Cheaters: kthula666, Ardenwolfe and !!!!!!
Hello!
Could you kindly ask the guy/gal that keeps track of the leaderboard stats to remove the fake scores of the following cheaters: kthula666, Ardenwolfe and !!!!!!
They've been in the game for months now and they're at the top of so many tables and challenges/modes.
It’s just depressing
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by MuddyWolf_Beta; 05-15-2018 at 08:41 PM. Reason: water
Once again, totally agree!
We have been asking for this forever.Originally Posted by MuddyWolf_Beta
Hello!
Could you kindly ask the guy/gal that keeps track of the leaderboard stats to remove the fake scores of the following cheaters: kthula666, Ardenwolfe and !!!!!!
They've been in the game for months now and they're at the top of so many tables and challenges/modes.
It’s just depressing
Thanks in advance.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
Agreed
We did an investigation into cheating in Pinball FX3 last week if I'm correct and removed a couple of scores, seems like these guys slipped through the cracks.
I'll get this info to the right people.
Could you guys give a few examples of challenges and tables you see them have cheat-like scores on?
No worries. One correction, though: They are cheat scores, not cheat-like scores.
Anyone with a moderate understanding of mathematics and statistics can easily see that these scores are not legit. It's more likely that these users are in fact Jim Morrison, 2Pac and Elvis and have submitted these scores via telepathy than scored them legitimately.
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996703661983125504
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996703758485602305
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996703852534513666
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996703945048317953
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996704038191153152
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996704124539359233
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996704207620079616
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996704299622137856
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996704391594852352
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996704484179890177
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/996704581097635846
Don't just remove the obvious fake scores. Remove all of these users' scores from all tables and modes, and ban any future scores from them. They make a mockery of your leaderboards.
Thanks for the hard work!
There are many more but these examples should give you an idea of the magnitude.
I'm with gaz5021.
They've put up so many fake scores. They are dedicated cheaters.
These players won't learn from their actions and become honest players.
To get rid of them, you'll have to ban them from the leaderboards.
If you don't, they'll be back in no time.
Last edited by MuddyWolf_Beta; 05-16-2018 at 07:34 PM. Reason: water
Here here, get rid of them - cheating is an absolute no no and makes a mockery of the rest of us.
It is curious though...................If they have the ability to cheat the scores why they do it so obviously?
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
There's some pretty insane scores that don't look as obvious as well. Just look at Sorcerers Lairs 5 minute and Survial. You can't tell me someone is getting 53 billion on either of those modes. It's not even possible. Some of those other scores in the billions are also questionable as well.
Absolutely questionable and they all seem to be on steam.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
Superscore normal on the xbox is also infectet.
I take it you mean dim007 and Grom both at level 1XP but at over double the normal Superscore. Very suspect!
I'm suspect of any scores with a level 1 user.
I've seen quite alot of cheat scores come and go from the top of Superscore but these two seem very persistent.
I can't understand why the Superscore leaderboard (regular, not classic), hasn't been cleaned up. The top 100 consists entirely of impossible scores in the multi-millions. I for one, would like to climb that leaderboard, but see no point when I realise that the maximum Superscore currently achievable, (an almost impossible 75,000 points) probably wouldn't get you a position close to the top 100. Please address this issue Zen, that particular leaderboard is in ruins.
I don't know what you are seeing but as far as I can see there is only the two suspect scores at the top of the regular superscore leaderboard previously mentioned and the classic superscore leaderboard looks fine. Without them two scores I would be top and my score is totally legit. I am on Xbox One.
I have no idea how that superscore works. I have like 5 number 1's and another 10 in the top 5 and I only have 11 thousand superscore ranked like 7400th. lol
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
I've told you how it works lol. You first need to play all the tables. If there's 75 the max score you can get is 75,000. Any score over that are not legit. If you placed in the top 5 on all tables you would be looking at around 74,900 to 74,980 or so. We cant see PS4 so I'm gping to take a wild guess that a lot of scores are coming from there. As a Switch user I only see 2 scores like DepecheM101 said that need to be removed.
Ok, thats the reason. I only play about 7 tables religiously and many of my number 1's are on the same tables in different modes. No big. I just play for fun anyway.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
Ah, I'm on PS4. The top 100 is absolutely horrible, full of bogus scores. The top 100 in Classic Superscore is completely legit...for now.
You can divide cheaters into subspecies…
There are the one time only cheaters. They don’t care about the game. They install it once, set a few fake scores and leave the game behind. I guess they do it because they can.
There are the kiddies. (If there’s a free table, level, whatever in a game, you’re bound to find them there.) For them, playing the game is just as much fun as cheating the game. I guess their motive is just teenage kicks
You can’t stop the above cheaters unless you have a VAC ban system in place. The best thing you can do as a dev is keep a close eye on the boards and do a thorough clean-up every 6 months or so.
And then there are the likes of kthula666, Ardenwolfe and !!!!!!
IRL, they’re the kind of guys that wear socks in their pants to impress. They just love to see their names up there. Both for themselves and for others to see. I guess it makes them feel special while it’s just sad & silly.
However, these kind of cheaters infect the leaderboards to such a degree that players don’t bother with tables anymore because they know the top spots are unreachable anyway.
IMO. A dev carries the responsibility towards its customer base to remove these cheaters as quickly as possible. The moment they are ‘unmasked’ basically. Which in this case, they sure are.
Last edited by MuddyWolf_Beta; 05-21-2018 at 10:09 PM. Reason: water
Amen.You can divide cheaters into subspecies…
There are the one time only cheaters. They don’t care about the game. They install it once, set a few fake scores and leave the game behind. I guess they do it because they can.
There are the kiddies. (If there’s a free table, level, whatever in a game, you’re bound to find them there.) For them, playing the game is just as much fun as cheating the game. I guess their motive is just teenage kicks
You can’t stop the above cheaters unless you have a VAC ban system in place. The best thing you can do as a dev is keep a close eye on the boards and do a thorough clean-up every 6 months or so.
And then there are the likes of kthula666, Ardenwolfe and !!!!!!
IRL, they’re the kind of guys that wear socks in their pants to impress. They just love to see their names up there. Both for themselves and for others to see. I guess it makes them feel special while it’s just sad & silly.
However, these kind of cheaters infect the leaderboards to such a degree that players don’t bother with tables anymore because they know the top spots are unreachable anyway.
IMO. A dev carries the responsibility towards its customer base to remove these cheaters as quickly as possible. The moment they are ‘unmasked’ basically. Which in this case, they sure are.
Knowing that hack tools are booming and it's easy to do, the best thing for all, players and developers, would be an anti-cheating system that monitorize changes in the process executed on the client machine.
Of course it would generate more traffic on the servers, but with a system that every minute or two would perform checks, it could prevent the damage what cheaters makes.
Really, it's so easy that even someone stupid enough to invent a score with a round number (like 400,000,000) is able to use the right programs...
Hello again,
It’s been almost a month since I started this thread and almost four months since gaz5021 reported these 3 cheaters for the first time.
It’s so obvious they are cheating, is there a reason you don’t want to remove their scores?
Do the server managers have doubts and suspect our reports are fake?
I don’t understand.
Could you please explain what’s going on.
Thanks!
Hey! Thanks for reporting this issue, we know about it. I will ask my colleagues what's going on with this.
@Chili
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
I hope they'll be removed soon.
Last edited by MuddyWolf_Beta; 06-12-2018 at 04:27 PM. Reason: water
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.
Proud member of the Hyna Gang! Keeping pinball alive on the Wii U!
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.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!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.You're my hero dude.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Last edited by Chili; 06-15-2018 at 03:11 PM.
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.
Last edited by Chili; 06-15-2018 at 03:16 PM.
Hey steven120566! Yes, we take it really seriously, it's a priority for us! We had a really long meeting about this.
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?
Is Zen not willing to answer my question, or not able to?
Arrgh! I had a 2nd place on one of the portal challenge modes behind one of these guys for ages and was waiting for him to be removed. Now someone else just took 2nd ahead of me. So if/when he gets banned, I'll have missed out on my little taste of 1st place. Awwww
Also if someone knows their fake score is going to stay up for more than 6 months before anyone even talks about doing anything, then it's hardly an incentive not to cheat, is it?
Yo, Zen! I noticed another 30B+ score appeared on Sorcerer's Lair the other day, but it's gone already. Someone's removing scores and there must be a good reason, going by Chili's comments about having to be totally certain before deleting scores from the server.
Zen have been constantly removing fake scores from the Singleplayer Wizard & Superscore leaderboards lately on PS4. I've noticed the same guy (who keeps cycling his name & level) having his ludicrous scores removed, then he rapidly replaces them with new ones. Glad to see Zen making a concerted effort to keep the leaderboards as clean as they possibly can, & I hope this continues to be the case. I pity these cheats, they're beyond pathetic & I'll never understand their mindset.
That's good news. I guess there are good reasons for Zen not wanting to discuss this in detail, too. As the developer, I'd be pretty pissed off with the shenanigans that have occurred on the leaderboards.
Mutifake Matchup is not Multiplayer ?
I would like to also point out that Zen is using fake scores. These Matchup scores are an impossible low. How to be under 1,100 on Shamen table ?
I had to try for a score under 1,100 and i didn't find a way.
I thought it was a multiplayer matchup. Are the players fake too?
Perhaps do a weak plunger shot, then tilt? (just a guess.) I hope Zen fix this mode, players are rewarded for keeping their scores very low, allowing unskilled participants to rake in 55 pts per game using this strategy...it urgently needs a rethink!
Hey guys! Thanks for reporting those issues. We appreciate it! I will inform our developers about it! This information is very important for us! Have a nice day!
FYI Ardenwolfe has ruined another leaderboard (Alien vs. Predator). I'm not sure which platform Ardenwolfe is on. They are visible on Switch, but not on Switch themselves (I doubt anyone would bother to "hack" the Switch for posting pinball scores).
I thought I’d recognized the name Kthula from PBFX2 days so I didn’t question it but when I look at all their scores, they have a flat score on every table. No coincidence would you have flat scores on every table.
Zen have deleted a my friend's high scores on Skyrim!!! He is the best in the world and definitely a real person. His xbox name is TheHatchet18. Can anyone from Zen help?
Interesting, I thought he was real as well but Zen might know more then we do. After all they said they are taking this seriously and only removing scores they 100% know are fake.
This is intriguing.
I haven’t been playing much lately but I just noticed Ardenwolfe has also destroyed The Force Awakens.
1 ball challenge: 798.000.000
5 minute challenge: 236.000.000
Survival: 357.000.000
Normal challenge: 3,436 Billion
All are number one ‘scores’.
Six weeks after turning the cheaters into a priority and Zen still haven’t managed to get rid of the three big ones. Instead, they are gaining ground.
How embarrassing...
Hey Guys!
First of all, thanks for your patience!
We could see lots of statistics about the players you were complaining about: Ardenwolfe, kthula666 and !!!!!!, we were also able to see more helpful information about their gaming style and scores. Our biggest concern is that what they actually do during the game is totally normal, we couldn't find any unusual strategy, steps or tricks. The only thing which is extremely strange is their zero ended scores, what you guys also mentioned. It's fair enough to say that it is almost impossible and not realistic to have scores which always end with zeros.
However we haven't found their "trick" yet, how they actually do the score cheating, we are not able to officially prove it.
Our Lead Developer created a whole new team who will work on this case exclusively, and that's not everything: we are also planning to develop our whole "Anti-Cheat System", but it definitely takes more time to make a visible progress.
We would like you to know that we are absolutely aware of this cheating issue's importance. Our whole team, also my Community Manager, Ákos and myself are daily pushing the progress, and trying to get every information what we can communicate for our players' community.
It's not just a problem for us which we have to solve, we are seeing it as a moral issue in our community. For us it's an emotional mission.
I personally feel upset about it, because you guys have been supporting us for so long and we would like to have a game which can provide fair circumstances, where you are able to enjoy the competition without experiencing these kind of unfair situations.
So, just to make it clear for you guys: At the moment we are not able to ban these mentioned users yet, because we still want to observe their behavior. However when we find out how they have these unusual scores we will take the necessary steps, I personally will take care of this.
We highly appreciate your support and your passion for our game.
Again: thanks for your patience guys, we know how it feels waiting for so long to see any progress, and we are truly thankful for you!
Chili
Last edited by Chili; 08-01-2018 at 09:19 AM.
I personally appreciate your response, & thank you guys for taking the steps to ensure the cheating doesn't go unchecked. The problem is that whether you know how they're doing it or not, you can still clearly see that they're cheating, & their scores should be wiped, & a ban enforced. These aren't borderline cases, they're clear cut.Hey Guys!
First of all, thanks for your patience!
We could see lots of statistics about the players you were complaining about: Ardenwolfe, kthula666 and !!!!!!, we were also able to see more helpful information about their gaming style and scores. Our biggest concern is that what they actually do during the game is totally normal, we couldn't find any unusual strategy, steps or tricks. The only thing which is extremely strange is their zero ended scores, what you guys also mentioned. It's fair enough to say that it is almost impossible and not realistic to have scores which always end with zeros.
However we haven't found their "trick" yet, how they actually do the score cheating, we are not able to officially prove it.
Our Lead Developer created a whole new team who will work on this case exclusively, and that's not everything: we are also planning to develop our whole "Anti-Cheat System", but it definitely takes more time to make a visible progress.
We would like you to know that we are absolutely aware of this cheating issue's importance. Our whole team, also my Community Manager, Ákos and myself are daily pushing the progress, and trying to get every information what we can communicate for our players' community.
It's not just a problem for us which we have to solve, we are seeing it as a moral issue in our community. For us it's an emotional mission.
I personally feel upset about it, because you guys have been supporting us for so long and we would like to have a game which can provide fair circumstances, where you are able to enjoy the competition without experiencing these kind of unfair situations.
So, just to make it clear for you guys: At the moment we are not able to ban these mentioned users yet, because we still want to observe their behavior. However when we find out how they have these unusual scores we will take the necessary steps, I personally will take care of this.
We highly appreciate your support and your passion for our game.
Again: thanks for your patience guys, we know how it feels waiting for so long to see any progress, and we are truly thankful for you!
Chili
Although I can appreciate that your team is dedicated to investigating the matter and has enough integrity to not just ban the aforementioned players based on the communities combined assumptions of guilt, delaying the removal of clearly questionable scores from the leaderboards hurts your company more than it hurts any of us. I can tell you, I have a number of number 1 scores and it garners me no celebrity or ingame swag whatsoever and being number 2 under a clearly suspicious score would lose me no sleep especially given that everyone on this board is aware of them, however this board and its members only comprise the smallest percentage of your online community and many who do not frequent this board and just see the clearly fake scores week after week, month after month and just think your company does not care. I mean the whole, "I got a number 1" and then checking the leaderboard every day to ensure its still there newness kind of wore off a long time ago for me, but for that guy who plays every day hours and hours to finally get one only to have some schmuck post a bogus score above him and looking at it for seemingly forever kind of sucks big time. If your not going to ban the players at least see that the scores are next to impossible to achieve and delete them so the leaderboards have some integrity and your customers who have supported your company since way before fx3 are assured that you are truly committed to them, otherwise, frankly, it just sounds like the same ol blah, blah, blah to me.
Last edited by cantankerous--; 08-01-2018 at 06:17 PM.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
I agree with all of this. Just because you don't know how they're doing doesn't mean they're not cheating. I do understand you want to know how but figure that out after you remove the scores. Like what was said we are the vocal minority and while most people probably don't care because they will never see the top 10 tons won't even bother after seeing the cheat scores.
Hey Guys!
Thanks for the feedback! As I mentioned in my previous post, the reason we don't want to delete the scores yet is because we would like to observe their behavior.
"It's fair enough to say that it is almost impossible and not realistic to have scores which always end with zeros." That means we are aware that it is not possible to have these kind of scores.
We would like to solve the problem in long-term, not just for now. We can only do this with a conscious strategy where we will find out how they actually do it.
We don't want this to happen again, so that's why it takes more time than expected.
Thanks for your patience again!
Chili
I really don't see the logic in your thinking. If you delete their scores and they never post another, that's a WIN for the community. If you delete their scores and they repost them, as I predict they will, then that's a WIN for Zen because you now have, I suspect at least, something in place to detect bogus scores and will then understand how it is being done. In either scenario removing the scores does nothing but benefit the community unless of course, you just have no way of detecting the submission of bogus scores. I am curious as to why, if they have this ability why they are posting such obvious fake scores and why they are only doing it to some tables and not others. I hold out the possibility that they are playing legitimately and some odd set up, computer configuration, network error thingy is rounding their scores while posting. If so, the scores are still bogus and need to be removed and if indeed the players are legitimately playing they will reach out to you wondering why????Hey Guys!
Thanks for the feedback! As I mentioned in my previous post, the reason we don't want to delete the scores yet is because we would like to observe their behavior.
"It's fair enough to say that it is almost impossible and not realistic to have scores which always end with zeros." That means we are aware that it is not possible to have these kind of scores.
We would like to solve the problem in long-term, not just for now. We can only do this with a conscious strategy where we will find out how they actually do it.
We don't want this to happen again, so that's why it takes more time than expected.
Thanks for your patience again!
Chili
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
I have edited what cantankerous said, but I agree. I am no world class player, but Tech and cantankerous have pretty compelling points and reasoning as to why they should probably be removed. Particularly the points of "just because you don't know howdoesn't mean cheating is not obvious" and the fact that if a legitimate score goes bye bye, if it was legit, well they will reach out to you.
You guys have built the best pinball game with the best back-end database in the world. Obviously, nobody could have programmed in every possible cheat path. But because it takes a commitment from these legitimately great players to get their scores in there... heck, I work my tail off just to be average. Because of the work of these legit great players, based on all the points made here, I think you probably should correct it by removing blatant cheating.
Last edited by steven120566; 08-02-2018 at 02:42 PM.
I don’t mind if the bogus scores stay up for a while longer, if it helps in the long-term. I am quite satisfied with Chili’s response, to be honest. I am really keen to hear more information as this develops. Obviously there is some secrecy that needs to maintained, I understand, but it’d be great if we could be kept updated with whatever Zen is happy to tell us.
My money is on the cheaters. Unlike Zen, they deliver.
Like I said previously, I can appreciate that Zen is committed to not banning the suspect players without proof of wrong doing or deliberate deception on their part. I mean, why on earth would anyone who has the ability to manipulate the scoreboards do so in such an obvious manner? Even those of you who are adamant that they are cheating must ask yourself this, so, at least to me, giving them the benefit of doubt until such time as undeniable proof exists is a good stance. Now, that being said there can be no question that the scores are not legit. I have played countless tables. Own every single one and been a supporter of Zen since the first release on PS3 and in all that time never once got a score that was all zeroes at the end............not once. The scores are not legit and frankly allowing them to remain when they are clearly not legit is a slap in the face to me and to all your other members who expect a level of integrity to the leaderboards and providing the explanation that you are continuing to investigate how it is being done is just not good enough. Sure, continue investigating, but do so after removing the fake scores. I personally see it as your obligation to me and all your customers to maintain the leaderboards and not take over 3 months to do so.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
It's funny, because they've clearly been removing unobtainable scores from the standard Superscore leaderboard on a near daily basis. B.s. scores go up, Zen take them back down almost as rapidly. I don't see what the issue is with Ardenwolfe, Kthula 666 etc. Also, I do firmly believe after months of blatant, unpunished cheating from these scrubs that it's time to brandish the ban hammer, otherwise, what deterrent is being implemented? Players can log outrageous, bogus scores & the worst that happens is they get removed. Other developers hand out bans for notorious cheats, Zen should be no different.
As far as I am aware, and I may very well be wrong, but I believe the entire Superscore debacle is a result of something on Zen's side of it and not as a result of anyone cheating, but your point that erroneous scores have been removed from one board and not another is well taken, and yes, unexplainable to me as well.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
I see what you are doing, and I kind of agree. You need to be able to observe what they are doing in order to create an automatic anti-cheat.Hey Guys!
Thanks for the feedback! As I mentioned in my previous post, the reason we don't want to delete the scores yet is because we would like to observe their behavior.
"It's fair enough to say that it is almost impossible and not realistic to have scores which always end with zeros." That means we are aware that it is not possible to have these kind of scores.
We would like to solve the problem in long-term, not just for now. We can only do this with a conscious strategy where we will find out how they actually do it.
We don't want this to happen again, so that's why it takes more time than expected.
Thanks for your patience again!
Chili
But one thought occured to me. If you remove their scores, you will probably goad them into posting new scores, meaning the chances of actually catching them in the act increases. As it is now, they already have the top scores, so why bother posting new scores?
I think you should just remove obvious fake scores, because in this case, they will only be posting more scores, which gives you more data to work with.
What sucks is I have beaten one or 2 of their scores and could probably beat them all but the fact Zen doesn't want to take them down doesn't really give me any motivation to try. I also have a feeling if the scores are taken down they wont repost then. If they were any good they would have scores on every table and just keep taking the number one spot but thats not the case. I almost have the feeling that if they repost the scores the scores will be the exact same numbers.
Props for beating any of their scores and good luck beating the rest, but that will change nothing for the honest members who are still below them in rankings. Bogus scores need to be removed no matter Zens motivation for not doing so. They owe it to you and me and every other member who plays honestly, and just for the sake of argument, let's just assume that these members are playing honestly and some sort of network witchcraft is to blame for the scores...................they still are bogus scores and need be deleted whether they be posted by them or you or me. Bogus scores always need to be removed.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
As far as your assertion that you could probably beat all of their scores. V12 awaits you Sir
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
Haven't even touched V12 yet lol. At least not on FX3. Had the number one on the Wii U but not sure if that still stands. I should go check those scores though just to see what I'm eventually dealing with.
IMO, Zen you should just remove the scores now and observe the situation. If it happens again, then look into it more. As it stands, this is just making you guys look lazy and makes me want to stop supporting you guys.
Part if my quest to take the cheaters down
https://twitter.com/cruston7/status/...634782208?s=19
Just a heads up Zen, we won't let this go. These players still need to be removed!!
Great job. Here is a pic of the same board on ps4.
JPsurvival.jpg
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
And here is another of the V12 table...................................go get em tiger
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
I love the way that !!!!!! was able to out-cheat Kthula666 on V12.And here is another of the V12 table...................................go get em tiger
You look at it and you got to, at least IMO ask yourself the obvious question. If a person has some ability to just randomly post a number which apparently must only have 000000's at the end why post 47 mill like ardenwolfe when you could post 475 mill like !!!!!! or why not just 999 billion? They are all on steam. Also, Zen apparently has the ability to check the scores in some way where they state show nothing to conclude, other than the score that cheating occurred. I highly suspect, or at least concede the possibility that something related to their set ups is mucking up the scores during posting. I mean, let's just assume for a moment that these are several individuals who have this secret technique that allows them to post bogus scores. These are people who have no issue whatsoever, morally with deceiving the entire Zen community, yet in most examples where several of these suspected cheaters have posted on the same board they tend to fall similarly to what you see above with !!!!!!! being better than Kthula666 and him being better than Ardenwolfe. Why, unless they are actually playing would this ever occur? Why wouldnt they just continue one upping the other?I love the way that !!!!!! was able to out-cheat Kthula666 on V12.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
I honestly can't answer that confidently, being as I know nothing about hacking. From my largely uneducated viewpoint though, I'd suggest that they're hackers who possibly want everyone to see the leaderboards are a mess, just for the fun of trolling Zen & the community. I've played many other games where leaderboards have, over time, become an absolute garbage can of blatantly phoney stats/scores, & the only reason I can think of is that the hackers involved enjoy getting a rise out of both the legitimate community members & the devs.
Well, maybe it's just my ego or maybe it's just the mindset of most who play pinball, but I think if I were Ardenwolfe and I could post bogus scores I would want to be on the top of the leaderboard and not below !!!!!!!! on most every board where they both post together, but whatever, maybe one day we will find out what is happening.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
On the V12 leaderboard screenshot you provided, see how Ardenwolfe posted a score of 47,000,000. He probably did that to sneak past the previous record holder (benne-rule9). Then, 3 more legit players toppled his fake score, before kthula666 & !!!!!! weighed in. Now, there's no way of me proving this, but I think there's a strong possibility that Kthula666 posted a score, followed by !!!!!!. If that's the case, each of these cheaters has outdone the last sequentially. It seems likely to me that they're just having fun topping each other's fake scores & besmirching the top of the leaderboards at will, with whatever outlandish scores that randomly come into their little brains. The single player superscore & wizard score leaderboards are being attacked on a daily basis too, with the top 3 scores in each being artificial. Pretty certain (not enough to place a substantial bet though) that this is yet further proof of hacking, the only difference being that Zen (in their great wisdom) choose to keep wiping the fake scores from those leaderboards each day, & don't see fit to explain just as to why in this thread.
It's also worth considering that all three of these notorious cheat accounts might be owned by the same person...just an afterthought.
How did Unique escape the heading here anyways? I just realized when I posted that tweet he wasn't
Anyways, I think they have found a way to manipulate the scoring for each shot. In pretty sure they have reset each shot to be 100k or even 1 million. That would make bumper shots, lane shots, and any type of scoring all zeros with a 1 in front.
Oh and I'm not ready for V 12 lol
https://twitter.com/gaz5021_/status/...402737665?s=21
In your face, cheaters. Double bonus - maybe they’ll post another fake score. Here you go, Zen. See what happens.
Last edited by gaz5021; 08-12-2018 at 02:35 PM.
It's sad that we have to resort to doing this on our own to bump these scores down the leader boards. Tell your buddy (Gaz) that I said excellent work!
I’ve told him myself in much more colourful language
If I were a betting man.....
Very keen to hear any news or updates about this issue.
I second that!
One Suggestion to address this is to implement a Replay feature so the whole game is recorded. When posting to leaderboards the replay file is mandatory.
This way every score can be reviewed and you will have no doubt if it's a correct score or a cheater.
Shmups used them for a long time, can't see why Pinball games can't have it.
They could of/should of just recognized that the scores with all ending in 000,000 near impossible to achieve and then remove them. If indeed the bogus scores were somehow, against all odds legitimately achieved, leave it up to those who posted them to contact Zen with reasonable explenations. This is what should have occurred. Implementing a complex recording system wherein many of the elite players post scores that took 10's of hours to achieve seems costly, especially given all that would need to be done to satisfy most is to just remove the fn scores, that are clearly bogus.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
Unfortunately, cheats are possible in almost all games. It's sad that today some people just want to feel good by annoying others and ruining their gaming experience.
In EA's FIFA there are cheats that let you enter any number of goals and make you win automatically. How? The result of a game is on your computer first, then sent to servers. In order to avoid that everything must be server-based...and you shouldn't be able to hack scores on your computer. I stopped spending money on FIFA because of cheaters in every second of third game.
The same cheats might be possible for FX3. I searched a bit and there are some search results and Youtube videos.
http://fearlessrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?t=7329
I don't know if such cheats work though...but they are there.
Maybe Zen should search a bit and find out how they cheat.
I'm not even concerned if they are cheating or not. The scores are obviously not legit and need to be removed.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
does this happen also on consoles,can someone fake a score on one of the ps3/4/360/xone tables? or is this only a pc steam thing?
It's possible on all versions. The screen shots posted above are from the Switch and PS4 versions of the game.
Actually, the servers that store the data for the leaderboards is not on any system and the scores posted here have, to my knowledge all been people on computer using steam. As far as posting bogus scores from, "The Systems" I have no knowledge of that occurring, but suspect since the switch has been cracked it is more susceptible than others.
Accomplishments in real life
1. Rolled a star wars machine................ie played over 99 levels and rolled it back to level 1.
2. Rolled Nintendo punch out, several times, same quarter.
3. Played an entire game of dragons lair and completed it and won while blindfolded.
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