Originally posted by Jack Del Rio
I figured out the exploit some time middle of season 14. I didn't start using it til ~week 4 of season 15 on some of my guys. At that point it cost player cash to do the upgrades, so I couldn't get much more than +4 or +5 on the players with the most cash. But I'd say the ability to hack the CE up above 6 has to have been around since the beginning of the game, assuming the interface and links have stayed the same (I really don't remember every little visual change that happened, if I'm wrong, and there were changes to the interface I'm forgetting, it's still been possible to cheat this way for quite a while). I mean, when you go to buy normal equipment, you just change the # in the address bar from 24 (White Shirt) to 45 (Custom Equipment), haha. And then when endorsements were implemented (season 7? 8? idk), I figure it was basically the same process - 46 is Local Endorsement, 47 is National Endorsement, and 48 is Corporate Endorsement. But all that got auto-fixed when the new training and eq rolled out. Now it's a lot harder and more limited.
Me, blln, and PT only got caught because we did some "extra" cheating that very few others likely participated in - we bought hacked endorsements for our players in the small small window we were able to do so - between when endorsements were processed and handed out on day 41, and when the new training was rolled out (day 42 or day 41? idk), all in preparation to use them in season 16. I guarantee we weren't the only three cheating this way over the course of 15 seasons, though. When I discovered the exploit in season 14 and shared it with blln in season 15, we were both pretty pissed that it existed. It put a huge asterisk on the WL, and we honestly thought Valhalla might have been using it just because one time alloy opened up a build and the points from EQ seemed impossible based on how much AE he was wearing (with no endorsement). Someone called him out on it, but no one really responded, and the issue went away. But yeah, we took our new +1 endorsement pieces into season 16, I figured out how to upgrade them (and CE) using Firebug, and then catch ran a scan (or just stumbled across one of my builds seeing how I share a team with him) and banned me first, and then blln/PT.
I guess the main thing to take away from all this is that, while I'll admit I'm semi-biased in the issue, Catch22 is just flat out lying when he said that 1) the exploits have been sealed off, 2) there were only a few users and not widespread, and 3) hacked equipment only existed after day 42 of last offseason. I mean, those just plain aren't true. But I definitely see why he would say so from a damage control point of view. I just can't believe he would really think that banning me or blln means that we can't get in touch with you guys using various methods and debunk his lies, lol.
I figured out the exploit some time middle of season 14. I didn't start using it til ~week 4 of season 15 on some of my guys. At that point it cost player cash to do the upgrades, so I couldn't get much more than +4 or +5 on the players with the most cash. But I'd say the ability to hack the CE up above 6 has to have been around since the beginning of the game, assuming the interface and links have stayed the same (I really don't remember every little visual change that happened, if I'm wrong, and there were changes to the interface I'm forgetting, it's still been possible to cheat this way for quite a while). I mean, when you go to buy normal equipment, you just change the # in the address bar from 24 (White Shirt) to 45 (Custom Equipment), haha. And then when endorsements were implemented (season 7? 8? idk), I figure it was basically the same process - 46 is Local Endorsement, 47 is National Endorsement, and 48 is Corporate Endorsement. But all that got auto-fixed when the new training and eq rolled out. Now it's a lot harder and more limited.
Me, blln, and PT only got caught because we did some "extra" cheating that very few others likely participated in - we bought hacked endorsements for our players in the small small window we were able to do so - between when endorsements were processed and handed out on day 41, and when the new training was rolled out (day 42 or day 41? idk), all in preparation to use them in season 16. I guarantee we weren't the only three cheating this way over the course of 15 seasons, though. When I discovered the exploit in season 14 and shared it with blln in season 15, we were both pretty pissed that it existed. It put a huge asterisk on the WL, and we honestly thought Valhalla might have been using it just because one time alloy opened up a build and the points from EQ seemed impossible based on how much AE he was wearing (with no endorsement). Someone called him out on it, but no one really responded, and the issue went away. But yeah, we took our new +1 endorsement pieces into season 16, I figured out how to upgrade them (and CE) using Firebug, and then catch ran a scan (or just stumbled across one of my builds seeing how I share a team with him) and banned me first, and then blln/PT.
I guess the main thing to take away from all this is that, while I'll admit I'm semi-biased in the issue, Catch22 is just flat out lying when he said that 1) the exploits have been sealed off, 2) there were only a few users and not widespread, and 3) hacked equipment only existed after day 42 of last offseason. I mean, those just plain aren't true. But I definitely see why he would say so from a damage control point of view. I just can't believe he would really think that banning me or blln means that we can't get in touch with you guys using various methods and debunk his lies, lol.
