Is using Alt characters cheating?

[Death Dark Star]

Just a question, not really able to find a list of what is actually considered cheating or not, for other players and Devs hopefully.

Starting to notice that players are using more and more Alt characters on the US West 2113 server. With SCUM allowing family members to use the game of a family member who has purchased the game, players are starting to take advantage of this. It was not much of an issue originally, but with the addition of more skills like thievery and driving, they are now using alt characters specific to certain tasks. I need to build more metal chests, here comes my full survival guy, I want to pick some locks, this character is maxed thievery, we need a driver, then they use their guy with maxed out driving.

Now these players, and it is several in one squad, are making characters with full sniping and rifle skills and leaving these characters outside the squads they are competing with. They log on with these characters, try to take some sniper shots and harass the other squad. If anyone tries to attack them, they just log off and switch back to other characters. They have even used this to bait squads out of their base area on one side, and switched to players on the other side of the base to try and break in or catch the team returning back t their base.

It's also being used in combat. Players will move 2 alts to the same location for a base strike. If one alt is killed they quickly switch over to the other to grab their own loot and continue fighting. I also believe that some players are starting to share these alt accounts. I haven't been able to prove it but ti seems like squads with multiple alts are getting one single player to move their alt characters up to the front line after they die, with gear from their spawn in base. As soon as someone dies in combat, they can quickly step into a different alt account that is geared and ready to go directly in the combat location.

So is this cheating? It's not hacking. It's closer to using an exploit or bug or weakness in the game to their advantage. Is it a low down and dirty play? Hell's yes it is. But is this a reportable, ban worthy cheat?

This problem isn't going to go away on it's own. With the addition of more skills to split your starting points up across, this is only going to get worse. Even now guys I respect in the community are talking about doing this. Even I have thought about. If one major squad is doing this, specifically around picking locks with maxed thievery alts, then its pushing the rest of the squads to have to do the same in order to keep competitive with those squads who are.

I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. I'm not going to start pointing fingers yet, but it's pretty common knowledge amongst the regulars on US West 2113 that these things are happening. The players doing it don't deny it, because they don't think it's cheating.

[N0W3P]

I would say this qualifies as an exploit. Definitely not cool.

[Mikfail]

Yes & it's punishable by death in space, let everyone know.

[KoRnFeD]

Each character has it's own attributes. Each character has it's own identity.

Now, if those characters are formed into a squad, by the same person who formed them, then yes. But how do you differentiate that from multiple people playing from a public computer. How can you prove that one computer is used my many people that collaborate together?

Quickly switch from one to the other?

Nice story, no basis in fact as of yet. I'll jump into 2113 and check it out. "With SCUM allowing family members to use the game of a family member who has purchased the game, players are starting to take advantage of this."

There is no reason why a family member would not do this. In fact, it seems that since you thought of it, you may be guilty of it as well. Just saying. No accusation. :)

[PirateNinjaCowboy]

Wow. Nailed it OP.

[KoRnFeD]

Wow. OK, first thing I notice is doors that say "F Open" do not open, Second door, same.

I'll not bother with that, and not play this server. The US West server I play on does no have the problem with doors. Seems 2113 needs a reset.

As far as your accusation, that is a Steam issue. Steam must issue a certain "key" for each purchased copy of a game to prevent this. And, I am sure they do.

[Famous]

I purchased multiple accounts months ago then posted on the forums about it the same week in the hopes that it would somehow be restricted. No exaggeration, everyone was talking ♥♥♥♥ to me in game about it after I did lol. Kaka hinted at it first in game long ago, shocker. It didn’t cross my mind until that turd hinted he was doing it.

Hopefully something will be done about it somehow. I would say thAt how you use your alts has different levels of unfair advantage. Those who set up armies of alts for pvp are the worst offenders in my opinion, followed by poi farming. You can just reroll to make specific character types. I use mine so I don’t have to travel, they are all in different grids. If transportation was more available I would have never gotten another account. I think vehicles are a mistake in this game. Taming animals and them despawning after an hour would have been a better approach, but now we have squads of super nerds consolidating all the vehicles, and the casual masses have to run everywhere. With travel being so tedious, everyone should be on a level playing ground.

And I can tell you that I have used my alts in every way mentioned above in the past just to see the advantages first hand, then stopped after a week. Now if I want to hang out in B3 I go to the b3 account. If I want to go harass the idiots who farm naval, I log into the a4 account. It’s a massive travel advantage, something should be done about it, been posting about this for months.

Restrict sharing accounts

Restrict logging out within/near POIs

Cool down timers on POI visits so I can’t farm airfield and hang out there all the time.

Assign attributes on character creation but start with no skills and grind

People say those are restrictions to game play, yeah it’s early access, and if there are aspects of the game that can be exploited, then too bad, changes need to be made for the better of the game.

It takes less than 90 seconds to switch accounts on my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pc.

Also, reshade should be restricted, I don’t use it, but it’s ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in any pvp game.


It takes so much time to progress in this game, every exploit or unfair advantage needs to be dealt with or it will never thrive.

[Bunny]

Thanks for taking the time to write everything down in detail. Very good analysis on your part. I'll forward the thread to the rest of the team and we will see what comes out of it, definitely something that needs some thought.

[Cipher 8]

It's suprising to me that the devs allow it, I'll say that...

And it happens on all the servers. US EAST 1000 definitely multiple groups of players who do it. I was late to the party as i didn't find out about this even being possible until i heard of others doing it. Until they decide on a fix there's no reason not to do it because it's free. Make up to 5 steam accounts and link them to your steam account family share.

A soft fix would be to not allow Family Share because most people haven't bought the game twice. But then those who legit wanna family share the game with a relative or somebody would be screwed. End of the day the game is cheap enough if you want to play it then you should be able to just buy it seperate account.

One of the worst things about this, and mostly why I actually do this, is you can equip each alternative character with the hiking backpack and all the best clothing and load them up with 3 weapons and tons of gear. Log off and it's the best chest in the game. They cannot lockpick and steal it because you are logged off. If the devs do a soft wipe and leave characters alone you still have all your loot. If you have say 5 of these characters you can hold onto 15 weapons and all the ammo and crafting supplies you need. You don't need to spend Fame to claim anything or even risk someone lockpicking in to destroy or steal all your stuff. Just have a transfer chest and log in/out each account. It's tedious and beyond retarded but it's meta now. Please devs... fix this.


BUT!

There is another issue. When you log in any game server you choose the in-game name. It's expected that within that server that name solely belongs to you and nobody can have the same exact name. I've never played a game where this was possible. I figured it wasn't possible in scum until it just worked. They should change that as well. I won't post details how to do it but basically it's the same issue as the multiple accounts because it goes hand and hand.

I also think logging in/out near POI is a much bigger issue at hand than multiple accounts. You just simply should not be allowed to log out in bunkers or mech patrolled areas at all. Would fix/balance a lot of the game's issues with griefing and no longer can you claim doors and have the mechs patrol the area which has become the new meta for best claimable buildings.

[Sammywa]

Originally posted by TheLongDickBandit:

I purchased multiple accounts months ago then posted on the forums about it the same week in the hopes that it would somehow be restricted. No exaggeration, everyone was talking ♥♥♥♥ to me in game about it after I did lol. Kaka hinted at it first in game long ago, shocker. It didn’t cross my mind until that turd hinted he was doing it.

Hopefully something will be done about it somehow. I would say thAt how you use your alts has different levels of unfair advantage. Those who set up armies of alts for pvp are the worst offenders in my opinion, followed by poi farming. You can just reroll to make specific character types. I use mine so I don’t have to travel, they are all in different grids. If transportation was more available I would have never gotten another account. I think vehicles are a mistake in this game. Taming animals and them despawning after an hour would have been a better approach, but now we have squads of super nerds consolidating all the vehicles, and the casual masses have to run everywhere. With travel being so tedious, everyone should be on a level playing ground.

And I can tell you that I have used my alts in every way mentioned above in the past just to see the advantages first hand, then stopped after a week. Now if I want to hang out in B3 I go to the b3 account. If I want to go harass the idiots who farm naval, I log into the a4 account. It’s a massive travel advantage, something should be done about it, been posting about this for months.

Restrict sharing accounts

Restrict logging out within/near POIs

Cool down timers on POI visits so I can’t farm airfield and hang out there all the time.

Assign attributes on character creation but start with no skills and grind

People say those are restrictions to game play, yeah it’s early access, and if there are aspects of the game that can be exploited, then too bad, changes need to be made for the better of the game.

It takes less than 90 seconds to switch accounts on my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pc.

Also, reshade should be restricted, I don’t use it, but it’s ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in any pvp game.


It takes so much time to progress in this game, every exploit or unfair advantage needs to be dealt with or it will never thrive.

Seems to me this is a bit excessive and far out there why dont we just stop pvp and make it a survival game altogether like it was advertised.... devs cant stop this any more than steam can if someone wants to pay more money to the devs for another account, you think the devs are going to frown on this ... no. as far as sharing an account with family is a steam issue and feature and they cant do crap about it. restricting logging out in POI, come on man this is just nuts..

[Cipher 8]

Originally posted by Sammywa:

as far as sharing an account with family is a steam issue and feature and they cant do crap about it.

Actually I believe they can on the family sharing front. They can set whether they want their game to be able to be family shared or not. By intentionally disabling it by developer/publisher I believe most would not do this. Sure some would purchase the game on other accounts and well if they do hey it's better for the devs and honestly nothing can be done to circumvent or fix that.

It's also worth pointing out games that are most similar to SCUM decided to disable Family Sharing already. Arma III and DayZ standalone are two examples of games that can not be shared anymore because of how this can be abused in multiplayer. You will see a "Buy" instead of "Play" button if Family Shared.

Originally posted by Sammywa:

restricting logging out in POI, come on man this is just nuts..

How so?

How is it a good thing for the game that you can log out inside a bunker, log back in loot it and log out and onto another account do this every what 20 minutes when loot resets then log back in and get more until your fully looted and then someone can just drive over there to you and get the loot and you go back inside the bunker on your alternative. You really only have to do this at C2, B3, and other good bunkers where there is a lot of loot.

Also you should not be allowed to join an Event while near a POI which is the abused all the same to duck a fight. You can even start your own and it takes you out of the bunker. When it's finished you return to the bunker. You can use this trick right now to really save yourself from someone or mess with them and get the upper hand in a fight against them.

If they did these fixes it would make going on Bunker runs more fair and by not being able to log out/join event to duck a fight is something I think everyone agrees is only fair.

[Death Dark Star]

Originally posted by KoRnFeD:

Nice story, no basis in fact as of yet. I'll jump into 2113 and check it out. "With SCUM allowing family members to use the game of a family member who has purchased the game, players are starting to take advantage of this."

There is no reason why a family member would not do this. In fact, it seems that since you thought of it, you may be guilty of it as well. Just saying. No accusation. :)

Hey thanks for weighing in on this. Some of the players doing this have been doing so very openly in both the discord channel for that server and in game chat, so this is based in fact. Can I confirm or prove that they are doing all of the things I talked about, no, but it sure seems to be happening. Have I done it myself? No not yet. My point is that even though I consider it to be a method of cheating, here I am having this conversation and considering it.

Originally posted by KoRnFeD:

Wow. OK, first thing I notice is doors that say "F Open" do not open, Second door, same.

I'll not bother with that, and not play this server. The US West server I play on does no have the problem with doors. Seems 2113 needs a reset.

Glad you took the time to check out the server. We have had some issues with the door glitch for sure. It's especially bad when you first log on, but a relog seems to fix the majority of problems. The leader of the squad who are using this the most is actually currently banned for what I heard was a somewhat related issue? Most of his squad is also taking a break, so the usual suspects are not currently playing as much prior to the upcoming wipe. It was mostly the solo regulars and newer players on last night while I was there.

Can I asked where you spawned in and found those door issues?

[Priest]

3 Different issues, 3 Sollutions

1: Thievery skill is imba if skilled too high at creation of a character
Sollution, set the max skill in thievery at creation to Basic

2: Serverowner want to disable Familyshare (for different reasons ? but mainly because if they ban a player manually they dont want him to come back with a alt account )
Allow in the serversettings to disable Familyshare (empyrion do this)

3: Player switch between accounts during fights.
Sollution: Make a Hardwarescan each time a player log in, if a plaer log in/out bind the hardware to the Account ID. And block logins with same hardware but different account for 15 Minutes


edit:

Originally posted by deathdarkstar:

Is using Alt characters cheating?

Not really in 90% of the cases

[Death Dark Star]

Originally posted by TheLongDickBandit:

I purchased multiple accounts months ago then posted on the forums about it the same week in the hopes that it would somehow be restricted. No exaggeration, everyone was talking ♥♥♥♥ to me in game about it after I did lol. Kaka hinted at it first in game long ago, shocker. It didn’t cross my mind until that turd hinted he was doing it.

Hopefully something will be done about it somehow. I would say thAt how you use your alts has different levels of unfair advantage. Those who set up armies of alts for pvp are the worst offenders in my opinion, followed by poi farming. You can just reroll to make specific character types. I use mine so I don’t have to travel, they are all in different grids. If transportation was more available I would have never gotten another account.

And I can tell you that I have used my alts in every way mentioned above in the past just to see the advantages first hand, then stopped after a week. Now if I want to hang out in B3 I go to the b3 account. If I want to go harass the idiots who farm naval, I log into the a4 account. It’s a massive travel advantage, something should be done about it, been posting about this for months.

Hey Long D, good to hear from you on this. I do have to say that I have been suspicious in the past on how you managed to move around on the server as quickly as you do. I get how and why you would use the alt's this way. Part of the problem with this issue is the different options on how to use this exploit. From what I have seen in game I don't have an issue with how you are using this. In my opinion you are just playing multiple characters, all pretty much identical, in different locations on the server. As a solo player you aren't really likely to abuse this in the same way a squad would. And we all know how much you love the play style of those squads in question on the server.

The whole issue started with kaka. He was never subtle about the tricks and hacks he used and liked to brag about things like this. Not long after his most recent ban players kept showing up with that name, pretending to be him, but were clearly not him. You could tell by how he communicated in the chat and who he was playing with. Not long after his departure we started to see an increase in the number of alt activity on the server.

I do recall you posting about this issue previously. I knew it was happening, but it wasn't until recently that I decided that I had any major issue with this. It took a discussion with guys I'm considering squading with post wipe and realizing it was something that they would be doing and would be expecting me to do as well for me to have an issue.

[Limpan]

gtg

[N0W3P]

I agree on this one pretty heavily that this should be restricted for balance.....

BUT, there are legitimate uses for family accounts as well (my kids loves this game!), so I hope that whatever solution is determined won't entirely limit it. I'd be really sad if we couldn't blast things together anymore.