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Meanwhile, Riot Games issued a warning to League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics players earlier this year that new cheats could be developed after source code

by warent 4y ago

Meanwhile, Riot Games issued a warning to League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics players earlier this year that new cheats could be developed after source code for both games and the legacy anti-cheating software they use was stolen in a data breach. As a past fan of League of Legends and Riot, this is a very typical response from them. Zero effort; meaningless notices. After years of playing, I quit permanently after reviewing my games and finding I was the only one not cheating in about 10 games in a row (that means I encountered about 90 cheaters in a row). This was before the code leak. God help the remaining legitimate community now. It's so obvious that Riot sees people as an obstacle to their money. Seeing this news for Dota 2 warms me up inside. I don't play Dota 2 because I don't want to allocate the time to it, but it seems like they truly care about their community, at least to a much greater degree. Very happy news.

Llamamoe 4y ago
"after reviewing my games and finding I was the only one not cheating in about 10 games in a row" how did you know that all the other 90 people were cheaters?
- warent 4y ago
  I'm not sure if "cheat" is the exact word to use here. They were all bought accounts or in the process of being boosted. One way to tell is by looking at a player's match history and seeing their account plays one or two champions for a while repeatedly getting MVP with 20/0/x, and then suddenly switches champions and either plays significantly worse or somehow playing even better depending on the ELO. The opposite is also true--consistently playing horrendously, then suddenly switching to different champions and steamrolling beyond their ELO. There are networks of boosters and account sellers. Some people spend full time hours farming hundreds of accounts to level 30 for ranked play, and these accounts are purchased by other boosters who spend full time hours getting to Diamond+, to then resell. This is how you can find fresh level 30 accounts at the highest ranks--it's account farming. When you analyze closely, the majority of the community is composed of these bogus Chinese account farms. Hardly anyone is actually playing the game. This problem goes all the way even to the Challenger level; streamers constantly deal with this problem and Riot doesn't do anything. Even when League was having betting problems at the Grandmaster/Challenger level, of people betting against their own games and then "soft throwing" to make money, it wasn't Riot that did anything about this. It was the betting companies themselves that banned League from being gambled on their platforms.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    I stopped following this scene around 2018-2019; basically right after G2/Fnatic started to be some of the most dominant teams, even compared to the best Korean teams (that's not why, just around that time). It's disappointing -- but not surprising -- to hear all this, especially that it even affects the Challenger-level games. This does sound like the kind of issues they would have no idea how to deal with. Not that they don't care exactly but that they can't figure out how to handle it.
    - warent 4y ago
      Yeah it sounds like a lot has changed. I joined around 2019 and quit end of 2022.
  - tester756 4y ago
    Smurfs / Elo Boosters Arent "Cheaters" in the sense this thread is talking about
  - arein3 4y ago
    would be really funny if both teams bet against themselves and are trying to loose.
aaomidi 4y ago
How do you even cheat in TFT or league? especially in TFT. The game is basically an RNG game mixed with counting/figuring out probabilities.
thot_experiment 4y ago
DotA 2 has got a system where each person has a community rating, based on some aggregate of your reports and interactions. If you have a good rating you get placed with others who have a similar rating. It's not perfect but my score has never not been maxed out and would say that solidly over 60% of my games are jovial and cooperative with people being communicative and friendly. I have friendships going on decades that started in that game, but also I continue to make friends to this day. I've got people in my book club I met on DotA last year. I've played some league and it's definitely a very different community feel. I also think that the fact that in DotA you are not able to surrender is incredibly important when it comes to the feel of the game and community. I think the single biggest mistake Riot made is allowing teams to surrender, it makes the game so much worse to even give people the possibility of giving up. DotA is a game you can win off a marginal mistake even till the bitter end, I'm glad the mechanics reflect that.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
> it seems like they truly care about their community I continue to get good vibes from so much of what Valve does. It might just be good PR work from them but it seems like it goes beyond that. - They maintain an online service which is used by millions, if not billions, of people around the world. They actually(!!) provide customer support for this service. - They sell computer hardware, admittedly for the primary purpose of using the aforementioned service. I've never heard about any serious complaints about this hardware that are left ignored (this might exist but I haven't heard of it). - They develop an online multiplayer game with community support. I almost never hear bad things about how this community is managed from members of the community. I guess this is the most likely to be just "good PR" but again, I don't tend to see these issues escaping community discussion as I would expect for hot-button topics.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  Valve is one of the only tech companies worth its salt.
noxvilleza 4y ago
In some sense this news was surprising and great (40k is I'd estimate, ~0.5% of the unique monthly players!), but the release was also a bit misleading. The part "With that goal in mind, we released a patch as soon as we understood the method these cheats were using" is just outright false - there are numerous open-source Dota cheat engines which have been around and in working order for many years.
Shared404 4y ago
I use comments like this to remind me not to start playing League, despite really enjoying all the music Riot puts out and having Arcane on my watch list still. Thanks :P
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  It's really really really not bad outside of the top couple percent of players. Nobody cares much about the game in lower tiers, and the cheaters tend to rise through the ranks and/or banned pretty quickly.
itsTyrion 4y ago
I don't get it. meanwhile they have vanguard on valorant like??

by warent 4y ago

Llamamoe 4y ago

"after reviewing my games and finding I was the only one not cheating in about 10 games in a row" how did you know that all the other 90 people were cheaters?

warent 4y ago
I'm not sure if "cheat" is the exact word to use here. They were all bought accounts or in the process of being boosted. One way to tell is by looking at a player's match history and seeing their account plays one or two champions for a while repeatedly getting MVP with 20/0/x, and then suddenly switches champions and either plays significantly worse or somehow playing even better depending on the ELO. The opposite is also true--consistently playing horrendously, then suddenly switching to different champions and steamrolling beyond their ELO. There are networks of boosters and account sellers. Some people spend full time hours farming hundreds of accounts to level 30 for ranked play, and these accounts are purchased by other boosters who spend full time hours getting to Diamond+, to then resell. This is how you can find fresh level 30 accounts at the highest ranks--it's account farming. When you analyze closely, the majority of the community is composed of these bogus Chinese account farms. Hardly anyone is actually playing the game. This problem goes all the way even to the Challenger level; streamers constantly deal with this problem and Riot doesn't do anything. Even when League was having betting problems at the Grandmaster/Challenger level, of people betting against their own games and then "soft throwing" to make money, it wasn't Riot that did anything about this. It was the betting companies themselves that banned League from being gambled on their platforms.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  I stopped following this scene around 2018-2019; basically right after G2/Fnatic started to be some of the most dominant teams, even compared to the best Korean teams (that's not why, just around that time). It's disappointing -- but not surprising -- to hear all this, especially that it even affects the Challenger-level games. This does sound like the kind of issues they would have no idea how to deal with. Not that they don't care exactly but that they can't figure out how to handle it.
  - warent 4y ago
    Yeah it sounds like a lot has changed. I joined around 2019 and quit end of 2022.
- tester756 4y ago
  Smurfs / Elo Boosters Arent "Cheaters" in the sense this thread is talking about
- arein3 4y ago
  would be really funny if both teams bet against themselves and are trying to loose.

aaomidi 4y ago

How do you even cheat in TFT or league? especially in TFT. The game is basically an RNG game mixed with counting/figuring out probabilities.

thot_experiment 4y ago

DotA 2 has got a system where each person has a community rating, based on some aggregate of your reports and interactions. If you have a good rating you get placed with others who have a similar rating. It's not perfect but my score has never not been maxed out and would say that solidly over 60% of my games are jovial and cooperative with people being communicative and friendly. I have friendships going on decades that started in that game, but also I continue to make friends to this day. I've got people in my book club I met on DotA last year. I've played some league and it's definitely a very different community feel. I also think that the fact that in DotA you are not able to surrender is incredibly important when it comes to the feel of the game and community. I think the single biggest mistake Riot made is allowing teams to surrender, it makes the game so much worse to even give people the possibility of giving up. DotA is a game you can win off a marginal mistake even till the bitter end, I'm glad the mechanics reflect that.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago

> it seems like they truly care about their community I continue to get good vibes from so much of what Valve does. It might just be good PR work from them but it seems like it goes beyond that. - They maintain an online service which is used by millions, if not billions, of people around the world. They actually(!!) provide customer support for this service. - They sell computer hardware, admittedly for the primary purpose of using the aforementioned service. I've never heard about any serious complaints about this hardware that are left ignored (this might exist but I haven't heard of it). - They develop an online multiplayer game with community support. I almost never hear bad things about how this community is managed from members of the community. I guess this is the most likely to be just "good PR" but again, I don't tend to see these issues escaping community discussion as I would expect for hot-button topics.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Valve is one of the only tech companies worth its salt.

noxvilleza 4y ago

In some sense this news was surprising and great (40k is I'd estimate, ~0.5% of the unique monthly players!), but the release was also a bit misleading. The part "With that goal in mind, we released a patch as soon as we understood the method these cheats were using" is just outright false - there are numerous open-source Dota cheat engines which have been around and in working order for many years.

Shared404 4y ago

I use comments like this to remind me not to start playing League, despite really enjoying all the music Riot puts out and having Arcane on my watch list still. Thanks :P

WaxProlix 4y ago
It's really really really not bad outside of the top couple percent of players. Nobody cares much about the game in lower tiers, and the cheaters tend to rise through the ranks and/or banned pretty quickly.

itsTyrion 4y ago

I don't get it. meanwhile they have vanguard on valorant like??