No, You Don't Just Suck

I managed to finagle access to the beta of a new online game this week. It's not an extensive beta, just a few maps to play on but I tried it out anyway. I was summarily assaulted with all the reasons why I hate multiplayer games. Spawn kills, insta-death from pretty much anywhere on the map, one shot kills for everyone but you, omnipresence that gods would envy and always managing to be on the noob team.

"Maybe you should try sucking less?", is the generic response to this frustration but an honest response would be "Have you tried cheating?". I loathe cheaters, cheating, and the bs posturing that it entails. Everyone is a god in the game and you just suck, get used to it and pad my stats n00b! Well I decided, after some internal turmoil, that since there was no anti-cheat measures within said game that I would walk into the darkness to see how the other side lives.

Finding a cheat wasn't too hard and there are plenty of cheats available; wallhack, aimbots and full-fledged automation that requires you to only move around while it headshots you to the top. Morals got the better of me and I opted for a simple wallhack, the cheat would only show positions of enemies on-screen similar to how it shows where your team is. You would think that this would easily put you to the top of the charts, and I'm sure it would, if it wasn't for the fact that practically everyone else was cheating as well.

Don't start with your "no, I'm just that good speech", I've heard it and you are more than likely cheating as well. You don't realize who is cheating until you can cheat yourself, then the actions of those around you make it clear.

First off, the guy at the top of the charts with 15x your score after cheating, is cheating. Simply math, nobody is that good, period. Next, that guy who is blindly shooting at a wall just hasn't gotten used to how the hack works, you know there is an enemy on the other side because you are cheating as well. Then there is the group of enemies who change direction the moment you do, you take one path and they automagically know which direction you are going. That guy you missed with a sniper rifle from across the map while in cover who one shots you with a pistol on the run? Cheating. That room of allies who manage to avoid everything while you seem to be a bullet magnet? Cheating.

These things all show pretty unanimously in my testing that at least 75% of people on any server were using cheats. Granted this example has no anti-cheat tech built in, but you can find cheats easily if you know where to look, or if you are really unsavory you can pay for a sub to a cheat maker. Yes, they exist and are likely making good money off of the bottom dwellers that couldn't make the first rung in a lan party.

The bottom line is if you feel your skill has suddenly zeroed inexplicably, chances are it hasn't. Grab a cheat and try playing on a non-secured server. You will get zero points for it, but you will quickly be able to spot cheater habbits and can then switch severs when it becomes cheater-centric.