Halo Infinite just released this week and we already have blatant cheaters ruining the experience.
It was fun while it lasted but the integrity of matchmaking is over. It’s quite clear this a problem that will only increase exponentially the more popular this game grows. Substantial technical and player driven measures are not in place to combat this.
Here are three major examples that demonstrate my point;
There is no in-game report system for the player to easily report cheaters. “Halo safety” is an afterthought and takes a backseat.
This cheater had 74% accuracy on mouse (forced MnK duos queue) and if you trace the reticle it is moving in perfectly straight lines. There is no auto-detection to flag egregious player behavior, statistical data or inhuman mouse movement.
I am willing to bet that even if this player is banned players will not be re-imbursed for lost Rank rating as a result of cheaters. In many competitive scenes, matches with cheaters are wiped from player history and player Rank rating is restored as if this match didn’t occur. That means you gain rating if this was a loss and you lose rating if you were on the winning (cheater) team.
I was pushing for Onyx rating tonight but I can’t accept this as my competitive game experience. This is likely where I uninstall Halo Infinite permanently.
One thing I didn’t mention is you can see from the video a player can blatantly cheat, in the most egregious ways and go undetected or actioned against by any in-game measures. It requires each individual player manually finding 343s website, searching through multiple clicks and steps to figure out how to fill out a ticket and to have evidence. It’s massive problem if a player can have 74% aim accuracy, with a disproportion amount of headshot finishers and 30+ kills in only a few minutes in the highest level ranked matches but goes undetected by any current technical systems that counter cheating.
We can then assume that cheating will be rampant in ranked. This is because most cheaters would be smart enough not to use an aim-bot but still use “wall hacks” or any other type of soft client-sided cheat for an in-game advantage that’s not blatantly detectable.
Halo Infinite multiplayer is free and creating a new account is absolutely free. There is zero risk associated with cheating and boosting ranks of teammates. The integrity of the entire system is destroyed.
Well my ping/servers make cheaters look like nothing. Full half second delay at times it seems. This is whats ruining my experience. I’m always at a disadvantage cause my opponents are a half sec ahead of me. By the time I shoot/see them they Already have 2 Bursts in me
I haven’t run into any cheaters as far as I know, but wow, the cheating in that video was so bad that it looked like they were playing Call of Duty (since it’s more fast-paced).
Can’t you select them in your Recent list and select “Report”?
You have to click the Submit a ticket link or go directly to the second link. I had to keep clicking articles and links until the beginning of the form appears. It’s very hidden and, you’re right, it’s unintuitive.
Since I’m on PC I couldn’t find an easy way at all in-game to do so. I eventually figured out I had to load up the Xbox game-bar and search for that player to add as a friend and then click report on their Xbox profile page summary. The alternative is to login to the Xbox website and report their profile there. But the idea is that there are two hidden ways to report cheaters, through the profile (which sends a generic report) and who knows how long that would take to address? The second method is manually submitting an actual ticket on the Halo Waypoint website.
Add to the fact that they are Onyx rating and roaming free having played 78 ranked matches in 12 hours played of Ranked already. That means 546 players were negatively impacted in a short window in Diamond/Onyx ranked “bracket”.
I’m on PC as well.
You just go to the Fireteam/Friends/Recent menu (Tab key for keyboard or the Back button on gamepad) and choose someone’s profile and select “Report”.
I haven’t actually used it, so I don’t know if it’s generic like you said or not.
I guess that’s why I haven’t run into anyone cheating.
I’m only at Platinum.
Today I played a game solo/duo controller where this guy seemed to be pre-shooting me at every dang corner. Didn’t bother to go back and watch the game, but it made me wonder and scratch my head. It was nuts.
Just ran into my first cheater today I was one game into onyx and then promptly dropped back to D6 because everyone on my team had 20+ deaths. Won’t be coming back until there is anti cheat…
People were sounding the alarm about this long before launch.
I haven’t started infinite yet because of it. (And various unrelated reasons) As I wait, I get more and more discouraged to even bother.
Quite a naïve interpretation which likely stems from a lack of experience and understanding of the gaming industry history specifically with cheating. The complexity, effort, time required, resource cost to integrate player and technical measures to even begin countering cheating on this scale is massive.
If the fact this is not currently available at launch of a AAA product doesn’t scream red flags to you then, in the future, I recommend you ask questions on topics you don’t fully grasp instead of pointing out what parts you think are funny. If you don’t understand or can’t sympathize with people who; won’t accept this as their game experience, and quit while they are ahead before they invest any more time or money, in a product advertised with e-sports and competitive scene, where devs expect the playerbase wait patiently for measures to be developed, tested and implemented. You need to reevaluate your mindset and open it.
It is kind of interesting that many of the new releases and other games in the last 5 years on release have not had simple reporting options within game.
Todays standard should be a fast reporting system that also can be verified by the company from recording logs for a period of time (of course the data is immense), but a reasonable period. There should also be a system that penalizes people who spam report because they can’t accept that others are better sometimes.
Hopefully this could then drive an evidence based system where players can accept getting belted but also report legit situations.