Cheaters inbound? Or just an awesome increase at skill?

[rashktah]

Hi!

I don't want to 'cry wolf', but the ammount of players with incredible sick 'K/D'-statistics has risen for me unnaturally.

I'm not the best MWLL player and I suppose I am not the worst, but in the last few days I've encountered at least half a dozen players with statistics like '17 kills, 0 deaths'.

And every time I meet such a player on the battlefield, he seems to be invinvible to my mechs' firepower, while he flails away my mech seemingly without a problem.
How is that possible? Luck? Skill? ... Cheats?

Maybe I'm just a little annoyed by these players that seem to rule the battlefield all by their own, but maybe it's more then just skill at playing...?

Prove me wrong if you can, I'd like to know more about these seemingly brilliant players.

[HAARP]

It's far from impossible to reach these scores again and again.
It's not cheating, it's about knowing when to disengage, situational awareness, staying aware of possible cover and escape routes, making use of all the armor on your mech, consistent aim, being able to spot assets visually without radar and other things.

I can prove you wrong. Want screens?

[Virt]

The high scores could also reflect rounds where a lot of people are choosing to play mostly as BA.     

A few times lately I've had scores like 18:3 and 13:0, because along with the usual haul of vehicle deaths, I've also managed to bag a half dozen BAs.

I'm interested in what others' experience has been.

[xInVicTuSx]

Spam madcat and novacat and snipe while you let your team take the hits.
The end.

[-AAA-]

It's far from impossible to reach these scores again and again.
It's not cheating, it's about knowing when to disengage, situational awareness, staying aware of possible cover and escape routes, making use of all the armor on your mech, consistent aim, being able to spot assets visually without radar and other things.

I can prove you wrong. Want screens?

+1.  It's not hard to rack up a ridiculous KDR, especially if you get a head start.

[dCK-Ad_Hominem]

I agree with the others. I often end up in the position you describe and this is for th following facts.

1: I usually have some pals with me, with whom I am communicating via Voice chat. Ergo easy targeting and situational awareness.
2: I am not ashamed to ask my team for cbills, usually I get quite an amount and thus am able to field a good mech very early in game.
3: I try to make the team a working machine be it by asking what is needed on the field, giving orders/suggestions etc.
4: My buddies and I give each other cover, especially vs. Aeros and Bas.
5: Retreat before you die unless you undertake a necessary move that most likely will end in your death.
6: abandon your mech at the right time, then apply fact no. 2
7: Skill is always involved, I know what I am good at (picking Aeros with lbx  ) and what I am bad at (ba hunting). If you manage to do your thing and get another player to do his both of you will wind up with a nice K:D ratio.

EDIT: Also look at my sig. It should also tell you what it is all bout. If you play often enough you know how to fight this or that asset effectively, what to avoid and what to exploit.

[Rally]

If you see me with that score then it's ok. I've earned it fair and square.

[NSallaNuto]

17:0 is not unusual, it depends on your tactic, I have a screen with a 30:0 somewhere.

You can do that easily using a novacat and a team mate that feeds you targets using a raven or an owens.

[CHHš Rampage]

I agree with the others. I have had games where I go 11-0 and I have had games where I go 3-8. It is difficult to jump into a PUG and try to brawl and rack up a good score. However, you can jump in a pick up game and play the fringes, choosing targets carefully and score quite well. And as Ad_Hominem said some of the players in the PUGs are using voice comms and working in a coordinated manner. They will dominate the server when they do that unless they are opposed by someone doing the same or a group of people willing to work together. Normally, I see very little team work on the open servers.

Also, the people who are sticking around to play MWLL long term are getting good. Casual, once in a while players, will find it difficult to compete with guys that are putting a lot of time into learning the best mechs, weapons and matching their own skills to those assets.

There are occasional cheaters out there. Guys who have more fun screwing with the game code to get an unfair advantage because that IS the game for them and they cannot compete on level ground. The Devs and the community are on constant look out for those types. However, what you are describing just sounds like smart and skilled players.

[Profane Arbiter]

As others have said, BA kills and backing out of combat in a timely manner.

[(TLL) Heretic]

Spam madcat and novacat and snipe while you let your team take the hits.
The end.

^^^ This.

Looks good to have 15-0 on the board, but it's pretty boring letting others take the risks to do it.  Much better are those games where you get 12+ kills and take risks but somehow you just survive, time after time, those are very satisfying.  Most people who have played MWLL for a little while couldn't care less about their K/D ratio, fun is more important than staying alive.

I have only seen 2 instances of hacking in MWLL, so it's pretty bloody rare (I play MWLL all the time), one was in 0.1 (a Mauler with millions of points of armour) and the last one was near the end of 0.2 (a Kit Fox with millions of points of armour), was a Nomad, but after 16 ERPPCs on the stationary 35tonner at 850m inflicting a few points of damage I realised that it wasn't the hit detection bug I was observing.  For all I know that could have been the same guy, given the rarity.

When you consider how hacked an average Crysis MP game is (feels like 90% of vanilla Crysis games get spoiled with cheats) it's a real credit to the Devs that we haven't seen much more of this stuff in MWLL.  And with the upcoming port to Wars, I suspect that the cheaters will have an even harder time of things.  A thankfully the BTU community has fewer asshats than the CoD or WoW commities, for example. 

[Dragonlord]

I have had times when I have come up against very skilled players.
Sometimes they even seem able to 1-shot me no matter what I do.
In those cases I have been sitting and shouting curses at my screen believing they must be cheating and god knows what else, but I never call them cheaters openly in the chat.
When I manage to calm down a bit again I realise that I'm just up against skilled players, but it can be very frustrating sometimes.
There are times I have asked ingame how this and that guy could take me out that easily trying to figure out what the guy may be packing on his mech and how he goes about getting those hits, but I rarely get any responses.

[Profane Arbiter]

Sometimes they even seem able to 1-shot me no matter what I do.

1 shot you? I don't see that too often in .3+. I think the only time I execute a 1 shot is with a 4 CERPPC alpha strike vs a light mech...and that usually cooks me a bit for my troubles.

[Leeko]

Sometimes they even seem able to 1-shot me no matter what I do.

1 shot you? I don't see that too often in .3+. I think the only time I execute a 1 shot is with a 4 CERPPC alpha strike vs a light mech...and that usually cooks me a bit for my troubles.

An alpha strike from a beatstick or an Hgauss shiva would kill a harasser or MAYBE a light mech with all BT hits, and there's plenty of stuff that one-shots BA. If you come over a hill with nothing heavier behind you expect to die instantly, otherwise one-shots really don't exist anymore.

[rashktah]

Yeah, I really do think that skill matters most in MWLL, too.

Maybe it's a bad thing that I mostly end up in the team where no one seems to even know how to teamchat...