Cheaters: kthula666, Ardenwolfe and !!!!!!

[Tech101]

Hey MuddyWolf_Beta! My colleague checked those three users:
1. Ardenwolfe - he didn't find him anymore, probably this users has been already removed.
2. kthula666 - This case is interesting, because actually the scores he makes is not that impossible, and we currently cannot remove him immediately
3. !!!!!! - my colleague didn't find him, but he will check it again

If you can, please send us the which are the score boards where you see those unrealistic scores. It would help us a lot!

Thanks in advance!

Its pretty obvious kthula666 is cheating. Look at the first 3 links Gaz posted above and all 3 scores end in 6 zeros. That's impossible and he's hacking in some way to do this.

[MuddyWolf_Beta]

I mostly play the 5 minute challenges in FX3 so I’ve listed their scores on those leaderboards but they are all over the place.

I understand that at first it might look Kthulla666’s scores might be possible but check the last 6 digits of his scores.
I don’t think I’ve ever finished a game with the last six digits being 000.000 by accident.
He’s the opposite, he can’t seem to finish a game without having 000.000 as the last digits

That’s mathematically impossible of course and that’s also how you recognise this particular cheat/trainer and why I’m so sure that he’s a cheater.

The same goes for Ardenwolfe and !!!!!

Okay. Here we go:


Kthula666:

El Dorado: 159.000.000
Excalibur: 113.000.000
V12: 164.000.000
Tesla: 136.000.000
Shaman: 178.000.000
Sor. Lair: 223.000.000
Mars: 214.000.000
Paranormal: 139.000.000
Biolab: 161.000.000
Pasha: 235.000.000
Rome: 219.000.000
Secrets Of The Deep: 100.000.000
Doctor Strange: 224.000.000
Thor: 249.000.000
Infinity Gauntlet: 469.000.000
Blade: 176.000.000


Ardenwolfe:

Wild West Rampage: 230.000.000
CastleStorm: 317.000.000
Excalibur: 126.000.000
Sor. Lair: 232.000.000
Fantastic Four: 176.000.000
Captain America: 230.000.000
Doctor Strange: 239.000.000
X-Men: 160.000.000
Thor: 218.000.000
Ghost Rider: 223.000.000
Moon Knight: 307.000.000
Portal: 279.000.000
Walking Dead: 283.000.000


!!!!!!

V12: 187.000.000
Iron Man: 193.000.000
Deadpool: 228.000.000


!!!!!! doesn’t play many 5 minute challenges but I’ve seen him on other boards (different challenges). He’s prominent too.

The 000.000 cheat was the first cheat/trainer for FX3. There are of course new trainers out there that are harder to recognize. If you guys really want to keep the boards clean maybe you should talk with the Lup's Club. They know the tables very well and I see them on the leaderboards of all modes/challenges so they should know what’s possible.

There are ‘probably’ also some bugged scores. For example, on Tesla, the number one 5 minute challenge high score is 403 million. That’s an impossible score. However, I’ve never seen the name of the player on other tables and his score doesn’t end in 000.000. So he/she deserves reasonable doubt imo. You still might want to remove the score and consider it a bug though because it breaks the table for high scorers. (It will never bettered. It can’t.)

That’s it!
I really hope you do something with the above info because it took me quite some time to compile

Thanks!

[TuttiDeLeon]

I mostly play the 5 minute challenges in FX3 so I’ve listed their scores on those leaderboards but they are all over the place.

I understand that at first it might look Kthulla666’s scores might be possible but check the last 6 digits of his scores.
I don’t think I’ve ever finished a game with the last six digits being 000.000 by accident.
He’s the opposite, he can’t seem to finish a game without having 000.000 as the last digits

That’s mathematically impossible of course and that’s also how you recognise this particular cheat/trainer and why I’m so sure that he’s a cheater.

The same goes for Ardenwolfe and !!!!!

Okay. Here we go:


Kthula666:

El Dorado: 159.000.000
Excalibur: 113.000.000
V12: 164.000.000
Tesla: 136.000.000
Shaman: 178.000.000
Sor. Lair: 223.000.000
Mars: 214.000.000
Paranormal: 139.000.000
Biolab: 161.000.000
Pasha: 235.000.000
Rome: 219.000.000
Secrets Of The Deep: 100.000.000
Doctor Strange: 224.000.000
Thor: 249.000.000
Infinity Gauntlet: 469.000.000
Blade: 176.000.000


Ardenwolfe:

Wild West Rampage: 230.000.000
CastleStorm: 317.000.000
Excalibur: 126.000.000
Sor. Lair: 232.000.000
Fantastic Four: 176.000.000
Captain America: 230.000.000
Doctor Strange: 239.000.000
X-Men: 160.000.000
Thor: 218.000.000
Ghost Rider: 223.000.000
Moon Knight: 307.000.000
Portal: 279.000.000
Walking Dead: 283.000.000


!!!!!!

V12: 187.000.000
Iron Man: 193.000.000
Deadpool: 228.000.000


!!!!!! doesn’t play many 5 minute challenges but I’ve seen him on other boards (different challenges). He’s prominent too.

The 000.000 cheat was the first cheat/trainer for FX3. There are of course new trainers out there that are harder to recognize. If you guys really want to keep the boards clean maybe you should talk with the Lup's Club. They know the tables very well and I see them on the leaderboards of all modes/challenges so they should know what’s possible.

There are ‘probably’ also some bugged scores. For example, on Tesla, the number one 5 minute challenge high score is 403 million. That’s an impossible score. However, I’ve never seen the name of the player on other tables and his score doesn’t end in 000.000. So he/she deserves reasonable doubt imo. You still might want to remove the score and consider it a bug though because it breaks the table for high scorers. (It will never bettered. It can’t.)

That’s it!
I really hope you do something with the above info because it took me quite some time to compile

Thanks!

You're my hero dude. Also, Single Player Superscore is full of hacked/glitched contributions, the entire top 100 is awash with impossible scores. Please look into this Zen.

[Tech101]

You're my hero dude. Also, Single Player Superscore is full of hacked/glitched contributions, the entire top 100 is awash with impossible scores. Please look into this Zen.

You must be a PS4 user because as a Switch user I only see 2 scores that need to be removed.

[Chili]

Hey Guys! Yes, we understand it, these 6 zeros are quite unbelievable, we also realized that. However we have to be very careful who we remove, we have to find a very obvious clue that he is cheating. We also understand your frustration, currently we are working on a solution. Thanks for your patience!

[TuttiDeLeon]

You must be a PS4 user because as a Switch user I only see 2 scores that need to be removed.

Yes, we spoke on this earlier in the thread. I'm PS4 & the top 100 is an absolute mess, filled with impossible scores in the multi-millions. I imagine it goes further, but I can't scroll below position 100 to find out.

[TuttiDeLeon]

Hey Guys! Yes, we understand it, these 6 zeros are quite unbelievable, we also realized that. However we have to be very careful who we remove, we have to find a very obvious clue that he is cheating. We also understand your frustration, currently we are working on a solution. Thanks for your patience!

We understand your position, but please don't be naive, those scores, (when you consider how many are registered by the same players), are impossible & absolute proof of shameless cheating.

[GrofZout]

Hi all!

Concerning Kthula666, Ardenwolfe and !!!!!!, I totally agree with my pinball friends here. I mean, it is possible to finish a game with a score finishing by 6 zeros but it's gonna be very very very rare. From my point of view, this is not suspicious, this is obvious that something is going wrong.

On the other hand, I thought about something. It may be a personnal challenge you know, like trying to get round number by hitting one more bumper or one more slingshot, why not?! Doing this + being in the top 3 rank = whoa, that's quite an achievement! But I don't buy it. Here we are talking about the 5 minutes mode and there is no way that anyone could do this several times.

Thanks MuddyWolf and great job collecting all these scores.

Now, about the scores... I can't really give you my opinion cuz I don't play a lot of challenge mode yet so I don't know what is possible to do or not. Maybe Wims could tell you more but anyway, once we'll dig into that we'll share that with you.

I just want to say that I understand why it could be so long before you clean the leaderboards of cheaters. You need to be very sure first. I must admit that I have no knowledge at all about what is it possible to do to prevent that but this subject is very important cuz you're one of the best pinball game on the market and pinball is mainly a competition game so if leaderboards are broken and not taken care of, you might loose players and/or new players and this would be very unfortunate.

I hope I didn't make too much mistakes with my english and that my message is understandable.

[MuddyWolf_Beta]

Hey Guys! Yes, we understand it, these 6 zeros are quite unbelievable, we also realized that. However we have to be very careful who we remove, we have to find a very obvious clue that he is cheating. We also understand your frustration, currently we are working on a solution. Thanks for your patience!

Look, I’m a longtime fan of Pinball FX. I play the game, I visit the major forums, I record tutorial videos, etc. When I play, I’m a big child but in everyday life, I’m an adult.

So please don’t take this the wrong way.
I’m talking to you now as a representative of your company, not as a (probably) nice guy.

I’m a customer and I’ve paid a lot of money for your product. You provide a competitive game with active leaderboards. It is your responsibility to act as an objective referee when it comes to fair play.

If crystal clear evidence is provided of cheating, you should either act immediately by removing the cheaters or if technical issues prevent this, at least fully acknowledge them publicly once they are exposed.

Because now you’re making a fool out of me.

You talk casually about those last six zeros, you had also realized that, but in your previous post you asked me provide that exact evidence. Why, if you already understood what I was talking about, did you gave me homework and then come back with a one paragraph reply?

In your post from yesterday, you write that you couldn’t find Ardenwolfe on the rankings. I give you 13 scores (and that’s just from the 5 minute challenges) and they’re almost all number one scores.

How can you not know that and still state that you’re working on the issue?

And how can you still talk about clues? You have rock solid evidence. What more do you possible need. DNA? Eyewitnesses? Sorry for the sarcasm but in this case, the cheating is that obvious. By brushing the evidence aside, you’re also brushing me aside.

This is no way of dealing with your customers. This is just rude.

Come on, you can do better than this Zen.

[TuttiDeLeon]

Look, I’m a longtime fan of Pinball FX. I play the game, I visit the major forums, I record tutorial videos, etc. When I play, I’m a big child but in everyday life, I’m an adult.

So please don’t take this the wrong way.
I’m talking to you now as a representative of your company, not as a (probably) nice guy.

I’m a customer and I’ve paid a lot of money for your product. You provide a competitive game with active leaderboards. It is your responsibility to act as an objective referee when it comes to fair play.

If crystal clear evidence is provided of cheating, you should either act immediately by removing the cheaters or if technical issues prevent this, at least fully acknowledge them publicly once they are exposed.

Because now you’re making a fool out of me.

You talk casually about those last six zeros, you had also realized that, but in your previous post you asked me provide that exact evidence. Why, if you already understood what I was talking about, did you gave me homework and then come back with a one paragraph reply?

In your post from yesterday, you write that you couldn’t find Ardenwolfe on the rankings. I give you 13 scores (and that’s just from the 5 minute challenges) and they’re almost all number one scores.

How can you not know that and still state that you’re working on the issue?

And how can you still talk about clues? You have rock solid evidence. What more do you possible need. DNA? Eyewitnesses? Sorry for the sarcasm but in this case, the cheating is that obvious. By brushing the evidence aside, you’re also brushing me aside.

This is no way of dealing with your customers. This is just rude.

Come on, you can do better than this Zen.

Excellent post that (I suspect) sums up how a lot of us feel. I'm number two behind kthula666 on the Infinity Gauntlet 5 minute challenge leaderboard. Seeing as how that obviously fake score (469,000,000) is the reason why I have to settle for second place is pretty aggravating to me, & I'm sure that many fellow fair minded community members who've been denied the top spot by a bogus score feel similarly cheated.

[GrofZout]

Tonight I was playing on the Deadpool table so I gave a try to the challenge mode 5 minutes & survival in order to see how many points it's possible to get with fully leveled upgrades.

Here is the survival mode :

20180615015952_1.jpg

In this one, as you can see I managed to beat !!!!!! and kthula666. It is still possible to do better but there is not the question. The impossible thing is the 6 zeros. Check the leaderboards, nobody have 6 zeros except them.

Now the 5 minutes mode :

20180615015954_1.jpg

This one is quite interesting cuz I know I could do a little bit better witch let me think that kthula666's score is possible to reach. My game was very precise and with some more luck I could even reach !!!!!! But I can tell you this is very very hard, so maybe I didn't use the right strategy but still, I think I did. And again, round numbers for !!!!!!, impossible.

Well, I hope these informations will help you solving the problem.

[Chili]

Hey Guys! I had a meeting with my colleagues regarding this cheating case. The leaderboard is a quite sensitive matter, so as I told you before, we have to make serious decision, which takes more time to investigate. We would like to also investigate that how did they cheat, which is very important for us. We would like to make sure that we have a perfect solution for this. Thanks for your patience guys!

[steven120566]

Hey Guys! I had a meeting with my colleagues regarding this cheating case. The leaderboard is a quite sensitive matter, so as I told you before, we have to make serious decision, which takes more time to investigate. We would like to also investigate that how did they cheat, which is very important for us. We would like to make sure that we have a perfect solution for this. Thanks for your patience guys!

I am not invested in this, as my scores are no threat to anyone. However, I find this thread fascinating. And as chili says, would certainly be curious as to the "how" behind it. As awesome as this game is, the leaderboards make the awesomest game ever on top of a game that is already awesome. So I am glad they are taking it seriously.

[Chili]

Hey steven120566! Yes, we take it really seriously, it's a priority for us! We had a really long meeting about this.

[gaz5021]

I have a question for the server manager(s) - there was a 30 billion on top of Sorcerer’s Lair a while back, which was eventually deleted. I was curious about this score, because the name was “Hidden” and the level was “?”. My question is, was this confirmed to be a “cheat” score?