Cheating in Overwatch - The Math

General Discussion
1

What people don’t realize is just how commonplace cheating actually is in gaming.

If you believed 99% of players don’t cheat, then, statistically, 10.5% of all your games of Overwatch would contain at least 1 cheater.

What? That seems crazy! How can that be true?!

Simple: Probability. Imagine you flip a coin 1x… what are the odds you get Heads? Easy: 50%. What if you flipped the coin 11 times instead… now what are the odds at least one Heads popped up? 99.95%

This is exactly the problem with cheating: even if only 1% of players cheat, there are still 11 other players in each and every match you play. Therefore, the odds that no one is cheating is 89.5%… which means the odds at least 1 person is cheating would be 10.5%.

This is why game developers never release detailed information about cheating in their games. Instead, they make purposely-vague announcements like: “Hey guys! We banned 20,000 players over the last 6 or 7 months.” - This gives the impression the developer is ‘doing something’ without actually allowing us to figure out how big the problem is. Is 20,000 players over 6 months a lot? How many games were affected? We don’t know because they don’t tell.

There are a few studies on the internet of how many players cheat in video games. One such study - a poll of 9,436 adults (5,911 of which were gamers) - discovered that 1 to 5 percent of players admit to “Always” using cheats when playing multiplayer games online. If true, it would mean that 10.5 to 43 percent of your Overwatch matches contain a cheater.

Some people would say that number is too high, but the fact is most cheats are designed with the intent of being extremely difficult to notice, and most gamers are not well-versed enough in programming to detect signs of cheating… and that just scratches the surface of what anti-cheat has to contend with.

Blizzard can’t stop all types of cheats on their own. Many programs don’t interact with the game, and developers don’t have the legal right to inspect every program running on your PC (that would be an invasion of privacy). This is why Player Reports are so critical: in many cases they are the ONLY thing that can stop some cheaters.

And for those non-believers out there who just don’t want to accept that cheating is rampant in gaming, I’ll leave you with this mathematically-correct statistic:

For there to be a 99% chance that a match contains zero cheaters, you would have to believe that only 1 person in every 1095 players cheats.

… and that would be ridiculous. Estimates are that 6 people in every 1000 is a Kleptomaniac. Obviously Kleptomania and cheating are two different problems, but to believe that cheating in video games is 600% RARER than one of the most rare disorders is simply ludicrous. If, for fun, we pretended that 6 people in every 1000 cheated in video games, it would result in 6.4% of all your games containing at least 1 cheater. That’s about 1 in every 16 games.

So the next time you see a Widowmaker with 65% accuracy, or a Hanzo who gets headshots 80% of the time, don’t be afraid to make a quick Report. If you’re wrong, nothing bad will happen to anyone. If you’re right, you’ll help flag a cheater.

The first step in fighting this problem is for people to recognize how big it is.

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2

Please don’t. Bans are automated and you can screw an innocent player over just because you are paranoid. Cheating is not a big issue in Overwatch, I started playing when open beta launched and met maybe 2 cheaters total until now. You are pulling a bunch of numbers out of nowhere (thinking that 1% of OW playerbase uses cheats is just ridiculous and your probabilities are also way off because pretty much all cheaters are playing at least in masters or higher) when in reality you can play for hundreds of hours even at GM level and never meet even one cheater.

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You 100% indentified two. You can’t say for sure you haven’t been playing with or without hackers since then. I am convinced you played with a lot of hackers in Overwatch, be it “minor” aim assists/wallhacks, you did.

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Statistic can be tricky thing. Statistically my dog and I have 3 legs each. We dont have enought context data or raw data to detrmine who is cheating and who isn’t. Reporting everyone because they are slightly better than you isn’t that productive. Beside who cheats? People who will benefit from it.

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I read all and I approve your research on the subject. But report in this game can be abused ! Also, if you’re bellow Master your chance of seing a cheater are lowered. But if you see a brain dead Mcree who have 100% accuracy you can report him of course.

If the person is not a cheater, his can be a booster so watchout. I see a lot of people reporting every teammates if they have a defeat, one trick, “bad dps”, some mystake ; it’s called abusive report !

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Ugh. The report system is terrible. Beyond that, who cares? I am better than every cheater I ever met. It clearly did not help them thst much. Blatant aim bot, sure, report it. Anything else just play fair and you are already better because they had to cheat to get to your rank and cannot play the game properly. Simple as that, really. I agree that this community acts as though cheaters are as rare as unicorns. But cheating should be less of a concern than inherent problems with the game. Nobody cares about some low self-esteem loser. We care about the game. I hope…

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That’s why it’s important to use your brain when identifying cheaters. Look for unusual behavior, the person’s accuracy relative to the average accuracy of the skill bracket you’re playing in and maybe most importantly: consistency. People are inconsistent by nature, someone displaying highly consistent behavior in game is a good indicator that something fishy is going on.

You can argue that it’s actually easier to identify cheaters the lower the rank, because the performance differences between cheaters and legit players are much bigger.

That’s also against the ToS, so what gives?

1 Like
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According to your profile, you have played ~1,302 Quick Play matches. I have no idea how accurate that is, but let’s just roll with it and assume it as a minimum for the sake of debate:

This means you have played with 1,302 × 11 = 14,322 other players. Continuing on with your statement…

Okay… so let’s calculate what the odds would have to be for that statement to be anywhere near the ballpark of reality:

In simple terms, we are trying to figure out what the percentage likelihood of player cheating would have to be in order to only result in only 2 people in 14,322 being cheaters. Reduced, this means you believe only 1 in every 7,161 people cheat (or 1.4 × 10^-4).

Mathematically, your belief can be represented as: x^11 = 1 - 2 ÷ 14,322

Which would result in 0.000013, which is 1 in 76,923.

Compare this to some other statistics:
1 in 3,000 - odds of being struck by lightning
1 in 12,000 - odds of finding a pearl in an oyster
1 in 48,000 - odds of dying from an on-the-job-accident

I think it’s safe to say there is no way cheating in video games is less likely than dying on the job.

I don’t think you read the part in my Original Post where I said: For there to be a 99% chance that a match contains zero cheaters, you would have to believe that only 1 person in every 1095 players cheats.

Either that, or you somehow seriously believe your 1 in 76,923 estimate is an objective, logical, or sane statement.

I agree with the general idea of this statement - I also believe cheaters will naturally rise up into the higher tiers (because, after all, they are cheating). A reasonable statement could be: Cheating probably occurs more often in higher leagues.

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Well that’s kind of Blizzard’s problem, making a ban system automated based on reports isn’t it? Or hmm, making and enabling heroes that are so easy to cheat with…

Well that’s kinda like saying all master level players are playing in at least diamond. That’s cool and all, except every high level player has at least one smurf now that needs leveling/climbing.

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Well my stance on the matter is that if I can’t spot the cheater with 100% certainty then I do not really care. I think it’s better to let some subtile cheaters slip by instead of possibly causing some undeserved bans to happen.

1 Like
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You ever wonder how Overwatch keeps on releasing maps/heroes/balancing/QoL features/etc with no additional income other than the price of purchase and maybe some lootbox bux here and there?

It seems especially odd when you consider how most multiplayer games price-gouge the consumer at every turn with a slew of season passes, yearly releases, and re-releases (aka pretty much every fighting game).

How can Blizz afford to do all this cool stuff for the playerbase, for free??

Gee, it’s almost as if a certain percentage of the playerbase (probably surprisingly high once you hit Diamond+ SR) was paying a sub fee each month, but what could they possibly be paying for?

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That’s cool. I don’t disagree with that being your stance. But which is worse:

  • The obvious guy who use a hack that perfectly snaps to your head wherever you go (even through walls).

  • The subtle guy who uses a hack that purposely misses the first shot, but then uncannily hits all the rest?

Personally, I think the subtle guy is far worse. Why? Because obvious hackers get banned within an hour, however subtle hackers get to ruin game, after game, after game, with very few people realizing. And if you don’t report this guy, he just gets to keep doing it, indefinitely.

The report system is in place for a reason. Accidentally reporting a legit player who just happened to have a really lucky streak isn’t going to get anyone banned. It takes numerous, unique (non-group) reports to actually get someone auto-banned.

The average player simply will not hit this threshold no matter how lucky they are because, eventually, they return to their baseline. Cheaters, however, are consistently performing at high levels and, if reported, may actually be banned… which is why I believe we need to start reporting them.

2 Likes
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Thanks for this post. There’s some ideas you miss. You focus solely on the mathematical aspect but there’s other things to go by.

An option is to actually watch those pro matches and see the accuracy of their widow makers on a stage where cheating is almost 100% impossible. Compare that to the widowmakers you suddenly face up to. There’s almost no comparison. You realize these aimbotting widows are far better than the pro’s at an unseemly league level.

Another thing to look for is the instant snap shots. It doesn’t matter if you’re a speed boosted lucio or not. Jumping, crouching, changing direction does not ever throw this person off. The sheer hand eye coordination to pull off these instant flicks in THREE planes of direction is far, FAR harder than the two planes of direction in CS:GO. Snap shots are more like accurate “GUESSING” shots. You see their movement, predict where they will be and you move and shoot to line it up. But for these players to hit you on the head switching direction jump and crouch spamming and so on is a CLEAR giveaway. It works and makes sense in CS:GO because of the 2 movement planes and that body shots with an awp are good kills.

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Completely absurd. Cheating bans are not automated and 10.5% of games having a cheater is absurdly low depending on WHEN you are playing. The middle of the day during a school day? Ive played dozens and dozens of games without a single cheater. During a school vacation or after school hours? You’d be lucky to get i to a single game that diesnt have at least one.

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Anyone better than me is cheating.

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I’ve only seen about 3 blatant cheaters since 2016.

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You do understand that overwatch is not a browser game and that cheats actually cost a lot.

Assuming even one in a thousand players would cheat is pretty bold, let alone the one in a hundred you took for granted.

Your math is sound but your logic is lacking.

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Hackers have ruined the game this month and people don’t even know. I’m amazed at what they are getting away with.

I’m playing super low ranks (been almost GM), and these botters are blatantly microsnapping as Widow and spamming as Mcree. They always know where to position because they have wallhacks.

Low rank players deny it, they get owned by it, then they blame each other. High rank players hide it better and are NEVER reported. Game is broken atm.

1 Like
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BINGO. I often wonder just how many of these deniers are just cheaters themselves.

‐--------
K
As for the kid that said cheating is expensive? Give me a break LIAR. Lag switching/3rd party software/etc are all cheap and easy.

21

After hearing you talk …you make me feel like at least someone in HQ is actually listening to us. I still consider myself new to shooting games even though it’s been I think about 2 years since buying the game… I don’t remember the precise date but … alot of the games were toxic and made me go away from OW for several months. I was on the verge of deleting my account even though I didn’t really want to… I was abit tired of dealing with the toxicity and I felt like HQ weren’t listening to the fans who truly love OW… I’m glade I didn’t delete my account but it’s still disappointing that people think it’s okay to play in lower tiers just to be narcissistic and sabotage people’s games.