Hax!...Lag...or Skill? (A Guide)

Sometimes it’s hard for players to tell the difference between Haxxors! ZOMG!, legit players and just plain ole’ lag.

So far I have yet to see invincibility hacks, teleport hacks, flying hacks or speed hacks but I often see players claiming people have such hacks. Heck, I’ve seen players who will claim pretty much anything possible is a hack, even if you’re standing 2 inches away from them and spade them in the face.

LAG:
Players don’t appear to be moving
Players don’t appear affected by being hit or shot and may seem “invincible”, multiple shots that should have killed them…don’t.
You can’t move
Other players appear to be sliding, “teleporting” or moving extremely fast

These are all symptoms of lag. If your ping on the server list is more than 100ms you may want to find a server that is 100ms or less. This will cut down on all those “other” players lagging you.

Even if you have great ping, sometimes servers will have lag spikes (a whole bunch of lag at once) and you may sporadically from time to time, find bullets not hitting, players not moving, guns not reloading, etc.

Note: Some admins may have teleport powers on certain servers. While most are responsible with such powers, some seedy kids have been known to go rogue before. I haven’t seen this on Aloha.PK servers yet though.

ZOMG! HAX!
AoS implements some basic anti-hack features. The server does a line of sight check for every shot. So even if someone has an aimbot, they can’t kill you through solid blocks and they can’t shoot bullets that go backwards if they’re facing forwards.

Someone who racks up a large number of kills quickly is most often not a hacker but someone camping or hiding in a spot with a good vantage on an objective or the enemy spawn. Babel, Intel RPG, 1FlagCTF, Tug of War are all games with mostly static objectives that are easy for snipers to quickly rack up kills on.

Players using aimbots often have very jerky movements, will spin around immediately and will quickly rack up kills on players in a variety of locations. For example, one aimbotter I was watching during a game, ran straight towards the enemy base on open ground and killed 6 players, “snapping” from one to another at extreme angles and headshotting every single one, with nearly no pause.

Sometimes jerky movement is just lag though. If everyone is moving in a jerky fashion then it’s lag…or everyone but you is hacking. (Lag is more likely)

There is also a model exploit in the game that allows players to basically see other players’ guns sticking through walls, also referred to as “laser sights” i.e., a long red line that sticks out of the player’s guns. Players like this are a little harder to catch. Usually, a spectator can catch them as these Players often “see” enemy players before they can actually be seen because they see these sights sticking out of walls. While not an actual hack, this is an exploit and the AoS Devs have said this is considered cheating.

There is also a glitch (aka the ZIndex error) that allows any player to see players that are tunneling a few or less blocks under them and to see players, tents and intel straight up or straight down through any number of blocks.

This means if someone hears you digging, gets close to the sound then looks down they will see you through the blocks. Then they’re likely to dig down and drop a grenade, some bullets or their spade on your head.

Also weapons sometimes have a tendency to stick through walls. This has currently been acknowledged by the devs but hasn’t been fixed yet. So…it’s a glitch, not HAX or exploits!

Some game modes such as Intel RPG grant players certain special powers. Make sure you understand the game mode before you claim everyone is haxxoring.

If you keep getting repeatedly killed at/near the same spot or near an objective…it’s probably not hacks.

If you’re running, digging, in water, walking remember you make Noises! If the enemy is nearby and hears you, don’t be surprised if they quickly find you or pop out of a corner.

Speaking of corners, they’re a great spot to camp in especially overlooking a doorway. If your entire team on Last Man gets mowed down as they all run through a doorway it’s probably not hacks.

If you’re getting killed repeatedly before you cry, rage, yell “HAX!” and start votekicks check:

  1. Behind you

  2. Above you

  3. Below you

  4. In your spawn

  5. Nearby buildings or terrain features, hills, mountains, treetop snipers, dark places, etc.

  6. Your “flanks” or sides

  7. The water

  8. The fogline (players will often camp just outside of fog distance, move forward get some kills then creep back into the fog out of your range and when you go after them, they’re likely to see you first)

  9. The Mini-Map: The Mini-Map will show where enemy bullets are coming from. Try to spot where enemy fire is coming from before you rush in head-first again. Stop running back to the same spot and being surprised when you get killed.

  10. Their Ratio. (i.e. /ratio PlayerName) This tells you how many kills they get for every death. a KDR of 1 means they get 1 kill for every 1 death. The higher the better. An extremely high ratio might indicate they’re extremely good, extremely camping or extremely hacking. It’s hard to tell. Admins on servers can also check players’ weapon accuracy. Careless hackers will often have incredibly high accuracy however some may intentionally miss shots or shoot blocks to gimp their own accuracy.

About 1 in 10 votekicks I see for “HAX!” is someone who is actually aimbotting, wallhacking or using a model exploit and being ridiculously obvious about it.

If you honestly suspect someone is hacking, try joining the spectator mode. Follow them in spectator mode. If they exhibit “snapping” behavior or know where enemies are before they’re actually in sight then you can probably rack that up as an actual hacker.

If it’s not Lag and probably not Hax then what you’re left with is…

SKILL

Deal with it.

Try brushing up on your hand-eye coordination with some Missile Command or Space Invaders or try spectating some good players and watch how they play.

The 0.75 aimbot DOES not snap. Or atleast not so much as the 0.70 aimbot.

The 0.75 aimbot also cannot turn more than 90 degrees to shoot.

And a skilled aimbotter is impossible to distinguish from a mikuli.

When I did my aimbot tests never once was I accused of hacking.

Yeah, good point. A semi-skilled hacker who keeps their hacking on the down-low is hard to spot or catch.
Until the AoS devs come up with a fix for it we just have to suck it up. Hopefully, if/when they do, they do it Valve-style and do a mass global-ban on their asses on a set day.

It’s easier though to say what probably doesn’t qualify as hacking since a lot of kids who play this game seem to think EVERYTHING does. I see votekicks on people who literally just got their first kill or only have a few kills and players who go down the list accusing every single player who kills them of aimbotting.

Sometimes, it’s funny or sad…but sometimes it just starts to get downright annoying.

Part of our job is basically hunt down, test, and verify hackers who keep a low profile by catching them on video.

Generally, fogsniping is impossible with pings above 100, but at closer ranges it’s reliable up to around 300.

Not so. To be indistinguishable someone would have to be taking advantage of very little of the program, watering down shots, slowing snaps, missing consistently, and ignoring player locations. When someone uses an aimbot it’s not because they want to work hard for their kills.

A skilled aimbot user is indistinguishable from a skilled player.
The aimbot already waters down shots, misses heads, and “fail” to shoot sometimes.

The player can make a conscious choice to ignore an enemy’s location and get killed.
It’s not gonna take long before they realize that.

And haxxorers will often do just that, especially if they realize there’s an admin present and possibly keeping an eye on them.

Now if an aimbot knows an admin isn’t on, they will most likely spam the killfeed. A skilled hacker won’t spam to much. A hacker who wants to have a cool score will just hold down the trigger key.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Although it may often be difficult to tell the difference because of intentional faults, there is no substitute for the human hand. At the point at which an aimbot perfectly mimics it is the point that it’s useless to the cheater. A cheater does not cheat to be as good as another player, they cheat to be dominant.

Ah, but who’s this “other player” that you’re talking about? If it’s mikuli, TGM, or one of those epic shooters, being “as good as” them pretty much means you’re going to dominate any given game.

I challenge Mikuli to beat my high score at Missile Command then! MuHaHaHaHa!

This is a fair point. But what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think very many cheaters would settle for “pretty much”. The aimbot was made for excess. This is all hypothetical, though, because I can’t see a program with mimicry that great.

Valid argument. I guess that’s true, but the newer aimbots have options to be less aimbotty.

Reki is right. There are many aimbot programs custom made so they don’t seem like aimbots that people can even customize stuff like accuracy, recoil, etc. in certain games.

Many of the mainstream games have larger dev teams and stay on top of aimbotters and often update secretly then hand out mass bans. AoS only has very rudimentary anti-hack measures built in. Hopefully, in future updates we’ll see a little smack down on a lot of these cheaters and exploiters.

This must took you a while to type.

thanks for the post, Paravox! i’m glad to know careful thought is being put into this discussion.

this read should be a prerequisite for all players! ;D

Sticky it… :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks! I know when I started playing AoS I didn’t know all of its little quirks and whatnot, like the ZIndex bug for example (being able to see players/objectives above/below you through walls) and thought ZOMG! HAXXORS! Stuff like lag though I’ve seen in every game. It kind of irks me when players honestly can’t tell the difference between lags and hacks so just thought I’d share.

I’m in Honolulu btw! Nice low ping! :slight_smile:

Oh dude, z-fighting glitch.
I’m gonna admit it, I abuse it alot; especially when tunneling to the intel in infiltration and such.

Well, I wouldn’t call it abuse really. More like a quirk. Everybody can see players/objectives straight/nearly straight up and down through through blocks and most people realize this quickly so it’s not like a singular advantage for some sneaky subset of players.