Overwatch got an update yesterday. The biggest addition was a new control map on the test server where you can play in traffic. However, a major wave of bans came alongside the update as well, with some players complaining that it seems to have caught previously undetectable cheat programs.
Pictured: A cheating cheater who cheats.
A post on the official Overwatch forums contains statements from dozens of players claiming that they have been banned for using illicit hacks. Blizzard has cracked down on thousands of cheaters before, but this round of bans has apparently grabbed cheaters using programs that boast of their ability to remain untraceable.
“I literally ran the hack one time,” a poster on a major cheat forum wrote. “People told me that the hack is undetected.”
“I’m going to sue Blizzard,” another proposed after learning that they were banned. Good luck with that, I say.
Among these cheats is a program called Highnoon. It contains an aimbot, the ability to disable recoil and a script for bunnyhopping your way around the battlefield. Users of Highnoon have reported being banned as quickly as a day after using the program. Despite these reports, moderators on the program’s forums assured players that the cheat remains under Blizzard’s radar.
Highnoon is a private, purchasable cheat program. Many users report being banned after this latest update.
Overjoint is a public aimbot that seems to have been caught as well. Players report testing the bot in the game’s practice range only to receive a swift ban. Other cheaters took precautions to use low settings in the hope of avoiding detection with no luck.
Despite this, banned players don’t seem deterred. Many plan to repurchase the game from different countries at a low price and leap right back into the fray.
Cheaters appear split on exactly how they are being detected. Stinkyjoint, one of the minds behind Overjoint and Highnoon, took to forums suggesting that Blizzard was detecting specific executables upon launching the game.
Many players using “undetectable” hacks have, in fact, been detected.
There’s a few other theories floating about at the moment. Bans based on multiple player reports seem common, and some cheat forum moderators hypothesise that manual bans have been handed out based on suspicious player stats.
Kotaku has received the following statement from Blizzard:
We take cheating very seriously. “Play nice; play fair” is one of our core values, and cheating undermines the spirit of fair play that all of our games are based on. Though we can’t get into the specifics on these bans, we are constantly working to improve our anti-cheating and anti-hacking measures to make sure Overwatch continues to provide a fun and fair multiplayer experience for our players.
We continually monitor Overwatch for exploitative behavior, as well as take action as needed to preserve the integrity of game, and yesterday’s bans were a part of that ongoing process.
If anything, it seems like some of the more popular and easily accessible hackers and cheaters are finally getting detected after such widespread use of easily accessible programs.
Except Sombra. She remains at large. Wait. o͟h͟ n͟oͩ͟͟ s͋͟͟h̉͟͟e͟’͖͟͟s͟ h͟a᷊᷃͟͟͟c̰̽͟͟͟k͟e͟d͟ m͟e͟…..
Comments
29 responses to “Overwatch Cheaters Thought They Were Using Undetectable Cheats, But Got Banned Anyway”
“I only ran the hack one time!”
Even if that were a viable excuse, which it fucking isn’t, you cheating piece of shit, it’s probably not even true. Who goes to the effort of tracking down an untraceable hack, runs it once, then decides he doesn’t want to cheat? A very, very small pool of people, I imagine.
Don’t forget that a lot of these cheating hacks cost money, too.
Once a cheat, always a cheat.
honestly don’t understand the mentality of cheaters. i don’t get the point of it. you aren’t good at the game if you have to use cheats.
are you that obsessed you really want to cheat to make yourself look good?
http://kotaku.com/5919160/one-shot-one-kill-no-skill-why-a-regular-gamer-started-paying-to-cheat-at-video-games
This was a god article showing the cheater’s POV
Maybe he should have sought therapy for his anger issues instead of using hacking as a release. It may sound extreme but I think hacking in video games is verging on par with being a bully in an elementary school yard, probably indicative of actual issues that can’t be solved by refusing to lose a “game” being played fairly by others because your real world stinks so much.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with cheats and hacks in games. Sometimes it’s fun to feel stupidly overwpowered. However, the idea of ruining the game for another player (let alone another 11 players) is just straight out shitty.
Given the lack of empathy some people show to others over the Internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these people simply don’t distinguish between cheating in a single player game and cheating in a multi-player game.
Yeah. Single-player I endorse cheating as a way to get around bullshit stunts that developers pull that disrespect your time.
But competing against other people? Entirely different story.
Eh, just stick them all in the same server and ban them from competitive. If everyone has an aimbot, it would get frustrating real quick. =P
Wasn’t there some other game that secretly put all cheaters and assholes onto their own server to play against each other? I think that’s a pretty good idea.
So general server, cheating server and toxic server. Sounds good to me!
GTA V has a “cheater/griefer” server from memory.
Yeah Darksouls3 did it I am sure
Max Payne 3 did it.
I think it was Street fighter 5 had a server for people who would quit the game so they didn’t loose a match.
And make it mystery hero spawn. Just sometimes. Not all the time. Just to fuck with them.
How about a rare chance they spontaneously combust?
Hackers weapons now heal enemies instead of damaging them.
Didn’t think I felt emotions much anymore but reading the sad posts of hackers who feel like they have been cheated by Blizzard has already made my day. Good job Blizzard!
I think @scree’s idea is a good start, but I’d actually prefer if they ran a separate “competitive” mode where all the cheaters think they’re in the same games as everyone else, but they’re actually only ever in lobbies with other cheaters.
Just shift the cheaters from the genuine servers to the cheater ones without telling anyone at all. Let them think they’re doing well, but rig the scoring and games matching using an algorithm so that they all appear to be in ELO hell (any time they win more than twice, put them in a game with much higher skilled/cheater opponents so they lose, then strip them of heaps of points).
Use hardware signatures so that every account run on that system goes into the cheater pool, too. That way they don’t ever try to rejoin the general populace because they’re unaware they’ve been segregated. If anything, they’ll probably get frustrated with the game and quit citing that it’s “unfair” and “broken”.
If anyone’s in a group with a cheater, they can all play in the cheater pool. The non-cheaters can play in the legit pool as soon as they’re not in the same party as a cheater.
So much effort. Simply ban them and be done with it.
But it’s so devious.
That doesn’t work. You ban them, they buy another account and then BAM they’re back to ruining it for everyone. My way means that they play with a decoy until they move on to something else. They don’t try to ruin the fun for all the real players because they don’t know they’re not playing against them.
Waiting for yet another DDOS on Blizzard servers/IPs they use …
When Blizzard created Warden for World of Warcraft it has been watching and monitiring player controls for over 12 years… looking at macros and bots and code interferance. It keeps logs and they can review those logs once they determine a new method of hack. Each control program has a signature from the way it sets up running paths for resource nodes in wow or the build order it chooses to implement a zerg rush in Starcraft. When you have millions of players and a percentage of them seem to have a rather predictable movement or reaction trigger to things they can be parsed.
Blizz also has a team that monitors gaming streams, review player reports and forums to investigate, and they also download and test all those hacks to figure out how they work… so they can break them.
Hack being undetectable is impossible if it can be downloaded and observed by a blizzard engineer on a private server 😛
good stuff. These children need to be slapped down.
In a world plagued with god-awful news every single day, this is a shining beacon of hope. No joke, tears of absolute joy – keep it coming!