iOS Leaderboard Hacked?

[surf1der]

I became suspicious when within 3-4 days of the launch of SWP on iOS there were 4 scores over 2 billion and the range between them spanned a mere 4 million points. For experienced players, many know that when you get up into the billions the EOB bonuses can get up to the 10s-100s of millions. The odds of having four 2+ billion scores that are a mere 4 million points apart seemed very unlikely. Here is an image of the Game Center leaderboard for Episode V.



Also, these 4 players either do not have the Boba Fett and Clone Wars table or are not ranked in the top 100 on the leaderboards. This seemed strange to me. If these scores are legitimate, they obviously have a lot of skill and enjoy pinball. Why wouldn't they buy the other 2 tables or why couldn't they get into the top 100 on the Game Center leaderboards? I sent friend requests to all of them but so far only 1 has accepted. You can compare the trophies you and your friends have earned in Game Center. Below I posted an image comparing L Vosman's trophies to my trophies for the SWP app.



As you can see, he earned a +2 billion score without earning a single trophy for the Episode V table. I can easily imagine a person could intentionally avoid gaining the "Bring Balance to the Force" and "Go for the legs" trophies. But not earning the "You Seek Yoda" trophy during a game in which you score over 2 billion points? No way. And the Episode V table contains all the same bugs as the console version so they would have to avoid those as well.

Anyone else calling shenanigans on at least one or maybe all of these scores?

[surf1der]

I'm also calling out "Sgt. GOLD" as a cheater. I decided to check out the leaderboards on the ZP app. I'm not sure where he was before but his pro score shot up to #2 on the Game Center leaderboard. Game Center allows you to view when a player's high score for a table was earned. Yesterday, he "earned" the #1 rank on Avengers, WWH, Blade, Paranormal, Ghost Rider, Civil War, X-Men, Clone Wars, Boba Fett, and Episode V. The #1 rank on 10 tables in 1 day. This makes me question the validity of all the Game Center leaderboards.

[shogun00]

Yeah! It definitely looks like you have a few cheaters. I'm not sure if it's a hack or if these people stumbled onto to some sort of glitch on the iOS.

[surf1der]

Yeah! It definitely looks like you have a few cheaters. I'm not sure if it's a hack or if these people stumbled onto to some sort of glitch on the iOS.

I am guessing it is hack. I did a google search and it seems a lot of iOS game center leaderboards have been hacked.

Also, the guy who is ranked #1 on Episode V, and as of today Boba Fett and Clone Wars, accepted my friend request and he too has not earned a single table-specific achievement. I suppose it is possible to earn a +billion score on the 3 separate Star Wars tables without earning a single achievement. Possible yes, likely...

[shogun00]

I am guessing it is hack. I did a google search and it seems a lot of iOS game center leaderboards have been hacked.

Also, the guy who is ranked #1 on Episode V, and as of today Boba Fett and Clone Wars, accepted my friend request and he too has not earned a single table-specific achievement. I suppose it is possible to earn a +billion score on the 3 separate Star Wars tables without earning a single achievement. Possible yes, likely...

There's still the possibility of it being a glitch. For example, perhaps making changes in the Operator's Menu doesn't deactivate the Game Center Leader Boards like it suppose to, but it is disabling the trophies/achievements.

[Winterflood]

I think it is just an ios thing as I have a lot of games on there that people have just hacked the high scores. I believe it is devices that have been jailbroken where the user can easily just go in and change their scores. They are just cheating themselves so probably best just ignore their scores.

[hillie16]

I actually preferred the Open Feint leader boards, and ZP is the only game I think I can say that for.

[MarkItZeroSmoky]

Yeah i think the Android side has been hacked as well....on the SW stand alone version...a user has come out of no where with his/her scores on the ESB & CW tables...and his scores on both tables are within a couple hundred thousand points of each other...weird....the next closest score on either table(2nd place) is well over 2 BILLION away! Lol seems fishy.....

[surf1der]

There's still the possibility of it being a glitch. For example, perhaps making changes in the Operator's Menu doesn't deactivate the Game Center Leader Boards like it suppose to, but it is disabling the trophies/achievements.

I'm sure it is a hack. A user named titanic1972 has the top scores on all 3 Star Wars tables with the exact same score of 7.294 Billion.

[surf1der]

Wow. A couple players have got monster pro scores recently. 3rd place has a score in the tens of thousands with 1st and 2nd place tied with 4.7 billion. I believe that is 5 to 6 orders of magnitude between the top 2 scores and everyone else.

[surf1der]

I'm not a huge fan of Game Center anymore since I realized the leaderboards have been hacked. But all open platforms are easily susceptible to hacking and I guess it is better than nothing. However, it looks like Zen Pinball on iOS will max out it's number of available leaderboards after Shaman is released. According to Apple's game center documentation, there is a maximum of 25 leaderboards per app. Will this be a problem for future table releases beyond Shaman?

On a side note, it looks like Google is releasing releasing some new Google Play APIs for it's gaming services that will be available for both Android and iOS which will allow cross-platform cloud saving, achievements and leaderboards. It could be an interesting alternative to Game Center.