Tarkov has a cheating problem, no one can deny that.
Tarkov also has a problem detecting cheaters – automated methods only go so far, and cheat developers can rewrite cheats to avoid detection faster than BSG can patch against them. Patching against cheats is an unwinnable arms race given how much money there is in writing cheats these days.
Right now, you can report a player for cheating if they kill you. This will catch the most obvious cheaters, but miss the majority of cheaters that keep it low-key.
I think it's time to consider implementing replays as a top priority feature.
Why?
I played PUBG for a little north of 3,000 hours before I found Tarkov. One thing that made a big difference in catching cheaters in PUBG is when they added replays to the game.
Before they added replays, there was a huge number of accusations of hacking.
After they added the replays, it turns out there was a huge number of hackers!
Good players outnumber hackers. As cheat detectors go, they're a vastly under-utilized resource by BSG. With replays, you could have thousands of players looking for cheaters 24/7 and BSG wouldn't have to even give them a salary to do so!
Replays eliminate vast amounts of false accusations of hacking. Replays let players catch subtle hacks you'd never even notice without watching a replay.
There've been arguments against replays, almost all of them centered on dead players giving an advantage to living ones. There's plenty of methods that could be used to avoid this scenario – keeping the replay locked until the raid is over, for example, and in general, I think the pros of having replays far, far, outweigh the potential cons.
As a community, we need to really push for this feature. Cheaters ruin games and gaming communities, replays are one of the biggest weapons against them. Tarkov is all about being smart with weapons, we should do the same here.
