Hacking vs Cheating

[MrSmokestack]

4 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

Just as a note, none of the hackers ever successfully hacked orbs.

Since feathers and those are limited server side... they're pretty much hack proof (unless they actually maliciously hack into the servers. Which is *ILLEGAL* in both USA and Japan)

The only exploit for feathers is generating 5 star characters and selling them.

The key word here is "possible".

Very glad this is not a reality, though.

[Falcom]

To understand what I think of hackers and cheaters, it would revolve around the word, fun (or enjoyment).

Data miners and hackers, I am fine with. There's nothing wrong with someone trying to modify something just for their own amusement (or someone else either), so long as it doesn't ruin anyone else's fun. I've seen plenty of videos of that, all of which were very hilarious. With data miners, I've never seen anyone complain about it, heck everyone seems to enjoy knowing what's going to happen in the future for this game.

Cheaters, I could not care less about. They know what they're getting themselves into. It's likely that they'll ruin other people's enjoyment for the game. And from what an old friend of mine said, "Cheating won't feel satisfying in the end." In other words, cheaters will eventually lose the sense of "fun" for this game.

As such, it's pretty obvious that I would draw the line between what's fun (hackers) and not fun (cheaters).

Isolating these cheaters so that they can only tear the single player campaign? That's completely fine by me. If they want to duplicate units for their own amusement (seeing the 4 Xanders actually made me laugh a little), that's okay. If they want to use these duplicates to continuously merge their own units (again for their own amusement), that's fine. If they want to use these powerful units (since they're merged) in the arena, not okay (and also impossible since they're banned from the arena in the first place). Like I said, that would ruin the fun for other players.

If I were to go and make an alternate account right now with *THE PURPOSE* of being banned to screw around like I do with single player games with cheats... Is that something that is acceptable?

Interesting question. So I assume that in order to get banned, you would need to hack your arena points? Or can you get banned just from messing around in the single player campaign? If it's the first, then it's not acceptable (and therefore, completely disregard part of the paragraph above this question). If it's the second, then that's fine.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Falcom

[MrSmokestack]

5 minutes ago, Falcom said:

If I were to go and make an alternate account right now with *THE PURPOSE* of being banned to screw around like I do with single player games with cheats... Is that something that is acceptable?

Interesting question. So I assume that in order to get banned, you would need to hack your arena points? Or can you get banned just from messing around in the single player campaign? If it's the first, then it's not acceptable. If it's the second, then that's fine.

If I recall correctly, arena scores are stored server side, so they cannot be hacked. You can adjust the values you see client-side, but reconnecting to the server refreshes it to the correct value.

 

EDIT: Can someone check if this is actually correct?

Edited March 18, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[shadowofchaos]

3 minutes ago, Falcom said:

Interesting question. So I assume that in order to get banned, you would need to hack your arena points? Or can you get banned just from messing around in the single player campaign? If it's the first, then it's not acceptable (and therefore, completely disregard part of the paragraph above this question). If it's the second, then that's fine.

They can detect hacked 5 start +10's.

Or you have to do something IMPOSSIBLE in the game. Like the things I've seen is attempting to hack Level 41 units.

[Shiro]

1 hour ago, eclipse said:

Reread the quote, paying attention to the numbers.  Then, click the link.

Yeah since i dont have full team of +10 I have to limit what i use in arena but when the new update in april comes around itll get rid of most fury abusers and since im not a huge whale ill get to fight others with similar stats as mine and bst wont matter as much :)

as for the guy who is rank 16 that is a true whale who has probably spent 10k ish on orbs which is crazy imo though im not one to talk :)

Edited March 18, 2017 by Shiro

[Falcom]

4 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

If I recall correctly, arena scores are stored server side, so they cannot be hacked. You can adjust the values you see client-side, but reconnecting to the server refreshes it to the correct value.

Ah. Must have misread that somewhere in the post then.

4 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

They can detect hacked 5 star +10's.

Or you have to do something IMPOSSIBLE in the game. Like the things I've seen is attempting to hack Level 41 units.

Let me rephrase what I said, can you only get banned from the social aspect of the game? Or the single player aspect? I'm gonna go with the social aspect from what you said.

Does the game detect your hacked units before you even start the arena? If that's the case, people can still have fun with the game since they don't have to fight those units. Or does it take a while for them to detect the units? I'm sure that is the more likely choice, and if so, that's unacceptable. Sure, the owner of those units might be having fun, but it's not the same with those who have to deal with it. If the person is trying to get banned from hacking something impossible for their own amusement, then well that's fine. It's impossible, so it's not like anyone in the arena is going to fight level 41 units anytime soon.

[ZXApocrypha]

Whales should be allowed to cheat without getting banned after spending X amount of money so they don't fall into debt cuz of gacha and wind up on the street; this can come later when they inevitably lose all their money in Vegas on the poker table

Kappa

In all seriousness, I agree w/ the view that cheaters deserve to be banned in multiplayer game if it affects the gameplay experience of legit players. In FE Heroes, this means using hacked/maxed heroes to obtain a rank in arena they wouldn't have obtained otherwise, or otherwise reap rewards they could not earn if they did not implement a cheat. If a player cheats their entire party into 5* w/ perfect skills, I don't personally give a sh!t as long as they keep out of the arena and other events (e.g. I really don't care if they use cheated units in the Training Stratum); ofc, Nintendo might care if they use hacked units to achieve quest rewards they wouldn't otherwise. However, these issues are all so difficult to judge considering how many cheaters there are that Nintendo understandably might as well ban cheaters indiscriminately, even if they somehow have done nothing wrong.

Edited March 18, 2017 by ZXApocrypha

[eclipse]

10 minutes ago, Shiro said:

Yeah since i dont have full team of +10 I have to limit what i use in arena but when the new update in april comes around itll get rid of most fury abusers and since im not a huge whale ill get to fight others with similar stats as mine and bst wont matter as much :)

as for the guy who is rank 16 that is a true whale who has probably spent 10k ish on orbs which is crazy imo though im not one to talk :)

I'm 98% certain that it's a troll, not a whale.  The two aren't mutually exclusive, though (you should be able to check other people's posting histories).

4 minutes ago, Falcom said:

Ah. Must have misread that somewhere in the post then.

Let me rephrase what I said, can you only get banned from the social aspect of the game? Or the single player aspect? I'm gonna go with the social aspect from what you said.

Does the game detect your hacked units before you even start the arena? If that's the case, people can still have fun with the game since they don't have to fight those units. Or does it take a while for them to detect the units? I'm sure that is the more likely choice, and if so, that's unacceptable. Sure, the owner of those units might be having fun, but it's not the same with those who have to deal with it. If the person is trying to get banned from hacking something impossible for their own amusement, then well that's fine. It's impossible, so it's not like anyone in the arena is going to fight level 41 units anytime soon.

It sounds like the social aspects are banned, which is fair enough IMO.  Hacking can be used for both good and bad, and evaluating each instance on a case-by-case basis is nigh-impossible.  While it has the potential to hit the segment of hackers that aren't interested in doing it for their own gain, I think that any hacker with a brain would do so on a throwaway account.  Those that do it for their own personal gain and bragging rights can stew in single-player mode forever.

2 minutes ago, ZXApocrypha said:

Whales should be allowed to hack without getting banned after spending X amount of money so they don't fall into debt cuz of gacha and wind up on the street; this can come later when they inevitably lose all their money in Vegas on the poker table

Kappa

Either contribute meaningfully or get out.

[Katrisa]

The thing that makes me sad is the game is so easy to hack.  I understand why they did this, because they wanted a light client capable of running quickly without stalls.  But it had the unfortunate side effect of becoming hack ridden in the very start.  I honestly have hacked some games (dark souls, diablo 1, and Torchlight) because games like these lacked character modifications after making builds.  So it was much easier to simply hack the games to adjust your character rather than start over.  

The problem is this game is promoting the same problem, as the thread starter mentioned.  The current boon/banes, and skill inheritance design promote a fair bit of frustration rather than the fun and willingness to experiment and have fun.  So I can see why the desire to hack is occurring.  And I can see why others will simply decide to put the game down due to the inflexibility and poor decisions on their account.

I fear that Nintendo has as you are eluding, created a whole avenue for hackers to prosper in the game by providing tools to change character boons, learned skills etc.  Things we should have some ability to fundamentally do for the sanity of the game long term.  While I do think there is some merit of randomness generating interesting decisions.  Diablo III showed us that range on top of range results in a system where poor draws constantly occur, and a curve occurs where players are unable to improve their character over time since progression requires a ranged drop along with ranged stats... along with ranged amplifications.    We are facing the same problem in this game now where over time the pressure of bad boons/banes and the lack of proper skill upgrades is going to make it less interesting when we get new characters.  And these systems promote hacking or again quitting the game because its not fun.

So yeah I totally feel where you are coming from, because there are some glaring long term problems here.  Not to mention short term issues.

[shadowofchaos]

1 hour ago, MrSmokestack said:

If I recall correctly, arena scores are stored server side, so they cannot be hacked. You can adjust the values you see client-side, but reconnecting to the server refreshes it to the correct value.

 

EDIT: Can someone check if this is actually correct?

Arena points are not *completely* server side.

They get trusted on the client and server gets updated.

Well... you can't just edit your arena points. The streak points you get are what can get hacked.

I just checked the hacker thread (which I'll get suspended for if I link to it).

[Fei Mao]

3 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

 

1. Where do you draw the line with a mobile game like FE heroes? Where is the line there? How much of the game is inherently multiplayer
2. But to you people, is that enough? Is them being isolated to another part of the server to hack the single player campaign to pieces acceptable?
3. Since Nintendo just banned them from those features, are you, as a community satisfied with just that?
4. If I were to go and make an alternate account right now with *THE PURPOSE* of being banned to screw around like I do with single player games with cheats... Is that something that is acceptable?

1. Just like the others here I'm fine if it benefits the community such as datamining or anything that's not harmful to other players (manipulating wins and such). As of right now the multiplayer functions are just Arena and the Voting Gauntlet which isn't much,  I think it's good that Nintendo isn't releasing multiplayer events (like tournaments for characters) rapidly and handling with this issue well. 
2. Yep I think that's acceptable, and if cheaters want to compete they're pretty much facing against each other and see who can cheat the best.
3. Yeah
4. I think that's fine, maybe the person messing around might discover something that the game creator should know about

 

On a side note I don't like cheaters, getting denied higher tier feather rewards suck but at least it's a prize that you can get every week and not something that's exclusive. One example is from the mobile game Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes when they released tournaments for characters, 1st place gets the character + materials to ascend them to 7* (Which is the highest rarirty in that game) You score points by beating other players' teams and it costs game currency in order to reuse the same characters for future battles. (Which gets more expensive the more you reuse the characters until a limit)

The cheaters in that game were using modified APKS that automatically sent a victory flag to the server when it should've been defeat and they can keep going and going since they're only sending one person per fight. Therefore, people with underdeveloped rosters were beating whale teams and scoring higher than them. (whales in that game spent $1,000+)  in the end the cheaters got Top 5 reward. The development studio didn't expect that to occur and didn't handle it woo well which caused quite a bit of whales to demand for refunds. 


I'm just glad this kind of disaster didn't happen to FE Heroes yet.
 

[DraceEmpressa]

29 minutes ago, Fei Mao said:

1. Just like the others here I'm fine if it benefits the community such as datamining or anything that's not harmful to other players (manipulating wins and such). As of right now the multiplayer functions are just Arena and the Voting Gauntlet which isn't much,  I think it's good that Nintendo isn't releasing multiplayer events (like tournaments for characters) rapidly and handling with this issue well. 
2. Yep I think that's acceptable, and if cheaters want to compete they're pretty much facing against each other and see who can cheat the best.
3. Yeah
4. I think that's fine, maybe the person messing around might discover something that the game creator should know about

 

 

I agree with all these points. However, my fear is that since cheating is only  possible through APK (CMIIW, I  don't know anything about programming/hacking  and I read that from another Heroes forum) , Nintendo will ban APK users completely to prevent anymore cheating, like to people who downloaded illegal ROM of Pokemon. 

This fears me, not only because I am an APK player since Heroes isn't legally available in my country, but that way, people can't hack into the game for spoilers/datamine anymore when I am the kind of person who actively look for them. It's not fair for hackers that is not using the hacked data for the unfair online multiplayer victory.  

Edited March 18, 2017 by DraceEmpressa

[pianime94]

Regarding my stance on this as F2P. First, I have always appreciated dataminers' work out there who share their founding and keeping me excited for the game (thank you). Second,  since my team doesn't have a particularly high BST, I don't think I've ever battled any cheaters in the Arena, but what do annoy me is how they can essentially get any units they want by RAM manipulation, which is unfair imo. 

I'm also on the side who think that IS' method of isolating cheaters from multiplayer side of this game is a really good move. Though, it's probably impossible to filter all of them since I had seen cheaters who could still participate in the last Voting Gauntlet Maybe IS could just ban rooted phones and emulators? OTOH, pulling that moves will make  datamining harder. What quandary.

 

[MrSmokestack]

6 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

Arena points are not *completely* server side.

They get trusted on the client and server gets updated.

Well... you can't just edit your arena points. The streak points you get are what can get hacked.

I just checked the hacker thread (which I'll get suspended for if I link to it).

Ah, ok. Thank you for the correction!

[shadowofchaos]

7 hours ago, DraceEmpressa said:

I agree with all these points. However, my fear is that since cheating is only  possible through APK (CMIIW, I  don't know anything about programming/hacking  and I read that from another Heroes forum) , Nintendo will ban APK users completely to prevent anymore cheating, like to people who downloaded illegal ROM of Pokemon. 

This fears me, not only because I am an APK player since Heroes isn't legally available in my country, but that way, people can't hack into the game for spoilers/datamine anymore when I am the kind of person who actively look for them. It's not fair for hackers that is not using the hacked data for the unfair online multiplayer victory.  

I'm an apk user through QooApp since it's somehow not compatible with Google play with my phone. Probably because it's rooted.

They're not modified. So it's okay.

[XemnasTheDarkLord]

So wait, I have a small question. If one "cheats" or "hacks" for just single-player things, that’s usually fine "on the line" right? However, when those things go into the multiplayer stuff is when it becomes an issue correct? Is that the main gist of it? I wanted to know just in case I possibly ever do something like this. Not that I want to get banned, mainly just to experiment and stuff. I DO enjoy FE, and yes, I admit, sometimes I cheat (sometimes the 3DS/Switch games, but not Heroes) but I don’t really "cross the line" when it comes to multiplayer and all that. I also doubt I’d ever do such a thing even if I felt the temptation to. 
 

So outta curiosity, what does that make me? Should I feel ashamed at all? I’m a bit lost on the "moral grounds" of these things. 
 

Also, I’m sorry if I’m breaking any rules. I’ll try and refrain from doing so if I am. 

[XRay]

52 minutes ago, XemnasTheDarkLord said:

Also, I’m sorry if I’m breaking any rules. I’ll try and refrain from doing so if I am. 

You might want to give a quick glance at Guidelines at the top of the page. And try not to necropost.

[XemnasTheDarkLord]

23 hours ago, XRay said:

You might want to give a quick glance at Guidelines at the top of the page. And try not to necropost.

Sorry. My bad. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

As far as I'm concerned, all hacking is acceptable, except for that which negatively impacts other players. 

[NegativeExponents-]

I also don't really care whether people hack/cheat in games as long as they don't take it online to use against other players. And even then it depends on what they did. Like, for example, in pokemon I don't mind if people gen pokemon and then go on and use their fancy-schmancy shiny pokemon with perfect IV and EV spread and optimal moves online to battle against other people as long as they have legal movesets and whatnot since there is absolutely no difference between that and someone who went through countless breedjects to get the same results. If it's something like a Dark Void Magikarp with like Moody or Wonder Guard as their ability then yeah I'll have issues with that though since that's an impossible to get magikarp and no one should have access to it.