Hello everyone!

We always try to keep our finger on the pulse: we read your comments on our social media channels and pay close attention to your feedback. And do you know what topic is still one of the most popular? Cheaters, of course — the guys who ruin battles.

Frankly, Caliber is not an exception here: as in any other online game, you can encounter such players. The number of questions about this topic is still going through the roof, so we’ve decided to answer the most frequently asked ones in this article.

Let’s talk about how we deal with dishonest players, our new anti-cheat, why replays can be confusing sometimes, and which reports are actually the result of game mechanics.

So, if sometimes you ask yourself: “Is this guy a cheater or not?”, then welcome! Let’s figure it out together.

You can quickly move to any section through the navigation tab on the left part of the screen.

At the start of development of Caliber, it was obvious: if there’s a competitive part in the game, there would be those who want to play unfair.

While designing the client-server model, we’ve built in protection from most cheats that could affect gameplay. We’ve designed it in such a way that all actions of the player are calculated not on their PC, but on our server. You made a shot—the server got information, checked it, synchronized it with other players, and only after that returned the result to your screen.

That’s why cheaters can’t “adjust” the game files and make an operator immortal or a weapon several times more powerful. We’ve cut these exploits from the very beginning.

But, alas, other ways to fool the system remain. We won’t tell you about them: there is no need to promote them in any way or form. We'll just say this: we use different tools to identify cheaters and ban them.

We’ve decided to try a new anti-cheat. And you may ask why.

There are two reasons:

These reasons were enough to make us search for an alternative.

So now there’s a new SARD anti-cheat in Caliber. It operates at the core level and combines reliable tools as well as AI and machine learning modules, providing game security with accurate detection capabilities.

We can only test SARD in real conditions, and this is what we’re currently doing.

But it’s important to understand that we don't rely on just one tool. Anti-cheat is only one part of the system. We also have other methods for identifying violators and banning them, so we’ll be tackling this from multiple angles.

A reminder: your reports are super useful!

If you suspect a player in cheating, report them using a menu by pressing [TAB].

This is how it works:

The system reacts to a large number of reports to minimize risks of banning innocent players.

But remember:

If a player receives a lot of unique reports, they receive a warning first. And if they continue to violate the rules, they will get a ban.

The reports you send to the support team help us in banning unfair players more quickly. Even if they use the latest versions of cheats, which are not in the anti-cheat database yet, we will still notice these players.

You can send a report from our website: describe a situation you’ve faced in detail and attach a replay of that battle.

Try to stay reasonable when you report someone. Our support team has to deal with many erroneous reports and spend a lot of time on them instead of investigating cases of real violators.

According to our statistics, not real cheaters but common players who played well are being reported the most. There are few real cheaters there.

We understand: losing is always disappointing. However, please remember two things.

1. Replay is not a video. 

This mechanic was initially designed not for step-by-step reproduction of player’s actions, but for reconstructing approximate battle chronology in order to investigate bugs and issues.

The accuracy of replays greatly depends on your PC configuration, connection speed, and how much the current game version is adjusted to the replay system.

While watching a replay, you may not be able to see a marker that is visible to your opponent. The situations when it looks like a player is "tracking a target through a wall" may occur not because of cheats but because of the game's replay specifics. While watching a replay, a player’s outline may not be displayed under the Marked effect.

Just like the damage that player took after they had hidden behind a cover can be a result of a high ping. There are too many nuances that cannot be described in one article.

You have to remember: a replay doesn’t represent battle events perfectly because it wasn’t designed for it. However, the grossest violations can be seen on them, and in those cases, our support team searches for additional proof. Only after proof confirmation a player can be punished.

2. Caliber is a massive and complex game with lots of different mechanics.  

Because of this, we receive many reports from players who have just begun their journey in Caliber.

In classic shooters, you can’t see an enemy player through a wall, however, you can do it in Caliber because of the Marked effect that can be inflicted on the enemy or your ally has marked the enemy by pressing [C] button. There is no auto-aim in other games, but our Matador is glad to demonstrate it with his ability.

All of this can create lots of situations that new players consider cheating, though in fact, they’re only game mechanics.

The most frequent cheater reports are not related to third-party software but to the matchmaker—a system that assembles players for a battle and distributes them based on their skill level. There are not that many high level players (it’s normal for any competitive project), and sometimes they can be sent to a battle with common players. After such matches, there are lots of cheating reports.

But the reason is just a difference in skill level. Sometimes, the skill level of our tournament regulars can surprise even us.

And let’s be honest: each of us has experienced a feeling when you want to blame a dishonest enemy player for a defeat rather than admit your own mistakes.

The second most popular reason for reports is a lack of knowledge about game mechanics. In Caliber, there are lots of uncommon things that can be perceived as cheats by new players. Let’s discuss the most frequent cases that our support team has to deal with.

Also, if you have a rookie friend, please share this article with them—it will come in handy.

That’s how rookies think when they meet our French Marksman Vagabond. And actively report it.

The answer is simple: while his ability is active, his bullets burst into fragments upon hitting a target, dealing damage to enemies within the area of effect.

Moreover, this effect can be activated even with incapacitated soldiers: if Vagabond shoots an incapacitated ally of your team near you, you'll take some damage.

In Caliber, there’s the Invisible effect, but it works not the way you may think it does.

When Invisible, the operator is immune to the Marked effect, and their outline, role icon, and all UI are not visible, making them harder to be recognized by enemies.

For not getting confused in battle, it’s good to know which operators can apply the Invisible effect.

Currently, the Invisible effect is available for the following operators: Koszmar, Tien, Cánglóng, SSO operators, Sly, Sultan (he can apply the Invisible effect on his allies by using his special gear), Tirkesh, Lazootchick, Bell, and Lumen. In Lumen’s case, his entire fireteam can gain this effect while he’s incapacitated.

Besides, this effect can be applied by Ambush and Hidden Movement skills. Also, any operator can become Invisible while being in the smoke.

It may seem so when the enemy’s weapon is shooting too straight on the replay. Quite often, this is not a cheat but features of the replay system.

It’s important to remember that a replay accurately recreates actions only for the player who recorded it, and only of their own actions. If the other player has a bad internet connection during a match, the replay simply doesn’t have data about their weapon’s location and recoil. That’s why their shooting may seem unusually straight, and this is absolutely normal.

Another important game feature: some operators are able to shoot through covers. For example, Cánglóng, Komar, Avalanche with her Desert Eagle, and even Support Barreira can do this.

Yes, even such situations are being reported.

But there’s no secret: Busel with his Special trait and upgrade #13 is able to shoot very accurately while the ability is active. He can do this without entering the aiming mode—this is his feature and not cheats.

However, other operators can be reported for the same things. In Caliber, hip-fire spread is not that wide, and some operators’ upgrades can reduce it even more which allows them to shoot extremely accurately even without aiming.

In Caliber, some operators are immune to certain effects. Also, there is the R&R skill that allows players to ignore Slowed, Stunned, and other negative effects.

These situations are well-known to many players: it seems like you hit the enemy, you even saw the blood, but there's no damage. But sometimes, the opposite happens: even if you managed to hide behind a cover, the damage still counts.

The reason lies in the specifics of network synchronization.

During gunfights, the ping of both players is taken into account—yours and your opponent's. These values are summed up and sent to the server. If the latency is too high, the client (on your screen) might show a hit (even with blood splattering), but the server will not register it. As a result, the damage simply isn't counted. 

“There are only cheaters in the Diamond League!”—we hear this phrase way too often. There’s something behind it sometimes, but more often there isn’t.

The Diamond League is for the most skilled players: they know the maps inside out, use their operators’ abilities masterfully, and often use them in unexpected ways. Obviously, they’re being reported on a regular basis. Our support team knows many of them by their nicknames—they had to investigate reports on them more than once.

Getting into the Diamond League doesn't grant you any privileges, quite the opposite—players there are closely monitored. We want to develop esports and support experienced players, but it doesn't mean that anyone can escape punishment for cheating: we have a zero tolerance policy for all cheaters, regardless of their rank.

At the same time, we see lots of Diamond players being reported for just being skilled.

We cannot ban them for their high skill level: this is going against the core of any competitive game.

The same reason why we don't reveal the specifics of cheats: to avoid giving valuable data to the cheat developers and their users.

Posting lists of banned players would only help cheaters outsmart security and find new ways to play unfair. By using such lists, it would be easy to see which cheats are being revealed quickly and which cannot be found for too long.

We prefer to catch the real cheaters instead of collecting positive reactions for posting ban lists.

Besides, it’s enough to run into one cheater in the game, and all these lists instantly become pointless, don’t they?

Our piece of advice is simple: please learn Caliber’s mechanics and contact our support team if you’re sure that you’ve faced a violation. That’s how we can find cheaters more quickly and accurately.

And now, we’re off to fine-tune the new anti-cheat. We’ll apply maximum effort so that the process is completed quickly and yields its first results soon.

Don’t forget to send us your feedback, we do read it. Play fair, and see you on the battlefield!

Our switch to the new anti-cheat is going as planned, but it requires more time. At the moment, players can run into some issues, and below you can find ways to fix them. 

Error: “Access to the path “sard.sys” is denied” in the launcher.

Solution: Add the game to your antivirus exceptions (especially if you use Kaspersky) and restart your PC. Then, in Caliber’s root folder, find the Game folder and delete contents of the SARD folder. After that, run the launcher and click Restore Files in the Settings (the gear icon).

Error: Players are getting kicked out from battles with “You have been withdrawn from battle by the anti-cheat system” error.

Solution: Contact our support team, so you can help us collect more information about this issue as quickly as possible and fix it: https://playcaliber.com/en/support/

Error: Some versions of Kaspersky antivirus can determine the anti-cheat file as a potential threat.

Solution: This is a fake triggering. All information has already been sent to Kaspersky Laboratory, and the warning will be fixed in the next antivirus updates. The game files are completely safe, so please add the game folder to antivirus exceptions.