another cheater? gigolo? EDIT: AND PAUSE

[cosmonaut]

i keep running into this guy "gigolo" and i'm pretty sure he's pulling the *mr. j* cheat. tonight he was at 8300 and he placed 3rd. he has NEVER beaten me and a quick examination of his screen yields a pretty mediocre 6300ish player. anyone come across this guy yet?

[tepples]

What is the "Mr. J" cheat and how do I search for it?

[DIGITAL]

Well, you basically cheat the rating system by creating a save file and reverting back to the file when you lose, saving when you win.

[cosmonaut]

i can pretty much guarantee that gigolo is pulling the mr j save-trick. this morning on blockstats he's at 8310.

[tepples]

I wish I could do a Mr. J so I could practice 4-player without having to fight for two hours to replace the 500 points I inevitably lose.

[Phydeaux]

I avoid 4 player on world wide for that reason. It just kills me.

[Xkeeper]

This makes me wish I had an Action Replay, so I could grab the save file.


It'd be interesting to see if the rating really is entirely controlled by the cartridge, as you could (very, very easily) simply play a game, look for data that changed, repeat ad nasuea, until you locate the rating in the savefile data.


It'd be interesting as both a proof-of-concept and as a way to give myself a way of having a 10,000+ rating that might attract Nintendo's attention and let them realize that their rating system is just a litttttle broken.


(note that I actually wouldn't use it for cheating -- I'd just use another save file for 'legitamate' gaming)

[Phydeaux]

Eh, it'd get old to do it after awhile.

[Xkeeper]

Eh, it'd get old to do it after awhile.That's the point - You'd do it once to boost aplayer to, say, 13370 (heh), then just leave it there and see how long until Nintendo removes you.


It's meant as more of a proof-of-concept of how hackable this game's system is.


Though yes, non-rated games would be very welcome http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

[tepples]

It'd be interesting to see if the rating really is entirely controlled by the cartridge, as you could (very, very easily) simply play a game, look for data that changed, repeat ad nasuea, until you locate the rating in the savefile data.

Unless it's encrypted. The entire Mario Kart DS save file is encrypted, which is why the Action Replay doesn't include decal import/export.

[deepdorp]

studying some of the graphs from blockstats seems to provide proof of the savegame cheat. For instance, a very jagged graph, to me, with only a couple different numerical scores indicates that someone is using the cheat. I think i have seen some of the people in question post here before, so maybe they could enlighten anyone how stats are achieved to alternate from a lower score to a higher score and back and forth. I'm not accusing anyone yet, because there could be a good reason for it, but if you look at his numbers (and many other top 10 player) it just doesn't add up. I have never played the people i'm referring to, so I can't vouch for their actual in-game skills, which might shed more light on if they cheat or not. But if someone is a legit player how could their score fluctuate back and forth between only two values. Does this make sense to anybody, or am i overlooking something.


You could say the same for a score that only goes up, like #1 TGM-Holic, but in that case there is a good alternate explanation--he is really good.


the #2 ranked person's graph is an even more extreme example of a jagged stat graph, fluctuating only ~9300 and 5785. this doesn't indicate a deliberate attempt to drop and then climb back up to me, since I would expect to see some variance in the score values.


In contrast, i can only look at my own graph which I know is accurate and to me, it looks more like what i would expect from any player at any skill level.


Again, I don't want to jump the gun here, because for all i know, there could be a bug in blockstats score-keeping. But assuming there is no bug, statistics generally don't lie.

[tepples]

Either that or there are two players with the same DS nickname.

[deepdorp]

tepples, i had not thought of that and that would definately explain it. Furthermore, the top players would probably be high targets for copycat nicknames.


Now, i have cross-referenced Nintendo gaming hub and sure enough there are simultaneously two of the player nackname's in question, one at 8141, and one at 7252, just as blockstats illustrates. It could even be the same person with two DS's one for two-player and one for 4-player maybe.


*edit*

I removed the reference to a nickname that I now don't believe is using a cheat, so as not to even associate their name with a thread about cheating.

[DIGITAL]

My rating had been fluctuating between two numbers too. It's really strange since I hadn't touched Worldwide for a couple of days.

Not sure gigolo is using the same cheat as mr j. In his blockstats record it stays in the 4000's for a while, then jumps to the 8000's in a day and pretty much stays there, like he could edit his own rating. Even with a cheat, most people would struugle to rise 4000 points in a day, especially if they were a player with a rating of 4000 to begin with.

[deepdorp]

i actually checked the other night on the hub and can confirm that there are 2 players named gigolo, so the blockstats graph is actually two people or one person with two DS's.

[Rosti LFC]

That's wierd, cos I thought he was cheating after looking at the ratings while playing him, so I must have played both of the players using the 'gigolo' nickname in one night. To be fair though, the nickname is actually a word, so could quite possibly be two people (if the name was something like 'bnodfa' I would be more suspicious). 'Mr J' doesn't seem like too obscure a nickname, though the stars would reduce the possibility of there being two players.


The way blockstats updates the database more often for higher ranked players also makes it less obvious that there are two players, as the two different figures of each player don't pair up.

[cosmonaut]

tonight i ran into PAUSE and i'm pretty sure he's another gigolo/mr. j saver cheater.


he was at 7910 when we began, he was the first out... then disconnected.


then he was at 7666.


and he wasn't very good.

[tepples]

"First one out" implies you were playing 4-player mode. Skill in 2-player and skill in 4-player don't necessarily correlate. I'm not sure that even the experts in the Shirase videos can cope with no rotation, no next piece display, and shuffling the columns every 20 pieces.

[Phydeaux]

"First one out" implies you were playing 4-player mode. Skill in 2-player and skill in 4-player don't necessarily correlate. I'm not sure that even the experts in the Shirase videos can cope with no rotation, no next piece display, and shuffling the columns every 20 pieces.


As a matter of fact, what might give me a little reassurance in my pitiful life would be to see them do that, and then cry a little bit. Great pleasure, in that.

If someone has a high rating but are not particularly good, maybe they aren't the only people using their DS. My sister had a go a Tetris online a while ago and my rating dropped over 1000 points (needless to say she's now banned from playing online on my DS). Maybe you weren't playing the player who had achieved the high rating.


PS: Nice to se everyone on TC is ranked no 1 in the world according to the blockstats gifs

[Phydeaux]

YEAH WE F"&*ING RULE!!!

[cosmonaut]

tepples wrote:

"First one out" implies you were playing 4-player mode. Skill in 2-player and skill in 4-player don't necessarily correlate. I'm not sure that even the experts in the Shirase videos can cope with no rotation, no next piece display, and shuffling the columns every 20 pieces.


this is true BUT i've played over 3000 4-player games and have over 2100 4-player wins and as a general rule anyone i see with a rating over 7500 is a VERY legitimate contender regardless of the items used. The best 4-player player around (lately) is "poor rusty" whose rating was at about 7600-7700 yesterday and the worst i've ever seen hiim place was second -- in at least 30 matches against him).


a quick scan of "PAUSE" on blockstats showed a guy who has been at 7922 for over the last month. So, i would presume then, either he keeps reverting to his saved game at 7922 ooorrr he just never plays -- which i doubt.


i don't mean to jump to conclusions about these players -- but when i name drop a player's name who i think has an unfairly achieved high rating i make sure to have a definitive basis for doing so. And i kind of like having them around... it's nice to get a quick 200 point boost every once in awhile. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

[Xkeeper]

And i kind of like having them around... it's nice to get a quick 200 point boost every once in awhile. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gifthey're really nice, throwing points back into the system, aren't they? http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

[Rosti LFC]

They are handy for a points boost but it still annoys me. They should at least be removed from high score tables (once proved that they are cheating).

[cosmonaut]

hi,

i ran into PAUSE again tonight and i can confirm that he's up to some sort of shenanigans. Once again he was losing BADLY and instead of losing he disconnects before his garbage piles him through the roof.


when he came into the game he was sporting a hefty 79xx again....

Seems TGM-Liem is the victim of a copycat. That or he's used more than one DS, which Nintendo WFC can't register as one person because the ID is different, so creates 2 active players

[Caithness]

Again, I don't want to jump the gun here, because for all i know, there could be a bug in blockstats score-keeping. But assuming there is no bug, statistics generally don't lie.


I'm not sure how much you should trust Blockstats. It doesn't seem to show at all how I reset my score to 5000 yesterday and then climbed up to 7500 for the first time. Also, it's got me jumping back and forth between 7500 and 7315, which I certainly haven't been doing.

[tepples]

I'm not sure how much you should trust Blockstats. It doesn't seem to show at all how I reset my score to 5000 yesterday and then climbed up to 7500 for the first time. Also, it's got me jumping back and forth between 7500 and 7315, which I certainly haven't been doing.

Who else is using your DS's nickname?

[Caithness]

No one that I know of. And 7315 was my score recently.

[cosmonaut]

this is off topic but where did "caithness" come from? what does it mean?

[Caithness]

Caithness is a very minor character in Macbeth. He's got like 2 or 3 lines in the whole play. After I started using it as my screen name I found out that it's also the name of a county in Scotland.

[Caithness]

Sorry to double-post, but I figured out why my score keeps jumping to 7315 on Blockstats. That was my score when I reset the save data on my Tetris DS card. I guess there are now 2 of me on Nintendo's scoreboard. I have no idea how to erase the old one, though.

[Millartime]

So some family have come to visit and I have temporarily acquired my little cousins DS and tetris cart. Naturally I've been doing a little study on points. I cant believe how the system works! I have been doing heavy recon as 'poor rusty' to scrape up points to face the other system playing as 'How High'. Playing 'poor rusty' 7800 against 'How High' 8650 took about 25-30 minutes to meet online. At one stint I played 100 matches and the 'How High' rating only went up 58 points, and this against what started as a 7800 player!! Thats ridiculous! I cant imagine how TGM Holic has cracked/maintained his hefty 9500+ rating. I was going to try to see how high I could get the rating (see if I could crack 10000) but the time and effort it takes has proven to be just plain silly. I'd much rather play to see what rating I can achieve myself, its so so much more meaningful and more fun. What I have seen is how TGM Cheat , ?Œ???????(pretty sure this is the 'fuck' all I pieces cheater),Mr.J, and all of the other cheaters scores who havent changed in a month became sick of cheating. It is darn ridiculous how high of a win % you need to build and maintain a score of 8500+ let alone 8000. It took me over 10 hours of constant losing on one DS to get the rating to 8751 on the other. I guess this is my 99,999,999 endless. Anyways the DS and game cart are back in my little cousins hands and the big points will be doled out promptly. Millar TC is back. Good Luck getting a piece of the points!(I really hate that cheaters (How High included *sorry*) clog up the world rating. This is my biggest tetris pet peeve.)

you schlep!!!


you are poor rusty?!!?


caithness, rosti and i have been marveling at how good "poor rusty" was and it was YOU all along.


nice work millar at wasting me earlier today. and hopefully i'll see you again, un-incognito tomorrow. http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif

yeah, and p.s. fuck cheaters. and props to HOLiC

[Millartime]

sorry tee hee http://www.tetrisconcept.net/forum/images/smilies/icon_redface.gif

And I do love to see those familiar names unleash themselves.

[Rosti LFC]

I love cheaters! Gigolo just gave me a 100 point boost to my rating in one match. Just mentally erase their names from the leaderboard and promote yourself above them, and be happy that when you meet them it's like christmas for your wifi rating. I don't think that there are too many out there. It's not like metroid, where it seems half of the higher end players are cheaters or use glitches in the game. You only have to look at how many different threads there are on cheaters at the NSider forums to see how big a problem it is.

Heh, Millar, it was you all along playing as 'poor rusty'. Was it sometimes not you playing? I swear I played poor rusty as a 6000 player. I'm fairly sure I've played How High as well, or maybe I just recognise it off the leaderboard. Yeah, that's probably it.

[Sully]

Millar- you owned me on push the other day. I had never played Push WiFi before that day and I probably should have quit after a few losses to you. The 1 win wasn't worth the 13 losses.


Then we met again on standard. Good job winning 9 straight after I took the first 3.

[Millartime]

It was good to see you on standard 2 player again, that makes twice.It was a good set. You totally blasted me right off the bat with those 3 wins. It was a dejavu from our last set where you took the series handily. Lucky for me I got streaky and got some big wins this time. Im still surprised I dont meet you online as much. Speaking of surprised I was shocked to see Sully TC come up for a push match. When I saw you I was getting points to boost How High rating to its final destination of 8751. That rating has now gone the way of the dodo and leveled out to a current 7800. I played most of my points to some serioud 4player matches earlier today. I played Rosti, Caithness and itsJoeWOAH among others. We were all in the blockstats.org chat room talking about our games and opponents the whole time. Rosti and Cosmonaut even managed a couple games each vs Holic. Sadly I never got the chance to play Holic or cosmonaut. Anyways i think I'm gonna try to get 3000 wins in each category for my next challenge. Basically Im gonna play a boat load of 4 player. -Millartime out.

[Caithness]

So are your cousins still going by the name 'poor rusty'? If I see him again will it be an easy win?

[Millartime]

Unfortunately poor rusty willl only be back in lieu of Millar TC. Rusty is the name of one of our cichlids. He is currently the one who gets picked on the most. To be honest I thought he would be done by now, but he always gets away. Even when I try to get him hes strong enough to make haste. Everytime I see him I feel bad for him, so bad in fact that I changed my name in homage. Maybe ill bounce around with both names, or maybe somemore names, I saw igor getting picked on in another tank....poor igor?? Stay on your toes!! -Millartime out