If you've been playing GTA Online for PC, you might have noticed a problem with hacking. Players have altered their games in order to give themselves unfair advantages--and as the old GTA Online money glitches taught fans, this can cause major issues in an online game.
The GTA Online hacks that we've received reports on so far include invincibility, unlimited ammo, breaking the level cap, teleportation, and infinite money, among others. All of these are, of course, against the game's terms of service and completely unrelated to the legitimate cheat codes that GTA BOOM provides.
Hacks like this are made easier because of the system GTA Online uses. Instead of dedicated servers, GTA Online use a peer-to-peer (P2P) mesh system. The game servers connect players to one another, and then your data is sent to other players as they get close to you. This includes your position, weapon, health. etc.
What this means is that in lobbies as well as free mode, players' information is sent directly to one another. Therefore, players can hack their games by changing the information that is sent.
So far, Rockstar's solution has been to release updates to catch and stop player modifications, but with each new update, the hackers simply change their methods to get around it. Stiffer penalties and bans for hacking might also cut down on the prevalence of hacks, although it won't go away completely.
Some might argue that hacking isn't really harming the overall experience, even though it puts players at a disadvantage. However, this P2P framework also provides a small security risk: players can learn one another's IP addresses during gameplay.
The only way to solve both of these issues is if Rockstar switches GTA Online to dedicated servers. However, since GTA Online's system has been in place since the release of the PS3 and Xbox 360 verions in 2013, it seems unlikely unless fans really make their feelings known.
How bad has the hacking in GTA Online that you've encountered been?
