16,000 Cheaters Have Been Banned from Apex Legends

[cageymaru]

Respawn Entertainment has announced that over 16,000 cheaters have been identified and banned from Apex Legends. The development team acknowledged that "cheaters suck" and asked the community to gather evidence of them cheating. They are looking into adding a report feature to the game and will investigate flagged accounts. In the same post, they asked the community to report instances of crashing. Dataminers have discovered references to a Survival Mode, Solo Mode, and Duo Mode. The same dataminer leaked two new playable characters otherwise known as "Legends." One is called Octane and the second is named Wattson. Lastly, YouTube personality Battle(non)sense brilliantly analyzed the netcode of Apex Legends and found it lacking.

In other Apex Legends news, the VR game Apex Construct on Steam has experienced a 4000% uptick in Steam Store visits since Apex Legends was released. Chinese gamers have purchased more copies of Apex Construct in the last seven days than all of 2018 combined! The devs admit that "Most likely these units will be refunded, but our books look pretty good at the moment;-)." The Steam Community team is looking into the misunderstanding, as Apex Construct was out before Apex Legends, so no intentional scamming was intended.

I took a look at the networking of Apex Legends and I was negatively surprised by what I found in a game released in 2019 by a studio like Respawn Entertainment.

 

[Aireoth]

Good, catch them all, tag their IP's and ban them from everything.

 

[Nukester]

"Chinese Purchase". Cheaters. They fuck up everything.

 

[Riccochet]

Even if the netcode is as jacked as they claim, the game runs silky smooth and I have no experienced one bit of desync. There has to be more going on with the netcode than Battle(non)sense understands. There just isn't the outcry of issues like there are in other games.

 

[Vercinaigh]

Good, catch them all, tag their IP's and ban them from everything.

Yeah, IP bans, good way to have banned a different person every week. It's like Hot Potato!

 

[Oldmodder]

Gamespeed look fine, but too many disturbing elements for my liking.

 

[Aireoth]

Yeah, IP bans, good way to have banned a different person every week. It's like Hot Potato!

As opposed to now?

Combo ban is what I proposed, ban their account from the game, and lock out their IP from all online games, fuck cheaters, fuck em right in the a.

 

[/dev/null]

I just play single player. No real worries about cheaters

 

[Aireoth]

I just play single player. No real worries about cheaters

So do I, but I remember before hacks and cheats became so common, multiplayer was fun and in its infancy, I wish we could have that back on PC.

 

[oldmanbal]

So do I, but I remember before hacks and cheats became so common, multiplayer was fun and in its infancy, I wish we could have that back on PC.

Consoles still clearly dominate cheater control. Also if it's a free to play game, the abuse is an order of magnitude worse as being banned offers no punishment.

 

[Lakados]

It would be nice if say the game took a hardware screenshot, found a couple unique identifiers, serial numbers, that sort of stuff. Then assigned an ID to that profile then simply banned that profile, no two users should end up with that same profile. I mean yea serial cheaters will find ways to fake that hardware ID but that would be a program they could at least look for.

 

[ChoGGi]

Also if it's a free to play game, the abuse is an order of magnitude worse as being banned offers no punishment.

Stick them all in cheater server instances? At the very least it'll take them longer to figure it out, so the rest of us won't be bothered by them.

 

[chaos4u]

I was just flabbergasted by this , i mean i know cheating is rampant but its even worse than i thought ... just crazy ...

 

[Soulmetzger]

Cheating in multiplayer games is why i'm moved to mostly single player games. Playing multiplayer is a waste of time if cheaters are a constant factor.

 

[Vercinaigh]

As opposed to now?

Combo ban is what I proposed, ban their account from the game, and lock out their IP from all online games, fuck cheaters, fuck em right in the a.

As opposed to IP's don't stick to one person, they you know, are, well, dynamic. So if you ban a consumer IP, guess what you've done? Banned a different person literally every week, or day, or month depending on the ISP. It's a awful suggestion, don't make it. Also, MAC spoofing is easy, so pointless there too, and can trade modems for free with your ISP, so eh. This is why having account is the only way it works. Ban the a account, e-mail, Card and move on, can do nothing more.

 

[knowom]

Private server hosting is the best deterrence sadly that's less common today.

 

[RogueTadhg]

If you play Apex Legends, then there's a few problems identifying cheaters: No Kill cams. All you know is someone with a Peacekeeper shot you - not that they seen you through the fog and did it. There's no spectating other than your teammate, when you die.

Separating cheaters and non cheater is probably going to be the best way. There'll be overlap, but should control or at least prevent cheaters coming back in flocks.

I'd suggest the following:

Link account to a OS key. I like this idea best, if you get banned, your PC is banned. Your account with Origin is free, but your windows key isn't. Most people won't have more than 1 windows key either. if your key gets spoofed, you'll need to call and all that jazz at first proving your have the key and it should be unlocked.

Blocking credit cards are easily dodged these days. Some banks allow people to create virtual cards for online shopping. New numbers for every order. Very handy!

 

[Dodge245]

I am having a fair few issues with this game and cannot decide what it is...

I've had to put all settings on Low for decent framerates (there's barely any difference between low and high).
Last night I was unable to shoot, clicked to fire and nothing, no bullets coming out of my gun, a couple of seconds later firing at someone else worked fine. Is that net-code or a hacker somehow blocking me from firing?

I have also found that if you are on the Keyboard mapping screen when a game starts it will unmap "W"... And you can't seem to set "Push to Talk" to mouse 5, which is my preferred default.

Also finding that players seem to be able to kill me in one shot, when I can land 2-3 shots on them and only do "10" damage (each shot).

I am not a bad FPS player, I'm consistently top of the board in things like CS:GO, DOOM and Overwatch, but something about the way the guns work in this just does not feel right. And I don't know if its Lag or cheaters, I normally achieve around 30ms in most online games. At least I'm consistently in the top 10 squads, even if I only have 2 kills total...

EDIT

Just got to the 8 minute mark of that net code video, that would explain a hell of a lot of the issues I am experiencing, lower ping is essentially bad for you in this game...

 

[SomeoneElse]

The netcode is insanely delayed but.....its even on both sides because if you are the shooter it favors you if you aren't shooting then it doesn't, at least the consistency is there. I've always had problems with the BF series netcodes, I always get packet loss and stuttering when I play on servers over 75 ms. Which is one reason I don't pick up their games very often.

 

[SvenBent]

So do I, but I remember before hacks and cheats became so common, multiplayer was fun and in its infancy, I wish we could have that back on PC.

When did multiplayer not have cheats?

 

[/dev/null]

When did multiplayer not have cheats?

I don't really remember cheating being so pervasive in the mid to late 90s.....

 

[Guarana [BAWLS]]

As opposed to now?

Combo ban is what I proposed, ban their account from the game, and lock out their IP from all online games, fuck cheaters, fuck em right in the a.

So, I take it you're not familiar with the concept of DHCP internet, which basically everyone at home is on?

 

[exlink]

I don't really remember cheating being so pervasive in the mid to late 90s.....

Typically a very large chunk of modern cheaters come from a certain country overseas that has seen great economic growth and infrastructural development since the late 90s.

 

[Guarana [BAWLS]]

I don't really remember cheating being so pervasive in the mid to late 90s.....

It happened. It was *absolutely* a thing.

Source: I found a few hacks for online stuff way back when and played around with them.

But really, most of it boils down to: Online gaming in the 90's when most users were still on 56K modems wasn't really a big thing, compared to having the vast majority of users on broadband today.

 

[SvenBent]

I don't really remember cheating being so pervasive in the mid to late 90s.....

Well I have to say that i strongly disagree. cheater has always been there. we played less multiplayer games perhaps

Quake 1996
Model replacements
- replace eyes from "invisible" model to full model making enemies nto able to be invisible for you
- Long spikes in front of rocket makes it able to see rockets coming around a corner
- Spike models making it easier to see where people are
Water vis'ing ( debatable but did give ppl an advantage when they could see through water
Cheat MOD. Only worked if you are server but gave you cheat codes in multiplayer games
Scripts ( debatable but did give some clear advantages over players that did not run scripts/aliases
- no ammo drop scrip
- Fast grenade launcher
AIMBOTS

Quake 2 1997
Gl_modulate ( set the lowest amount of light for shadows aka removing shadows and dark areas
AIMBOTS

Command and conquer 1995
rules.ini ( only really worked if you did not play the same side)

Command and Conquer: Red alert 1996
rules.ini

Warlords II 1993
save/load cheat (debatable)
GameWizard

Civilization 2 Gold 1996
save/load cheat (debatable)
gamewizard for Windows

Counter strike 199x
spike models
removing black ares in zoom mode
See through walls

Interstates 76
Probably debateable but selecting that freaking pickup truck should be considered a cheat...


Thats just on top of my head so yeah cheating was well establish in the 90's as well.
We just didn't play mostly multiplayer back then.

 

[SvenBent]

Typically a very large chunk of modern cheaters come from a certain country overseas that has seen great economic growth and infrastructural development since the late 90s.

So not the states, gotcha

 

[SomeoneElse]

I don't really remember cheating being so pervasive in the mid to late 90s.....

It happened. It was *absolutely* a thing.

Source: I found a few hacks for online stuff way back when and played around with them.

But really, most of it boils down to: Online gaming in the 90's when most users were still on 56K modems wasn't really a big thing, compared to having the vast majority of users on broadband today.

Well I have to say that i strongly disagree. cheater has always been there. we played less multiplayer games perhaps

Quake 1996
Model replacements
- replace eyes from "invisible" model to full model making enemies nto able to be invisible for you
- Long spikes in front of rocket makes it able to see rockets coming around a corner
- Spike models making it easier to see where people are
Water vis'ing ( debatable but did give ppl an advantage when they could see through water
Cheat MOD. Only worked if you are server but gave you cheat codes in multiplayer games
Scripts ( debatable but did give some clear advantages over players that did not run scripts/aliases
- no ammo drop scrip
- Fast grenade launcher
AIMBOTS

Quake 2 1997
Gl_modulate ( set the lowest amount of light for shadows aka removing shadows and dark areas
AIMBOTS

Command and conquer 1995
rules.ini ( only really worked if you did not play the same side)

Command and Conquer: Red alert 1996
rules.ini

Warlords II 1993
save/load cheat (debatable)
GameWizard

Civilization 2 Gold 1996
save/load cheat (debatable)
gamewizard for Windows

Counter strike 199x
spike models
removing black ares in zoom mode
See through walls

Interstates 76
Probably debateable but selecting that freaking pickup truck should be considered a cheat...


Thats just on top of my head so yeah cheating was well establish in the 90's as well.
We just didn't play mostly multiplayer back then.

I think all of your guys arguments are correct.
Online gaming was in its infancy in the 90s so cheaters were not a prevalent as they are now. There were cheaters no doubt, i remember the days playing CS beta and Team Fortress classic where cheaters were easy to spot because of wallhacks and aimbots but they would get banned quickly because people ran and moderated their own servers.
Because broadband is now widely available its easy for someone to go to a hacker hub website and get any cheats they want. Not to mention now multiplayer games are a huge focal point to the video game industry so we are forced to play games together.

As long as people know how to program they can learn how to hack and cheat because of file manipulation. That's why myself and a number of others who posted on here play single players games for Co-op.

 

[/dev/null]

Well I have to say that i strongly disagree. cheater has always been there. we played less multiplayer games perhaps

Quake 1996
Model replacements
- replace eyes from "invisible" model to full model making enemies nto able to be invisible for you
- Long spikes in front of rocket makes it able to see rockets coming around a corner
- Spike models making it easier to see where people are
Water vis'ing ( debatable but did give ppl an advantage when they could see through water
Cheat MOD. Only worked if you are server but gave you cheat codes in multiplayer games
Scripts ( debatable but did give some clear advantages over players that did not run scripts/aliases
- no ammo drop scrip
- Fast grenade launcher
AIMBOTS

Quake 2 1997
Gl_modulate ( set the lowest amount of light for shadows aka removing shadows and dark areas
AIMBOTS

Command and conquer 1995
rules.ini ( only really worked if you did not play the same side)

Command and Conquer: Red alert 1996
rules.ini

Warlords II 1993
save/load cheat (debatable)
GameWizard

Civilization 2 Gold 1996
save/load cheat (debatable)
gamewizard for Windows

Counter strike 199x
spike models
removing black ares in zoom mode
See through walls

Interstates 76
Probably debateable but selecting that freaking pickup truck should be considered a cheat...


Thats just on top of my head so yeah cheating was well establish in the 90's as well.
We just didn't play mostly multiplayer back then.

Wasn't pervasive when I played, or when it was, it didn't affect the outcomes much if any....

I'm not saying it didn't exist, it wasn't PERVASIVE.

 

[Seventyfive]

I still wonder how hard it would be for big companies to just buy the cheats like the cheaters do, look at what the cheat is doing, then just ban everyone using it. Most cheats are sold for money on well known cheat forums so it's not like this whole cheat thing is a secret cult and nobody knows how the cheaters are doing it. If someone works in game development can explain, I'd love to hear more "behind the scenes" on if this already happens or not.

 

[Aireoth]

So, I take it you're not familiar with the concept of DHCP internet, which basically everyone at home is on?

Yes I am, but cheating like any other crime is made worse by easy and opportunity, doing something like banning the ip would put pressure on telcos as well.

 

[Aireoth]

Well I have to say that i strongly disagree. cheater has always been there. we played less multiplayer games perhaps

Quake 1996
Model replacements
- replace eyes from "invisible" model to full model making enemies nto able to be invisible for you
- Long spikes in front of rocket makes it able to see rockets coming around a corner
- Spike models making it easier to see where people are
Water vis'ing ( debatable but did give ppl an advantage when they could see through water
Cheat MOD. Only worked if you are server but gave you cheat codes in multiplayer games
Scripts ( debatable but did give some clear advantages over players that did not run scripts/aliases
- no ammo drop scrip
- Fast grenade launcher
AIMBOTS

Quake 2 1997
Gl_modulate ( set the lowest amount of light for shadows aka removing shadows and dark areas
AIMBOTS

Command and conquer 1995
rules.ini ( only really worked if you did not play the same side)

Command and Conquer: Red alert 1996
rules.ini

Warlords II 1993
save/load cheat (debatable)
GameWizard

Civilization 2 Gold 1996
save/load cheat (debatable)
gamewizard for Windows

Counter strike 199x
spike models
removing black ares in zoom mode
See through walls

Interstates 76
Probably debateable but selecting that freaking pickup truck should be considered a cheat...


Thats just on top of my head so yeah cheating was well establish in the 90's as well.
We just didn't play mostly multiplayer back then.

You can find cheats, but cheating was not pervasive in the 90's and early 2000's. It was always easy to spot the cheater when one was around, not so easy these days to pick out a single cheater, and most PC games are a cluster f of cheating especially after a few months.

 

[Lakados]

In the 90's and 2000's cheating was something people did, now it is something people make money with and at. Once the money gets involved so do the resources needed to find and build the cheats better and harder to detect. For every person they have hired working on keeping cheaters out I can assure you there are at least 10 people trying their hardest to find a way in, and the side with the most eyes will always win in the end.

 

[Guarana [BAWLS]]

Yes I am, but cheating like any other crime is made worse by easy and opportunity, doing something like banning the ip would put pressure on telcos as well.

The opposite.
If someone does an IP ban, and then another PAYING customer can't get in because of it, it won't be the ISP that could be sued for it.

 

[Comixbooks]

I suppose it doesn't matter if you have a Deathadder Elite good internet and a low profile Cherry Corsair K70 with cheaters around.

 

[Rahh]

Private server hosting is the best deterrence sadly that's less common today.

this, this, and this. This needs to be a thing again and is also why cheating wasn't as big of a problem back in the 90's. If you had active admins playing on private servers it seemed to never be an issue. Also Punkbuster golden days etc..

 

[Lakados]

this, this, and this. This needs to be a thing again and is also why cheating wasn't as big of a problem back in the 90's. If you had active admins playing on private servers it seemed to never be an issue. Also Punkbuster golden days etc..

How would private servers deal with ranked play and large groups of hundreds if not thousands of players while keeping updated on their micro purchased skins and what not? What would the private servers do that the developer hosted ones not do?

 

[SvenBent]

Wasn't pervasive when I played, or when it was, it didn't affect the outcomes much if any....

I'm not saying it didn't exist, it wasn't PERVASIVE.

Ermm ok. im just saying i disagree cause it was very much very present in multiplayer games. but we didnt experience it is softness because we didnt play online/multiplayer as often


aka:
the percentage of ppl cheating in online games are the aprox the same.
But the experience we have with multiplayer games has increased.
So the increase experience is based on another factor

Im not sure what your all caps emphasis is for. But it just makes it appaer ryou area offended that someone disagreed with you and tried to put up some kind of evidence for their statement. (Which your by the way still lacks)

 

[SvenBent]

You can find cheats, but cheating was not pervasive in the 90's and early 2000's. It was always easy to spot the cheater when one was around, not so easy these days to pick out a single cheater, and most PC games are a cluster f of cheating especially after a few months.

I still highly disagree cheating was very persuasive in the 90's as well but we were not connected 24/7 back then. so 100% cheating in your multiplayer games is only 10% of you gaming time
where as now 100% cheating in multiplayer games is going to be 70% of your gaming time.


But private server needs to be a thing again. ihate that you can buy a product and then boom not have it because the makes decideds to turn of the servers


--- edit ---
and yes before somebody tries to argue the percentages. They are only examples to underline the concept. nothing real behind it.

 

[Furious_Styles]

Ermm ok. im just saying i disagree cause it was very much very present in multiplayer games. but we didnt experience it is softness because we didnt play online/multiplayer as often


aka:
the percentage of ppl cheating in online games are the aprox the sam.
But the experience we have with multiplayer games has increased.
So the increase experience is based on another factor

Im not sure what youe emphasis is for. but i just makes it appae you area offende that someone disagreed with you and tried to put up some kind of evidence for thierstatement. (Which your by the way still lacks)

Uh no. There's always been cheaters sure, there's no denying that. But if you played pubg and saw the amount of chinese cheaters it was taken to a whole new level. I have never seen that many people blatantly cheating.

 

[Lakados]

Uh no. There's always been cheaters sure, there's no denying that. But if you played pubg and saw the amount of chinese cheaters it was taken to a whole new level. I have never seen that many people blatantly cheating.

I gave up on that game because of cheating, it was a serious joy kill. Step 1: Geo lock the servers, and deny VPN access that cuts out most of the cheaters I see right there. Step 2 clean up that net code.