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Report (google play)

freeGidna

Member
Hello. I would like to know if the administration of your portal reacts to the reports at all? Three weeks ago I sent a report on an arrogant cheater and zero reaction. He continues to cheat without even trying to hide game hacks and achievements. At least two players in your top50 google play table are cheaters. Moreover, they are so arrogant that even beginners will be able to understand that they are a cheater. If you need help to ban these players, I can re-send the report and supplement it. But if you don't care about cheating on your leaderboard, say so. There is no point in checking and collecting evidence if you don't need it. Thank you for the attention.
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
Yes, we spend several hours a week handling the reports. Nearly all involve PSN/Xbox/Steam though, so this may have gone overlooked, sorry. The report you sent in has been handled now.

It helps to add what's actually wrong with the unlocks (impossible to complete in a certain amount of time, out of order achievements, etc). Otherwise we may leave those reports sitting until we have time to investigate further. We get a lot of bogus reports too so have to be careful.
 

TiagoDapper

Member
I hope you always keep in mind that Google Play in terms of achievement is unbelievably broken. Thus, achievements that do not fall at the time or fall after several together being because it fell after you logged out and logged in again, or then you played without being connected to google play and then connected, then everything you've done falls away (this in some games). I think this platform is the hardest to get cheaters out of.
 

freeGidna

Member
Yes, we spend several hours a week handling the reports. Nearly all involve PSN/Xbox/Steam though, so this may have gone overlooked, sorry. The report you sent in has been handled now.

It helps to add what's actually wrong with the unlocks (impossible to complete in a certain amount of time, out of order achievements, etc). Otherwise we may leave those reports sitting until we have time to investigate further. We get a lot of bogus reports too so have to be careful.
Thanks for the detailed answer and your reaction. I see that the cheater has disappeared from the toptable. I'm guided by the "cheater removed" indicator, but the number "2" remains there. I am very surprised by the statistics of 2 cheaters out of 30,000 players. I've been playing google play for several years. In recent months, I began to study in more detail the mechanics of achievements and the platform itself as a whole. But is it really as difficult to prove cheating on google play as TiagoDipper described it? Or is everyone on this platform already accustomed to cheaters and not paying attention to them?
P.S. I adore your portal and appreciate your work.
 

TiagoDapper

Member
Thanks for the detailed answer and your reaction. I see that the cheater has disappeared from the toptable. I'm guided by the "cheater removed" indicator, but the number "2" remains there. I am very surprised by the statistics of 2 cheaters out of 30,000 players. I've been playing google play for several years. In recent months, I began to study in more detail the mechanics of achievements and the platform itself as a whole. But is it really as difficult to prove cheating on google play as TiagoDipper described it? Or is everyone on this platform already accustomed to cheaters and not paying attention to them?
P.S. I adore your portal and appreciate your work.
Obviously there are users who can clearly see the use of cheating, like, there's one of the top 50 that I didn't notice whether or not it was removed that played all games in 1 day or a little more, being long/hard games and still being games well done that is, there are no broken achievements as I mentioned before.

Now if you've never had a problem with achievements using Google's platform, I find it surprising. Because there are a lot of broken games, which goes from the achievement not falling or the game does not log into the google play account even if it is configured to automatically login, so you are forced to find something from google play inside the game and if you don't have it, there is to keep leaving and entering the game until you find it.

There is also the issue of Google Play only turning on the internet when the internet is online, that is, if you want to play away from home and do a question even sometimes by accident, when you connect to the internet (when you arrive at home) the achievement will drop. as soon as you log into google play (this in some games), that is, if you make 2 achievements away from home, you will fall with it. Did you understand why it is more complex than other platforms?
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
Thanks for the detailed answer and your reaction. I see that the cheater has disappeared from the toptable. I'm guided by the "cheater removed" indicator, but the number "2" remains there. I am very surprised by the statistics of 2 cheaters out of 30,000 players. I've been playing google play for several years. In recent months, I began to study in more detail the mechanics of achievements and the platform itself as a whole. But is it really as difficult to prove cheating on google play as TiagoDipper described it? Or is everyone on this platform already accustomed to cheaters and not paying attention to them?
P.S. I adore your portal and appreciate your work.
Thanks. The counts on the leaderboard are only updated once a day that's why, it has changed to 3 now.

I agree with @TiagoDapper it can be difficult to prove cheating. Same goes for Steam since you can be offline and timestamps aren't very useful in that case, unless the game has online-only achievements. What we tend to look for is that there's a consistent pattern of suspicious unlocks and also if they earned any achievements that were unobtainable. But we lack a lot of data on which achievements are unobtainable on Google Play, compared to the likes of PSN/Xbox/Steam.
 

NoahG59

Member
But we lack a lot of data on which achievements are unobtainable on Google Play, compared to the likes of PSN/Xbox/Steam.
This is an extremely hard thing due to the rapid updates and suspended developer accounts. On Google you can get your account reinstated fairly easy compared to other platforms such as Steam. Because of this, you can't really mark achievements as unobtainable permanently unless the developer shows signs of not being willing to fix it. There is also the issue of achievement dates being incorrect due to the offline/online sync and because of server lag of some games. I have earned dozens of achievements in the same minute because I forgot to log into a game once until I almost beat it. These make it extremely hard to verify someone is cheating...
 

TiagoDapper

Member
Thanks. The counts on the leaderboard are only updated once a day that's why, it has changed to 3 now.

I agree with @TiagoDapper it can be difficult to prove cheating. Same goes for Steam since you can be offline and timestamps aren't very useful in that case, unless the game has online-only achievements. What we tend to look for is that there's a consistent pattern of suspicious unlocks and also if they earned any achievements that were unobtainable. But we lack a lot of data on which achievements are unobtainable on Google Play, compared to the likes of PSN/Xbox/Steam.
You don't think that those people who were put down as "cheats" that one was put in is because they were certainly analyzed and seen as wrong. But shouldn't these people also leave the Games Leaderboard? Because like, if the person cheated and was proven, then he doesn't deserve to appear in the game he finished, much less if he's the pioneer.


And wouldn't you find it interesting to have a part of the user's profile showing the games that he managed to be the first to make all of his achievements? or something like that?🤔
 

YouGotHitByGunner

Enforcer
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
I hope you always keep in mind that Google Play in terms of achievement is unbelievably broken. Thus, achievements that do not fall at the time or fall after several together being because it fell after you logged out and logged in again, or then you played without being connected to google play and then connected, then everything you've done falls away (this in some games). I think this platform is the hardest to get cheaters out of.

That is very true. And that's why we need to do a very thorough investigation, which takes a lot of time per profile. And you also need to keep in mind that this is a volunteer position, and we have a big number of platforms to look into, and lots of reports sent from people. Our team is small, to begin with.

I remember how I played Injustice 2 on my phone, and the internet disconnected while I went on a walk. I didn't notice that and I kept playing multiplayer matches. Later I find that my Google Play Games profile was turned off from the game (because of the earlier internet disconnection). When I connected it, I had lots of 'Level Up' achievements that popped up with the same timestamp. And we're talking about a multiplayer game here. There are thousands of games like that on Android, which makes it hard to distinguish real completions from actually cheated ones. In my opinion, it's the hardest platform to moderate from them all. And it's very possible that Steam is gonna turn harder to moderate too after the Steam Deck releases and people are gonna play while on the go. Bugs/false positives can happen when the internet connection is not stable.

It also doesn't help that some of the reports are very vague, all they say is 'this person is a cheater', or 'he used SAM', and don't give any game examples, or why he's suspecting him, and I have to do a deep investigation in that profile, which tends to happen very often.
 
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Somfing

Active Member
More than a week ago I reported about these two cheaters, but they are still on the google play leaderboard. It is enough to go to their profiles and click on any completed game (Sleepy Circle Pong for example) to see that all achievements have the same time. Nobody seems to care.


 

YouGotHitByGunner

Enforcer
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
Your reports for these two profiles didn't give us enough information. Select at least 3 games from each of them, and tell us why you think they're impossible.

'click on any completed game to see that all achievements have the same time' is not a good enough evidence that someone's cheating when we're talking about Android. If you lose your internet connection, you can end up having multiple of the achievements popped with a duplicate timestamp. And since Android is meant for 'on-the-go' gaming, that can happen a lot.
 

Somfing

Active Member
Your reports for these two profiles didn't give us enough information. Select at least 3 games from each of them, and tell us why you think they're impossible.
Sure.
click on any completed game to see that all achievements have the same time' is not a good enough evidence that someone's cheating when we're talking about Android. I
I hope after I provide enough evidence you will interrogate them, take fingerprints, semen samples and their guilt will be proven.
If you lose your internet connection, you can end up having multiple of the achievements popped with a duplicate timestamp. And since Android is meant for 'on-the-go' gaming, that can happen a lot.
Yeah, that happens a lot... a lot, man... Just all the time. Everybody is playing in the metro, i'm telling you. Especially those who are at the top of the leaderboard.
 

YouGotHitByGunner

Enforcer
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
We operate on a 'you're innocent until proven guilty' system. If you can provide us with hard evidence that proves they're guilty, we'll happily remove them from the leaderboard. Saying that they're cheaters, without evidence to back that up doesn't help us towards that goal. Also, please keep in mind that there's only so much testing and investigation a small team of volunteers can do in a week. We want to have the leaderboards free of cheaters as much as you do, but we also don't want anybody who may be innocent to get marked.
 
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