EA! You are losing honest players! There are too many hackers in the game!!

[GermanMayor1982]

I would kindly ask EA to give a statement to this topic.

Dear EA,

To be honest, I'm tired. I am tired of being faked by you. We face hackers week by week, in CoM and wars, and you do NOTHING!!

We write complains, send you screenshots and proofs, and get a standard answer and then.... nothing. You write something about the "privacy policy" (what privacy in SimCity? It's just a city, nobody writes name and address in the city description), but it's actually just a trick, so we don't know, that you don't bann anyone afterwords. Our complains land in the trash bin. Cheaters and hackers exist.

Last banning session was in December 2018 and since then silence. Even then, you banned officially all those cities with hacked level 15 cards, but (maybe not everybody knows) you brought them back to our server 3 days later!! Why did you do that?

Contest of mayors:

It's impossible to do CoM. CoM became CoH. Contest of hackers. Hackers with 200.000-300.000 points each week. Why do you allow that? Is it because you don't want normal players to win megalopolis, so they have to buy simcash instead and spend their money? Is it really so difficult to write a programming code, which would bann the city instantly, if it has more than 200.000 points in CoM?

Club wars:

Its impossible to play wars in top150. We've been facing hackers EACH war. Hackers with Mellow Bellows Level 15. Not a single heavy buyer, who buys 3 large packs each week, have Mellow Bellow level 15! You reduced top100 to top20 and promised us you would take care of top20 weekly. And now? I50% of top20 clubs are completely hacked, and you are not able to check at least those 20. Why? Do you think it's kind of motivation for us to spend more money if we see Mellow Bellow level 15?

No! It's not a motivation. Most of the heavy buyers just stop playing.

Mayors Pass:

tier 85? Seriously? With 2.275.000 points? How do you imagine honest players to earn over 2 millions points within 83 days? It's 27.000 per day, and if someone starts in the neighborhood league - no chance. Well, hackers who change their assignments to 5000 points each - they might have a chance. But are you aware that hackers don't buy premium pass?

So what's going on now. I have 2 possible explanations:

1. You are now developing a super update, which will be released later and all the hacking will stop immediately. If yes, we are willing to wait.
2. You realize that you guys completely lost control of the game, and you simply don't know what to do. Or you don't want to do anything, you just wait until we all (honest players) stop, so you can close the project. You earned enough with that one.

I would kindly ask you to forward this message to the Studio and to answer me here. I don't want to get again a computer generated standard answer from people in support center who have no clue what's simcity and mellow bellow.

Thank you

Best regards

[GermanMayor1982]

@EA_Mai
Maybe you could be helpful

[meesfeet]

Dear GermanMayor,

Things you said are totally correct.
Lot of people complains about bubblers, but IMO the real problems of the game are the ones you listed: hacking & cheating.
It would be great if EA would be able fighting hackers & cheaters.
Let's say that a good start would be at least fighting hackers: I saw how some cheat works, and if it's undeniable that it helps a lot, these shortcuts can be countered by a good club with good strategies (my focus is more on wars than on COM).
But hacker's shortcuts are very frustrating, you can't fight'em: maybe you can on a single war, not in ten wars. Not to talk about COM, where it's even worst.
And SCBI now looks like a jungle, where everyone does everything, and the situation seems to be worst day by day.

I'm not trying to defend EA. I can't share how a game operator works, but there's something I can say about it (I've been a GO for gameforge for years): I'm european (italian). "Privacy policy" sounds like an abstract thing. Private business can have their own policies, that must respect national laws and -at least in UE- european ones. Years ago these laws were more simplier, so it was easy for a game operator to collect proofs and punish unfair players. In the last years, privacy laws are way more complicated, and only public agents can bypass some of the new limits. Private ones cannot. That's very frustrating for a game operator: you know that player is unfair, but you can't blame him 'cause you can't officially use proofs you collected, as if you do and he starts a lawsuit he would win it, so that you'd have to unlock his account, letting him play in his unfair way and -even worst- refund him too. That at least in EU. It's the main reason I quitted being a game operator.

The hope is that EA will soon find a way to fight these players.
The feeling is that they won't.

[BlazinsZ]

Now that you mention top players, i just checked the leaderboard and found "2 Mentes Siniestras" , searched the club and notice that their president is lvl 1 in war, and have lvl 15 magnetism, mellow bellow, etc, same others players in that club. So this guys completely upgrade all attacks before the first game? But wondering, why lvl 1 in war? Why? Should have a least some points i mean, so, i think is lvl 1 because EA banned those, so they crate another account (that's explain the 0 historial in war) , because why a top player don't have any points ? Is rare, so probably EA is banning these players but they just created another account and that's all. Pretty hard situation for EA and us.... 

[PinnacleValley]

German Mayor, very well thought through and well presented...everything shared is based in solid fact. I just went through CoM a couple of weeks ago where our club was closing in on the next level chest and I dug down deep like when I actually was successfully competing (before the feeder clubs and the hackers) and found myself in an excellent battle with 2 other mayors and it was intense and enjoyable...for a brief moment I thought an honest and fair competition - it was great...then in the last 20 minutes someone (I have a few names that I will refrain from using) puts up 60k out of nowhere and catapults to the lead. I wasn’t surprised or even angry (sadly) but I do feel badly for the other 2 mayors...none of us put up another point at that moment it just didn’t matter, fortunately my club did reach the next level chest for the 1st time.

GM, you know the level of respect I have for you and the confidence to say without question you are one of the most intense, knowledgeable, and respectful players in this game and it is an honor to compete with you. For an individual as committed and dedicated as you are should be an immediate wake up and concern for EA...I would like to believe your first possibility was correct, but sadly I’ve seen way too much here not to be tainted, but at the end of the day I’m an optimist by nature.

Meesfeet, your response was insightful and well done (the only disappointment I had before was you phoned in the prior post) and reflects your true abilities. As related to the legal issues I will simply say that the focus of the legal team needs to be redirected with less emphasis on the “naming and shaming” issue...anything beyond that would not be appropriate for this forum. As related to the bubble issue, it is strictly a commercial issue and clearly shows no one is paying attention, the arrogance and ignorance being spewed by some is the recognition of their limited abilities and is focused simply on themselves and not for the overall sustainability of the game.

BlazinsZ  you are correct it is difficult...but far from impossible, it just takes commitment and a little want to...after all isn’t it a moral obligation to do so...as well as other obligations?

[meesfeet]

It already do exists lot of threads about the bubble, so let's not go OT. But being a bubbler or being a hacker/cheater are two things way more different. And even if bubbling hurt wars in terms of bore, hacking or cheating are worst things that should be the main things to fight. Are we on the same page at least on this?

[PinnacleValley]

So why did you mention it in your post,...I know in an effort to minimize the issue and as far as being different the end results are the same...EA is actually losing many honest players due to boredom. If you actually read what I wrote you would clearly understand that I’m 100% in the German Mayor’s corner and have been for a long time...

[GermanMayor1982]

@BlazinsZ EA didn't bann any famous hacker in 2019. Hackers remove their cities by themselves, so the opponents have less targets to attack. That's one of their "brilliant" strategies.

[GermanMayor1982]

@PinnacleValley
Thanks Pinn, my friend. Actually you are right about the fact that many honest players quit because of boredom. But most of the good players stopped because of tiredness. We're tired of blatant cheaters in the game.
Ok, I understand that cheaters bring money to EA in a certain way - we feel motivated and spend our real money to rich their levels. BUT, it has to be controlled cheating. Somehow cheater became unstoppable and nowadays honest players became minority. We don't have motivation any more and most of us are just frustrated.

People are either retiring from wars, and build their cities in a good company with their club-mates, or just stop completely.

But I think it will be like this:

Later this year EA will "clean up". Officially and loud. Shortly afterwords they will introduce lvl20 and heavy buyers will again grab their credit cards to buy new war packs. Because "EA finally started to clean up". And then nothing will happen for a year, until lvl 25 will show up.

We experienced the same scenario last year...

[Penakyna]

Thank you for bringing this up. 

You can read about my experiences in the support forum. 

I have some e mails from EA which contains no personal information and due to my national laws i can publish them if I want.

I was complaining of obvious cheaters in com and nothing happened. Although I was told that cheating is a much bigger problem in club wars. 

European gdpr has nothing to do with this! I have some expertise on it and while ip address's is so called personal data it doesn't matter at all.