Are players cheating?

[OldGamer]

So I am not sure how these time attack's work. I don't know how you can do 80 rounds in under 5 minutes?

I either die (if I go to fast) or go over their time.

I am guessing its a certain strategy or they are cheating?

[Ninja Zyborg]

The top few times are often cheated, but are removed before the rewards are distributed. Most races are possible in ~2 minutes or less by top players, and you can see Youtube for examples (most of which are put out after the race is over).

[Rukashu]

many players on reddit and youtube are saying that are hacks or idk to make monkeys attack faster or something like that.

humans finding a way to ruin every multiplayer experience...

[Ninja Zyborg]

Originally posted by rukashu:

many players on reddit and youtube are saying that are hacks or idk to make monkeys attack faster or something like that.

humans finding a way to ruin every multiplayer experience...

not sure why some people always insist on claiming that fast race times are all hacked, despite video evidence of people completing the races on unaltered games.

[MaxBlue001]

Players be like: "if i can't do it, then it's illegal, and everyone should be perma banned"

[Rukashu]

Originally posted by Ninja Zyborg:

Originally posted by rukashu:

many players on reddit and youtube are saying that are hacks or idk to make monkeys attack faster or something like that.

humans finding a way to ruin every multiplayer experience...

not sure why some people always insist on claiming that fast race times are all hacked, despite video evidence of people completing the races on unaltered games.

idk either, i'm just saying what 'ive been reading.

Originally posted by MaxBlue001:

Players be like: "if i can't do it, then it's illegal, and everyone should be perma banned"

agreed, i started seeing this argument when i was playing dota 1

[OldGamer]

Originally posted by MaxBlue001:

Players be like: "if i can't do it, then it's illegal, and everyone should be perma banned"

That wasn't what I was saying. I just wanted to know could it be done.

I know I am not the best at the game, especially anything timed. (not anymore - when I was younger maybe)

I am a more methodical type than speed.

[Vivianite]

many "pro" players post recordings of them doing time attacks, felixkillah is a good example to watch as he often clocks under that

[Rukashu]

noob question here, if i play coop with someone with those green leafs, i will be flagged too?

[Ninja Zyborg]

Originally posted by rukashu:

noob question here, if i play coop with someone with those green leafs, i will be flagged too?

irrelevant to the discussion and also you can search the forums for this on your own.

[kaitou1011]

Things to keep in mind here are that it's normal enough to do a standard race in under five minutes enough that there's a whole achievement for it-- there's a whole achievement for three minutes too. Around 3% of players have the five minutes achievement and 2% have the three minute achievement according to steam. IDK if steam achievements worked for modders, but my point is that while it's something relatively "difficult", it's something NK does consider reasonably possible in an unmodded game.

I've played a lot of races, usually happy to reach the top 10% reward tier for not a whole lot of effort and get a handful of trophies for it-- I have got the aforementioned achievements along the way though-- and I find the races in CT to be a lot easier than a standard race. Not just because of the buffs that you can grab in CT and use when you're on a team doing decently, but also because in CT you can lose and try again without needing to pay MM. If you're trying to get a time of 5 minutes or under, you can send out a boatload of rounds and just start throwing down towers and trying something. If you lose in one minute, then you can just try again without penalty, as many times as you need to. If you're losing quickly, trying over and over isn't wasting that much of your time anyways.

I don't really have much advice for you in getting under five minutes specifically-- I don't put that much effort into races, so I did only get the achievements under pretty specific racing condition-- but it is possible. The most possible it's ever been is in CT.

[ttv.JackTheRipperGamerBR]

I Dont know too

[sfnhltb]

They are feasible generally, I beat three minutes in the race before this one while not being very good at the game just by vaguely copying a strategy posted on youtube (which was under 1m30s) obviously being slower because I didn't know what I was doing and what to place next or any of the keyboard shortcuts, etc. Nothing in the video didn't work or was cheating in any way, it just took some attempts to place the monkeys in the right position and try to memorize and speed up copying the strategy that slowed me down.

Money isn't earned in the game by waiting, but by killing bloons (well, particularly in the context of a race event this is the case), so if you get the strategy right things snowball fast, while conversely if you start with the wrong monkeys or wrong placement(s) you will lose loads of time, or be unable to deal with the bloons you released early.

Essentially you need to know what towers have good pierce, what rounds can be dealt with at any time, and which will cause leaks, where to place the towers, etc. A lot of it will be trial and error finding the exact placement to avoid leaks, and how many rounds you can cover at once with your spike-o-pult before a few leak and cause it to aim elsewhere, or when it would be best to have it aiming Last to keep it on the main stream of targets and either let the few that get past leak, or be cleaned up by your next tower you are about to place.

The early stages can also involve selling - in the one I did the initial spike-o-pult gets sold to upgrade the bomb shooter to 203/204 faster, as well as the spike-o-pult usefulness dropping once the aiming is more erratic. Other optimizations included doing things like buying alchemists and selling them as soon as they have buffed the tower in question so you can use the money returned to buy the next tower faster rather than leave the alchemist there when it won't be doing much until the buffs wear off which is the context of doing a race may be virtually the end of the race, depending on the tower being buffed and how fast it attacks mainly.

Generally optimizing these sorts of strategies tends to take a lot of time trying things out and knowledge of the game, but copying them doesn't, so shouldn't be a problem if all you want to do is either get the achievements or just a vaguely decent ranking - if you actually want to get near the top of the leaderboards that will take a lot more effort. The other part might be waiting for a "good" race - depending on the map, the rules, the towers enabled and the round it ends on the best times and how complex the strategies get will rise and fall.

[XX_Swaglord420_XX]

the devs sadly dont care about leaderboard cheating so, most likely as the game doesnt have anti cheat either.

[MaxBlue001]

Originally posted by OldGamer:

Originally posted by MaxBlue001:

Players be like: "if i can't do it, then it's illegal, and everyone should be perma banned"

That wasn't what I was saying. I just wanted to know could it be done.

I know I am not the best at the game, especially anything timed. (not anymore - when I was younger maybe)

I am a more methodical type than speed.

I was more reacting to ninjazyborg and rukashu tbf (although you did considerered top players cheating. It may be true for the very top, but not all).

[Hiroko]

Originally posted by 12100:

the devs sadly dont care about leaderboard cheating so, most likely as the game doesnt have anti cheat either.

both of those are false
They remove cheaters from leaderboards.
They have tons of anti-cheat checks, but they largely have a policy of letting you do w/e you want in single-player. You will be shadow banned from multiplayer content once flagged though, and there are at least 2 seventies of flagging that determine how much content is restricted.