[Megathread] Battlefield 1 and Cheating Discussion

Battlefield 1 General Discussion
1

Hey all,

We do understand encountering cheaters causes a negative impact on your gaming experience. We want to give you an opportunity to share your thoughts about cheating and what can be done to combat it. Any feedback you may have can be posted in this thread. When posting your comments, please remember:

  • Familiarize yourself with the forum rules & guidelines, here
  • Don’t name & shame other players
  • Be constructive
    Keep in mind we don’t speak for the anti-cheat team on these forums. While we can forward your feedback, we won’t be able to comment directly on ongoing efforts to combat cheating.

Lastly, this is a gentle reminder that our forums are not the place to report in-game cheating. If you’d like to report a user, please follow the steps as listed in this article:
https://help.ea.com/en/help/faq/report-players-for-cheating-abuse-and-harassment/

Thank you,

-Tom

#FridayNightBattlefield - Weekly Community Event
[Megathread] BFV and Cheating Discussion
Hacking On Asian Servers
2

Hello Tom,
I am a BF 1 player.

Lately almost every server i join have a cheater in it.Yes we can report cheaters but i don’t think EA does read the reports because some cheaters are playing for weeks.
Some cheaters are on the main chat and telling where you can download the cheats they are using.
Wallhack, invisible, aimbot ,teleport revive there was even a player who made knife and grenade kills with a tank.

What can be done to combat it you ask.

How hard is it to update fairfight?
If you see a medic with a spotting flare to call in a bombardment you know it’s a cheater, some goes for the assault and support classes.
Also, there are K/D ratios of 250/2 or even more than 300 kills. If a player makes more than 20 headshots in 30 seconds Fairfight thinks that it is a good player.

What i DON’T want is a votekick option.Most of the players just use it to kick a player who doesn’t play like they want.
They will votekick snipers or pilots or good tankers because they only want assault class.

Do not forget.

BF1 is without the cheaters THE BEST GAME EVER MADE.

Greets,
The_Old_Bones.

3

Is to easy to buy cheats for this game. If you search on google for BF1 cheats then you get at least 5 websites you can buy this cheats. I wonder why Dice/EA dont take action to close this websites. Is there nothing like trademark infringement so this sites can be closed? And why Dice/EA dont test this cheats to see how they work so they can take countermeasures. Imo Dice/EA are to soft against cheaters. If an player get bannend then he buy a new game for €10 and he is online again. There must also be an IP adres and hardware ban. And why there is no website you can see the players who are bannend?? If i report an cheater i cant see if he got bannend or not. Iam suprised that you guys started this thread after all those years EA/Dice dont care about cheaters. Now BF1 is at end of live and BFV is an disaster now you guys want to safe an sinking ship.

4

Official Dice server have become pretty much unplayable for me.
in over 50% of my games there are invisible people going 100-1 or something like that in 5 minutes.
Now i was trying to play operations and my team has 3 cheaters.. THREE
All 3 are invisible, all 3 are like 330-5 in score.

Like this is pathetic, making an anticheat that detects someone being invisible and having a KDR of 50+ should not be this hard.

BF1 was my go-to “I’m bored and want to shoot stuff” game, now i can’t play anymore because just every second game has someone who cheats completely out in the open
I report them all.
Nothing happens.

I’m done.
Was really thinking about buying BFV , but i’m not giving money to you if you have abandoned all efforts at combating cheaters.

5

Cheating has increased significantly recently in BF1. It has got to the point of not being able to get a good competitive game without someone running around being invisible with just the gun showing, endless bombardments and getting automatically revived etc. It really feels as very little is being done to combat this and as mentioned above they use the server chat to advertise where you can buy the cheats from. Renting your own server and having admins was an option for previous games I have played. But EA choice for only getting inflated priced servers from them is not an appealing option. It is sad as I enjoyed the game. I know it is said thousands of times but I have not purchased BFV as it is a waste of money if you can not enjoy what you have purchased.

Options:
Server admins.
Competitively priced servers and/or 3rd party servers.
More resources in to anti cheat.
Letting people know what is being done to combat cheating. The in game messages are a start but saying 2 players permanently banned in the last 24hrs when I alone have experienced 7 is not reassuring that enough is being done.

6

Live admin and actually follow up on reports.

EA should pay for people to actually monitor games/servers. They can afford it.

I get the feeling when I spectate, record and report players that are obviously cheating my report is ignored.

7

As I’ve always suggested there should be hardware ID bans, by means of the implementation of tried, trusted and effective anticheat software such as Easy Anticheat. Account bans are simply not effective enough.

8

The game doesn’t have any anti-cheat anymore, that’s just the reality.

The only people being banned in the FF chat feed are people that are trolling and don’t care if they get banned and purposely trying to trigger whatever remaining stat triggers still exist. Its obvious the stat triggers were slackened off after all the false positives occurred, and that had to be done. At least legit good players aren’t being banned now.

But anyone that wants to cheat closet style will never get banned in this game as the anti-cheat team have moved on to BFV and no one is looking at at the game. I’ve reported and tweeted many times absolutely nailed on confirmed cheaters, multiple times, and sent them to Sean Merson at DICE and other EA staff and they are still play on the SAME account (Over 70 days of playtime in!).

The only good news is that as a game gets older cheaters becomes less interested in cheating in it. BF3 and BF4 have no anti-cheat now effectively, (because the available cheats have bypassed all the measures) but you can get a lot of games without cheaters just 'cause it’s an old game.

The problem with cheating in BF1, or any BF for that matter, is mainly an Origin platform issue, and an EA policy problem ,rather than any one game’s development team. It is well understood that the majority of cheaters use stolen accounts and that two-factor authentication largely protects accounts being hijacked, so why isn’t 2FA mandatory on accounts to enable that account to play online multiplayer titles in Origin? Why is that not a policy?

Why can I make an Origin account with no personal details whatsoever? It should be tied to a personal phone number for a start. Why would anyone, for legitimate reasons, ever need two origin accounts? It should be you get one account, you cheat, two year multiplayer ban - on ALL Origin titles, and this be paired with an actual valid and functional appeal system to remove permanent false positives from occurring.

EA should also stop supplying B2B product codes to third party distributors who then sell to third party re-seller sites. The only place I should be able to buy an EA game from, is the Origin store. Most of the cheaters keys that aren’t stolen accounts through hacking or social engineering, are obtained through buying from dodgy third party sites with stolen credit cards. Stop feeding the beast!

9

It really should be straightforward.

Rowing admins on official servers, with insta-ban authority.

I cannot belive Dice don’t do this. It would not be perfect, no anti cheat is. But for one, it would immediately get the obvious ones; headshot only, 200-0 score idiots out there.

10

Now we players can argue back and forth 24/7 365 to no avail.
OR
EA can take initiative and enforce their OWN ToS that they expect US to follow and start taking effective anti-cheat measures.

I know which one I’d prefer.

11

Hi, i think there is a good solution, at least for the most annoying cheat, aimbot:
When a player stats are strange, like the ratio death/kill AND the ratio of hit/miss shots from long distance AND other stats, the game will popup a message to all the players except the suspected cheater; this message will say something like “the player x, is probably cheating…check him and see if there is something strange and the click the button “yes, he is a confirmed cheater””. When a certain % of players on the server confirm that he is a cheater, there will be NO BAN, but his damage will be set to 0, so it will be frustrating for him.

This 0 damage, will remain only on that server for a few days

I think that software check + players check is a better option to avoid, at least, the aimbot than the anticheat only

12
13

Sorry… but anyone system involving the players while in game is 100% sure not to work as you need to be a trained anti-cheat staff to make a judgement (unless its the kid with the MG42 killing 200 enemies in less than 5 seconds from 1000 meters away… he is easy to spot even for a blind dude)

Why?

Because there are way to many unskilled players with zero game IQ that simply calls everyone a cheater and fail to understand that the reason they get killed is their own lack of skills and game IQ.

I am not a good pilot as any skilled pilot can out-manouver me in a split second as I dont know or think about what I do when flying… I just fly and hope for the best - but I have more than 10.000 kills in fighter planes alone - and every single day I am accused of cheating/hacking by some noob with 40 kills in a fighter plane = he simply does not understand BF 5 flying and what practise can result in.

I really feel sorry for the Anti-Cheat team as they must get 1000s of “wrong” reports with accusations of cheating … when its actually just an unskilled player accusing = and this is very important in any new anti-cheat system that all the “fat” is cut away from the “bone” so anti-cheat measures have less “noise” to deal with and can concentrate on only the “real” cheaters.

PS:

Having said this I do agree that “when there is smoke… there might also be a fire” meaning that if I was an Anti-Cheat Officer that got 1000s of reports everyday then I would obviously start looking at the player that got the most reports from many other players and the players that only got 1 report I would not spend time on yet.

Thus, maybe a simple “voting” system in game that is quick and simple like you propose could make this task easier? (but I only agree in the “place a vote on this player regarding cheating or not” but no action in game and only action by a qualified and trained anti-cheat team).

14

I agree that very often skilled players get accused of cheating part of the problem is that for 1 skilled player there is at least dozen of cheaters and some people can’t (sadly) tell the difference

15

Well, it can be an idea for all FPS games, not only BF1 or EA games

16

I think the devolopers are abandon the games already.Because Everytime i have met some fockin cheaters they are also the same player.I think i reported him/her for tenthousand times but everything not changes.1 things have changes is the feelling to the games that i play(BF1).So this is make me very sick.

17

Online gaming is “new” and is like the Wild West at the moment due to the “anonymity” of players and lack of punishment.

If I were “President of the entire Gamers Universe” this is what I would do:

Make an organization called “Unique Gamers ID”.

To get an Unique Gamers ID I would have to apply and send in my finger print or a copy of my passport or what ever document it takes to prove that this is me (just like when you apply for a visa to a country or a passport or whatever)

There is a fee to get this Unique Gamers ID ( so I am already aware that this money is lost if I dont follow the rules)

My Unique Gamers ID is linked to ALL online games that I play (provided the Game Developer demands that to play his game I need a Unique Gamers ID)

Thus:

  • each gamer has a Unique Gamers ID.

  • Game Developers can say: " You can buy our game… but you can only play - online - if you have a valid Unique Gamers ID"

If you cheat:

If a player cheats in any online game - his Unique Gamers ID is closed/banned and he cannot play any online game any more (not only the game he cheated in but every online game where you would need a Unique Gamers ID).

This ban will be for xx years (5 - 10?) and the original fee is lost - and when re-applying for a new Unique Gamers ID after the ban period the fee will be higher.

It will be very easy for the Game Developer to take legal actions against the person as you have “entered in to a contract” and have violated this contract - and the Game Developer knows who you are and can identify you.

I know this is kind of what Origin and Steam and ? are trying to do (but not as controlled and harsh) - but they need to work together - and get an “umbrella organization” above them as they are also loosing money - and with this kind of systems I bet you that the costs for Anti-Cheat measures would be much lower.

Yes - this is not bullet proof as there are always holes in the cheese but if you knew today that you would be banned from ALL online gaming for 10 years if you cheated in one single game and the Game Developer is going to take legal action against you… I think a lot of people would think twice before cheating and only the last hardcore rebels would remain.

PS:

You all have to realize that this is not about kids cheating in a game - no, this is about how to behave online and when you “kind of allow” people to be racist, a bully, a cheater, a hacker etc. etc. because there is no “real” punishment it will end in chaos. And it is also about stealing or violating other peoples property (gaming experience and game software) which cost money and jobs- so its not a minor problem of some kids doing some “innocent” cheating for fun.

Maybe I am crazy… but thinking that a stronger Anti-Cheat plugin is the solutions to get less cheating is just too old fashioned and like looking through a straw and not being able to see the big picture.

18

Agree 100% with you, and for this reason i said that there is a double check, one by anticheat and one by players. It’s difficult to find a server filled with only noobs that call skilled players cheaters. In this remote case, where a wrong vote occur, i said that the player will not be banned, but his damage dealt will be set to 0, so he can change server and play without annoying wrong ban.
However, setting to zero the damage of the cheaters “MG42 killing 200 enemies in less than 5 seconds from 1000 meters away” would be a great thing..i find only these kind of cheaters, and it’s almost impossible to play

19

Players cheating with impunity is the curse of BF1 in its current state. When playing on official DICE servers, not one day passes without encountering cheaters, for example players using artillery strikes on maps which don’t have this feature (e.g. TDM). How that’s possible without server side detection and immediate permanent hardware ban is simply beyond me; it should be the simplest thing to do. The same players are doing this for weeks and months on the European servers and it proves beyond doubt that there is NO anti cheat running in BF1. Nothing.

The reporting system is a joke; not a single one of the rage hacking cheaters I reported has been banned. Asking users to waste time on reporting cheating feels like an insult from the developers at this point.

So… The anti cheat team needs to step up with creative ways to handling this issue.

First of all I realise that any effort to improve the anti cheat will probably be both cash strapped and limited in terms of man power on a game this old. So I think EA and DICE need to think about anti-cheat in BF1 as a testing ground for anti cheat systems that could be used in future BF titles. Because a lot of players are sick of the cheating and the lack of attention it gets from EA/DICE.

My suggestion is to repurpose the reporting system to a “complaints system”, and use the data to actively filter away servers in the server browser for the cheater. If more than three players on a given server have reported you, that server will not show in your server browser. Make the filter time limited (two weeks) and try fiddling around with how many users need to have reported you on a given server. And leave a few servers without the “complaints filter” so the cheaters will always have servers showing in their browsers.

What would be the advantage of this? Well, for one thing the cheaters would - without even noticing - tend to play on servers where no one complains about their behaviour. In fact, they would play against other cheaters.

The disadvantage would obviously be if a number of users “gang up” and report a player whom they simply dislike. BUT .. The filter only works if a server has active complaining players, and it needs to be “refreshed” with complaints. If you stop cheating, more server choices will soon become available to you.

20

So how does cheater get permanent ban? I have reported cheaters 100’s of times, no effect. What do you need, video clip?