I'd listen to this one. He keeps sending me challenges that are busting my hump trying to equal never mind beat.
I know what you mean for regular Tokyo-- you want to take the shortcut that has a series of jumps over the parking garage or construction site or whatever it is. But I am talking about Tokyo reverse, the current Ferrari 599xx tournament. When I go left at the robot on the reverse track, I go up the stairs under the temple, which is on the outside of the track. I don't think that's any faster than staying on the inside (Tokyo reverse is right-handed). It seems like all the shortcuts for regular Tokyo are blocked off on the reverse track. I've been looking at the map as I drive through.
In my previous posts I've talked about how we work on getting hackers out in waves. If there are currently hackers in high positions then they haven't been dealt with yet, but we will deal with them before the tournament ends. Again, it's just something I've talked about a lot recently so I probably should just get some copy+paste combo to address it each time haha.
Yeah, that's what my gut feeling says as well. But I see a lot of people that drift significantly more than you and I do, and I keep wondering why. Maybe they just enjoy drifting. As for the cheaters, I don't think Gameloft weeds out all of them in cups, because they can't. Differentiating between a bad cheater and a good legit racer is hard. From what I've seen so far, they usually remove the blatantly obvious ones (think: a few racers who are 20 seconds ahead of everyone else), but where do you make the cut when you don't have the means to directly detect cheats? Please correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan, but I am under the impression that all you guys can do at the moment is look at the times and evaluate whether they're realistic. Statistics, basically. But if a huge percentage of the participants is cheating, statistics won't help you. And even if you got all of them after the cup ended, what fun is it to participate and spend in-app currency (or god forbid, real money) if you never know where you stand? After all, we don't know if you're going to ban 10 or 1,000 participants. I broke my own rule and tried that cup after reading Shmoopy's post, by the way. And I agree with him: I don't buy a single one of those top 100 times, just like I haven't in the last few cups. I think it would be incredibly hard to get below 2:10 (my first and only run was 2:14:036, but it wasn't perfect, so I'm guessing that I could get to 2:12 with a lot of practice)— anything below 2:00, however, is pure fiction. Habakuk's suggestion to record and upload races would solve all these problems, but Gameloft's servers probably wouldn't like that. Besides, someone would have to watch those videos, and they'd probably want to get paid for that.
Agree completely with Running Bird. Anything below 2:10 or so is probably impossible. Everyone below 2 minutes is without a doubt a cheater. Everyone in the top 100 is a blatant dumb dumb. (That last part is just me talking)
I think it is possible to catch cheaters mathematically. You can't just compare scores though. What you could do is this: Use a computer to find the shortest possible path through a level. Distance is rate times time. Divide the shortest possible path by a given time. If you get an average speed higher than the car's top speed plus nitro, then you found a cheater. And that is being generous, because it is assuming you have nitro the whole way through. You could be more precise about suspicious average speeds by taking into account available nitro pickups, jumps, etc. Heck, you could even just let a computer do the race over and over. Maybe tweak the AI into never making a single mistake, then let it run a couple thousand times. Should give you a decent benchmark for possible lap times.
Well that would be a very close representation of one of the methods they do use anyway. There are variables to it but you're pretty close in the methods and what they'd determine. Of course, there's a problem with that method in that it only determines a threshold and the elimination of people within that threshold, ie the dumb dumbs as scrotally accurately describes them. Plus in order to follow terms and conditions, mods have to be detected (and are for the most part detectable), but that involves checking each individual account which is extraordinarily time consuming. Its a real bag of cats. Any of the clever ones that are not reported are harder to catch. They can, as I already said, determine if a person is using hacks by checking their account data but this is of course the long way round. It makes reporting of hackers much more important so whatever anybody does, report ones you come across or any suspicious activity using the in game customer care option. It's very important. Don't over do it because you know yourself, checking non hackers would be time better spent banning hackers, but if someone seems suspicious or your convinced is hacking, report away mad. It is the most reliable way of removing them.
Flattering but most of them are probably due to higher ranked and boosted cars. If our cars are evenly matched I bet we're pretty even. Thanks though.
That wouldn't help much. The most popular cheat is infinite nitro, after all. But simulating nitro availability is tricky: There are tracks where I usually win in multiplayer because I spin where nobody else spins, then knock nominally faster cars out with the additional nitro. And if you get the angle just right and use nitro going in, you might get one more spin than others, resulting in more nitro. Can the game's AI simulate that? Come to think of it, do AI cars ever spin? I can't remember right now. In other words, I guess I agree with you guys: It's probably easy to eliminate cheaters who go faster than infinite nitro would let you go with a given car's specs. But those dumb dumb cheaters are just the (rather hilarious) tip of the iceberg. I don't think that they are usually the ones who keep you from winning a car in a cup — they just keep you out of the top 100 (or 500, perhaps). Oooh, that's interesting! I must have missed that. How do you know? And how would they do that? Does the account data include driving statistics and/or checksums for the binary and other possibly affected local files on my device?
Well just about every app on the App Store sends some form of data. It's how all the analytics and usage numbers are calculated. Gamecenter achievements, cloud saving and other obvious elements are included. Multiplayer games in particular obviously send a bit more data because they need it for the match ups and what have ya and then servers store match logs to a certain degree as well. That's why its a bit easier to determine if someone hacks in multiplayer. The tournaments are basically offline but have an online based element as well. For example, they don't show up if you're device is offline. So they have an element of data sending and receiving too. Just to clear though, it wouldn't be personal data. It would just be binaries (short version) linked to car stats, save points and anything else tied to the online element for cloud storage or for accessing multiplayer and match making that would be linked to your individual Gamecenter id in the case of this game and others of its type. And obviously built there is a modification detection system on the app and the server side. Of course with any detection system like that, them giving details would only make it easier for hackers so the exact details wouldn't be public. And of course, if hackers hack, they try and bypass any detection system. It worked for them in early versions but the hackers have very little success in the current version. And I know there still seems to be some there in multiplayer but some hackers are cleverer than others and the tournament system sends much less data at the moment so that's why they are having some success there. But the tournaments are being tightened up even more by putting an extra layer on the server side. But as with all things, it takes time and is best not rushed out so that genuine players don't get caught in the trap as well. It does make the reporting system more important because when they have a player hacking that isn't detected, a report will eventually lead to discovery of their particular hack and detection blocking method and then that is added to the blocking list which has a knock on effect of blocking all using that same method. And just to very clear for those concerned , it's not personal data or anything unrelated to the game self or its files, it's just the normal thing that's the same for anything with a multiplayer match making or any online element. Just with a key layer of security for modification detection and tiny amounts of data for cloud synching.
There are other things we do on our end to validate times. I can't go in to detail about them for obvious reasons, but just looking at times isn't everything.
Hopefully i get this car tomorrow. My time is 2:12:660 an i´m ranked 660 for now.... I´m sure that there are at least 100 cheaters ranked higher.
Anyone got under 1:05:00 in the Barcelona masters? I'm using a bugatti and can only get 1:06 at best so far any possible quick routes would be great, thanks Hoping I can get there I've also got agera r but I'm doing it quicker in bugatti at the moment
Got all 3 trophies for the new tournament, shows all three trophies with a checkmark on the race page, but how come I got no prize?? And why does it say 0/3 trophies on the game home page?
Once the verification process has finished for the times, the top tab on the side that the tournaments are listed will become "claim rewards". Once it appears, just tap and you'll get the rewards. Probably early Saturday morning before it appears if it hasn't already. Must be a fresh open of the app as well. I'm close in time to you so haven't got a useful tip yet. I've only had a few casual trips around it trying to find the best car for it. I'm thinking Sesto Elemento. Generally on Barcelona, keeping right after the first bend, picking as many nitrous as possible and knocking the large barrier things in middle of road to keep nitro up, over the bridge (edit: forget the flat spin there, too time consuming), sharp left to go down the tunnel but hitting the fist ramp to get on the inside right road for a large nitro, picking up blue nitro just before tunnel appears again but staying on the upper road to the right for the four blue nitros there and getting the orange nitro at end. If done right, you can string nitros along very effectively. But timing, missing clipping walls and minimum drift is pretty key to it. Basically be careful when you dip briefly into the tunnel for the ramp as that is where I lose most of my time. It gain a heap if I do it right.
Easyly finished New Barcelona Trail in 1:03 with an koenigsegg. But i get no Ferrari 599. so i Must Say cheaters werde not Taken out. Sorry gameloft but that is Not fair.
Lol there are hundreds of cheaters for the Ferrari tournament. Whole Tokyo track in 1:02? Like wtf? That's completely impossible since: - You can't upgrade the rental car - I've played that track like a dozen times with the rental car (and now regret all the money wasted for no return) and the best I've ever got was roughly 2 min give or take a few seconds Unless there is some ultra secret shortcut that cuts 1/3 of the track there is no frigging way you can finish it in 1:12.
I really like the time-based reward setup of the Barcelona Masters. That way everyone can compete and not have to worry about cheaters. I'd like to see more events based like this while they work on more reliable ways to weed out the hackers. I'm just barely over 1:05 after a couple tries with the Agera without any boosts, so it seems to be a very achievable goal to reach.
I typically try to get all the nitros after the initial bend, staying on the upper part towards the right, until the bridge and then I go over the bridge without doing any flat spins (there are so many nitros right after the bridge that you will leave the series of jumps with full nitro anyway, and spinning slows me down if I don't do it just right). After the jumps, I pick up the two blue nitros on the part to the left of the tunnel, then drop into the tunnel and hit all the columns. Got just a hair above 1:05 after a few tries with the Agera, then down to 1:03 with boosts. The only other car I could beat 1:05 with using boosts was the Sesto Elemento. Haven't tried the FXX yet though. I agree that this method of scoring by lap times is more fair with regards to cheating, but it would be cool if there was a leaderboard anyway.
