ESP, Ghosting, and BH: The need for an increase in punishment severity

Many block hunt servers and communities have been ruined or severely affected by the use of ESP. Taking the time to record and report players that use ESP on the server is not only time consuming, but extremely boring. Most of the time, reporting gets the job done because even if a player is very experienced and knowledgeable about how to hide it, there are usually cracks in their playstyle or gameplay that show that they're using it. To state that any type of hack can completely ruin a gamemode entirely is true and I don't downplay the severity of how closet cheating affects other gamemodes, but the implication and effect of ESP on Block Hunt is very damaging to the community.

Long time players and members of the community are using ESP because they know they're not going to be punished for it, and even if they are, the length of the punishment is lackluster. Many people create accounts just for the sake of blatantly cheating and most of them don't even attempt to hide it.

This is probably a really lame analogy, but it works in this scenario. Say you're about 7 or 8 years old, and your parents tell you that you're allowed to have one cookie from the cookie jar per day. If you want more cookies, you could of course just ask for them, but you might steal a cookie. Maybe there were too many cookies in the jar for your parents to notice, so you keep doing it. At some point, it becomes obvious what you're doing and you get confronted about it. Either you get told to stop stealing cookies, or you receive a more harsh punishment.

This obviously isn't the same thing as using ESP, but the reality is that people have caught on to the fact that the punishment for ESP is not significant enough for the person using ESP to actually care about being banned. The difference here is that people using these types of cheats in game never receive a significantly harsher punishment. This is an issue that extends farther than somebody joining Mineplex to ESP a few games and then never play the server again. Long time players are using ESP because they want to get wins faster, and they clearly see that while the odds of them actually getting punished for using it are slim, that even if they get banned, it is a Sev 1 Gameplay offense, so it won't last long and they can come back and continue to do it again anyways.

This is the most important part about this thread for RC and the community to consider. We shouldn't be giving lackluster ban times because it's not clear enough to discern whether or not someone is ghosting or ESPing. I understand the position is pretty tough to be in, but either it's important that we encourage education of the differences rather than just trying something out, seeing it didn't work too well because at least 1/2 of RC has minimal experience in the game, and just coming to a conclusion that is easy. Alternatively, put people in positions of power to act out against these things that are passionate about the gamemode.

I'm not as intricate in post writing or collecting my thoughts formally as other people in this thread have done better than me, but there needs to be a solution to this issue rather than just letting it go on. As it stands right now, it is integral for Rules Committee to have a discussion on the future of ESP/Ghosting in Block Hunt. The current punishment for this is not enough, and while I agree that finding the difference between ESP and Ghosting is very difficult, whatever it is that people are doing to cheat is nonetheless completely ruining the game for others. The neglect of this rule change has left many members of the community either to start cheating or to stop caring about the game, and there are simply not enough people willing to die on the hill of fighting for this to be changed.

 

Hi, as a player of the BH community who became more actively playing it in February of 2020, I would like to say that ESPing has been an ongoing issue. I strongly agree with every point listed, as it's posed an ongoing problem for the BH community. It has led to a decline in the playerbase, and ruined many good lobbies. I believe increasing the severity or raising the punishment times will help to alleviate the stress the ESPers put onto the BH community. +1 for all the points above. I strongly agree and wish for it to be changed.