Cheating

Cheating is the act of using very unfair techniques to gain an advantage in games. It often involves hacking, but cheating can also involve no use of hacking, such as using macros to gain an advantage in the game. Cheating is often frowned upon players of the community. Cheating, whether or not it involves hacking or not, can lead to a ban by Ninja Kiwi.

Issues
Obviously, cheating is an obvious no-no to any game that involves a player-vs-player gameplay of any kind. This is no exception in games produced by Ninja Kiwi. Aside from the usual hacking in PvP games such as the original Bloons TD Battles (including Flash and Mobile version), cheating is inevitably occurring on any game that involves the use of online features that also involves competitive gameplay. Cheating is not limited to using hacking, but it also involves actions that cause an unfair advantage to other players who do not execute those actions. Cheating goes far beyond gameplay guidelines that it ruins the point of what makes games fun. Given that most of Ninja Kiwi's popular Bloons games fit under the strategy genre, external actions played in the game that go beyond the focus of exploring core in-game mechanics are normally unfair.

A common instance of cheating happens in Bloons TD 6 during Race Events, the only true competitive game mode in the game. Race Events players can use cheat engines to artificially slow down the game as a way to improve their micromanagement by milliseconds. In a way, it is as if an athlete in a sprinting race were to use a time warper to give more time for only them to gain better thigh-and-calf control. Other instances of cheating in Race Event contexts include use of macros and use of save scumming.

In Bloons TD Battles 2, a common instance of cheating involves using alternate accounts for purposes of ranking up illegitimately. Private matches, however, are excluded from the equation due to only giving Tower XP and having no impact on public placement on Hall of Masters leaderboards and all Battle Arenas below Hall of Masters.

List of methods of cheating
This is a list of possible ways that the community may consider as "cheating" in Ninja Kiwi games, more specifically relating to Bloons TD 6 as the majority of the list discusses. However, this list is purely here to make the list visible so that players want the games to be played legitimately can call out players who attempt to use the below methods of possible cheating.

Never use cheating to win games.

The act of cheating is unfair to everyone else trying to play the game with their blood and sweat, it makes your game progress look illegitimate and faked, and you can be banned by Ninja Kiwi if you use them. Not all methods of cheating are seen equal, but bear in mind that the following methods can be seen as forms of "cheating" by the community:


 * General
 * Hacks to modify the game to make it artificially easier to beat games. This is always considered serious breaches of cheating.
 * Cheat engines can be used to hack into the game by artifically changing aspects of the game environment to the disadvantage of other players who don't use cheat engines. Whether or not it affects the game itself with or without the hack, it is still unfair to players who play legitimately by not using cheat engines.
 * Macros to automate micro or gameplay. In most cases, it is seen as cheating but to different degrees.
 * Can be used to allow the player to continually sell and rebuy a tower super fast.


 * Bloons TD 6
 * Macros have previously seen much use in BTD6. Generally frowned upon in this game.
 * Utilization of macros can be used to automate farming of Collection Event currency, to farm up Insta-Monkeys.
 * Race Event attempts can be farmed with macros that run very specific patterns, mostly to maximize wins and relying on RNG of each automated attempt to turn the tides rather than using human input. Some players report other players potentially using macros in Race Events to automate Race Event attempts.
 * The "time machine" trick to revert a save, which evades defeats on games, especially for CHIMPS. In other gaming communities, this method of cheating is often referred as "save scumming". While some players may see it as not cheating, other players are against the use of this exploit. The "time machine trick" is liable for Ninja Kiwi to ban account if used to cheat out Race Events, but otherwise there is no action by Ninja Kiwi against this exploit. The same exploit is no longer possible to revert an Odyssey progress if defeated on a certain round without using a continue, as of Version 23.0, because attempting to do so just auto-restarts the game to set Odyssey progress back to the first round of the current island.


 * Bloons TD Battles 2
 * Using an alt account to artificially rank up the main account. This is dubbed "boosting" by the r/battles2 community and Ninja Kiwi. Such felony is what caused Season 2 top player "e1893" got banned a few seconds before the season ended. Sam from NK describes e1893's abuse as "cheating". (Link)

Patched exploits
'''NEVER show currently working exploits, especially if they are game-breaking. Only patched exploits are listed here.'''

There were several game-breaking exploits in Bloons TD 6 that were later patched in later updates. These include:
 * In Version 25.0 and Version 25.1, there was a game-breaking exploit that made it possible to use Challenge Editor codes to gain free Monkey Money and map badges. This even included Blons badges. Ninja Kiwi took extreme measures to prevent this exploit from spreading, even to the extent that they would copyright strike YouTube videos that showcased the glitch. This was fixed on Version 26.0. This was the most game-breaking exploit throughout the entirety of Bloons TD 6, even more so than hacking in to the game with APKs.
 * Another exploit involving infinite abilities was present in Version 17.x that involved Chinooks and certain abilities, allowing them to loop indefinitely. This was patched in Version 18.0.
 * The money-generation glitch via Arctic Wind a long time ago, on around Version 16.1, is another patched exploit. It involved using an Arctic Wind and any map with an unplaceable land spot on the very center of the map. If a tower was sold on the Arctic Wind platform with the following conditions, the tower would sell twice, resulting in a profit. Of course, it did not work on CHIMPS, and so the exploit was limited to non-CHIMPS games. This was patched in Version 17.0.