Removing cheaters from the leaderboards

[MMDE]

On 1/27/2018 at 8:28 PM, sephiroth4424 said:

What happened to GTA IV?? Few months ago we had over 11.500 plat achievers, now it's less than 10.000

 

Because a couple of people have been reporting that game a lot recently. I have nothing to do with it, but the reports are all correct. It's basically half to all trophies for the game popping with like 5-10 seconds between each. It's not the online level too fast or something, it's all the trophies. This is likely save file use, maybe even mod menu save or whatever it is. They're definitely not innocent in any way.

 

5 minutes ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

That's a great narrative, but it's not true. Even back in the day, sharing save files was frowned upon. As I've mentioned multiple times in the past, one of the main trophy hunter sites (ps3trophies.org, now playstationtrophies.org) handed out permabans for evening mentioning save files in such a way.

 

This is true, and I've seen Spanish equivalents of that forum do the same thing.

 

Honestly, 2008 and 2009 is not the majority of reports though. Very little before 2010. I think there's more CFW reports on 2008 than save file. A lot of morons who edit trophy timestamps to be distributed from when trophies were released in 2008 to about when a game is released. Makes no sense, but people do that, a lot.

Edited January 30, 2018 by MMDE

[Squirlruler]

9 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

 

This is related to why HAKOOM recently hid all his trophies, in protest for leaderboards not banning such users. They buy trophies, and most of it is probably cheated. Meanwhile, HAKOOM himself have had a trophy service for years where he himself sell trophies.

Yea, I thought his decision was a bit weird but...

His defense is basically "I don't do it *a lot*" as if that should make a difference. lmfao.

[jackm57]

Ok so account sharing and having a team of players on your profile is now allowed on PSNP?

 

 

[Saionji]

12 minutes ago, jackm57 said:

Ok so account sharing and having a team of players on your profile is now allowed on PSNP?

 

 

As far as I know it always was allowed because as long as that team playing on one account doesnt cheat trophies their timestamps doesnt mess with leaderboards.

[NightRusticDawn]

22 minutes ago, jackm57 said:

Ok so account sharing and having a team of players on your profile is now allowed on PSNP?

 

 

 

Then we have to treat Boosting on the same level, if Playing with friends is against the leaderboard rules then over 90% of us should be flagged and removed.

Using someone elses Save files to skip playing is the only way to make it as fair as possible. If you are playing together then at least you are playing.

 

IN my opinion the only thing the leaderboard should be without is hacked games and saves (Also wish whitelisted games wasnt a thing.). But hey what do I know.

[ShogunCroCop]

I could get an "unobtainable plat" still.

 

If I ever go back to playing a PS3, and if I can ever get myself another copy of SOCOM 4, I can still obtain the plat. Because I did all the online trophies before the servers went down. So it is just a campaign trophy left that I need. So the unobtainable can sometimes be obtainable.

[Squirlruler]

5 minutes ago, ShogunCroCop said:

I could get an "unobtainable plat" still.

 

If I ever go back to playing a PS3, and if I can ever get myself another copy of SOCOM 4, I can still obtain the plat. Because I did all the online trophies before the servers went down. So it is just a campaign trophy left that I need. So the unobtainable can sometimes be obtainable.

As far as I know, "Unobtainable plat" is specifically used for when someone has never played the game before. If I was to play SOCOM 4 I wouldn't be able to get the plat.

[ShogunCroCop]

Just now, Squirlruler said:

As far as I know, "Unobtainable plat" is specifically used for when someone has never played the game before. If I was to play SOCOM 4 I wouldn't be able to get the plat.

 

True.

 

I also think it can refer to players who have the game and hadn't gotten the online trophies before the server went down. Either way, that game is on the unobtainable list for those very reasons. Yet if/when the day comes that I plat it, I am sure the timestamp will raise a few eyebrows until they look deeper at my account.

12 minutes ago, NightRusticDawn said:

 

Then we have to treat Boosting on the same level, if Playing with friends is against the leaderboard rules then over 90% of us should be flagged and removed.

Using someone elses Save files to skip playing is the only way to make it as fair as possible. If you are playing together then at least you are playing.

 

IN my opinion the only thing the leaderboard should be without is hacked games and saves (Also wish whitelisted games wasnt a thing.). But hey what do I know.

 

As long as a trophy is earned legitimately, I don't think playing with friends really matters. My bro-in-law happened to unlock a Madden trophy when we were playing on my account. I was only upset that I hadn't popped it lol.

 

But I am also a casual trophy hunter. I love to pop trophies, but there are only a handful of games where I will try and get the plat. I still like the enjoyment of playing for fun. That's what gaming should be about. The entire idea of trophies ruined that.

[sephiroth4424]

1 hour ago, MMDE said:

 

Because a couple of people have been reporting that game a lot recently. I have nothing to do with it, but the reports are all correct. It's basically half to all trophies for the game popping with like 5-10 seconds between each. It's not the online level too fast or something, it's all the trophies. This is likely save file use, maybe even mod menu save or whatever it is. They're definitely not innocent in any way.

 

We are getting close to 9500 achievers now.So we had at least 18% cheaters? It seems excessive

[Squirlruler]

1 minute ago, ShogunCroCop said:

Yet if/when the day comes that I plat it, I am sure the timestamp will raise a few eyebrows until they look deeper at my account.

It would, but if you are really worried about it, you can make a back up of your profile on the wayback machine to prove no timestamps edit. As long as you have played the game before the server shut down, you should be fine.

[ShogunCroCop]

Just now, Squirlruler said:

It would, but if you are really worried about it, you can make a back up of your profile on the wayback machine to prove no timestamps edit. As long as you have played the game before the server shut down, you should be fine.

 

Well my profile on here also shows everything was synced in 2011, so there is that too, lol.

[ShogunCroCop]

I don't really understand why the leaderboard matters anyway. Just because you are on the leaderboard doesn't make you the "best" trophy hunter. It just means you have more time on your hands than others, because let's face it, all the leaderboards measure is the amount of trophies you have and the points associated with them. It doesn't measure skill. And the difference between earning 1,000 trophies in one month and 11 in one month is time.

 

So for people to cheat to get on a leaderboard makes them really lame. It's like trying to cut in line to watch paint dry. It's a pointless gesture for a pointless result.

[Dav9834]

1 hour ago, jackm57 said:

Ok so account sharing and having a team of players on your profile is now allowed on PSNP?

 

 

No It's not allowed,

it's just not enforceable.

Unless they admit to it I guess... 

[iWaerzHD]

Hello i have a question well there be one update soon on this site where people how have the same problem as me where trophies are poping like this because of the online hackers where the normal players are getting flagged and removed unfairly in Black Ops 2 and other PS3 games because im gonna switch to the ps4 soon and i dont wanna make a new account 4 trophy hunting again thank you and have a nice day

[Dav9834]

43 minutes ago, iWaerzHD said:

Hello i have a question well there be one update soon on this site where people how have the same problem as me where trophies are poping like this because of the online hackers where the normal players are getting flagged and removed unfairly in Black Ops 2 and other PS3 games because im gonna switch to the ps4 soon and i dont wanna make a new account 4 trophy hunting again thank you and have a nice day

We've tried, made the case. 

It's up to the owner now. 

Don't get your hopes up 

[MMDE]

2 hours ago, sephiroth4424 said:

We are getting close to 9500 achievers now.So we had at least 18% cheaters? It seems excessive

 

My bet is that there's a ton more, and there's even a chance Sly got it on auto-delete if you do it in under a specific time too, so I'd say most of the cheaters was already auto flagged for it.

 

Let me do a simple scan and see, but let's just say it like this. I get in like a hundred reports for the game, and when I'm about done looking at them, there's another 100. Been like that for a couple of weeks now. And yes, they are ALL like 10+ trophies (the remaining trophies) all popping at the same time... It's not online modders doing it to them, it's they themselves having used downloaded and modified saves. It's not that excessive tbh. The game has almost a million owners, and most of the 100%s have been cheaters. Just fact.

 

And while I didn't detect anyone on page one of fastest 100%, I found 7 on page 2. So 7% of the top 100 fastest 100% are still cheaters. Another 4 between 101 and 150, another 5 between 151 and 200, another 6 between 201 and 250, another 7 between 251 and 300 etc etc. Just more and more to be found

 

 

 

[MMDE]

2 hours ago, Dav9834 said:

No It's not allowed,

it's just not enforceable.

Unless they admit to it I guess... 

 

 

Yeah, idk. You won't see me track down these people, and many have admitted it to me. In fact, I know several of the top guys buy trophies, seen their posts about it. I'd be very careful about it. A lot of the people selling trophies cheat. Found several big sellers do so. The more and faster they can deliver, the more likely it's all cheated. Even PS4. I know people stopped buying PS3 trophies because of so much cheating, but PS4 is no better.

 

But yes, it's not really enforceable, and never seen any push for it being enforced either, and not really sure how much we want to delete everyone who has let someone else play on their account. Where does the line go? For @madbuk it's anyone doing any progress towards any of your trophies. You got your own account and anyone else playing on it is cheating. If you're social person, you'll often have friends at your place, and you may play local co-op, or even swap turns on who plays a level. Maybe you even let a buddy play through one of your games at your place. You may even have a girl friend or something that wants to play a game etc. What about siblings sharing same account? Parents with kids? People you live with? Family member or even buddy you don't live with? Where does the line go?

[ShogunCroCop]

12 minutes ago, MMDE said:

 

 

Yeah, idk. You won't see me track down these people, and many have admitted it to me. In fact, I know several of the top guys buy trophies, seen their posts about it. I'd be very careful about it. A lot of the people selling trophies cheat. Found several big sellers do so. The more and faster they can deliver, the more likely it's all cheated. Even PS4. I know people stopped buying PS3 trophies because of so much cheating, but PS4 is no better.

 

But yes, it's not really enforceable, and never seen any push for it being enforced either, and not really sure how much we want to delete everyone who has let someone else play on their account. Where does the line go? For @madbuk it's anyone doing any progress towards any of your trophies. You got your own account and anyone else playing on it is cheating. If you're social person, you'll often have friends at your place, and you may play local co-op, or even swap turns on who plays a level. Maybe you even let a buddy play through one of your games at your place. You may even have a girl friend or something that wants to play a game etc. What about siblings sharing same account? Parents with kids? People you live with? Family member or even buddy you don't live with? Where does the line go?

 

PS4 has an answer for that. You can create users off of the main account now that can earn trophies independently from the main account and that get credited to the new user, instead of the main account. My wife has her own user on my account and she popped Crash Bandicoot trophies, thinking they were popping for me and they weren't. So I went and played a bit myself until I got those trophies

[MMDE]

1 minute ago, ShogunCroCop said:

 

PS4 has an answer for that. You can create users off of the main account now that can earn trophies independently from the main account and that get credited to the new user, instead of the main account. My wife has her own user on my account and she popped Crash Bandicoot trophies, thinking they were popping for me and they weren't. So I went and played a bit myself until I got those trophies

 

Had the same stuff on PS3, but if you're social person, and you have real friends come over to your place, you'll know what that is like. Or just grow up with siblings who likes to game and you share the same consoles. Often they won't have their own save, they will play with the progress you've made, the unlocks you've unlocked etc, they will try to do the last few hard things in the game you haven't done yet. It's a fun thing to do together. Or you can play through a game together with a buddy, where you swap the controller around for each life or level or something.

[VakaVG]

How people can hack. They use special cheat programs or what? 

[Lag_The_Ravager]

I think 3 strikes is fair.  My main account was banned here because I was in server on Warhawk with cheaters which unnaturally popped trophies by them altering my in-game statistics.  I never go a strike, I got perma-banned.  

I never understood much how it worked, or what happened - I just know there was some sort of exploit going around where they could essentially modify other people's game profiles stats... for better or for worse....

From what I can tell, the purpose wasn't even to pop trophies, they actually did it to people to break their games and prevent them from ever levelling up again :/  It was a malicious attack that led to me being banned here.  I would open a ticket here to contest it - but I can't deny the trophies are there unnaturally so I just resigned myself to my fate... I still know 120+ of my plats are legit, so if 1 was glitched by other people, it doesn't take away from my sense of accomplishment - I just hide that platinum from my list and always -1 when telling people how many plats I have. 

At the end of the day it's an arbitrary number on the screen.  I just don't like when my friends go to look me up and I have to explain to them what happened.... there's even threads here about how bad malicious hacking was in that game... but I know that the source of my ban for sure.    

Edited January 30, 2018 by Lag_The_Ravager

[Toogie53]

25 minutes ago, ShogunCroCop said:

 

PS4 has an answer for that. You can create users off of the main account now that can earn trophies independently from the main account and that get credited to the new user, instead of the main account. My wife has her own user on my account and she popped Crash Bandicoot trophies, thinking they were popping for me and they weren't. So I went and played a bit myself until I got those trophies

I am a parent with kids and everyone has their own Playstation profiles. However, stuff happens. People don't realize they are not on their own profile. Sometimes, we just toss the controller back and forth and take turns at things etc. Last year, one of my kids even went as far as playing a bunch of Overwatch on my profile to earn me a dozen or so loot boxes as a birthday present since she didn't have money of her own to spend and she understood those have some sort of equivalency to actual money. My kids will switch to my profile so they can access the library and download games etc. I initially password locked my profile but it got frustrating for all of us so I removed it. Also, in the past month we got a second PS4. Which ended up making the use of my profile even more frequent. This is because they need to be on my profile to play games together; since if a PS4 is not marked as your primary console, it doesn't extend digital game licenses to other profiles. About 90% of my games are digital and I'm not willing to buy a second copy of games I already own, so this is just how it's going to be. 

[MMDE]

16 minutes ago, Lag_The_Ravager said:

I think 3 strikes is fair.  My main account was banned here because I was in server on Warhawk with cheaters which unnaturally popped trophies by them altering my in-game statistics.  I never go a strike, I got perma-banned.  

I never understood much how it worked, or what happened - I just know there was some sort of exploit going around where they could essentially modify other people's game profiles stats... for better or for worse....

From what I can tell, the purpose wasn't even to pop trophies, they actually did it to people to break their games and prevent them from ever levelling up again :/  It was a malicious attack that led to me being banned here.  I would open a ticket here to contest it - but I can't deny the trophies are there unnaturally so I just resigned myself to my fate... I still know 120+ of my plats are legit, so if 1 was glitched by other people, it doesn't take away from my sense of accomplishment - I just hide that platinum from my list and always -1 when telling people how many plats I have. 

At the end of the day it's an arbitrary number on the screen.  I just don't like when my friends go to look me up and I have to explain to them what happened.... there's even threads here about how bad malicious hacking was in that game... but I know that the source of my ban for sure.    

 

What account was that?

[Toogie53]

Also, as a note, I'm the only one in the family that is a trophy hunter. I move through games at a much faster pace than them and I also don't allow them to play mature titles. So it's very rare for my kids to be able to pop anything on my profile, since even if they met the conditions, I've probably already earned it. 

[Zolkovo]

5 hours ago, starcrunch061 said:

 

That's a great narrative, but it's not true. Even back in the day, sharing save files was frowned upon. As I've mentioned multiple times in the past, one of the main trophy hunter sites (ps3trophies.org, now playstationtrophies.org) handed out permabans for even mentioning save files in such a way.

 

Now, you can say that people shared save files because they liked to share save files, and never once thought of trophies. Again, I can't prove otherwise, but I highly doubt it.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating save file use in any way, shape or form. I just try to give people the benefit of the doubt but I agree that in most cases of save file usage trophies are probably involved. More-so if they are signed up to trophy related sites. But I'm equally sure that there must be at least a handful of exceptions to this, a demographic that are oblivious to sites like these. Particularly people who enjoy modded saves; this is far more common-place amongst PC gamers.

 

42 minutes ago, MMDE said:

Or just grow up with siblings who likes to game and you share the same consoles. Often they won't have their own save, they will play with the progress you've made, the unlocks you've unlocked etc, they will try to do the last few hard things in the game you haven't done yet. It's a fun thing to do together. Or you can play through a game together with a buddy, where you swap the controller around for each life or level or something.

 

This is an excellent example as it was what we did in my family before I made my own account. It just seemed natural to us moving on from the PS2 era and the limited amount of user control we had with memory cards back then. Nowadays, unless it's local co-op there's no chance I'd let anyone play on my consoles, let alone account.