Kano/Apps Steps to Curb Cheating and Manual Freezes (All Games)

By now I’m sure that a lot of you are familiar with the way Kano/Apps tracks and deals with suspected cheaters by automatically freezing their accounts when our system detects anything out of the ordinary.

In the recent weeks we’ve seen feedback from players that suggested to us that while our automated freezes were doing their jobs to a degree, it was time to step up our game and take the way we deal with bots and scripts to a whole new level.

In the coming days we’ll be replacing the old automated freezes with a manual system. What this means is that we have programs sifting through all the games looking suspicious behavior.

The developers will then review the data and hand out the appropriate punishments. This has a few benefits, the first and foremost being that cheaters will no longer have any indication of what pre-determined settings they need to avoid to try and skirt around the auto-freezes. By adding in a human element, it will be much easier for us to quickly locate and remove players who decide to engage in unsanctioned actions within our games. A secondary benefit is that this will help differentiate some actions players are seeing that could be attributed to better Internet connections or quick reaction time from people who are actually using bots or cheats by adding in the addition of having a developer check over the reports generated from the programs.

We won’t be divulging any specific information regarding the data collection or when the freezes take place as we want people who were formerly confident that they could avoid detection to be worried about being caught with this new system. While many companies would be happy with auto-detection, Kano/Apps believes that having a firmer hand on the wheel will reduce the number of cheaters across all games and help everyone have a better experience playing our games.

This is something that will require resources to develop and won’t be seen by all players like a new feature, but right now we think that there has been enough feedback from the community that we want to focus extra attention on this particular issues and think outside the box on how to address it.

As always, if you have anything to say about this, please leave the feedback here. If you are one of the people who gets caught by the manual freezes, please contact Support to appeal your case. You can keep on sending in those reports of people who you suspect of cheating as well.

 

this sounds awesome!!! i hope it works, i do have one question tho. i dont use an auto clicker, however i do click very fast. is there any way for me to prove that its just me clicking? like a way to speak with someone in real time? just curious, i dont think ive ever been reported but i have been throttled in arena.

 

wooohooo cant wait to see the results of this

 

@Jim Wells The nice thing about this system is that the developer who looks at the information will be able to determine whether a person is using assisted clicking or they just have a very fast finger, something that the automated freeze is less capable of.

There are some programs or services out there that allow you to record the number of mouse click you're making, as well as programs that capture what actions you're performing on screen. Filming or recording yourself with one of those would serve just fine if you happen to get caught by a manual freeze, however it is unlikely.

 

cant really record my self playing all the time lol, ill just trust that the new system will work better than the old one. i hope it also works to catch the ones using free refill scripts to level faster than normal.

 

Outstanding!!!!! I have already noticed a decline in bounties collected by certain players since you made the first changes. Thank you for addressing our concerns.

 

Oh good grief. you guys already know who is cheating. why resourses on somthing else to not ban them with.

the new location was announced 2 weeks ago. Good thing I'm not holding my breathe.

new equip system still on hold.

Player loyalty smoking on the back burner.

Are ypu guys serious!? We didn't ban the cheats before because our cheat catching software wasn't good enough. give me a BREAK

 

NICE!!. I 'm all for it, although, this should of been implemented years ago....lol

 

Thanks for your feedback Eraser, I'm just going to correct you on a couple points:

The location is going out today, so feel free to take a deep breath.

The customized loadout (I assume that's what you're talking about) is being moved from the design/feedback phase to wireframes, which for people who don't know is the layout of how it will look in the games and how it will perform.

Player loyalty items are going to be upgraded either late this week or early next week.

And it's hardly that our cheating software wasn't good enough before, it was catching flagrant cheaters and people who abused the system. This new method will lend us a greater degree of accuracy and might discourage people who think about cheating in the first place by letting them know that there are developers actively hunting and sifting through reports.

 

the thing that really concerns me about this do u believe the system will work correctly??? bc u do know mi7ch since this is taking effect u are not gonna catch them all i doubt that one bit...u need to ask the developers about the situation about alt accounts as well an go by there join dates an much more an run a scan on them which is a good idea it make take forever but at least u are getting rid of the cheaters who buys accts an sale accts...which it will get rid of the big cheaters in the game....which is a good suggestion to make...an if i was u an the dev i wouldnt bother tryin to make the game better i would try to get rid of the no good cheaters an script users in the game first..before placing anymore ach out in the game... figure i would give some good advise on this...thread

 

Better late than never right?

 

Well Done Kano...this is a serious step up on the issue of cheating...i think i'm impressed.....lol...good work !

 

all your game design is beautiful.
but I do not understand.
Who
click what?

 

It's nothing that the average person who plays our game will run into or needs to worry about, simply that the developers of this game have a new method for catching people using cheats/scripts/bots and we're just making the population aware of this change.

 

While i am all for this. You guys need to take into consideration families that do play together. Even though there are families who probably do play each other's accounts there are some that do not. I will use one instance for everyone. My little nephew who comes over every now and then wanted to play the game with me so i helped him create an account and kano banned it. It was barely a level 30 or 40 because he loved attacking me and if kano would have taken the time to look and see the account barely gets played even a month they would have considered it could have been someone else playing. So thank you kano for taking a little fun out of my nephew's life with me. I would create another account for him but since you guys seem to not be able to tell the difference of actual cheaters and multi family households i won't put my account in jeopardy.

 

And for once i am going to have to be in agreement with Justin the Killer. And me him do not get along at all. But i will agree with his statement also.

 

@Jon sorry to hear that your nephew's account got frozen, but we do unfreeze accounts if the person behind them contacts Support and appeals their case. We are aware that family members do play together and sometimes the IP addresses look similar, however most of the time similar IPs mean alternate accounts. If it can be established that accounts that come from similar addresses are used by separate people, they will be restored.

 

@Justin I hardly see how this is making the game worse, in fact, stepping up to get rid of cheaters and bot users is exactly what this is meant to accomplish.

 

but that accomplishment does fail at some point mi7ch...alot of people as reported players an nothing asnt really been done for all them years but yet they still play....got news for u too mi7ch people will say oh my brother plays this my blah blah plays that it doesnt matter bc half of the time they are liein too u all sometimes...that is the catch mi7ch figure i would say this...all out...an i know what i am talking about too been playin for many of years now...mi7ch i am glad u an the dev did come out with this..bc for my opinion again an again cheaters an bot users are no fun nor entertaining i call them cowards they dont know how to play it right or keep it fair...lol

 

I have always been one for fair play. But i am just saying Mi7ch. If kano can't tell a account that barely play's a game and not realize its a false account how are we supposed to trust the judgment of the new systems. And again i am glad kano is taking the step forward into getting rid of a lot of these accounts and i believe if you do find the alt accounts the main account should be banned also. But i also see more important things that need addressing in the game also that kano will not respond to. And since somehow my forum account can't make new postings i left a bunch of questions for kano in rockin the developers for a better pirate clan if they care to address them. And let everyone see how we all are becoming aware kano here is lately catering to levelers and not the whole gaming community.