Hi everyone, this is a discussion on how our clan learned to survive the constant onslaught of server-hopping clans that routinely cheat to wipe a server before jumping to the next one.
The situation: It is well known that clans who cheat on Funcom official servers. The internet is rife with videos showing the cheats. Our server (official #1800) has (historically) been populated by a decent amount of people. The latest server-farming clan has been especially brutal with their cheats and exploits that most of the people are just quitting the game. We tried to give them hints on how to survive until the cheating clan moves to the next server.
The Clan: Weâve always had a lot of people on chat every night. Once the cheat clan (their name is a series of symbols) appeared, numerous players on the server chatted that dozens of bombs around their bases by invisible players every time they rebuilt. Many were also reporting that they were getting hit when there was no one present.
The defector: One of the cheating symbols clan came up to our clan and said that he quit the symbols because they were doing unethical things to the players across several servers. We asked him how they did it and he said they hacked into the admin panel so they could call infinite gear and become invisible. They would create a dummy account who would no be part of their clan. This account would hack the admin panel, call everything in they could, and give all the gear and supplies to the symbol clan. Eventually, Funcom would ban the account, but it was tool late and the symbol clan had a massive amount of gear and supplied at day one on the server.
The solution: Funcom cannot do anything about this. Technically the offending account is not part of the cheating clan, so they can only ban the âdropâ account (then they simply make another). We have been telling everyone on the server how to deal with the cheating clans.
Since the clans will continue to destroy everything until there is nothing left, the trick is to let them think that there is nothing left. As soon as anyone on the server is aware of another cheating clanâs arrival, take everything out of your base and hide it. All gear, benches, petsâŠeverything. Find small crevices that are out of site all over the map to store boxes in. Remove all the doors to your base, let them freely come and go. They may blow some floors to see if you hid things below, but it wonât be the complete destruction that comes with them breaching the base.
During the day, they cannot touch your base, so put a simple door on your base and move the tables back in to create, fix, and upgrade. When it is close to raiding time, pull everything back out and into the hiding spots. Make sure to have several hiding spots in case they find one.
If all the rest of the players on the server do this, then the cheating clan will only be able to hit a few buildings, and then get bored and move on. Once they are not on for a few days, the all-clear signal is given, and game play is resumed. Most of us seasoned players have learned to live with this. However, new and mid-level players just donât see the point in playing so they move on to another game.
Additionally, do not fix any damage that the cheating clan may have done. They should think that you have abandoned the base and will look for you elsewhere. Only fix what is needed to be secure during non-raiding hours. After then, pull your tables and gear and remove the doors.
When traveling around, only have on you what you can easily produce. Light armor and easy tools/weapons. When they see you they will instantly kill you and you will not be aware of their presence. Carrying only low-level gear will reinforce the idea that the server has been farmed out. If they see that you have good gear, they will stay to try to find your stash or rebuilt base.
A possible solution for Funcom is to have regulators on as many servers as possible. There are many gamers such as myself who play these games as they were meant to. Funcom should attempt to identify these players and use them as trusted informants who would inform them on what is going on in the server.
Good luck to everyone.