The Division beta PC players are giving themselves godlike powers
UPDATE: Ubisoft vows to thwart cheaters before the game comes out.
UPDATE 2nd Feb 2016: Ubisoft has vowed to thwart The Division cheaters ahead of the game's launch in March.
In a statement published to the Ubisoft forum, the company addressed cheating in the closed beta, which we covered in detail below.
Ubisoft said there will be a system in place to block cheaters by the time the game comes out, although it stopped short of explaining how it would work. Here's the statement:
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course. It will be interesting to see whether Ubisoft's anti-cheat system will make it into the game ahead of the recently-leaked The Division open beta.
ORIGINAL STORY 1st Feb 2016: Players of The Division's PC beta claim it's plagued by a serious cheating problem - although Ubisoft has its own take on what's to blame.
But whatever the explanation - the facts are these: the online shooter trusts key gameplay data such as your level XP and ammo count to the game's client. That's your PC. And it's here players are being naughty.
Manually changing these values isn't too difficult and it's becoming a real issue within The Division's player-versus-player Dark Zone.
A growing number of players are giving themselves godlike powers such as infinite ammo, super speed and invisibility.
That last effect is an unintended bonus of upping your character's speed - The Division's server can't keep up with where your client says you are, so your character just doesn't appear to other players.
All of which is probably great fun if you're a super-fast invisible bullet ninja, but not so fun for everyone else.
"This is absolutely amazing how f***ed up the Division's netcode is," one player wrote on the game's Reddit, which is filled with discussions on the issue.
"Almost all stats (excluding currencies and health) are calculated and stored on the client, and server just accepts it without any checking. You can have unlimited ammo in a mag, super-speed (this, actually causes players to go invisible also), any desired critical chance, no recoil, unlimited medkits and nades and so on and on.
"And this is not just lack of anticheat, it is global networking architecture f***up. I highly doubt that this will be fixed any time soon after release."
Here's video evidence of infinite ammo:
And here's evidence of a player's speed being hacked:
With talk of pre-orders being cancelled, Ubisoft stepped in to offer an official response:
"Guys, so you're aware the things discussed here are not in fact hacks or cheats, but merely abuse of glitches that exist in the game currently," community manager Natchai wrote on the company's official forum.
"These glitches are currently being worked on by the team."
It doesn't seem like these are glitches - not when players are editing the game's player data and freely making changes. But, whatever the definition, Ubisoft is at least aware.
"We're on it," community developer Hamish Bode told another fan via Twitter. "Don't you worry your pretty little face."
Ubisoft has until the game's 8th March release to work everything out.