I wanna open this thread specifically for the Devs and/or representatives.
Regular users, please don’t post if possible.
I kindly wanna request a statement regarding the (map-)hacking situation.
What is the timeline for the cheaters being tackled and what are the measurements, which are being prepared?
Please feel free to answer in detail about the penalties for cheaters/hackers and how the whole situation will be approached.
By when can we expect the game to be mostly free of hackers?
For example getting less than 1 case per 100 matches.
When will family steam sharing be disabled for ranked play in order to minimize the chances for hackers to cheat in ranked on multi-accounts?
It’s been 18 days since I have opened this thread for the Devs or a representative.
I kindly want to remind you to reply to this very important topic timely.
right now asking victims to spend time recording a video and then submit to report cheating is the only solution afaik. The solution is ineffective because of the time consuming process of reporting (it takes at least 30 mins for experienced reporter to fire a report), as well as the lack of punishment of successful cheating report. (never perm-ban afaik, mostly less than 7 days ban, and steam allow almost unlimited sub-accounts)
I suppose the dev ain’t capable of stopping map hacking technically, so what I ask for is just to develop a feature that allow your supporting team to recover ELO to victims for any successful report. This will encourage victims to spend time to do reporting, and recovering ELO is a fair approach because map hackers ain’t actually won their games.
This sounds like a very good idea indeed.
The Devs have all the data (match histories) and can very easily recover the elo+rank of anyone having lost against hackers, this could very easily be automated in fact, as all the data is central in their system.
Also, steam family sharing has to be disabled ASAP for ranked.
Something, that people have been asking for, for a very very long time.
Honestly, since there is absolutely ZERO action and ZERO communication about hackers and cheaters and even the most simple stuff, which barely takes ANY worktime (steam family sharing), is not done, it should be very obvious that the Devs just have completely given up about the game and the situation.
I haven’t played a match now in months and I don’t think I will come back.
The situation is just unacceptable.
Nothing being done about the cheaters (very simple, effectice and quick fixes, which barely take any coding-work, were suggested by multiple people like AoeHK or me), which is just a massive hit in the face of all the fans who paid the full price for the game and dlc and want a functioning product in return.
Not even the smallest bit is being done by the Devs to tackle this.
A shame.
Whatever it is, wether it is lack of budget, failure of management or just plain ignorance, in the end of the day it is just a hit in the face of all the loyal fans who paid a lot of money for the game.
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Since moderation for AoE IV falls under Microsoft guidelines, this transparency report that they release bi-annually applies to the situation as well:
July – December 2023 Xbox Transparency Report, Page 21 'Proactive Moderation Data'
Proactive enforcements are when we use our portfolio of protective
technologies and processes to find and manage an issue before it is
brought to our attention by a player. In this reporting period, we saw
the first decline from the previous reporting period for proactive
enforcements from 17.09M to 8.14M.
We are committed to the detection and removal of accounts that have
been tampered with or are being used in inauthentic ways to prevent
impact to players. 89% of proactive enforcements over the last period were directed at cheating and inauthentic accounts and this remains a primary focus. Our proactive methodologies are always evolving to
respond to dynamic challenges.
Reporting a player when you suspect them of cheating has an effect. The same way that reporting someone for harassing other players using the chat system, or any other conduct that breaches the terms and conditions we all agree to, has an effect.
You will receive a notification in game if they decide to take action or not, and obviously you will have better results if you provide evidence.
So with all of that in mind, I agree that they could do better about communicating the issues the game has with cheating. However, the idea that they do nothing, as in ‘Not even the smallest bit is being done by the Devs to tackle this’, is fairly misguided.
My friends and me reported tons of players who nonstop cheat/maphack in team-matches.
Many of them even hack with other premades together and massively manipulate every single match to win it.
We even went on their profiles which were public and watched their other matches, they cheat/hack every single match.
None of them have been banned and we observed their accounts for weeks.
They keep playing.
We also did not (!) receive a notification.
So, I can’t see anything being done about the hacking situation.
Steam family sharing is still enabled for ranked.
As long as this is the case, the game support does not do its job.
Even IF (!) after tons of reports and 1 million pieces of evidence and spending hours to reach that goal, 1 player gets banned for 7 days, he just hops on one of his other 10 accounts and keeps cheating and maphacking.
The devs/management HAVE to finally stop steam family sharing and OFFICIALLY leave a statement.
Receiving a notification in-game occurs when you make the report in-game. My own experience with reporting through the support ticket system is that they respond to the email I provided rather than in-game. Not once have I had no response… I’m sorry to hear you had that experience.
I believe 7-day-ban is probably a typical punishment too. Sometimes I pay attention to players who I successfuly reported, and he did stop playing for at least 2-3 days. And obviously, this level of punishment has almost no effect in deterrence of map hacker.
The highest level of player i ever reported was a conq3 guy. I just checked he is still playing the game. (however in this season he dropped to plat 3) does it work? may be work against high level cheaters, but there still a lot of cheaters in low level.