectives it means your team loses the "fog of war", ie, the enemy not knowing what direction you come from.

Even if your fob is actively used and thus defended, to have the enemy know exactly where you come from does put you at a disadvantage, eg, the enemy can know with certainty that you've been wiped at an objective, and that they can move the entire team to the next objective. This is a much stronger attack than if the enemy was unsure whether they have to split their force between defense and attack.

Also, perfectly targeted mortars on your forward spawn point will nerf your attack on the objective.

Having your armor units marked on the enemy map early by a stream sniper also makes them more vulnerable than your opponent's armor.

The effect of having your map known need not be as obvious as to immediately lose back undefended fobs, it can be more subtle, and still equally unfair.

Yes, it is difficult to know your team is at a disadvantage.

Collusion and stream sniping can be hard or impossible to detect, this does not mean they do not exist, nor that they are harmless.

[Stockwerk 13]

Chaos původně napsal:

Just today, in another thread, a player described how to use several tricks outside the game to make other players more visible, with the goal of getting easier kills:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/393380/discussions/6/2944747978658767740/#c2944747978661989294

Is this cheating? Is it hacking? Is it common?

since your quting me here...NO this is NOT cheating, this is simply turning down graphics and using nvidia game filter (which the DEVS have unlocked them self, for Geforce experience to be supported, devs have to agree).
So, nope this is definetly not cheating.


@Topic:
I play several other shooters and compared to them Squad has a very low cheater population.
How do i know? Well just go googel and try finding hacks for Squad. Than compare that to other shooters.
As far as i can tell there is only one single public Squad hack right now and it is propably detected.
Compare that to other games like Dayz, battlefield, CoD or Hell let loose. There are shtloads of hacks out there for other games but for whatever reason not for Squad.

[LifestylerAUT]

The good thing about squad, the BEST actually of squad is, that there are NO expirience points, no microtransactions, no levels, no upgrades, no customizatio, nothing to gain. Except good teamplay!

Due to this fact there is no real reason to cheat.

I personally did not expirience cheating at all, since 2017 I be to add...

[EM3ʸᵉᵉᵗ]

Cant tell you but i dont notice any cheaters

[Chaos]

It would be easier to suspect cheaters if Squad informed you where the kill cam from, like other games (e.g "triggerboy killed you from 2.4km away with his service pistol. What a shot!")

The mistery of not knowing where the killshot came from, adds to the game, as it requires communication and teamwork to resolve, so it's a good thing, IMO. But it does obsure some instances of cheating.

Most people don't notice, or care much, but that does not mean cheating doesn't happen. On the contrary, it is overlooked because the pleasant teamwork weighs against paying close attention to cheaters.

But how often does it happen? Probably not nearly as often as esports games, however I doubt anyone knows for sure.

[Sea Base]

StrangerStonedTV původně napsal:

Chaos původně napsal:

Just today, in another thread, a player described how to use several tricks outside the game to make other players more visible, with the goal of getting easier kills:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/393380/discussions/6/2944747978658767740/#c2944747978661989294

Is this cheating? Is it hacking? Is it common?

since your quting me here...NO this is NOT cheating, this is simply turning down graphics and using nvidia game filter (which the DEVS have unlocked them self, for Geforce experience to be supported, devs have to agree).
So, nope this is definetly not cheating.


@Topic:
I play several other shooters and compared to them Squad has a very low cheater population.
How do i know? Well just go googel and try finding hacks for Squad. Than compare that to other shooters.
As far as i can tell there is only one single public Squad hack right now and it is propably detected.
Compare that to other games like Dayz, battlefield, CoD or Hell let loose. There are shtloads of hacks out there for other games but for whatever reason not for Squad.

Nvidia filters are disabled for Squad, so if someone is using them then they have found a work around, which is cheating as it is not what the devs allow?

There is also a fresh batch of working cheats (aim bot, wall hax ect ect) currently released, it has been reported but will likely take a week maybe to be patched.

[Chaos]

So there is a supply of cheats, there is clearly demand, and there are some people cheating and rationalizing that what they do (filter settings) is not cheating. To me this is plainly obvious evidence that some cheating is indeed going on.

I also have seen some servers kicking players when they log in while having VAC bans on their accounts. I think it's fair to expect these people likely intend to cheat, and having bought the game will either be playing on servers which don't kick them, or are setting up alternate accounts that look clean in order to play squad (ex. "family share" squad with an alternate account/"family member").

I think the best we can say is that cheating in squad is not pervasive at this time.

[Sea Base]

Aegmar původně napsal:

bit strange for paid hacks to be released shortly BEFORE a major update of the game, afaik big updates usally break the functionality of those..., might be a scam or malware ? Did you check it was not for another game with "Squad" in the name ? Quite often ppl here claimed there are working cheats around and in fact those were for "Black Squad", whatever that is.

it was streamed live on youtube, on BB. We watched him to record evidence at the same time admin side xD

[Chaos]

I'd be curious to watch the youtube, got a link or search terms?

Edit, nevermind, I found a youtube that was streamed live on BB on Sept 19, the same day this thread was started. LOL. Yeah, I'm convinced that plenty of cheating is going on, while moderators have an interest in promoting the opposite, so it remains on the hush-hush, as cheating always is.

[Chaos]

Did you report anyone?

How do you think the admins can do anything if they have no reports to investigate?

I don't think admins have any tools to detect cheating, only to investigate reported cheating, and even then, they only have the admin cam to rely on, and the "kill feed".

SeaBrews said above that the admins watched the guy cheat, and the video lasted 2h21m... no ban. The following day (2 days ago), the same youtube account streamed again squad hacks for 1h33m (with different Steam name), jumping from server to server.

Admins communicate live through Discord, and would have been quick work to ban this guy while he was streaming.

Also, Squad bans would not result in VAC bans, so the cheater is free to create fresh "family sharing" steam accounts when one gets banned, and keep on cheating under a different name, possibly even on the same server, as a big FU to the admins.

VAC bans, on the other hand, would be inherited by the lending account when a borrower account is detected cheating, but Squad does not have access to propagate bans to "family members".

No, my friend, admins POSITIVELY don't care, and if they did, they would be powerless anyway against "smurfing", aka Steam "family sharing".

This easy-anti-cheat is starting to smell like snake-oil, though it does make the honest players feel protected (LOL), so it's more of a marketing checkbox than a legitimate mechanism for eliminating cheating.

EDIT: OWI would implement Valve's VAC if they cared about cheating, but even OWI don't give a crap in reality, in spite of claims to the contrary.

[SSIXS]

Chaos původně napsal:

Also, Squad bans would not result in VAC bans, so the cheater is free to create fresh "family sharing" steam accounts when one gets banned, and keep on cheating under a different name, possibly even on the same server, as a big FU to the admins.

Has this changed since 2019? Squad didn't used to support family sharing.

[Chaos]

SSIXS původně napsal:

Chaos původně napsal:

Also, Squad bans would not result in VAC bans, so the cheater is free to create fresh "family sharing" steam accounts when one gets banned, and keep on cheating under a different name, possibly even on the same server, as a big FU to the admins.

Has this changed since 2019? Squad didn't used to support family sharing.

I just checked, and you are correct, family sharing is not supported in Squad.

This changes economics somewhat (ie, a caught cheater loses access to a paid game).

However, the arms race between game developers and cheat developers continues, and the cheats would be updated to be undetectable by EAC. I have to guess that the youtube channel, which appears to be owned by the cheat developer himself, is openly flaunting OWI because he found some way to get around EAC which is difficult for EAC to counter. He's probably hoping to sell as many cheats as possible until EAC finds a countermeasure.

I don't think this changes the understanding that there are indeed cheaters in Squad, it only changes how soon they can start cheating again after they've been caught.

It's very hard to catch a good cheater, because it relies on someone making a report, an admin investigating, and issuing a ban (for his server).

As we know, most of us who die in impossible circumstances, have been conditioned to think that the shooter is just somehow better, and thoughts of cheating are simply paranoia. This permissive culture helps perpetuate cheating.