Cheating or not? Emulator play.

[system]

Just a quick one here to get your opinions on this:
would it be considered cheating in MPQ if someone run the game via an Android emulator on a PC? These can speed up the pace at which the app runs. While this also affects the in-game time it also cuts active playing in half running it at x2 speed.

[Bowgentle]

If it cuts down the time the animations take, yes, it’s cheating.

[Bowgentle]

@mexus

I’m not an expert. I haven’t tried. But I know there are Android emulators in which you can toggle the speed and it affects everything the emulator does. So while an animation would take 2 seconds instead of 4, the game would still count it as 4 seconds.
Running a PVE clear would take 25 minutes instead of 50 - but the game would count it as 50.

How would the game count it as 50 minutes? You start a node, the game records when you start it.
How would it secretly double your time?

[Starfury]

@Bowgentle

@mexus

I’m not an expert. I haven’t tried. But I know there are Android emulators in which you can toggle the speed and it affects everything the emulator does. So while an animation would take 2 seconds instead of 4, the game would still count it as 4 seconds.
Running a PVE clear would take 25 minutes instead of 50 - but the game would count it as 50.

How would the game count it as 50 minutes? You start a node, the game records when you start it.
How would it secretly double your time?

The question is who decides the point value of a node. Client or (i’d assume) Server.

But if there would be any impact from the client running faster, it would be in favor of the faster client, since points would also recharge in 12 hours instead of 24. And since we don’t see anyone with thousands of points more anyone else, we can safely exclude that possibility.

[Ruinate]

Do you know for a fact that android emulators can speed up the game? I once made a post and claimed that I play on an emulator at 4x speed, but I was lying. I was just trying to get Fightmaster riled up.

https://forums.505go.com/discussion/65075/are-there-differences-in-speed-between-platforms/p1

No android emulator that I have found has a turbo speed, although it’s been a long time since I looked for updated versions >:) >:) >:) >:) >:)

[jamesh]

@mexus

@Bowgentle

@mexus

I’m not an expert. I haven’t tried. But I know there are Android emulators in which you can toggle the speed and it affects everything the emulator does. So while an animation would take 2 seconds instead of 4, the game would still count it as 4 seconds.
Running a PVE clear would take 25 minutes instead of 50 - but the game would count it as 50.

How would the game count it as 50 minutes? You start a node, the game records when you start it.
How would it secretly double your time?

I’m not an expert so basically I could be wrong.
But guessing the in-game seconds are sped up; the in-game counter runs at double speed.

This question originates from an old thread about different speeds on different platforms / units / models and someone mentioned he/she runs at an emulator at turbo (x4) speed. I’m a bit psyched to try that - but of course not it it’s cheating.

Speeding up the clock on the client won’t change the clock on the server where all the scores are managed. It won’t magically inflate the times again somehow: presumably it will just look like you’re completing the matches fast.

And that’s where the concerns about cheating arise. If you can complete the initial four clears in half the time, the refresh timer will start earlier. And if you can complete the matches at the end of the sub in half the time, you can let it refresh further too. Both of these things give you an advantage not available to players running the regular version of the game.

I agree that it would be nice if some of the animations were shorter, or if you could skip some of the repetition. But those benefits should be available to all players rather than just to one person running a hacked game client.

[Nepenthe]

@Ruinate

Do you know for a fact that android emulators can speed up the game? I once made a post and claimed that I play on an emulator at 4x speed, but I was lying. I was just trying to get Fightmaster riled up.

Are there differences in speed between platforms? - MPQ General Discussion - 505 Go! Official Forums

No android emulator that I have found has a turbo speed, although it’s been a long time since I looked for updated versions >:) >:) >:) >:) >:)

Ha! I was about to post that I’d seen someone say that they played in an emulator for just this reason, but I’m pretty sure it was your post. Well played.

[Bowgentle]

@Nepenthe

@Ruinate

Do you know for a fact that android emulators can speed up the game? I once made a post and claimed that I play on an emulator at 4x speed, but I was lying. I was just trying to get Fightmaster riled up.

Are there differences in speed between platforms? - MPQ General Discussion - 505 Go! Official Forums

No android emulator that I have found has a turbo speed, although it’s been a long time since I looked for updated versions >:) >:) >:) >:) >:)

Ha! I was about to post that I’d seen someone say that they played in an emulator for just this reason, but I’m pretty sure it was your post. Well played.

Trollinate strikes again

Well played, Ruru

[Milk_Jugz]

I’d say anything that gives you an advantage on clear times that’s not meant to be there by the developers is cheating

[TetsujinOni]

So, I don’t care if the animations are the same speed. once scaling comes in, the time to render the view changes (match view to TU screen to points spinner to PvE node selector) and sometimes having to wait for rendering of the click targets…

THAT needs to get (re)optimized - it should be nigh-instant and bulletproof; this is not that complicated a UI

[jamesh]

@TetsujinOni

So, I don’t care if the animations are the same speed. once scaling comes in, the time to render the view changes (match view to TU screen to points spinner to PvE node selector) and sometimes having to wait for rendering of the click targets…

THAT needs to get (re)optimized - it should be nigh-instant and bulletproof; this is not that complicated a UI

I suspect those parts are slow because they’re pinging the server to get an up-to-date view of the game state. That’s the kind of thing where a faster device, or an emulator running the local clock faster will make no difference.

If they’re making more round trips than actually necessary, there might be room for optimisation. But if not, the only fix might be “move to the US” in order to reduce round trip times.

[Moon_Roach]

@jamesh

@TetsujinOni

So, I don’t care if the animations are the same speed. once scaling comes in, the time to render the view changes (match view to TU screen to points spinner to PvE node selector) and sometimes having to wait for rendering of the click targets…

THAT needs to get (re)optimized - it should be nigh-instant and bulletproof; this is not that complicated a UI

I suspect those parts are slow because they’re pinging the server to get an up-to-date view of the game state. That’s the kind of thing where a faster device, or an emulator running the local clock faster will make no difference.

If they’re making more round trips than actually necessary, there might be room for optimisation. But if not, the only fix might be “move to the US” in order to reduce round trip times.

I went to the USCIS website just to take a look at how easy it is to move to the US, and whether there was a visa category that would cover this situation.

It’s not (easy, that is), and there isn’t.

[TetsujinOni]

@jamesh

@TetsujinOni

So, I don’t care if the animations are the same speed. once scaling comes in, the time to render the view changes (match view to TU screen to points spinner to PvE node selector) and sometimes having to wait for rendering of the click targets…

THAT needs to get (re)optimized - it should be nigh-instant and bulletproof; this is not that complicated a UI

I suspect those parts are slow because they’re pinging the server to get an up-to-date view of the game state. That’s the kind of thing where a faster device, or an emulator running the local clock faster will make no difference.

If they’re making more round trips than actually necessary, there might be room for optimisation. But if not, the only fix might be “move to the US” in order to reduce round trip times.

the TU award screen, “random” award screen, and points-crawl are all slow to render - an that seems likely to be a “Nexus 5 from 2013 is slow” issue, y’know?

[Jaedenkaal]

The game definitely does not ping the server at all during a match. You can play a match for (practically) as long as you want with no internet connection just fine. It’ll only matter when the match ends.

[TetsujinOni]

@Jaedenkaal

The game definitely does not ping the server at all during a match. You can play a match for (practically) as long as you want with no internet connection just fine. It’ll only matter when the match ends.

Not what was under discussion, but definitely accurate (for which I’m glad on train commutes to NYC)

[broll]

@TetsujinOni

@Jaedenkaal

The game definitely does not ping the server at all during a match. You can play a match for (practically) as long as you want with no internet connection just fine. It’ll only matter when the match ends.

Not what was under discussion, but definitely accurate (for which I’m glad on train commutes to NYC)

From my experience I have mixed results with this if you lock your phone and/or jump between apps in the middle of a fight. So I don’t think it’s far to say that’s 100% accurate, some things can knock you out of a fight, not sure what exactly the trigger is.

For this reason I avoid locking my phone or otherwise not finishing a match. It’s bitten me far too many times to be worth the gamble.

[mikelnoe]

@TetsujinOni

@Jaedenkaal

The game definitely does not ping the server at all during a match. You can play a match for (practically) as long as you want with no internet connection just fine. It’ll only matter when the match ends.

Not what was under discussion, but definitely accurate (for which I’m glad on train commutes to NYC)

From my experience I have mixed results with this if you lock your phone and/or jump between apps in the middle of a fight. So I don’t think it’s far to say that’s 100% accurate, some things can knock you out of a fight, not sure what exactly the trigger is.

For this reason I avoid locking my phone or otherwise not finishing a match. It’s bitten me far too many times to be worth the gamble.
[/quote]
Simply locking your phone should not cause the game to restart

3 things will cause the game to force restart

1. Crashes
2. Data pushes (once or twice a day d3 sends updated game data to all devices. Usually 11am-ish est and sometimes 5pm-ish est)
3. Overwriting game data in your devices ram (running other apps or watching lots of videos can overwrite critical game data stored in your devices RAM which will cause the game to restart and reload the missing data)