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

[Ancestral_Spirit]

@B1rvine

Contacts at Sony? Surely that would breach GDPR if they're giving you access to peoples account information physically or verbally?

 

In any case, thank you for the reply and the honesty telling me how exactly you're getting some of this information.

And yeah, i'd imagine a team of 10 people on the same account would make it rather difficult to distinguish a cheater from a team. I can only imagine the headache that incurs 

 

Mine and Darks arguments were not directly made about the guy who was flagged, but more about the principle of using times that can be proven to be incorrect, and judging by the amount of people that have posted in this thread, it's not really a small amount. I'm sure i could go through your list and find a few missing times and discrepancies here and there, but i wouldn't want someone to use those very potentially incorrect times against you.

 

If it had been mentioned (the dispute in the original post) that the guy he paid had been caught and removed 3 times already, i'm not even sure any of this thread would even be here. Also kinda curious as to how you know that :

A. He paid someone

B. Who the guy he paid was

C. How the paid guy cheated it

But for you to say that because all of your times through 50 games are spot on, on a site that has over 70million users, with god only knows how many games on it, seems a little disingenuous to say that ALL the times for everyone should be correct.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Ancestral_Spirit
more questions added

[Ac3dUd3-]

Times are broken, this should be known. I have currently 40 hours on PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds on NA version according to exophase and im a few hours off the 

 

The trophy guide says that its a 75 hour game so am I gonna be flagged for this? lawl.

 

https://www.exophase.com/user/Ac3dUd3/

 

I think timings should eb taken with a grain of salt and not a sole factor in determining a flag, just because person A took 2 hours to do something person B took 6 hours for doesnt mean they should be punished. Cheaters usually leave multiple suspicions not just timing

 

EDIT: as i am going through all 5 pages I see that people are overreacting as usual so most of my post is null and void

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Ac3dUd3-

[PatinumNumemon]

Lol this thread actually exists lmao

 

I personally feel like while the CRT is not perfect (it is impossible to be), I doubt they are messing up so bad to the point where this thread needed to exist. You really only have to worry if you are a cheater or your trophies have unintentionally been hacked. Just because "time played" has failed to accurately portray one's time on a specific game for lots of people, it does work for the vast majority of people. This thread feels blown out of proportion, especially with the title calling it a "huge issue" when it is only affecting a specific set of people.

 

At the end of the day, not everyone with hidden trophies, missing timestamps or incorrect timestamps are cheaters, not all cheaters are going to get caught and the CRT are going to get some disputes wrong on occasion. If you do not like how the anti-cheating system works, then you might not need to stay on here lol it's not like every dispute needs to have some Death Note 2 billion IQ explanation: those instances are pretty rare. Most disputes really only require adequate knowledge about the game and how the trophies are unlocked, which takes about an hour's worth of researching (maybe an hour is extensive).

 

...or you could always create a new account if hiding your trophies is that bad! lol

[AJ_-_808]

2 hours ago, Ancestral_Spirit said:

@B1rvine

Also kinda curious as to how you know that :

A. He paid someone

B. Who the guy he paid was

C. How the paid guy cheated it

 

You're not likely to get answers to those questions because those answers can potentially tip off a person cheating/hacking. THEORETICALLY, you could be phishing for information so you could try to hack etc. That's why sensitive details arent disclosed.

 

Bottom line is you can trust the CRT to do their best to police a (in my opinion, pointless) leaderboard, or you can leave the site if you're that worried about "shady things" happening on a leaderboard that 99.99% of us will never be near the top of. The PSNP leaderboard is not an official Sony leaderboard (there is none).  If you participate in it, you accept it as it is.

 

You're pretty much making a mountain out of an ant hill, so please, just drop it already.

 

 

To answer your flag question, you'd have to explain how the trophies aren't possible based on the timestamps, not the exo phase time

[Shizo]

8 hours ago, B1rvine said:

 

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.

Wouldn't it kill top accounts in the world, who all pretty much have 5-10 people playing at the same time? I actually hope it will become the rule, will shake things up and make trophy leaderboard more interesting. Or at least limit it to 2 max, which is the limit when you share digital games between two consoles.

[Lordidude]

No way the times are accurate enough to use them as evidence.
My TLOU Remastered time: 155h

No way, I poured hundreds of hours into the multiplayer.

 

All cheaters should just run the games on idle. If the times work as evidence against, they should also count as evidence for whoever is accused.

[pinkrobot_pb]

The defense seems to be: relax, it's not the only evidence that is used. And that is fine. However, my issue is that the times can be so wildly wrong that they should not be used as evidence in any situation, not even the ones where all other evidence points to cheating. Simply do not use or even mention it because it should have no effect on any flag anyway.

 

In the end, regular users will mostly never know why a particular flag was approved. We simply do not have all the info. I think it would be better if the disputes are hidden by default, because in the end the CRT is judge and jury anyway. And that's fine, this is not a judicial system. It would cause far less drama if they would only open up disputes to us regular users in case of doubt. I mean, do we really need to see every user that disputes Big Leagues for example?

[DrEvilGuapo]

After carefully reviewing play time data for every game on my account versus my trophy progress on each, I noted the following:

 

1. Times aren’t tracked for any PS3 or Vita games

2. Times aren’t tracked for all PS4 games, but seem to be for most

3. Play times pass the reasonableness check (within 10% of guide estimates) for the vast majority of titles

4. Only one of my playtimes jumped out as obviously flawed. Fire Pro Wrestling only registered a minute of playtime but I’m only one trophy off the plat. Of note, I only played that game using Remote Play from a PC, so that may be a cause of errant time data. 
5. After spot checking several times against save files, they aren’t exact matches but are within 10%. 
6. Playing online or offline appears to have no impact on time data. 
 

My personal conclusion is that the playtime data is demonstrably not 100% accurate, but it is sufficient as a secondary check for suspicious activity.  That is, sufficient supporting evidence but not primary evidence, for cheating. 

[charxsetsuna]

1 hour ago, DrEvilGuapo said:

After carefully reviewing play time data for every game on my account versus my trophy progress on each, I noted the following:

 

1. Times aren’t tracked for any PS3 or Vita games

2. Times aren’t tracked for all PS4 games, but seem to be for most

3. Play times pass the reasonableness check (within 10% of guide estimates) for the vast majority of titles

4. Only one of my playtimes jumped out as obviously flawed. Fire Pro Wrestling only registered a minute of playtime but I’m only one trophy off the plat. Of note, I only played that game using Remote Play from a PC, so that may be a cause of errant time data. 
5. After spot checking several times against save files, they aren’t exact matches but are within 10%. 
6. Playing online or offline appears to have no impact on time data. 
 

My personal conclusion is that the playtime data is demonstrably not 100% accurate, but it is sufficient as a secondary check for suspicious activity.  That is, sufficient supporting evidence but not primary evidence, for cheating. 

I did notice skyrim on ps4 recorded no time for me. Thats just not correct, I've probably spent nearly 200 hours in that game.?

 

However I'm slightly concerned that the statistic of about 600 hours for sims 4 might actually be correct.

 

[ImStylinOnYaBro]

Always cracks me up seeing adults fussing about cheating as if they were children in school. These are all worthless digital stamps at the end of the day.

[Dark_Overlord]

7 hours ago, pinkrobot_pb said:

The defense seems to be: relax, it's not the only evidence that is used. And that is fine. However, my issue is that the times can be so wildly wrong that they should not be used as evidence in any situation, not even the ones where all other evidence points to cheating. Simply do not use or even mention it because it should have no effect on any flag anyway.

 

This was my entire point of the thread

[PS_Bowser]

28 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

This was my entire point of the thread

time played should only be used as supporting evidence and not the sole evidence.

[Dark_Overlord]

36 minutes ago, PS_Bowser said:

time played should only be used as supporting evidence and not the sole evidence.

 

It shouldn't be used at all as it isn't reliable in the slightest

[DaivRules]

7 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

It shouldn't be used at all as it isn't reliable in the slightest

 

So they just have to say they're not using it and you'll let it go?

[Dark_Overlord]

4 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

 

So they just have to say they're not using it and you'll let it go?

 

Yes.  If you read my initial post and what B1rvine stated, that was what I took issue with.

 

Him stating that the times were dead on, many people proving they're not.  Something so flawed should not be used as evidence.  Everything else the CRT have at their disposal I'm fine with.

[B1rvine]

35 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

Yes.  If you read my initial post and what B1rvine stated, that was what I took issue with. Him stating that the times were dead on, many people proving they're not.

 

@DaivRules can this thread be locked please?

 

I did provide a more thorough answer initially, but edited it out. For those who missed it, sorry. In any case, Sly is aware of how cheaters are caught, new developments we're concerned about, etc. 

 

But here's essentially how I view this :

 

PSNP Pitchfork Peeps : "The tools don't measure time accurately, time's a myth, and shouldn't be used!!!11"

 

 

The CRT : "We can measure time with extreme reliability, and see various anomalies."

 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by B1rvine