W:ET Spotting Cheaters

There are many types of cheats but in online First Person Shooter games, we typically are on the look our for two types of cheats in general.

1. Aimbots: An aimbot (sometimes called "auto-aim") is a type of computer game bot used in multiplayer first-person shooter games to provide varying levels of target acquisition assistance to the player.
2. Wall hacks: Wallhacking allows a player to see through solid or opaque objects and/or manipulate or remove textures, to know in advance when an opponent is about to come into targeting range from an occluded area.

Catching cheaters is about experience and common sense IMHO. It is a little about understanding the game and what is or is not possible. You have to take into consideration as well that there are truly some talented players out there, who have been gaming for years! They constantly tweak and adjust their game play via software that generally comes with gaming hardware, or game configuration files that newcomers don’t take advantage of. So because you cannot get precise aiming, game strategy awareness, and high scores no matter how hard you try does not mean another player cant or is cheating.

It is at this point in my opinion that players turn to cheats, simply because they can’t improve their gaming, they can’t accept that there are better players then them, or have low self-esteems and are looking for recognition in a game, that they can’t otherwise get in the real world, some are just plain douche bags, then there are those who really think they are better than others with cheats and don’t see anything wrong with it at all these are the worse for me in general.

Alright enough with my little rant :D in-short I just want to say Play for Fun!

I want point out as well, that to really catch cheaters you need a decent pair of headphones, I can't even begin to count the times I been banned because of this one simple flaw in admins (I use Beats by Dre).

When attempting to identify a cheater you are looking at one or more of the following:

1. Movement: How is the player moving around the map?
   • Do you notice the players looking through walls? I don’t mean standing at a corner and leaning! (thx mew :P) I mean does the player seem to be looking through the middle of the walls as they are running or walking? Instead of ahead and aiming at areas where players might show up.
   • Do you notice them backing away from/avoiding areas where they might be over powered (after noticing the above). Sometimes you will see them running then just suddenly stop and head in a different direction, or they suddenly stop and hide for a kill and then you notice the following below.
   • Do you notice the players cross hairs following a player through the wall that just came around a corner?
   • Are they finding players in hidden places? (pay attention to sound for this, you can hear a player walk, switching weapons, firing at other players, jumping, from a very long distance away, IF you have good headphones).
2. Aiming: How is the players aim?
   • Do you notice that the players cross hairs are all over the place? Not steady and precise like a good players, but aiming towards the floors/sky but yet when an enemy shows up in front it’s steady and accurate at the players mainly around the head area?
   • Is the player’s cross hairs snapping/jumping towards enemies? You can typically see this action when they fight several players it will jump from one to the other.
   • Do you notice that in fights the cross hairs usually jump to the same specific sections on a player (snapping to right/left/center of the head, then as described in A above).
   • Aimbots are becoming more difficult to detect as some no longer snap at players as show in the video in B. Instead they now have what is called humanized AIM. What this means is that the cheaters can control the way the cross hairs go to a user, the amount hits etc.. But if you use a little common sense, and apply some of the tips above you can still identify them.
3. Ratings (Accuracy, K/D): This one is a little naive as good players can get exceptional ratings, but if the above seems right, then how is this player playing against players?
   • How is he playing in comparison to known good players on the server?
   • How is his accuracy? head shot to kill ratio? in comparison to everyone else (Good players)?
4. Strategy (Personal Opinion): I think good players play the map with strategy in mind even if the point is to rack up as many kills as possible. They typically fall back on defense, camp known choke points/spawns, seek higher ground for surprised attacks, and plan their battles accordingly to be as effective as possible.
5. Engage the Enemy: This is new from the original post, but figured I would share some of my tips as well. When I am unsure whether a player is still cheating or not I try to talk to them (if language permits). I try to find out how long they have been playing the game, have they been part of any clans or scrim teams? what other aliases do they use etc.. basically I am trying to get and understanding of the player, from my experience I might sometimes ask about their settings, the configuration file they use etc.. basically I am trying to size up this person to know his history in ET and how well they understand the game. again from my experience it is nearly impossible to completely dominate veterans of this game. There is no way someone who has been playing this game for less than a year, and they are now PRO players.

If I find a player that meets the above criteria, I do not feel uncomfortable issuing a ban, and posting the DEMO. My idea is that if after the above and the player is banned, he will come here and do an unban Request, we will look at the evidence, get to know the player, how long he has been playing etc.. (This does not mean Ban first ask questions later, that's not how we work).

If you feel uncertain about it all, then simply record the demo and post it in the Troubled Players section we will all review the demo, and make a community decision, this has worked great in the past, and the player can be banned regardless if on the server at the time or not.