Huge issue with staff using 'time played' to accuse people of cheating

[ArmoredSnowman]

23 hours ago, Ancestral_Spirit said:

Here's a really baffling one. I finished and played Harry Potter Lego Collection years 1-4 and played for 54.73hrs, but finished years 5-7 with no time.

Bundled games don't track time for anything past the first game. If they do, it'll be time for the first game. For example, Spyro Trilogy comes bundled together. On Exophase, only Spyro 1 displays a time for me, while 2 and 3 do not. 

Crash is the same 

Here's Ultimate Ninja Trilogy: 

It's because they all have the same title id, and Sony can't track the games individually (at least in theory). It affects games like BioShock 1 and 2, possibly Metro, Driveclub, likely the Train Sim World/Dead By Daylight/Elder Scrolls Online series. Butttt I've also seen accounts that do have two of the three games from a bundle with tracked time, but both games are the same! So, yes, using time tracking as evidence of cheating is plain stupid, as it is buggy. 

[Ancestral_Spirit]

I'm probably gonna tap out of this soon because it seems like quite a few people aren't bothering to read the everything that anyone is typing, and just picking the bits they wanna read. 

 

One of the measures that CRT uses to catch a cheater is the PSN playtimes.

PSN playtimes have been proven to be incorrect on a number of occasions.

If more evidence other than PSN playtimes was used to back up a dispute then there would be no issue.

However in disputes, i've seen plenty of people that have been flagged or banned based on playtime alone, and THAT is what's not right.

Banning or flagging someone based on one single piece of evidence that's a 50-50 shot on whether it's true or not, is not a good system of proof to catch a cheater.

 

Not showing how they catch cheaters is a major flaw imo.

We're back to the age old 'you can just trust us'.

I've also seen disputes where two people have had the same issue, and both been flagged. One of them was let off while the other wasn't, cos the CRT team just knew one was lying and the other wasn't. How do the rest of us plebs know this? We don't. And we'll never know. Cos we just have to trust people that won't show their methods * shrugs *

 

Edit: Another question i don't know the answer to.

I didn't realise that you could have multiple people playing on the same account and that that was not against PSNP rules, i've literally just learned this today. So let's say 2 people are playing on the same account, one is online and the other is offline. They're both playing the same game, that has the same trophy list. If one of them pops a trophy, and then the next trophy can only be obtained in around 1 hours worth of more playtime, but the other person gets that trophy a minute or so later and they both sync the account. Wouldn't this make catching cheaters almost completely impossible?

I just find it odd that PSNP allows multiple people on the same account when it would just make their job of catching cheaters 10x harder  :/

Edited April 29, 2021 by Ancestral_Spirit

[DaivRules]

4 minutes ago, Ancestral_Spirit said:

If more evidence other than PSN playtimes was used to back up a dispute then there would be no issue.

You don’t know what other evidence is being used to back up a flag. 

5 minutes ago, Ancestral_Spirit said:

However in disputes, i've seen plenty of people that have been flagged or banned based on playtime alone, and THAT is what's not right.

No, you’ve only see what the dispute reason the report reason says, you don’t see what else the Cheater Removers review before issuing flags. 

[Dark_Overlord]

2 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Have they all been flagged for cheating? That should tell you that the words they used don’t directly mean everyone has been flagged as being a cheater when their times are “wrong”. 
 

There also isn’t a huge amount of people flagged solely for their PSN times being off as evidenced by a lack of disputes who’s only reason is PSN times are “wrong”.
 

You’re making accusations when you don’t have all the information and don’t have evidence that your “huge issue” is actually an issue at all as you have a data sample of zero people affected by what you’re accusing. 

 

Of course not everyone, but the mention of times keeps getting brought up in disputes, times which have been proven to be wrong.

 

Aren't flags made by users?  All it takes is one person to be a jackass.

 

And the information that the CRT is using to justify removing people is flawed.

 

I swear you are ignoring what B1rvine stated and are just trying to play it off so the CRT don't have to justify removals.

 

The "huge issue" is B1rvine stating that the times are accurate (wrong) and anyone with messed up times is a cheater (wrong again).

[Ancestral_Spirit]

Just now, DaivRules said:

You don’t know what other evidence is being used to back up a flag. 

No you're right, so is anyone from CRT gonna tell me?

There's no backup evidence being shown to anyone during disputes.

If disputes are made public, why isn't the evidence?

 

It's like having a trial, and only showing the evidence to the judge and not the lawyers or the jurors   

[Velvet]

I never thought the day would come where I agree with both Grimy and B1 on the same issue, but butter my pancakes that day is today. 

 

Do you guys realize how far out of context you've taken what he said? He didn't say "all times that are funky, look wonky, spank a monkey, you're going to get flagged!". The comment was made in that particular dispute thread where the only games that had wonky times were the hard games. Which even as just a scrub, I must admit is a bit suspicious, but yeah... am a scrub, so grain of salt. Not saying cheating was involved, but it does raise an eyebrow or 4. If you're worried about getting flagged because your DriveClub time shows 1 hour but your real-time played is 80 hours, yet your entire profile outside of that is fine, then spilled milk. If someone just so happens to get flagged for a trophy reason and they do look at it, yeah, it might be questioned. Maybe B1 could've worded it better, idk, but this was absolutely blown way out of proportion. It is not nearly as big of a deal as it's being made out to be and if your profile is crisp and clean except for a few games with some funky monkey times, I do believe the CRT is clear-minded enough to put it down to tracking error. Otherwise, there would've been a shit ton more disputes regarding the matter. 

No one wants to sit here worrying about the order trophies popped in, the time it took to complete everything, is there video evidence, etc. If you just play the games and earn the trophies like a normal everyday trophy addict, you're fine. 

[DaivRules]

Just now, Ancestral_Spirit said:

No you're right, so is anyone from CRT gonna tell me?

There's no backup evidence being shown to anyone during disputes.

If disputes are made public, why isn't the evidence?

 

It's like having a trial, and only showing the evidence to the judge and not the lawyers or the jurors   

Because as has been explained, explaining methods for identifying cheaters allows cheaters to avert being caught. 

5 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

I swear you are ignoring what B1rvine stated and are just trying to play it off so the CRT don't have to justify removals.

The only person the Cheater Removers need to justify their removals to is Sly. They don’t owe the members here anything. 

 

[Dark_Overlord]

1 minute ago, Velvet said:

Maybe B1 could've worded it better, idk, but this was absolutely blown way out of proportion.

 

No one wants to sit here worrying about the order trophies popped in, the time it took to complete everything, is there video evidence, etc. If you just play the games and earn the trophies like a normal everyday trophy addict, you're fine. 

 

But it was how B1rvine worded it was it not?  I'm not twisting his words, I'm using his literal post to air a grievance.

 

Till someone reports you for having what PSN reports as a few minutes on a game with a totally baseless accusation.  Have you not seen some of the disputes that turn up?  Some of them are so unbelievably BS that they should never get through in the first place.

[JoesusHCrust]

19 minutes ago, grimydawg___ said:

You guys are really overthinking.  It's really not that serious.

I'm not overthinking! I agree with you. My thoughts are exactly what Daivrules has written above. I'm just saying that because CRT methods have to be confidential, you run the risk of a storm in a teacup where people make assumptions about the CRT methodologies!! This whole thread seems crazy to me. We haven't got any evidence that the CRT are issuing flags based solely on exophase times! 

[Ancestral_Spirit]

5 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Because as has been explained, explaining methods for identifying cheaters allows cheaters to avert being caught. 

I'm sorry, but hearing things like that just make me think shady back door shit is happening   

How do you know someone has CFW on a playstation?

How do you know their times have been messed with?

How do you know more than one person has access to that account?

 

Without an explanation or proof, i can't just accept being spoon fed someone telling me 'just believe us'.

I'm also not understanding how people could avoid being caught if they knew all the methodology?

Edited April 29, 2021 by Ancestral_Spirit

[Dark_Overlord]

5 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

The only person the Cheater Removers need to justify their removals to is Sly. They don’t owe the members here anything. 

 

 

And on the opposite side, the Users have no reason to trust that the CRT are fair.

[grimydawg___]

Just now, JoesusHCrust said:

I'm not overthinking! I agree with you. My thoughts are exactly what Daivrules has written above. I'm just saying that because CRT methods have to be confidential, you run the risk of a storm in a teacup where people make assumptions about the CRT methodologies!! This whole thread seems crazy to me. We haven't got any evidence that the CRT are issuing flags based solely on exophase times! 

Not meant for you necessarily.  Just in general.  

1 minute ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

And on the opposite side, the Users have no reason to trust that the CRT are fair.

If you're not cheating, you have nothing to worry about.  You're making an issue out of nothing.

[Dark_Overlord]

1 minute ago, JoesusHCrust said:

I'm not overthinking! I agree with you. My thoughts are exactly what Daivrules has written above. I'm just saying that because CRT methods have to be confidential, you run the risk of a storm in a teacup where people make assumptions about the CRT methodologies!! This whole thread seems crazy to me. We haven't got any evidence that the CRT are issuing flags based solely on exophase times! 

 

Exophase is being mentioned because it is making the times reported from PSN publicly available, if you know of another site i'll reference that as well.

 

The PSN reported times are being referred to in disputes.

[Velvet]

1 minute ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

But it was how B1rvine worded it was it not?  I'm not twisting his words, I'm using his literal post to air a grievance.

 

Till someone reports you for having what PSN reports as a few minutes on a game with a totally baseless accusation.  Have you not seen some of the disputes that turn up?  Some of them are so unbelievably BS that they should never get through in the first place.

 

And as such is the joy of talking on the internet. You are taking his words as end all be all when he was talking about that particular situation, so yes, you are in fact twisting them to make it into something much bigger than it has to be. I have read the disputes as they appear because it goes great with a morning cup of coffee. Most of the time, the flags are warranted. Sometimes, they're not. The ones that aren't are usually either backed with evidence or backed by the community. 

 

Yes, some are baseless, and those that are (i.e. "too much rata") is a joke sure, yeah, definitely. And those disputes usually go away pretty quickly, as they should. Are they warranted? No. Should they have been approved? No. But, they were. You know who's perfect at their job? No one, lol. So while some flags should've never been approved, they're 99.9% of the time fixed. 

[DividedByMankind]

On 29.4.2021 at 0:59 AM, Dark_Overlord said:

Recently this was posted in a dispute by B1rvine, to which I 100% disagree.

 

 

I can prove to you right now that the times reported by psn are not 100% accurate.

 

Take a look at my Koi trophies.  I played a bit at first, let it idle for hours at a time at one point (I even had the PS4 crash after idling it for 9 hours and lost those 9 :/) 

Yet look at the time on Exophase, 18.43 hours..... a physical impossibility if I earned the 24 hour trophy.

 

How about Ultracore, I spent at least 30-40 runs finding all the collectibles and finding a way around the level 4 glitch.  Each run takes at least 90 mins if you know where every collectible is.  Bare in mind I had to spend god knows how many hours finding them all, yet Exophase reports 34.44 hours.  I wish it took me that little time.

 

How about Warframe?  I only ever play it with my partner, yet she is reported as having over 500 more hours than me in the game....

 

Then there's all the games with no timers reported.

 

So I ask, how can the staff say these times are 100% accurate and be used in disputes when it is quite clear they can be wrong, and it's not just 'people cheating'.

 

 

I dissagree with you. 

 

The last 2 weeks i played ESO about atleast 8h everyday and every single hour registered. when i started back at ESO my play Count was 92 ish hours. now its 202. Red Faction Guerilla is at 143h. Ghost of tsushima is at 118h. Control PS5 is at 31h. Control PS4 is at 42h, Cyberpunk is at 67h, Resident Evil: Revelations 1 PS4 97h. Resident Evil Revelations 2 67h.

 

Verdun is at 208h. Every single one of these games are done on PS5. The time has calculated right, the amount time ive used on those games are correclty calculated, i was keeping track while i played these titles. In my opinion B1 and the staff should use current play time as evidence against cheaters. Its nothing wrong with it.

 

The way it registers atleast for me is whenever i quit a game it register, sometimes when im playing to(not always tho) but all times do register when i quit the game. And the EXACT time i used that day Registered.  

 

So i dont understand why make it a biggie about something than can be used against cheater removal. And actually the other way aswell help people that are wrongly accused. 

 

 

 

[Dark_Overlord]

1 minute ago, Velvet said:

 

And as such is the joy of talking on the internet. You are taking his words as end all be all when he was talking about that particular situation, so yes, you are in fact twisting them to make it into something much bigger than it has to be. I have read the disputes as they appear because it goes great with a morning cup of coffee. Most of the time, the flags are warranted. Sometimes, they're not. The ones that aren't are usually either backed with evidence or backed by the community.

 

I'm not twisting his words, he literally said them.  You are the one twisting them to be something they are not.

 

please tell me how I am twisting this

 

Quote

I've done a good 50  tests under "normal" play conditions, trying to break the timer by doing various things that I can imagine a gamer would do. All have failed, and the time is dead on accurate.

 

Yet here we have a thread full of people whose times are wrong.

Just now, DividedByMankind said:

 

I dissagree with you. 

 

The last 2 weeks i played ESO about atleast 8h everyday and every single hour registered. when i started back at ESO my play Count was 92 ish hours. now its 202. Red Faction Guerilla is at 143h. Ghost of tsushima is at 118h. Control PS5 is at 31h. Control PS4 is at 42h, Cyberpunk is at 67h, Resident Evil: Revelations 1 PS4 97h. Resident Evil Revelations 2 67h.

 

Verdun is at 208h. Every single one of these games are done on PS5. The time has calculated right, the amount time ive used on those games are correclty calculated, i was keeping track while i played these titles. In my opinion B1 and the staff should use current play time as evidence against cheaters. Its nothing wrong with it.

 

The way it registers atleast for me is whenever i quit a game it register, sometimes when im playing to(not always tho) but all times do register when i quit the game. And the EXACT time i used that day Registered.  

 

So i dont understand why make it a biggie about something than can be used against cheater removal. And actually the other way aswell help people that are wrongly accused. 

 

 

 

 

Well that's lucky for you, your times are right.  Great

 

Now go through the thread and listen to everyone else whose times are not right in games.

[Ancestral_Spirit]

18 minutes ago, grimydawg___ said:

If you're not cheating, you have nothing to worry about.  You're making an issue out of nothing.

Mind if i give you an example and you could give me a rough outline of how you'd go about solving it?

 

Dark_Overlord is my partner, and we both played Helldivers together. A game that we're both planning on going back to at some point.

We literally sit in the same room, he has his back to my screen, and if i look to my left i can see everything that he's playing.

My timer tells me that i've played it for 23.93 hours.

His timer tells him he's played it for 30mins.

Neither of us have cheated at the game, we played it together in the same room at the same time, but our times played stat tells everyone else a different story.

Now, if I decided one day in a weird fit of rage to accuse him of cheating, and flagged him for it, how would that go down?

 

Would you go by time played, my word, other methods or all of the above?

 

Edit: I may also add that no neither of us cheated it, and no i'm not going to flag him for it. Just figured i'd add this in an edit as i realised if you only read the first line, it looks super weird and looks like i'm accusing him of cheating   

Edited April 29, 2021 by Ancestral_Spirit

[Helyx]

8 minutes ago, Velvet said:

you are in fact twisting them to make it into something much bigger

 

21 minutes ago, Velvet said:

butter my pancakes

 

I'm not sure what's going on in this thread, but thank you.

[DaivRules]

7 minutes ago, Ancestral_Spirit said:

Now, if I decided one day in a weird fit of rage to accuse him of cheating, and flagged him for it, how would that go down?

 

Would you go by time played, my word, other methods or all of the above?

You can’t flag, you can only Report. Your report should indicate which trophies were earned illegitimately and that the explanation is that the time is wrong. The Cheater Removers would evaluate the report and probably do nothing as it’s not a flag worthy case. 

[Ancestral_Spirit]

2 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

You can’t flag, you can only Report. Your report should indicate which trophies were earned illegitimately and that the explanation is that the time is wrong. The Cheater Removers would evaluate the report and probably do nothing as it’s not a flag worthy case. 

So let's say i report him for all of them, because it says his playtime is only 30mins, and it's impossible to get all those trophies in that 30mins?

[Velvet]

5 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

Now go through the thread and listen to everyone else whose times are not right in games.

 

Ok first, did any of y'all get flagged for these times? No? Ok great, your times are off that what is considered "normal" (somewhere) yet still no flag. 

 

Which leads us to... 
 

5 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

please tell me how I am twisting this

 

Gladly. 

 

"I've done a good 50  tests under "normal" play conditions, trying to break the timer by doing various things that I can imagine a gamer would do. All have failed, and the time is dead on accurate. There's a few known instances where the time will show incorrectly under special circumstances," - again, I stand by that he could've worded this better. Did he test it all on one game? Did he test it on 50 games? Did he test it on multiple systems and multiple accounts? These lingering questions are important because it means what he said should not be taken literally and yeah, it should be questioned as to how it was done, but that's not the same as jumping the gun and assuming everyone with X time on a game is going to get flagged because omg they're tracking our playtimes now. Mountains out of molehills. Molehills that applied to one particular situation where the CRT questioning the validity of the time played was warranted. It is not an all-cases basis. 

 

One person was questioned about their time played and now all of a sudden we should all be worried about what our time played shows? Nah, I got bigger biscuits to bake. If you're not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't have any reason to worry. In the off chance a flag was approved that shouldn't have been, enjoy taking part in the dispute threads along with everyone else who gets a flag and they'll reverse it. 

[DaivRules]

6 minutes ago, Ancestral_Spirit said:

So let's say i report him for all of them, because it says his playtime is only 30mins, and it's impossible to get all those trophies in that 30mins?

How thorough is your explanation that it’s literally impossible to earn each trophy in the order and time shown. And would you include how since the saves and trophy list is shared between Vita, PS4, and PS3 where time isn’t tracked, the only was possible is an illegal method?

 

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by DaivRules

[DividedByMankind]

1 minute ago, Velvet said:

 

Ok first, did any of y'all get flagged for these times? No? Ok great, your times are off that what is considered "normal" (somewhere) yet still no flag. 

 

Which leads us to... 
 

 

Gladly. 

 

"I've done a good 50  tests under "normal" play conditions, trying to break the timer by doing various things that I can imagine a gamer would do. All have failed, and the time is dead on accurate. There's a few known instances where the time will show incorrectly under special circumstances," - again, I stand by that he could've worded this better. Did he test it all on one game? Did he test it on 50 games? Did he test it on multiple systems and multiple accounts? These lingering questions are important because it means what he said should not be taken literally and yeah, it should be questioned as to how it was done, but that's not the same as jumping the gun and assuming everyone with X time on a game is going to get flagged because omg they're tracking our playtimes now. Mountains out of molehills. Molehills that applied to one particular situation where the CRT questioning the validity of the time played was warranted. It is not an all-cases basis. 

 

One person was questioned about their time played and now all of a sudden we should all be worried about what our time played shows? Nah, I got bigger biscuits to bake. If you're not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't have any reason to worry. In the off chance a flag was approved that shouldn't have been, enjoy taking part in the dispute threads along with everyone else who gets a flag and they'll reverse it. 

LOL, But if you havent cheated anything. You dont need to worry simple as that  

[B1rvine]

21 hours ago, Ancestral_Spirit said:

snip snip snip

 

Teams are allowed because romantic partners, close real life friends, or real family members (not to be confused with "dispute family members") might occasionally share the same account. The CRT is actually discussing this rule right now, and considering changing it a bit somehow, since most of us feel a team of 10 people, where people are being paid to play games, is getting out of hand.

 

To answer your question regarding teams, your scenario you described where two people play an identical game on the same account at the same time is flag-worthy and not allowed. I suggest reading the rules sticky'd in the dispute area. 

 

Anyone is free to DM me questions for help understanding the rules.

 

21 hours ago, Dark_Overlord said:

B1rvine this, B1rvine that, B1rvine B1rvine B1rvine

 

You're taking things way out of context and making assumptions. 

 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by B1rvine

[GUDGER666]

Didn't know they always tracked times, why was this never a thing we could check on PS4. Makes me wonder why that Wrap up thing they do is always way wrong. Most seem to be right but some have no times and some are just not right for me, like Titanfall 2 says i only played 15hrs, i did 2 play throughs and spent ages on that stupid gauntlet trophy. How are the games tracked, only tracked while online, via saves or stored on PS4? Like if i was playing downstairs then went upstairs and played on a different console or used PS Now, how would the times stay accurate.