Hackers have been more rampant than ever and nothing is done to address it
I am fully aware that this is not a new topic to talk about, but I just wanted to vent out my frustration on the experience that I have been having recently.
For the past few weeks, I have faced blatant hackers on my lobbies. Not the subtle ones that make you question whether they're hacking or not, but ones that doesn't even hide the fact. Throughout the days, I've encountered hackers that:
- Have zero collision, unable to be interrupted or grabbed away from the generator
- Can spam multiple flashbangs on a single chase (without going to a locker, or equipping the perk)
- Fast vaults without dashing
- Drop pallet faster (on live server, not PTB)
- Escape the trial grounds while on hook
- Can unhook survivors remotely
There are more instances aside from these, but I think I'm painting the picture already. Mind you, I've been dealing with this EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past week. This degree of frequency has been unpredecented and frustrating for me every time I play the game.
While I did my due diligence to report the hackers, there has been nothing but radio silence from the team about the situation. They used to deal with these incidents very quickly, but now I see no actions to mitigate or address the hacker epidemic.
Comments
-
sadly its impossible to stop the hackers, hackers beat games like cod/csgo etc, the only lucky thing is that hackers are not smart, if they were smart and for example give everyone in the lobby infinite bloodpoints somehow after every game, they could get everyone banned and ruin the game, this happen in games like wuthering waves where u log online and if u encounter a hacker then he will transfer to u infinite money and force a ban on ur account.
1 -
It is possible to stop server-sided cheats by implementing server-side validation. Cheaters in cod/cs can't use speedhacks, can't fly, can't become invulnerable, etc.
10 -
I think theres problem with this because hackers can speed up or teleport others which would mean none cheating players would get baned too from what I heard but idont belive there isnt any good option that would stop solid part of cheaters and make it better deffinitely than it is now where there basicaly is only ingame report that depends on numbers of reports (more people report that one player for cheating the more likely he gets banned but this only works for things like dwights that fly and do god like stuf or those killer bots that kill you before you can move your character) and report on site that takes huge time and requires some evidence in form of video (maybe screen shot but that cant be used on all cheats to catch them in act like walling or speeding) but it takes ages and not everyone can affort to record their games so its kinda meh now and cheaters can after ban be still on new account in few minutes or tens of minutes back faster than dam arnorld in terminator so something should be made to get this situation in more control but thats on devs and now I havent seen anything from them lastly like year ago or more like two they mentioned something about cheaters in some anticheat but now they play more dead bug and hope we forget and will complain about kaneki and tunneling more than cheaters and saddly it works for them.
-1 -
It feels obvious why this is happening. The game is not maintained as well as it should be so I'm assuming people hack to gain some level of autonomy. Add to that the amount of free copies handed out and like you mention OP not a whole lot being done about it other than implementing EAC which is unstable enough as is.
This is just one of those areas where you see that BHVR does not care as much as they claim.
1 -
I used to never see blantant cheating but lately I've been getting them. The other day I had a batch of survivors that were instahealing mid-chase, hopping back up from downs, making themselves unhookable, and instafinishing gens. They were really, really bad players though, and still managed to lose. Today I had a cheating Billy with permanat wallhacks and instant pickups advertising his wares on discord. Crazy how nothing is done about this, even with them openly advertising.
6 -
I never see cheaters. No i'm not joking or ragebaiting. Every game I queue up it seems like a pretty normal match. Maybe it's my server area idk.
-1 -
Minor speed boosts and perfectly timed palette stuns (with 100% success rate) often go unnoticed. In fact, there are many such subtle hacker techniques like this.
5 -
Definitely a possibility.
2 -
They're increasingly common in the EU, in my experience. I wouldn't say the game's flooded with them just yet, but there's enough for it to be noticeable.
2 -
I have weeks where I see too many obvious cheaters for it to me normal, and weeks where I feel like I haven't vs'd a single cheater but it's impossible to tell because Subtle Cheaters have always been a thing too.
One subtle cheater in this game I had her slugged, chased her teammate, he ran past her body but did not pick her up, she picked herself up and then in the end game chat tried to tell me he picked her up. When I reported her account a little while later I booted up dbd and they told me action was taken on that player's account.
She subtly cheated but tried to gaslight me into thinking her teammate healed her mid-chase.
4 -
I get why people say “just report them,” but that only really works for the loud, obvious stuff. The real long term damage in DBD is subtle cheating that stays barely plausible. Small speed edges, perfect reads, constant “lucky” decisions that never look clip worthy in a normal public match.
What makes it worse is that this is not just a public lobby problem. There have been DBD community tournaments and leagues where players slipped through for a while, even with multiple people watching POVs and reviewing matches. There are some videos on YT about cases where a player had a long run of tournament success, and later, when the tournament staff checked the suspected individual’s PC and DBD files, they found cheating software. If it can take that much scrutiny to catch it, public matchmaking has basically no chance against subtle cheats.
This is also why comparisons to games like Call of Duty miss the point. DBD still allows too many invalid states to be accepted and replicated. Client input goes to the server, and the server pushes it out to everyone else, so basic server checks should be rejecting impossible movement, impossible interaction speeds, impossible item usage, and invalid health state changes. If those checks were stricter, a lot of the blatant stuff would simply fail.
And then there is the incentive problem. The community has wanted meaningful Prestige rewards for a long time, so when P100 finally gets “rewards” but it is mostly small icons and similar, it feels underwhelming. BHVR has framed that as avoiding Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) pressure around grind rewards, but the store still regularly runs limited time cosmetics and event items that rely on urgency. That contrast makes it hard not to read this as a resource and revenue decision. Cosmetics and new content are directly monetizable. Anti cheat work and stronger validation mostly improve match quality but do not sell anything on their own, so unless cheating starts visibly hurting engagement and spending, it is hard to believe it will ever become a true top priority.5 -
There was a stat I saw then I saw Scott Jund made a video, 20 out of 1000 players are searching for cheats in dead by daylight… its one of the top games cheats are searched for
4 -
This is probably highest number of cheaters the subtle ones and they are slmost impossible to spot with things like this even auto dead hard isnt so easy to spot if you dont suspect it and in majority cases you try to fake and than hit and not miss entire attack.
If the suble chraters are smart than ots almost impossible to see them and majority of them are very bad players so this hides their cheats even more.
2 -
The ingame report sadly does very little like it works on obvious cheaters but some dubtle ones that get reported by 2 people in half of a year it doesnt do anything and forum reports need too much things like recording of that person cheating and it takes few tens of minutes.
2 -
Hackers were always a rare occurrence for me. Since 2018 could count number of blatant hackers on one hand, most were before crossplay when PC nurses would hack into the PS4 lobbies with their legacy cosmetics. Would have some things that could be subtle hacks but still not frequent. Couple years ago when people were saying they were seeing blatant hackers every match I didn't have a single one.
This past 2v8 I saw multiple blatant hackers. Ghostface players that were instamarking. Survivor players at start of match instantly opening gates and then disappearing in front of me, showing as escaped on the HUD - they also had their name as the discord to visit to get the hacks. There were also more occasions where it seemed like players on both sides were using more subtle hacks. At this point I take long breaks from DBD and only come back for certain events or 2v8. Coming back to increase in hacking isn't very encouraging for me to come back for the next event or 2v8.
1 -
every competitive game have hackers, u cannot fix this problem, just like anticheat improves, hacks also improves, the only hope gamers will have to verse cheaters will be to have finger prints in games. but that will be in the future.
-6 -
What players experience varies wildly depending on time of day, MMR, and I particular Region. Apparently cheating & hacking is much more prevalent in the Asian and EU servers than elsewhere.
1 -
This hasnt changed at all lately. I see one cheater every few month at all. People are totally overexagerating.
-5 -
Are they, though? Your experience does not have to be the same as others'.
1 -
But others experience is more worth than mine? Or what else will you claim with this?
-1 -
My point is that you can't claim people are overexaggerating when we have heaps of anecdotes of regional and time differences that say people are, in fact, encountering a lot of cheaters.
1 -
The experience of the community as a whole matters a lot more than the experience of a single player.
1 -
There are tens of thousands of people playing this game in different regions at different times. They're not all going to have the same experience as you. What would be the goal of exaggerating it anyway? It's not like anyone is asking for biased balance changes. They just want more consistent actions taken against cheaters, some of which the same players have encountered in multiple games.
Post edited by cogsturning on2 -
So one other user is the community? Nice hot take.
-2 -
All we’re asking is for you to consider that your experience is not necessarily reflective of the whole playerbase.
Some online friends have had three separate encounters with cheaters this week alone.
1 -
…Where did you even get that from? You know there's more than one other user. There are millions of them. The only one with the hot take is you.
1 -
Sure. Show me the million complaining of a cheater rise. Stop your hot takes.
-3 -
Hello? Look in this very thread, and do a search on hackers. You'll see tons of complaints about them. So stop your hot takes.
2 -
Half of the thread says otherwise. And you do not see a ton of complains. Everytime someone encounters two cheaters its a rise, but it isnt.
-5 -
So you are half the thread? Nice hot take.
3 -
Maybe read more posts and not just what you want to read.
-3 -
Considering most of the thread is now his arguing with everyone, his posts do indeed constitute almost half of the thread now.
0 -
The only reason hackers exist is because the developers never made proper dedicated server code.
This game used to be peer to peer and verify things on the client side.
Then, they "switched" to dedicated servers.
Yet, I keep saying that they still use their old garbage net code that verifies things on the client, except that our networks are now relayed through a server.
The proof of this is obvious because that's the only way any of these hacks are possible.
There is a saying in network programming: "Never trust the client." Meaning, if ghost face's client requests to throw a huntress hatchet, the server would say no. If Dwight requests to run at 80 miles per hour, the server would say no. Yet in DBD, these hackers use their clients to tell the server what happens, and because the game verifies using the clients, the server accepts the hacked data and sends it to every other client as well.
This is the proof that DBD's net code still verifies actions on the clients point of view, and that they do not have proper dedicated servers. They use something we call "relay servers", which is basically just peer-to-peer but the data is sent through a server, then the server sends the data to the other clients.
Nothing should ever be verified on the client.
They need to rewrite their whole net code to fix this. Which is a massive task.
2 -
today my friend stream to me dbd on discord, no joke, out of like 20 games he had like at least 7 matches with blatant cheaters, in the begining they hide it then they went full force instaheals in his face and teleporting, ive never thought this would get this bad, but it will only get worse sadly this is what happen when games are being pushed into competitive without proper care of anticheat, the games would get filled by cheaters.
1 -
there is an interesting review on Steam I think about two years back that the person claimed to work for BHVR. In the rant they claimed that BHVR was very aware that over half the players cheat in some way but he didn’t want to do anything because they are paying customers. Again disgruntled employee so take it as is. However the other things were pretty much valid complaints from users. Also those little employee only badges are a dead giveaway of a cheater. There’s one that keeps coming back again and again after being banned. Void something or other. It’s clear they can’t even keep banned cheaters banned.
1 -
That was a bait, cheaters are not paying customers, they get their undepletable free accounts on EGS and unlock everything with cheats, all for free. The real reason BHVR are not doing anything is because the playerbase is content and continues to purchase everything even with this state of the game, so no real reason to do anything from the business point of view. When the Stranger Things DLC came out, in every other lobby there were ST characters, so at least half of the active playerbase voted with their money to keep the game in the current state, including the cheater situation.
1 -
When i see a group of non-steam gamers with cyrillic letters the chances of getting cheaters increase heavily from my experience. There were so many games where i wasn't sure but it felt like they had subtle cheats, gen times were crazy sometimes (without any gen perk like deja vu)
1 -
That's not true, you can absolutely fix many things cheaters are able to do, just not cheating as a whole. But limiting what cheaters can do is extremely important too, even if it doesn't remove cheating completely.
Look at a serious competitive game like CS2, Dota, League, Valorant, and you'll see that hackers aren't able to immediately instakill everyone on the enemy team and end the match right as the round has begun, give themselves infinite HP, stuff like that. Why? Because the server would see those events coming from the client and say "Nice try buddy" and immediately discard those packets as nonsense, then send what was really happening back to that player.
Of course that still leaves stuff like hacking to get info like seeing people through walls, hacking your inputs to instantly headshot people as soon as you see them, etc, but at the very least hackers can't do literally whatever they want like they can in DBD.
But these games are only able to detect and prevent such cheats because those games have a very strictly programmed server that checks the game state constantly and knows what is and isn't possible at least in theory. And DBD simply doesn't have that. In DBD, whatever the client sends to the server goes. "Hey, I just finished all the gens in .5 seconds. Hey, I just teleported, hope that's okay. Hey, I opened the exit gate and started EGC even though no gens have been done." And the server goes "Yep, looks good to me."
I don't think DBD will actually ever get real anti cheat because that would require BHVR to code in server side checks for everything already in the game, it's just too much and too big of a workloads to rewrite everything. And that saddens me. I sometimes wonder how many resources it would really take to take a serious look at how the client and server communicate, and rewrite whatever must be rewritten so the server determines the game state, not the client. It would be a huge undertaking but I feel like it would be worth it for the longevity of the game.
2 -
You are spot on. BHVR isn’t going to do anything about cheaters as long as people keep playing the game and buying DLC content.
1
