Cheating

[gaz5021]

Dear Zen Team,

Please take a look at the highscore at the table Blade. The surviving-challenge-highscore number 1 from the player kthula666 counts exactly 392.000.000 MIO. It is just really really frustrating that cheating is possible and that kthula666 is known for cheating for more than 2 month now, and you didnt delete his cheat shit highscores? For me it is a challenge to give my best to reach number 1, but if I see those cheats my motivation falls rapidly.

Sorry to say that, but you have to sort this out quickly.

I feel exactly the same way as exFanboy. These three users at the very least need to be wiped:

!!!!!!
kthula666
Ardenwolfe

[exFanboy]

Dear Zen Team,

Please take a look at the highscore at the table Blade. The surviving-challenge-highscore number 1 from the player kthula666 counts exactly 392.000.000 MIO. It is just really really frustrating that cheating is possible and that kthula666 is known for cheating for more than 2 month now, and you didnt delete his cheat shit highscores? For me it is a challenge to give my best to reach number 1, but if I see those cheats my motivation falls rapidly.

Sorry to say that, but you have to sort this out quickly.

[hunter328]

I would have to disagree. As we all know Zen's tables can be played for hours and I've had games go on for days. There has to be a better way to do it but that save feature has saved my scores many a times considering I'm not the only one using the system.

You misunderstood. No, I have long games and save too and come back to them. That’s completely cool. I’m talking about backing up your save once you’ve hit a high score. Then you finish your game, it gets recorded, right? But then say someone passes you on the leaderboard. Instead of starting from scratch the person just loads his past game from the point where he was already over a billion and still had three balls left and starts from there and then only has to make up the difference. That’s what I was referring to and think is cheating. Or, even worse, they could just be constantly backing it up during one play through. Lose a ball shortly after backing it up? No problem, just load your most recent save and try again. And there’s no way to tell if people are doing that or not. But just knowing that it’s possible makes it likely that at least someone has done it.
That said, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, it just makes you wonder and I wish it wasn’t possible. I really don’t get the mindset of someone who would cheat just to get their name on a video game leaderboard, especially when they themselves know it doesn’t represent anything because it’s not legit.

[Louise Superstar]

I always thought some of the scores were beyond achievable, how does it happen? The only glitches I ever encounter are never to my benefit! I get the "defeat" in matchup when I've clearly the higher score or my personal matchup favourite - "problems uploading your score" which always seems to be when I've really struggled to beat my opponent! I play on xbox, should I change my network play settings from "no limitation" to stop this happening?

[gaz5021]

I’m really keen to hear the Server Mangers’ take on this issue, particularly the scores / users I mentioned in my first post on this thread, and the user with a question-mark for their level (#1 score on Sorcerer’s Lair, I’m on Switch and it only appears with cross-play on). I would much prefer to have cross-play on, but there must be something that can be done.

[grenadier]

I've had a few sporadic cases where I paused during a 5 minute challenge, and when I unpaused, the clock didn't restart. I've never been able to recreate it consistently though, and it was on a private tournament anyway. (Yes, I quit and restarted to get the clock going again.) Might the accused cheaters be exploiting something like this?

[Tech101]

While I wish no one cheated I don’t mind the obvious ones that much because they’re so obvious you can ignore them. For me the real problem with leaderboard scores is there’s no way to tell if they were legitimately obtained during one beginning to end game or if the player is just reloading a saved game every time his score is bested and starting from a point where he already has a score in the billions.
There should be a leaderboard that just uses scores obtained from tournaments as you can’t save in tournaments therefore can’t back up your game.

I would have to disagree. As we all know Zen's tables can be played for hours and I've had games go on for days. There has to be a better way to do it but that save feature has saved my scores many a times considering I'm not the only one using the system.

[hunter328]

Just wondering if Zen is aware of the obvious cheating happening on the leaderboards, and if anything can be done about it.

It doesn't bother me too much - some of them are easy to spot, and I still have the satisfaction of being the obvious #1 legit score on some tables, but it's still somewhat annoying.

I've taken some screenshots of the more obvious ones which can be viewed here: https://imgur.com/a/rzx8D

At the very least, the following users should simply be banned and have their scores erased:

!!!!!!
kthula666
Ardenwolfe

I can't figure out how one would score multiple billions on Sorcerer's Lair in the 5 minute challenge, so zombiewizard45 and YuraWhirlwind are obviously very sus as well (and that's being generous - I'd be shocked if any of the top 5 scores on that list are legit).

I'm keen to hear Zen's (and others') thoughts on this issue.

Is it related to the fact that you can't save your game in tournament mode? Do people do this by manipulating the data sent to the server, on the PC version of the game? The fact that many of these bogus scores are in the even millions says to me it's not a simple case of them backing up their saved game. Having said that, some of the suspicious scores aren't rounded off like that.

What are the odds that the top score in each Challenge mode of a particular table are round millions? 1 in 10^18? Haha.

While I wish no one cheated I don’t mind the obvious ones that much because they’re so obvious you can ignore them. For me the real problem with leaderboard scores is there’s no way to tell if they were legitimately obtained during one beginning to end game or if the player is just reloading a saved game every time his score is bested and starting from a point where he already has a score in the billions.
There should be a leaderboard that just uses scores obtained from tournaments as you can’t save in tournaments therefore can’t back up your game.

[johnwick12]

i am here for read comment :P

[gaz5021]

I just noticed a nice score on top of Sorcerer’s Lair - the player is named “Hidden” and his/her level is “?”. Not to immediately dismiss this as “cheating”, but is there any explanation for their level being a question mark?

I think I’m going to “solve” this issue by turning off cross play. As far as I know, Switch scores can’t be / haven’t been “hacked” so at least I’ll know for sure that my peers’ scores are legit. Obviously there’s a bit less competition this way, but Tech’s still there at least

[hajdu]

Hey Guys,
I forwarded this to the server managers and they'll check out these interesting scores. Thank you for reporting!

[wims_Beta]

Hi !

In my opinion :

Sorcerer's Lair : ZombieWizard & YuraWhirlwind are strange (too high scores on 5 minutes - but maybe they find an issue).
Kthula666, Ardenwolfe, !!!!!!! scores on biolab, excalibur, and V12 are strange : it's impossible to have each scores finishing by 000.000 every time.

Other scores seems ok to me.

[Georgyboy]

I'am agree with you Gaz5021. There're too much cheated scores and we can see a lot of surprising scores on WIzard and superscore leaderboard !

[gaz5021]

I'm in no way shape or form accusing you of anything nor am I questioning your skills but I sure would like to see a video of you scoring 700 million in 5 minutes. The best score I ever got was about 300 million in one wizard mode and that was with every obsidion collected.

Now I know there is score boost and all but time would eventually become a factor as I'm pretty sure wizard mode last about 30 to 45 seconds. So you need to do all the modes and complete them in 4 minutes and 15 seconds or so.

I think they simply missed the part where we were discussing the 5 minute challenge, rather than a normal game. I'm sure we can all agree that a billion in 5 minutes is impossible.

[Tech101]

Doesn't FX3 use the same leaderboards for Steam and PS4? Some scores are "hidden" (Steam) because a PS4 player wants to keep them secret. Having the same score on Steam and PS4 would be possible if the leaderboards are really shared.

Over a billion on Sorcerer's Lair is definitely possible. Even I scored like 700 million (wizard mode can be reached without completing missions and once you are there you get big points).

There are some cheaters though...but they are easy to spot. A playtime of 0,1 hours and a huge score is not possible for example.
Players with =PF= in the name are legit (pinball family). So is Coda, Cloudhead, Twrecks, MuddyWolf, Blinky... and pinball guilds such as Lupsclub.

I'm in no way shape or form accusing you of anything nor am I questioning your skills but I sure would like to see a video of you scoring 700 million in 5 minutes. The best score I ever got was about 300 million in one wizard mode and that was with every obsidion collected.

Now I know there is score boost and all but time would eventually become a factor as I'm pretty sure wizard mode last about 30 to 45 seconds. So you need to do all the modes and complete them in 4 minutes and 15 seconds or so.