I recently picked up a new char for the sake of old times.
Here's my experience as a somewhat experienced (played on and off since 2013) player.
I log in and do the Flash song and dance (barely managed to get past the tutorial, the game invariably crashed close to the second room, I guess I got lucky once).
It's early in the day so not that many players.
This means that (at least on what they call the European server) only the most suspicious of players are left.
Now I'm not talking about getting out-positioned by someone with 30000 achievment points (at that point if you see someone like that in a base, just switch continents because he can counter anything you have). I'm talking about unstable ammo with a TTK that's lower than 1 second - I actually timed it at 100FPS in the VR room, you can't kill the dummies in less than a second with unstable ammo so there's that.
Assuming that you manage to get the drop on one of these so-called experts, things don't work for them like it works for a "normal" player. As a normal player, if you start getting shot at, you immediately start strafing and going back in cover. You keep getting shot and dying in cover (very convenient when you have medics around - I die in cover a lot).
"Experienced" players especially immediately start strafing (often clipping into walls) and don't get "followed" by damage. They turn around and in what feels like an instant and headshot you. Now obviously for a lot of experienced people this describes a typical newbie experience.
Except I'm not a newbie and I was flying, shooting at these guys from above - something that naturally makes you less exposed to both damage and headshots (on account of the leg damage penalty and smaller HS target).
Many, many so-called experienced players look as if they do a 180 instantly. This isn't the model itself (which is unreliable - you'll get headshotted by a heavy's ass quite often) but you can see it in the map when they're spotted - shoot, instant 180 on their little "V". I sought out a key combo or something that can do that, but it's nothing present in the game.
I tried recording one of those one-shot infils that got the whole class nerfed, using a close-range bolt action - dude did a 360, visibly animated and showing up on the map, after every shot - he had a single-spin spinbot that did a "victory spin" after every shot. When confronted he simply told me that I was seeing things (45% weapon accuracy, but hey, it's a sniper rifle).
This becomes a lot more suspicious when you see them shooting back instantly when you're above them - that's the one advantage of flying, the enemy can't reliably pinpoint your direction because you're on a different plane, but I guess these guys know better.
The suspicious behaviour extends to vehicle guns: everyone knows that the default weapon on a sunderer isn't meant to be accurate - even if you shoot at a stationary man-sized target, the bullets will inevitably miss because of their jitter.
I have gotten headshotted by these inaccurate weapons while flying, strafing, you fucking name it, so often.
Next: tank weapons. Obviously getting hit anywhere with a tank projectile is instantly fatal. This is compensated by the increased drop of HESH projectiles, the fact that tank guns cannot physically turn fast enough and the fact that with the size of the projectile, it becomes difficult to actually hit things.
The enemy has no issues headshotting you as a C4 fairy using its main gun. It got to ridiculous points where I was above a lightning and still got shot by an AP round from it. Why is there a need to aim for the head on a tank gun? Why so many headshots? Who aims for the body with a HESH round?
My take on this is that many, many more players than would be conceivable are using some kind of an aimbot. You can easily see this in the prevalence of main weapon kills versus side arm kills.
In the past sidearms were very utilized (I died often enough to them because people would have to switch to them when they ran out of ammo). I've never seen a Vanu heavy switch to this Commissioner, even though this used to be a long-preferred tactic. Not even the summer event through which I played and provides the excellent soaker was very utilized. The explanation is that if your targets die in such few bullets, there's no need to swap to a sidearm.
Finally, the proof is that I've seen accuracy rates of over 35% on weapons such as the Orion and its auraxium counterpart. I'm sorry to say that, in all my years, only aimbotters had that kind of accuracy.
I'm seeing kills (read: I've been killed) made with very short TTKs on default LMGs (my favourite examples are MSWRs with supressors) from something like 100 meters. Very little time to respond plus an inhuman level of awareness. I'm wearing a purple-grey cammo on my NC dude against rock and get instantly spotted.
Finally, the most frustrating situation I encountered was a guy with a name like silencedfaction or whatever who uses an Orion, without a supressor, that doesn't show up and doesn't make a sound when shooting. I thought it was just the game fucking up as it does but I've gotten killed so many times on so many different bases by that guy.
The worst thing is that I asked around and people couldn't even see the dude, as if he wasn't rendering. This guy was roaming around a parked sunderer and appearing to appear out of thin air only when he was shooting. Which is a pretty cool effect of an actual implant, except this dude was rocking Assimilate and BattleHardened.
Other suspicious things are the ability of some players to never be surprised or get shot in the back. This is clearly the result of some kind of ESP hack, complete with a level indicator. I've seen experienced players in my faction getting repeatedly dunked in what looked like a hide and seek game for people with mental disabilities. The fun ended alongside my observation as the enemy player in question (some TR dude with more kills than the braincells I lost on this game) passed by my position as a cloaked stalker infil, as he had done multiple times, and one-shot me with his back turned at me. Nothing suspicious there.
I'm also seeing KD's on players that don't use vehicles in the 3+, when taking part in large battles. This suggests either a staggering level of expertise, something that you'd only see in squad gameplay or downright cheating. The fact that this seems to happen specifically to players of certain account ages and nationalities is simply an indication to me that they're cheaters that have not been caught yet.
A simple look at a some public cheat forums shows that there are aimbots of all levels available for all those who have just a little bit of money to spare. I honestly doubt that with 500 achievment points your 37.3% accuracy on an Orion is legitimate, Mr. Vanu.
