Suggestion - White List for Trophies / Games?

[ProfBambam55]

WHITELISTING

 

Introduction

 

I've finally gotten around to putting together a proper proposal for a whitelist system and possibilities on how such a system could be implemented and benefit the site while still maintaining the integrity of the leaderboards. For those of you who are new to this idea or discussion allow me to outline the situation that has given birth to this thread. The recent change to the flag system, which has made disputes a public affair, has highlighted a certain type of implausible trophy time stamp which may be completely out of the control of the person who earns them. What happens is that hackers for certain games have access to mod menus that allow them to either directly or indirectly unlock some or all trophies for anyone who joins the lobby they are in. This has led to members disputing flags claiming that they earned the trophies unwillingly and that they did nothing other than play the game as it was intended to be played. The current flag system seems to be a bit unfair with regards to dealing with these players so I've tried to come up with a system that is geared more towards removing the ill-obtained trophies from the site's statistics and leaderboards while being less offensive towards gamers who may have just found themselves in the wrong place at the the wrong time. First, let's start by looking at what whitelisting means and how it may or may not feasibly work before moving onto listing the trophies and games that would be affected by an alternative process in dealing with these flags.

 

What does whitelisting mean?

 

Whitelisting trophies basically means to make an exception of them due to the special circumstances under which they are attained. In our case, it acknowledges that these trophies can be forced upon any player and quite difficult to avoid therefore merit a system of their own in dealing with the implausible time stamps that ensue.

 

What does whitelisting involve?

 

The proposal for this new system is to have only the times for the trophies that fall into the whitelist category, outlined further below, removed from the leaderboards. Any trophies achieved outside of the requirements that are agreed upon from the list of affected games can still be flagged and scrutinized by the dispute team with the current system's process. Players who's trophies fall into the whitelist category would not have times displayed on their profile and the trophies would not be shown as earned. Instead, the following message would appear (possibly with a background colour like yellow):“Whitelisted Trophy. Click for Details” which would open a link to this thread. This would also revoke platinum trophies earned should they ding along with the other whitelisted trophies in a given list. There would no longer be any chance of the player having these trophies appear on this site's leaderboards. To be clear, people who earned the trophies outside of the criteria for whitelisting would be unaffected by this system and still appear on the leaderboards as per usual.

 

How would it affect the current dispute system?

 

This is probably best answered by just comparing the two systems. They are as follows:

• Current System:

  -  The trophies are flagged manually

  -  The affected player must plead their innocence in a public dispute to contest the flag

  -  The player's entire trophy list for the affected game is hidden (voluntarily or not) thereby removing the implausible times from the leaderboards

  -  One, of a maximum of 3 strikes, is awarded to the member's profile

• Whitelist System:

  -  The trophies are scanned daily/weekly/monthly according to the specifications outlined in the “Games List” below

  -  There is no dispute for the affected trophies

  -  Only the affected trophies are automatically hidden thereby removing them from the leaderboards

  -  No strikes are awarded for these trophies

Why whitelist?

 

Consider the following scenario:

 

You're an honest gamer playing a game exactly as it was intended to be played by the developers and one that is encouraged by both Sony and this site; legitimately. You have a few trophies left for platinum/100% (that you could've spent months working on), just started the game, and/or are playing for fun. You enter an online lobby fully intending to participate legitimately. All of a sudden, ding...ding...ding...ding. You panic. You leave the lobby and/or quit the game but it's too late. You have no idea what to do. You eventually sync the trophies, which can happen from simply loading up the game again or trying to check which ones just popped, and they are now stuck on your profile. You haven't heard that it is in fact possible to remove these trophies because this has never happened to you. You have also rarely ever browsed the forums here, if at all, meaning the odds of you stumbling upon this thread , which was created rather recently, are slim to none. You log onto this site a few days later to check your stats, look up a guide (which currently mentions nothing about the possibility of ending up in a hacked lobby like these ones), etc. to find out that you have a flag for these trophies. Your only option to plead your case is a dispute. You may or may not have evidence that someone hacked your game but it doesn't change the fact that your time stamps are implausible. You will now have to hide the whole game's trophy list in order to reappear on PSNPs leaderboards. With regards to the affected game, you are no longer able to participate in related boosting sessions and the rest of your legitimately earned trophies are removed from site statistics.

 

Unlike using save files, official firmware (OFW) or custom firmware (CFW) mod menus, or other forms of manipulating your trophies' times you haven't done anything that violates any of the rules set out by Sony or this website. The question shouldn't be “Why white list?” it should be “Why haven't these trophies been white listed yet?” which leads to the following point...

 

The pros and cons of whitelisting

 

Pros:

 

The main advantage of whitelisting is that it kind of protects honest players from having their trophy list or reputation on this site ruined by hackers. Anyone can just play whatever they want to play for fun, for trophies, or for both without having to worry about what to do should they end up in a hacked lobby unintentionally. Having trophies popped for them against their will can be frustrating enough for someone intending to achieve all their trophies without cheating. Adding a flag, dispute, and forcing them to hide their entire list which then makes them not count for any statistics towards the game and unable to join related gaming sessions seems a bit excessive if the main goal of the current flag system is simply to remove implausible time stamps from being tracked. Whitelisting would allow theses gamers' plausible time stamps to remain intact and still count towards site statistics, while also allowing the former to join or create boosting sessions for the affected games.

 

Another possible advantage to whitelisting is that it could create more awareness towards people getting screwed over by hackers. Players having whitelisted trophies on their profiles could lead to this thread which might help gamers avoid future situations where unintentionally hacked trophies are stuck to their profile.

 

The last thing it could affect would be the leaderboards. A whitelist system might actually clean up the site's stats a little better than the current system as there would be no need to flag these trophies manually (if a proper formula for detection can be found), meaning less potential for human error and fewer implausible lists going undetected.

 

Cons:

 

The are two main negative effects that the whitelisting system could have. The first one is that whitelisting basically gives a free pass to hackers. If implemented, players could intentionally earn illegitimate trophies without having to worry about getting a strike on their profile. What would be their incentive? None of the trophies would count towards any statistics on this site and trophies for the games outside of the whitelisted ones would still have the potential to be flagged if the time stamps were implausible. It would basically be choosing between having a “Hidden” icon on their profile which hides all trophies from a given list or a "Whitelist" tag that hides only the implausible ones. Legitimate players who intentionally earned these trophies as a result of the whitelist system would be making the choice of which looks better to them, a platinum or 100% with missing trophies that, aside from Big Leagues, they could earn without cheating OR a permanent whitelist tag on the affected trophies and no chance of ever earning them legit. Is it realistic to think that there is an abundance of members waiting to hack these games that are only refraining from doing so in fear of getting a strike to their name here on PSNP? And is this number greater than the number of people who have ended up in hacked lobbies that had trophies unlocked without their consent?

 

The second idea that could be seen as a negative impact on the site is the concept of being too lenient towards ill-obtained trophies. Regardless of how the latter are earned, modded lobbies, mod menus, time stamp manipulation, etc. implausible time stamps = implausible time stamps for some people. The intent of someone who earns these kinds of trophies will probably never be known for certain so it is best to give everyone a strike to discourage players from attempting to cheat.

 

The only counter-argument for these cons arises when we try to see things from the point of view of the person in the scenario above in “Why whitelist?”. The difference between the gamer who earns trophies that fall into the category of whitelisted and all the other methods that lead to implausible time stamps (with the exception of lesser known or poorly documented glitches) is that they may actually just be playing the game legitimately. Save files, OFW and CFW mod menus, and other kinds of manipulation either violate Sony or this sites' rules and require a player to perform an action outside of their gaming experience in order to unlock trophies. Having trophies unlocked by a hacker in a public lobby is an exceptional situation in these regards. With over 200 000 tracked profiles on this site there is a strong chance that many honest players have never used the forums or stumbled across the thread on how to prevent this kind of thing from happening, which is really not that widely available. It's also not mentioned in any of the trophy guides and many gamers may be completely unaware that hackers who have the ability to unlock trophies for them even exist. Why would they be looking for info on hacked trophies if they are in fact legit? Doesn't it kind of make sense to have a system that somewhat represents the gamers we are encouraging to become members of this site? Doesn't it also kind of make sense to remove the power from hackers to be able to ruin any given player's entire trophy list in a matter of minutes or even seconds? Is it realistic to expect a majority of members of this site : 

- to be aware of the requirements of all the online trophies they are attempting and when they've been met and should unlock?

- to know which games have hackers that can auto-pop trophies and which trophies can be dinged unwillingly?

- to know how and be able to successfully remove hacked trophies from their profiles every time they end up in a lobby with someone who can ding their trophies?

 

Games list

 

The trophies that are included in the following list are ones that have potentially been auto-popped without a player's consent in public lobbies by someone using mods. These games are known to have online lobbies that are plagued by hackers who do this. It is important that we have foolproof criteria that detects only these kinds of time stamps. Here is the proposed list:

 

• CALL OF DUTY – BLACK OPS II

  Trophies Affected:

    All 51 Trophies

    1 Unobtainable – Big Leagues

  Details: Modders have the ability to unlock all of a player's trophies for this game in a matter of minutes. This includes all of the trophies from the DLC packs that the "victim" owns. Impossible to predict or avoid.

  Detection: A suggested cutoff date for Big Leagues would be December 31^st, 2015. Seems like Treyarch shut down the leagues a few weeks before then but that the trophy could still be earned by a select few; safer to have a later date. It would be recommended to have a scan for this trophy only since it is the only one of this entire list that is currently unobtainable.

  **I'm having a hard time to coming up with an outline for detecting the rest of the trophies for Black Ops 2 since I know nothing about technology. I'm currently also looking into specific mod menus for this game to see if any of the ones that have been created unlock DLC trophies, and if so, which ones. What I've found through looking through about a hundred members' 100% list is that a combination of 7-8 of all of the trophies (which includes the one between the last base game trophy and the plat) can be earned in close conjunction legitimately, and 3 that can unlock consecutively, that may end up looking like hacked ones if the entire list is scanned looking for under 15-second gaps between trophies. Looking at an entire list makes it easy to see which ones have potentially been earned in a hacked lobby but coming up with a foolproof formula is difficult. Could use some help with this game from someone who understands technology better than I do.

 

• CALL OF DUTY – WORLD AT WAR

  Trophies Affected:

    All 65 Trophies

  Details: Modders have the ability to unlock all of a player's trophies, including DLC ones, for this game in a matter of minutes. Impossible to predict or avoid.

  Detection: **This is another game that I'm having trouble finding a detection formula for. Once again going through roughly a hundred people's 100% list has revealed that a combination of 11-12 trophies can be earned with gaps under 15 seconds between them, 3 being in consecutive order. As with Black Ops 2 it is very easy to detect a list that has trophies that could fall into the category of hacked in a public lobby by looking at them but could use some help coming up with an automated method of identifying them.

   

• GRAND THEFT AUTO IV

  Trophies Affected:

    Cut Your Teeth

    Wanted

    Half Million*

  *Since patch 1.08 in August, 2014, the half million trophy has been reported to glitch on some people who performed the Bomb da Base II sniper glitch method for ranking up, unlocking when they eventually returned to singleplayer without having the necessary $500 000. This can also occur by being in a hacked lobby but am considering removing it from the white list. (Comments appreciated)

  Details: Modders have the ability to drop hundreds of millions of $$$ on any given player in a split-second. Impossible to predict or avoid.

  Detection: Any gap under 15 seconds between any combination of these 3 trophies would be white listed. A recommendation for scanning method would be to only scan the 2 rank trophies + platinum and remove any total time of under 30 seconds.

   

• GRAND THEFT AUTO V

  Trophies Affected:

    Three-Bit Gangster

    Making Moves

    Above the Law

  Details: Modders have the ability to rank any player up to any level almost instantly. Impossible to predict or avoid.

  Detection: Any gap under 15 seconds between any combination of these 3 trophies would be white listed. A recommendation for scanning would be these 3 trophies + platinum and remove any total time of under 40 seconds.

 

Conclusion

 

Now that a specific outline has been introduced on how a whitelist system could work, several questions should probably be addressed before considering a change to the current system that deals with these trophies. The first one has been answered by the above poll which is:

“Are a majority of the members OK with the idea of a white list system?”

The next questions that naturally arise are:

“Is it technologically possible to implement such a system?” and

“Is it an improvement that would be worth the time and effort it would take to implement?”

 

Now would be a good time to state that I don't really know if this is in fact an ideal system for whitelisting trophies. I've tried to come up with some ideas using my limited intellectual capabilities while also taking into consideration everything posted within this thread. I would be completely OK with moderators having a “White List” option for the current system of disputes and trust that they could use the list above to whitelist the ones that they felt fell into the category of 'hacked unwillingly in a public lobby'.

 

My final thought and recommendation would be, even if a whitelist for games is not implemented, to consider adding a caution in the guides related to these games warning players that they could end up in a lobby with a hacker who can unexpectedly unlock some or all of their remaining trophies by just playing the online portion of the game as it was intended to be played. I would also include a link to the thread (which will be discussed below) that has tips on how to avoid having unintentionally earned trophies stick to one's profile.

 

Prevention

 

The rest of this post will not be directly related to whitelisting but merely a suggestion on how to improve the existing thread on how to prevent hackers from ruining people's trophy lists. The following is based entirely off of the information provided by @Gray-Fox-44 so all credit due to his efforts. I had a hard time following some of the steps that are currently outlined when i tried removing hacked trophies from my list, so took the liberty of filling in some of the blanks for technological dummies like me.

 

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET HACKED AND TROPHIES POP, SCREWING YOUR LIST (PS3)

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Due to the recent changes to the trophy flagging system allowing disputes to be resolved publicly, we have seen repeat cases of a particular type of scenario that, willingly or not, has led players to having implausible time stamps. This situation can be summed up by the following statement:

 

“I was playing an online match where a hacker in the lobby did something that made my trophies start popping and now I'm flagged for this game. This sucks. It’s not my fault. Please remove my flag.”

 

The basis for flagging a game and resolving a dispute on this site will almost always come down to whether or not trophy time stamps are plausible with regards to the game in question. Currently, this site does not have a whitelist for such trophies so, regardless of intent or evidence provided proving the said player's innocence, the type of case highlighted in the statement above will almost always result in a negative verdict with the flag remaining on the disputing player's profile until the game is hidden.

 

The goal of this thread is to help people understand that even if they have the unfortunate luck of being in a lobby where a hacker contributes to unlocking trophies without their consent, it is not too late for the affected player(s) to take action and keep their trophy list as it was beforehand.

 

WALKTHROUGH

 

Before getting started on our walkthrough it's worth mentioning there are two excellent ways to reduce the odds of having your game and trophy progress seriously affected by a hacker and they are to back up your save files regularly and synchronize your legitimately earned trophies every time you play online. Step 6 of this guide shows methods for backing up save files and Step 11 deals with how to synchronize your trophies to your PSN account so that they are permanently attached to your profile.

 

Now that that's been covered let's have a look at what you can do if you ever end up in a lobby where trophies start popping beyond your control. Please ensure that you follow the steps outlined in the walkthrough below carefully as you will have a somewhat limited opportunity to remove these types of trophies from your list. Any deviation from what is laid out below could leave you in a situation where the only solution will be to either hide the trophies on your profile (find out how here) or to start a new separate PSN account from scratch; not fun.

 

1. Set trophy notifications.

The first step to prevention is making sure your trophy notifications are set to show up on screen before attempting to play online. This can be toggled in the XMB > Settings > System Settings > Trophy Notifications > by choosing the Display option.

 

2. Illegitimate trophies start to ding...

You are playing an online match and someone in the lobby does something that makes trophies pop without your consent and without meeting any of their requirements. No need to panic. Just...

 

3. Go offline ASAP.

You can do this by bringing up the XMB and going to PlayStation Network > Account Management > hit  > select the Sign Out option and confirm. You can also just unplug your LAN cable from your console if using a wired connection, turn off your router, or throw your PS3 out the window (please, don't do this).

 

4. Exit the game.

This can be executed through the XMB with the Quit Game option at the bottom of the Game section, by holding the PS Button until it brings up the black screen that has Quit Game as one of the prompts, or by simply ejecting the game, if a disc copy.

 

You could also just pull the power cord on your console of force it to shut down by holding the power button (or again, out the window) but this is entirely unnecessary as the goal here is to just to quit the game. If you are unable to quit the game as described above and feel that the only way would be to power down your console then please note that doing so can result in parts of your system getting corrupted and that this would only be recommended as a last resort.

 

5. Check your trophy list.

Log onto www.psnprofiles.com and click on Update Profile in the drop down menu that appears when you click on your PSN ID at the top right of the Home page. If you don't have an account here you can also check your profile on sites like this: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/my/public-trophies/ (Thanks to @Se7en for providing the link) The reason for this step is to see whether or not you may have done something that unintentionally allowed your trophies to be synced.

If the hacked trophies are in your updated profile, then you cannot remove them so there is no point in continuing past this step.

If the hacked trophies are not in your updated profile, you are good to go so proceed to step 6.

 

6. Back up your save files.

This can be done using a USB port-compatible saving device. Almost any removable hard disk or stick drive should work as long as the format is specified to allow FAT32 files. To back up the files, go into the XMB under Game and then Saved Data Utility (PS3) and open this folder. Pressing  on any of the save files will bring up the Copy Multiple option so select it, then highlight the files you want to back up and save them to the USB backup device that appears in the list.

**Do not use the PS Plus cloud save to back up your data, it could accidentally sync your list.

 

Below are two short videos that show how to format a USB device to FAT32.

 

Windows method by MrMario2011:

Spoiler

 

 

Mac method by Heethe:

Spoiler

 

 

7. Delete the user profile that earned the illegitimate trophies.

Go to the far left of the XMB > highlight the username of the account with the affected trophies (if you have more than one) > press  > select the Delete option and confirm.

 

8. Create your account again.

If you have multiple users on your console, you will need to log on as one of the other users to be able to do this. Otherwise, as with the previous step, go to the far left of the XMB where you will see +Create New User. Name it whatever you like or just keep the default settings; makes no difference to this process. Once created, go to the PlayStation Network section of the XMB and choose Sign Up. Here you will be able to select Use an Existing Account, the second option on the bottom of your screen, and then enter the email and password of the PSN account of the user you deleted in Step 7.

 

Just a quick note that it might be worthwhile to also make a record of the Date of Birth that you used for this account. Should you forget the password the simplest way to recover it is to use the Forgot your Password? option during this signing up process. Selecting this will send an email to the account in question where you will need to use the Date of Birth data as verification.

 

9. Check your trophy list offline.

Go to the PlayStation Network section of the XMB and have a look at your Trophy Collection. If all of the previous steps have been performed correctly, you shouldn't have any trophies displayed now.

 

10. Sign in to PlayStation Network.

XMB > PlayStation Network > Sign In > enter password and confirm.

 

11. Sync your trophies.

Now that you're signed in, go once again to your Trophy Collection but this time hit , select the Sync with Server option, and wait for them to load up.

 

12. All done.

ENJOY YOUR CLEANSED TROPHY LIST!

Edited July 9, 2017 by xL1ghT_By_D3s1gNx
final proposal...

[ars]

I'm all for the suggestion due to flags labeling people regardless how you explain their purpose to be, which incites toxic behaviour in certain parts of the community. But @ProfBambam55 shouldn't this be a level higher in the forum tree?

[Cleggworth]

I wouldn't whitelist a hacked lobby list in terms of the leaderboard but I would whitelist it with regards to permanent leaderboard removal. So if you do get flagged for having an illegitimate list for these games you still have to hide them to appear on the leaderboard but they don't count to a 3 strikes and out system. The reason being everybody could go out and get a free platinum or two tomorrow which I don't think would be a good thing but somebody who was young and foolish 8 years ago and downloaded a save for fuel and socom won't be further punished for having their trophies autopopped for them against their wishes

[ahmedelebiary]

the problem is..you can never know if the said flagged person was unfortunate to encounter one of those "trophy popping hackers" or just gonna use this in his advantage to pop these trophies using game saves via various hacking softwares like Bruteforce or CFW or even having a hacker friend to intentionally pop those trophies for them . you are basically giving the green light for everyone to hack these games as they will know they will not get flagged for them because they are " white listed". your suggestion has pros for the unlucky guys who were unfortunate enough to meet a trophy popper/modder online " i havent so far" , but also has cons for this will allow hackers to feel free and hack whatever they want. plus leaderboards will lose its credibility and authenticity for having illegitimate/ impossible timestamps. 

[Conker]

I'm for this but as said above, some people might have not had this happen and just cheated but claim this happened.

 

also what about need for speed undercover being whitelisted?

[ars]

3 minutes ago, ahmedelebiary said:

the problem is..you can never know if the said flagged person was unfortunate to encounter one of those "trophy popping hackers" or just gonna use this in his advantage

 

That's why you whitelist it, it won't count for the individual game leaderboards, and the problem goes away. You can never know whether legit looking timestamps were actually unlocked legit, so I fail to follow your logic. Every PSN account on earth is potentially a hacker.

 

Rather games like these are a smorgasboard for toxic people to harass people who do not necessarily have any knowledge or verbal skills to defend themselves. The whitelist is a process where an actual hacker doesn't affect the leaderboards, and bystanders are protected from the crusade.

[ProfBambam55]

No idea about forum tree, sorry...the point is that yes, hackers could go nuts and exploit this (which they likely already have) as much as they'd like but, just as things are now, their trophies wouldn't affect the leaderboards...the difference is that the site would hide the trophies not the player and no strike to their profile so although a minor change it would be a positive one with regards to legit players...a hacker will most surely have more than one game not on this list...a legit player will likely not...

 

Could you expand on need for speed plz so I can add to list?...

Edited June 6, 2017 by ProfBambam55

[Stardroid]

2 minutes ago, ars said:

 

That's why you whitelist it, it won't count for the individual game leaderboards, and the problem goes away. You can never know whether legit looking timestamps were actually unlocked legit, so I fail to follow your logic. Every PSN account on earth is potentially a hacker.

 

Rather games like these are a smorgasboard for toxic people to harass people who do not necessarily have any knowledge or verbal skills to defend themselves. The whitelist is a process where an actual hacker doesn't affect the leaderboards, and bystanders are protected from the crusade.

What's up with this victim mentality lately that portrays people who participate in dispute threads as if they're some evil monsters feeding on the poor souls of these hacked people? It's a very rare thing to happen and it dealt with each time. There is no crusade, there is no we-are-out-to-get-you squad. Above mentioned post is true. White list these games and you give a free pass to hackers. Make the game not count on the leaderboard and you punish so much more people who did do it legitemately.

[ProfBambam55]

Not the game, the illegitimate trophies...the victim mentality is just for players who happen to end up in a hacked lobby...why should they have to hide games and have a strike against them?...they are just playing as the developers intended...think of it this way...instead of a flag and people having a strike and to hide game...the site does it for them...if the goal of flags is to remove implausible time stamps from the leaderboards then this still meets that criteria...1 hacker in a game can affect hundreds of people's trophies and I'm certain legit players outnumber hackers...play gta iv mp for a few hours if you're in doubt...why shouldn't we have a system that gives the majority the benefit of the doubt in an odd number of cases?...and especially if there is no way to prove their intent...

Edited June 6, 2017 by ProfBambam55

[ars]

2 minutes ago, FOX said:

What's up with this victim mentality lately that portrays people who participate in dispute threads as if they're some evil monsters feeding on the poor souls of these hacked people? It's a very rare thing to happen and it dealt with each time. There is no crusade, there is no we-are-out-to-get-you squad. Above mentioned post is true. White list these games and you give a free pass to hackers. Make the game not count on the leaderboard and you punish so much more people who did do it legitemately.

 

Considering the disputes and the flag system follows the "you are guilty until proven innocent" logic, by definition there is a we-are-out-to-get-you squad.

[Stardroid]

3 minutes ago, ars said:

 

Considering the disputes and the flag system follows the "you are guilty until proven innocent" logic, by definition there is a we-are-out-to-get-you squad.

I don't know what kind of weed you're smoking, but that isn't logical at all. People are granted a fair chance to have their say, nobody is holding them at gunpoint of power hungry to ban these evil people for life and protect the purity of our almighty leaderboards. You're blowing things out of proportion. 
And yes, the players should have a strike, because there is no way to prove if these people hacked it or not. Which is why they can have three strikes. It's unfortunate, but it's the best way. I'm on the fence of white listing certain trophies.

Edited June 6, 2017 by FOX

[dmland12]

I'm in favor of this.  I'd even go a little farther and just consider this stuff in the same category as glitches, since you can just randomly stumble upon it without even trying. So, I'd prefer no flagging at all, but this is a good step in the right direction.

[ProfBambam55]

Guys this isn't about revolutionizing the justice system it's about giving benefit of the doubt to legit players on a few games...I happen to think they are a majority...if there was a surefire way to prove innocence/guilt this thread wouldn't exist...the goal of the thread is to present a new idea and see if the community agrees...can we save the personal insults for pm's plz?...

Edited June 6, 2017 by ProfBambam55

[ars]

Just now, FOX said:

And yes, the players should have a strike, because there is no way to prove if these people hacked it or not. Which is why they can have three strikes. It's unfortunate, but it's the best way. I'm on the fence of white listing certain trophies.

 

And there is no way to prove you didn't hack your legitimate timestamps or not, is all I'm saying. There are way more games where this happens than there are strikes allowed, too.

 

Frankly, the "purity" of the leaderboards is the only thing this has going for it, and as I've pointed out the leaderboards will not be or become "pure" regardless you had the flagging system in place or not. It just cleans them up a little. Since a flag will label you on the site I think it's only fair to give the benefit of the doubt in a situation, where collateral damage is extremely likely.

 

PSNP is in a position to decide what counts for the leaderboards, but they are not in a position to decide what and how people play. You shouldn't punish a random gamer for playing what they want. I'll also repeat once again, PSNP allows adding any PSN account on earth to the database provided they're public, and then flagging and publicly shaming it. The user has no say over whether someone forcefully manipulated his instance, has no say whether he was added to PSNP, and finally has no say when he is flagged on the site.

 

You don't see a problem in this?

[Stardroid]

12 minutes ago, ars said:

 

And there is no way to prove you didn't hack your legitimate timestamps or not, is all I'm saying. There are way more games where this happens than there are strikes allowed, too.

 

Frankly, the "purity" of the leaderboards is the only thing this has going for it, and as I've pointed out the leaderboards will not be or become "pure" regardless you had the flagging system in place or not. It just cleans them up a little. Since a flag will label you on the site I think it's only fair to give the benefit of the doubt in a situation, where collateral damage is extremely likely.

 

PSNP is in a position to decide what counts for the leaderboards, but they are not in a position to decide what and how people play. You shouldn't punish a random gamer for playing what they want. I'll also repeat once again, PSNP allows adding any PSN account on earth to the database provided they're public, and then flagging and publicly shaming it. The user has no say over whether someone forcefully manipulated his instance, has no say whether he was added to PSNP, and finally has no say when he is flagged on the site.

 

You don't see a problem in this?

Yes, I agree, so we have to take a default stance, which is the most logical. Firstly, the purpose is not to make the leaderboard pure in a perfect sense. It's to make the leaderboard as pure as possible, which I fully support. Nothing wrong with having a leaderboard like that. Colleteral damage is a fair price to pay instead of opening the floodgates for cheaters. It's not the end of the world when someone is wrongly flagged and it's not the point either.

 

A wrongly flagged person can make a dispute thread and convince us to he is in the right

A wrongly flagged person who got hacked still has illegitemate timestamps, regardless of being wrongly flagged or not. 

 

Psnprofiles does not decide how people play in the slighest. You can hack, you can cheat, you can smash your PS3 or PS4 in the hope that a trophy will pop, it does not matter. But if you are caught slipping, you are reported. Absolutely fine. 

 

The user indeed has no say, but we can not know for sure if the user is speaking the truth unless some concrete evidence is given to us. No concrete evidence? Well, that's too bad. The flag will remain and you can hide the game. You learn a lesson and you're still on the leaderboard. It's much better than saying "we believe you on your word" because that's not how this works. Time and time again people have shown in the dispute threads that more often than not, the disputers are lying through their teeth, to a shameful extent even and these are the majority of people. I'm not taking anyone on their word and psnprofiles shouldn't either and they also shouldn't whitelist games. Certain trophies? Perhaps. 

 

There is rarely a public shaming going on and it's strongly condemned by the creator of this site and by the moderators who do a good job, really. Eleborate on PSN profiles allowing PSN accounts to be added though, I don't understand that. 

Edited June 6, 2017 by FOX

[Lars]

I think this is a good idea, if they can hide them they don't count for the leaderboards anyway. So if they're hacked or not, it won't affect the leaderboards so a hacker has no benefit of this. If he hacks another game that is not on the whitelist he will still be punished so hacking will have no benefit at all. And this would then also save a lot of honest players because i read a lot of these disputes with these games in them. 

 

So to summarize, this would not benefit hackers, this would save players from having their profile removed incorrectly

[Stardroid]

2 minutes ago, Lars said:

I think this is a good idea, if they can hide them they don't count for the leaderboards anyway. So if they're hacked or not, it won't affect the leaderboards so a hacker has no benefit of this. If he hacks another game that is not on the whitelist he will still be punished so hacking will have no benefit at all. And this would then also save a lot of honest players because i read a lot of these disputes with these games in them. 

 

So to summarize, this would not benefit hackers, this would save players from having their profile removed incorrectly

A hacker can benefit from this as he or she would be able to hide a game with no strike. 

[nenugalimas]

1 minute ago, Lars said:

I think this is a good idea, if they can hide them they don't count for the leaderboards anyway. So if they're hacked or not, it won't affect the leaderboards so a hacker has no benefit of this. If he hacks another game that is not on the whitelist he will still be punished so hacking will have no benefit at all. And this would then also save a lot of honest players because i read a lot of these disputes with these games in them. 

 

So to summarize, this would not benefit hackers, this would save players from having their profile removed incorrectly

The problem is that youll have to catch them to make the game not count. Even when caught though theyll have no repercussions meaning theres no disincentive for anyone to do it. 

[ProfBambam55]

So is the implication with these games that there are more hackers than legit players?...remember we're only talking about the games in the potential list above and only certain trophies in some cases...I'm convinced hackers are the minority...and no you would not have to catch them...I'm suggesting an automatic removal if site programming allows it...this is only about auto-popping trophies in hacked lobbies...save file exploits and cfw users would undergo the usual flagging process...

Edited June 6, 2017 by ProfBambam55

[nenugalimas]

3 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

So is the implication with these games that there are more hackers than legit players?...remember we're only talking about the games in the potential list above and only certain trophies in some cases...I'm convinced hackers are the minority...and no you would not have to catch them...I'm suggesting an automatic removal if site programming allows it...this is only about auto-popping trophies in hacked lobbies...save file exploits and cfw users would undergo the usual flagging process...

You being convinced that hackers are in the minority doesnt make it so. There is no hard data to prove either scenario. Maybe im cynical but I dont believe that everyone is such a poor little victim that dindu nuffin.

[sephiroth4424]

IMO you shouldn't whitelist certain games.Either whitelist every game with lobbies or none.I never understood why people would hack a lobby and give strangers free trophies or in-game money or increase their rankings or anything.As far as i know SONY doesn't ban accounts with impossible trophy timestamps (it could be a reason for a hacker to do the above and troll others).And i don't care if a game is more popular so there are more chances for a hacker to appear,since their motives are unknown.For all i know they could organise sessions and pop trophies like we create boosting sessions

[ProfBambam55]

I'm trying to understand why this would open flood gates...I don't get it...let's say I start a new profile and hack all the trophies from the list above...I'm still level 0 with 0 trophies and no stats on the leaderboards, no?...am I misunderstanding how hidden trophies work?...

 

Fortunately we now know which games can have this problem so we don't need to whitelist every game that has online trophies...

Edited June 6, 2017 by ProfBambam55

[viech54]

Hard to say. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt if it happened in one of these games. As written in the first post, maybe it's a first for them and they either thought it's how it should be or didn't know how to prevent adding the trophies to their account. Afterwards, the player should look it up and know how to prevent it by backing up their savegame frequently, syncing trophies on a regular basis and deleting the account from their console without syncing the trophies once it happens a second time. If it happens again and they still add the trophies to their account, I wouldn't show leniency.

 

If it happens in one of the whitelisted games, it shouldn't count towards the 3 flagged games-rule. They still need to hide it to return to the leaderboards, but can have two more flagged games and still be part of the leaderboards.

If it happens again in one of the whitelisted games, I'd no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. They are then either doing it on purpose or didn't do their research after getting the trophies unlocked just like that for the first time. I. e. it's then their fault and they should be punished for it. The 2nd game should count towards the 3 flagged games-rule, they can have one more flagged game and still appear on the leaderboards.

If it happens a 3rd time in a whitelisted game, said person just doesn't care or does it on purpose, the flags for all three games should count towards the 3 flagged games-rule, resulting in their permanent removal from the leaderboards.

[madbuk]

3 minutes ago, ProfBambam55 said:

I'm trying to understand why this would open flood gates...I don't get it...let's say I start a new profile and hack all the trophies from the list above...I'm still level 0 with 0 trophies and no stats on the leaderboards, no?...am I misunderstanding how hidden trophies work?...

 

Fortunately we now know which games can have this problem so we don't need to whitelist every game that has online trophies...

So legit gamers who earned these trophies should have it count for nothing? ok.

As has already been said, if you whitelist these games there is NO reason to do it legit anymore, and then you will start having threads to whitelist other games until hacking no longer has any consequences whatsoever.

The domino effect 

[ProfBambam55]

No legit gamers stats will remain intact...the white list is only for implausible time stamps, not for every gamer...think of it as an alternative to the dispute process if you wish...not sure about domino effect...likely whitelisting will go unnoticed...hence why I tried to focus on the legit gamer in the op and not the hacker...

Edited June 6, 2017 by ProfBambam55