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Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 10:37 am

SO some of you may remember me, I stopped playing neopets about a year and a half ago and dropped off the PPT radar a little while after that. I logged onto my neo account for the first time in 270 days about a week ago, and i've been getting back into it a little bit playing some flash games everyday after work.

I was never huge into the flash games when I played neo loads, was more of a restocker & quests, i've only ever managed to get two unique trophies (Skies over Meridell and Fetch :D very proud),

Anyway i've been looking at the highscores on the games I normally play, and nearly everyone who has a top score has accounts under a month old and has a CRAZY number of trophies...

Gadsgad - 2nd is one month old and 3rd is 3 weeks old and have like, 30 - 50 trophies each
Crisis Courier - 1st , 2weeks, 2nd - 3 weeks (same person who was 3rd in gadsgad)(, 3rd is a newbie
Super HAssee Bounce- 2nd SAME PERSON AGAIN, 3rd, 7months but has like.... 200 trophies

ect ect.

Am I just terrible, are some people just AMAZING at flash games or is cheating a problem on neo flash games?

(also hello everyone)

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 11:20 am

When the accounts are that young, it makes me suspect that they are new accounts of people who are frequently iced. But they might genuinely be getting those scores. My nephew got a high score in Never-Ending Boss Battle shortly before his old computer died -- the incredible lag meant he just had to sit in the corner and shoot, so it was an "easy" first place for him. I could see where lag might be advantageous in the games you mentioned.

Some game trophies you get just for beating the game (e.g., the card games) -- but over 200 would imply they know about reset night, etc., so I suspect they've been playing Neo for a while. High scores are usually reviewed, although I guess there could be a new way of cheating that TNT can't detect.

But, no, you probably don't suck at flash games.

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:33 pm

Generally, anyone with a very young account with a large number of trophies (usually 20-30 or more) is cheating. This is not always the case, but it is for the majority of cases. They use cheating programs to automatically submit scores just under the review limit (so they can get the top spots without having to wait for a review, and also to prevent suspicion) but very early in the morning so they can be the first ones to get the trophies. This ruins it for the rest of us who are genuine players. Also, you can detect cheating if someone has a certain score (like if someone has a score ending in anything other than a 5 or 0 in Dubloon Disaster) Other than reporting them, there is not much you can do.

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:37 pm

Yes, you're terrible and you suck :P (Love you, Marcus!)

Srsly though, it's most likely cheating.

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:33 pm

I would say cheating.
Don't feel too bad. I can never get even near a high score in any of the flash games. I think I got a high score once upon a time.

It also is suspicious when newbies make offers on items worth 100K+ when their accounts are less than 2 weeks old. I have a Desert Ona and a newbie made a decent offer on it. I also had a Blue Matu bead and another newbie made an offer on it. I always makes me suspicious when they have that kind of money.

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:10 pm

I'm going to have to say it's a mixture of both. It's easy to point the finger at newbies with lots of trophies and scream cheater, but unless it's obvious that they cheated (impossible high scores, ect), it's perfectly possible that they could just be really good at games or someone told them about reset night and they've gotten lucky. That said, there's probably a lot more cheaters than lucky newbies and returning players with new accounts.

I can understand being suspicious of newbies with plenty of np. But my sister found a TCG card in a re worth over a mil when her account was only a couple days old. So it can happen...

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 8:09 pm

As far as I understand it, when you send a score TNT has no idea what went on during your game, they only see the final score and make a decision if it seems possible that you really scored that. So if they set a limit of 1000 points, you just "stop cheating" in the higher 990s and you can get that trophy without being frozen because of it. Trophies haven't been about who's best at the games in a long, long time. Though during reset night and the following couple days a lot of the players are playing for real, so I'm not necessarily calling you a cheater if you have a lot of trophies. :)

The most us "genuine" players can do is rest assured that many of the cheaters have their 1-month accounts for a reason - they're constantly getting caught, and don't get to keep what they essentially steal. Makes me feel better about it anyway. :/

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Wed Jan 07, 2009 8:59 pm

On the topic on newbie accounts, I had a speckled PB (amazingly won by playing KQ), which sold to someone with a 2-month old account for 65K. Okay, that isn't really suspicious, but when I go to the person's shop, he has 22 speckled PBs, 23 glowing PBs, 1 sketchy PB, 1 red PB, 1 blue PB, as well as two morphing potions. Again, it is possible to have those items, even for someone with a young account, but still.

The person also has a Starry Usul Morphing Potion in his gallery (which is worth at least 200K) and a Snegg in his gallery (worth at least 200K).

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Thu Jan 08, 2009 2:18 am

well, i feel a little bit better about this now :P

thanks for explaining how the modderin works, really sucks that they can't tell. I guess thats why everyone in like the top 5 for some games has the same score (Skies over Meridell - 995 ect).

While sure its fine because they get their acccounts deleted eventually, only a small number of people can win trophies and they just make it harder :(

What would your reaction be if TNT changed the way we won trophies to being a set score? Make the set score VERY high, as high as it is for people say on the third day after reset, so it would still take some effort? We could continue having the highscore table for showing off (and the NP rewards which seem super small now) but trophies could be a lil easier so cheaters don't ruin it for everyone?

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Thu Jan 08, 2009 2:51 am

Also, to clarify to everyone, many legit players (including I) get scores just under the review limit because TNT takes days to review them (although this is used by illegit players to get around the rules) and by the time you get it reviewed, you will be bumped totally out of trophy position. I scored 2199 (1 point below the Eliv Thade limit) and got a Bronze trophy this month :)

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:44 am

Yep, just under review was how I got my gold Advert Attack trophy a few months ago. And it's also a common strategy (when possible) for world challenges as well. (Which was the only reason I knew I could get that score easily ;))

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:21 am

Totally cheating, although you do get a lot of those whiz kids who are insanely good at the games - does toiletduck spring to mind for anyone? He had an insane amount of trophies although I think his account was eventually frozen which is a shame as I liked going to his account to look at his trophies.

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Thu Jan 08, 2009 8:05 am

zorg wrote:SO some of you may remember me, I stopped playing neopets about a year and a half ago and dropped off the PPT radar a little while after that. I logged onto my neo account for the first time in 270 days about a week ago, and i've been getting back into it a little bit playing some flash games everyday after work.

I was never huge into the flash games when I played neo loads, was more of a restocker & quests, i've only ever managed to get two unique trophies (Skies over Meridell and Fetch :D very proud),

Anyway i've been looking at the highscores on the games I normally play, and nearly everyone who has a top score has accounts under a month old and has a CRAZY number of trophies...

Gadsgad - 2nd is one month old and 3rd is 3 weeks old and have like, 30 - 50 trophies each
Crisis Courier - 1st , 2weeks, 2nd - 3 weeks (same person who was 3rd in gadsgad)(, 3rd is a newbie
Super HAssee Bounce- 2nd SAME PERSON AGAIN, 3rd, 7months but has like.... 200 trophies

ect ect.

Am I just terrible, are some people just AMAZING at flash games or is cheating a problem on neo flash games?

(also hello everyone)


zorg wrote:What would your reaction be if TNT changed the way we won trophies to being a set score? Make the set score VERY high, as high as it is for people say on the third day after reset, so it would still take some effort? We could continue having the highscore table for showing off (and the NP rewards which seem super small now) but trophies could be a lil easier so cheaters don't ruin it for everyone?


Hey Zorg!! I remember throwing snowballs with you last year!! That was great fun.. I pretty much gave up on the flash game trophies, too.

I have the same problem with trophies. I'm not willing to play into sending scores at 12:45am NST on reset day to get a trophy. I really like your idea of TNT waiting a couple of days to allow "normal" people (i.e. non-cheaters) a chance to legitimately get a trophy.

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Thu Jan 08, 2009 7:10 pm

I used to come to General Chat on PPT every month before the scores reset to see if anyone had an idea of a more precise time of when they would actually be reset and when trophies were awarded after that. A few months ago I remember not seeing a thread about it here nor in the Games section of PPT. I guess TNT settled on the "your score has to prevail by the end of the day" in order to earn a trophy. This makes it more fair in some instances, less in others in my opinion. On the one hand, if I were *very* good but not *really, really, really* good at a game there was a small chance I could still get a trophy by the end of the hour after High Scores reset (as that was when they *used* to be given out, yes?) but not anymore. I can see how it does prevent people from abusing the system and getting too many trophies, but it seems there couldn't be *that* much cheating going on with so many users getting so many great scores.

This past month I was trying to get a trophy on one or more of a few favorite games and, while I was a top scorer for an hour or two, I quickly was knocked out by far better players. What infuriated me this time was looking at the High Scores of several games (Smug Bug Smite to name one) and seeing users that were likely several accounts created by the same user/cheater taking up more than 10 or so spots on the charts (such as samename0011, samename0012, samename0013, etc.)! :x I had no way of knowing if my score would still qualify me after the cheaters were removed from the list (however long that would take TNT to fix) and if I should wait and hope or keep trying and use up my "three games a day limit" to try to beat the cheater(s). I miss the days where my slightly-above-mediocre skills could earn me a shiny reward. :(

Re: Am I just terrible at flash games, or has this gotten silly?

Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:54 am

I've read on other forum places that people have a way of cheating on flash games. I never ventured into asking how they did it, but they were selling these things for a lot of neopoints. Needless today I stopped going to that forum. (This was pre-PPT times xD)
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