63 réponses à ce sujet

[Thomas Abram]

The Waffle Cat wrote...

Thomas to an advanced question as Zimek's i got a follow up.

Sugar or syrup or something else on your pancakes?

Fruit on my pancakes, Aunt Jemima on my waffles. Free plug in exchange for a life time supply of syrup? Maybe...

[Thomas Abram]

ToaOrka wrote...

Thomas - I think you might have skipped over my question amid all of my various replies.
Can you give me a definitive classification of the falling through the floor on FBW or other maps? Is it or is it not cheating?

It depends on how it's done. It's very easy to tell (for your teammates and us) if you're doing it on purpose or not. If you're doing it on purpose odds are you've done it more then once and that's another easy to tell.

[Thomas Abram]

UKStory135 wrote...

What's BW's opinion on the FB Hydra Hidey hole? That doesn't seem to be enough of an advantage to warrant the banhammer to me.

It's currently under review.

[Thomas Abram]

IAMREALITY wrote...

Hi Thomas,

First, let me say I think your attention and dedication in this thread is just hands down awesome. Never played a game where the Devs and QA were so involved. Seriously, huge kudos to you guys for that.

Anyway, I'm one that has had a pretty hard stance in relation to this missile glitch. I think it's far worse than the credit glitch even though some try and make them comparable. But the credit glitch, which by all means was cheating, was at least done cooperatively. Meaning, for the most part, that the whole lobby had to be on board. But the missile glitch is just purely selfish. Running around rampant destroying everything with missiles while your teammates have no choice but to suffer. THAT is why I'm so against this. I couldn't imagine, even without a threat of potential banning, going into a game and performing something that proceeded to completely ruin the game for the other 3 playing. How selfish and arrogant do you have to be to do that?

So to me that is the distinction. The complete disregard for other peoples playing experience. That is why I hope you guys do come down hard on them.

Having that said, I've sent a bunch of reports in. Sometimes I can just so easily tell that the individual has likely abused the glitch repeatedly. So the question I have, just for peace of mind, is can you really easily, just from one report from one game, do a quick query and find how many games and instances of the abuse there had been? I guess what I'm getting at is even though I only saw them one game, even if other players in other games didn't report them you could easily look at the logs and see the history of abuse?

It's a little bit more complicated then that and the short answer is, yes. The long answer is, if I'm aloud to pull a Priestly I do not know,

Also, i'm out for the night so I'm signing off and locking this up.

[Thomas Abram]

Opening it back up for a couple hours. I'll try to make some time on the weekend to discuss this more.

[Thomas Abram]

Shampoohorn wrote...

I love playing the game, despite the occasional annoyance with bugs like kro- kro- kro- krogan stunlock. )
This is also the first multiplayer game I've ever owned or played.

I'm curious about the support window for games like this, especially to give me hope that bugs will continue to be patched and content will continue to be added. So, how long do you guys plan on keeping MP going? Through the end of the year. Till 2014?


==========

Also, I've been playing a lot of drellguard lately on Gold. I love it and do well with him, but sometimes when I charge he just dies. No shield gate, no bloodscreen, no barrier recharge. Just charge: dead. Other users (holdenagincourt) I know have also experienced the same thing. Is this a bug? (I always host btw and he's not dying at the beginning of the charge like with the laggy die and fly glitch).

Thanks!

To answer your first question, I do not know. Unfortunately that's all I've got you :s

As far as this drellguard bug (that happens with some others characters as well), we are aware of it and are currently investigating it

[Thomas Abram]

Rolenka wrote...

How is it that in this post, you say modding SP things will get us banned, but in another (not sure if it was you), it is said we are allowed to mod coalesced for keybindings?

The first post kind of makes it sound like Origin doesn't distinguish between edits to one part of coalesced and another. Is that true?

You linked a post with me clarifying the statement that was taken out of context. As far as Origin's capabilities

[Brian Mills]

Mgamerz wrote...

What is your "QA Remote Logger" that you have built into the game. I have seen it set to enable in Coalesced - I would like to know why you are gathering screenshots and gamesaves. I would assume that debug logs and game statistics would be more useful to QA.

This is a bit out of the scope of the thread, but it's simply one of the tools we use for internal testing and gathering development telemetry, not something that affects retail builds.  Screenshots and gamesaves are useful for bug filing, and this gives us an interface to gather those files on demand, along with some other information we need (for example, information about how much coverage of conversations we have hit so far during tests).

[Thomas Abram]

Thomas Abram wrote...

well not phrased as well as I had hoped it should suffice. hope you understand.
Just to break the "ice"
do you play ME3 ever if so what is character you enjoy using. not difficulty dependant for answer.
Mine = Batarian soldier or Krogan soldier

Now to the actual questions....
A) Is "kill stealing" a tier 3, griefing?
A1) if so. I have to disagree on that. They have the same amount of "claim"/ "right" to that kill as anyone in that game/lobby.

V) Yahg or Volus or "Prothy" for next character that get's into multi, that you personally would like to see,
my answer= Yahg preference with shadow broker shield as a power.(that big red thing he held)


2) how much info do you give to those banned. like what they are being baned for.

regardless of your answer I feel that for tier 3, it should be as much info as possible, and date time,and what it was that got them what ever "punishment" you decide. for thier "infraction"

for the other 2 tiers.... especially for exploiting
I feel telling them what exacly they did, example=like if rocket glitch/that money glitch doing round 10 over and over.


9) modifing ini file what punishment is there?
is it straight ban, or do you request that they fix their files? or ?

I'm a big fan of the soldier class when playing team games but I'll often mix it up if I'm going solo.

1. Kill stealing is not considered griefing at this time unless there are extenuating circumstances that can be proven. I'll leave it there.

2. The banning process is quite unique. Often we will not give cheaters much, if any, information as to why they were reprimanded as we do not want to give them any way to streamline their cheating to avoid being banned. We do not currently give date/time/etc. information for any actions we take and we will not in the future.

3. As far as editing your INI, odds are if the case gets to us you're getting banned because you've broken some very major rules.

[Thomas Abram]

Lord Chun wrote...

Mr Abrams
I hear from many an PUGs that ask if I want to missile glitch that all you have to do is turn your feedback off. I think this is total bs ( can i say bs ) as you would still get the data from your servers if someone reported them. Is this true or a false?

A lot of the information we use is stored server side so turning your "feedback" option to "off" will not actually stop you from sending data to the server (which is required for most things you do in the multiplayer environment). Long story short, they're wrong.

[Thomas Abram]

Closing it down for the night everyone. I'll open it up at some point this weekend - Feel free to PM me any questions and i'll raise them asap.

[Thomas Abram]

rgeshevv wrote...

Hey Thomas

I'm using Teamspeak 3 to communicate with a bunch of friends and the program have an overlay plugin that shows the people in the channel, ingame. When I activate it, the program is giving me a warning, that in many cases, it can be seen/mistaken as a cheating tool. So, my question is: Do you have any information about using this plugin, and am I in any danger of being banned, because of it. I know it's not a reason for ban, but I'm afraid it can be detected as "helping" tool by your system.

Thank you :]

If you're referring to the specific overlay that TS displays then you have nothing to worry about. If you're refewring to a specific TS plugin then you'll have to give me the plugin name before I can give you an answer either way :s

[Thomas Abram]

rgeshevv wrote...

Thomas Abram wrote...

If you're referring to the specific overlay that TS displays then you have nothing to worry about. If you're refewring to a specific TS plugin then you'll have to give me the plugin name before I can give you an answer either way :s

It's the default "TeamSpeak 3 Overlay Plugin"  v.3.5.5, Rohrbacher Development. That's the info for it.

I don't see how this could get you in trouble. All it is, is an overlay (if i'm not mistaken). If that's the case then no worries!

[Thomas Abram]

Seneva wrote...

I got dropped into a U/U/G a this week where the host had modified his/her file to give more credits after extraction. Since I do not always buy packs immediatly after a mission I ended up with 4 times as much credits as I would have normally gotten after 4 matches. Instead of getting 320k I had 1.2 million. What am I suposed to do about that?

You'll want to contact me3mpcheaters@bioware.com before the next ban wave goes out. They can remove the credits for you and restore your account to a legitimate state so you do not get banned.

[Thomas Abram]

NinjaRican wrote...

@ Thomas Abram | when playing or hosting (I mostly host games) R/R/G or FBW/G/G PUG games i notice people Do the missile thingy in the later waves. What am i supposed to do quit and lose my credits and Xp or quit after cause i see this kind of stuff alot now and i don't want to keep making new rooms every time i wanna play.

Right now, we're okay with players finishing their match if people are exploiting the infinite missile glitch. However, if you stay in the lobby after said game then you will be considered in the same pool as the cheater(s).

[Thomas Abram]

IAMREALITY wrote...

Hi Thomas, thanks again for everything in this thread. It's pretty friggin amazing how much insight you've given us.

Another quick question if I may. I've been sending you guys a ton of emails about rocket glitchers, but always wonder just what level of detail is necessary. I've kinda gotten lazy now and just started basically stating what I saw and heard and giving the gamertag. So my 2 part question is just what level of detail do you guys need in reports of those doing the rocket glitch? And should I keep sending individual emails or should I just kinda wait till I have a bunch and then send them all in the same one?

More often then not if you provide us with the gamertag/origin ID/psn ID we can piece the rest together but putting the date/time as well as ny screenshots/photos you have greatly reduces the amount of time we need to spend per case, thus freeing us up to investigate other reports.

[Thomas Abram]

Seneva wrote...

Thomas Abram wrote...

Seneva wrote...

I got dropped into a U/U/G a this week where the host had modified his/her file to give more credits after extraction. Since I do not always buy packs immediatly after a mission I ended up with 4 times as much credits as I would have normally gotten after 4 matches. Instead of getting 320k I had 1.2 million. What am I suposed to do about that?

You'll want to contact me3mpcheaters@bioware.com before the next ban wave goes out. They can remove the credits for you and restore your account to a legitimate state so you do not get banned.

I'll do so as soon as possible. I do have 1 more question. Is there a way that legitimate players can protect themselfs from those cheaters? Other then contacting you via the email.

Unfortunately there's no sure-fire way to make sure you don't get into a public match with a cheater. If you ever have any questions regardign the legitimacy of something you saw (and its effect on your account) you can always contact me3accountadmin@bioware.com.

[Thomas Abram]

mcjihge2 wrote...

Thomas Abram wrote...

NinjaRican wrote...

@ Thomas Abram | when playing or hosting (I mostly host games) R/R/G or FBW/G/G PUG games i notice people Do the missile thingy in the later waves. What am i supposed to do quit and lose my credits and Xp or quit after cause i see this kind of stuff alot now and i don't want to keep making new rooms every time i wanna play.

Right now, we're okay with players finishing their match if people are exploiting the infinite missile glitch. However, if you stay in the lobby after said game then you will be considered in the same pool as the cheater(s).

When you say stay in the lobby do you mean start another game with the missile glitches? 
I have been in a couple of games and only realised late that another player is missile glitching, but ive finished the game left the lobby and not restarted another game with them. 

There are quite a few missile glitchers on the xbox and not every player will know that what the other players are doing is glitching and a bannable offense. I dont think its fair to ban all people who are not glitching but happen to be in the same game as others who are doing this. A more public warning should be issued before any bans take place. Perhaps a splash screen everytime before you go into a game warning of the ban? The main thing however to do is that the glitch should be patched as soon as possible before unfair bans are issued.

We look at each case individually and when in doubt we fall to the side of caution and do not reprimand. That being said, I think it's pretty well known that this is considered cheating.

Modifié par Thomas Abram, 08 juillet 2012 - 09:55 .

[Thomas Abram]

theillusiveman11 wrote...

stricko wrote...

theillusiveman11 wrote...

I skimmed through the thread to see if you answered yet but couldn't see it.
Do you consider falling through the map a punishable exploit? I've seen people doing it over and over again on White, Goddess, and Dagger.

What is the benefit in falling through a map ? Happenned to me playing Vanguard when I joined a random game on Jade. I just decided not to play vangyard unless hosting .

When you go down in certain places you'll fall through the map and be returned to the LZ with full health and a few seconds of invulnerability. I've seen people abusing these spots on White, Goddess, and Dagger.

Currently, if you're doing it on purpose that's not okay and can be classified as a tier three offense. While we understand that it may happen accidentally we investigate each and every report thoroughly.

Locking this up for the night. I'll open it up on Wednesday.

Modifié par Thomas Abram, 11 juillet 2012 - 04:29 .

[Thomas Abram]

Ranger_Captain wrote...

If you're going to be answering questions in a few minutes I might as well; why don't you institute SOME form of Anti-cheat software? It is just .ini files we're talking about here and there's half a dozen existing anti-cheats that know how to scan for changes. It doesn't even need to be particularly effective. it's mere presence will deter those that would passingly consider cheating, and give pause to more serious cheaters. Those that would cheat with one on/know a workaround are going to cheat no matter what and there's little you can do but my guess says, so far, MOST cheaters in ME3 have been people playing around since there's little reason to be caught.

It seems that most, if not all, bans happen as a result of reports. So if you only ever play with friends/do cheats in private matches, how would you catch those individuals without some form of running anti-cheat?

To put it in perspective we investigate ~8 (internally) flagged accounts for every 1 (player) reported account.

[Thomas Abram]

Wordlywisewiz wrote...

When will the next ban wave be?

Top secret

[Thomas Abram]

Shampoohorn wrote...



How many computers can I put my copy of ME3 on?

I'm heading out of town for a while and I'd like to put it on my laptop to play a little MP but I'm not sure what qualifies as not-cheating. I'd also like to do this to get my Vic/Comm packs next week, since they'll expire before I'm back home.

A little off topic but that's okay. You can put it on as many machines as you want but since you have to be logged into Origin to play it you'll only be able to play from one location at a time.

[Thomas Abram]

Optimist Prime wrote...

http://social.biowar...6621/2#12967178

This is a subject you touched on (or possibly completely answered, depending on one's point of view) but I prefer to be completely clear on the point for my own ease of mind.

When I play multiplayer, the only stats I really check is to see if I topped the chart at the end. While I feel I would **most likely** notice someone exploiting missiles (or definitely notice if they were lobbing them like fireworks on the 4th), I'm generally unaware of the activities of my allies unless they are incapped. That said, I very rarely - if ever - check to see how many credits I received during a match. If the total is off by +100% or more, I'm confident that I would notice the change in my total credits within a game or two and would send the appropriate email. However, if the credit gain was off by 10-30%, it could go completely unnoticed and I'd simply buy my packs when I hit 99k.

So my question... if someone is reported and your team notices that other players had played several games with this person, is it very likely that they will also be punished or is your team able to distinguish between legite-player-ignorance and a pattern of playing with cheaters? And if these innocent secondhand players get banned, is an appeal likely to reverse the punishment if these players in question do not have a pattern of cheating (or benefiting from cheaters)?

After reading this thread, I'm starting to worry that immersing myself in my gameplay could bite me in the butt if I'm not constantly supervising my allies and the post-game stats.

Good question. We look into a hoast of different things when investigating cases. I can tell you that most cheaters don't cheat 10-30%, they cheat a LOT more then that so it's pretty easy to identify. That being said, if you do get an extra 10-30% and you don't notice, odds are you don't have anything to worry about unless it occurs a bunch of times where "not noticing" no longer is valid. Most of the time we'll e-mail individuals if we do spot that they received a little more credits (~10-30%) then expected.

[Thomas Abram]

Wordlywisewiz wrote...

if we do get banned do we get an email saying we are banned or do we just assume by not being able yo connect to multiplayer?

In most cases we'll e-mail players who have been banned (at the e-mail they gave when signing up for an account).

[Thomas Abram]

Locked for the day. Will answer questions momentarily.