Hacking

"Nah, [ Benjamin ] likes to earn his game progress!"



Hacking is a process of manipulating with in-game code of a game to favor the player. It is possible to hack into any game, such as Bloons TD 6, to manipulate specific aspects of the game, either for cheating purposes or to add a new perspective to playing the game, though most players who hack simply exploit the game for the former option. Player accounts can be flagged if a player hacks into the game in any way shape or form. Most of the time, player accounts with a history of hacking are completely banned, but in later games it is possible to reverse the flag by contacting Ninja Kiwi.

For most purposes, this topic refers to mostly hacking. For more information about cheating, see the Cheating page.

Issues
Hacking is a controversial subject in the Bloons community, as it can be perceived by different viewpoints. In general, hacking is frowned upon by the community, due to their common associations with cheating, but a subset of hacking called "modding", which aims to view a game in a creative perspective, emerges from the depths of hacking. "Modding" is often seen in a positive light, although it is debated that modding showcases in certain popular Bloons YouTubers caused younger audiences to assume the norm in modding without seeing the risks and responsibilities involved in modding.

Since the Bloons community has been developing, instances of hacks recurringly circulate on the internet. During the time when the Flash series was the most popular, hacks were mostly seen as blatant cheating. However, the popularity of popular YouTubers showcasing mods as early as Bloons TD Battles Mobile has shown a turnover on the perception of hacking; "modding" changes a game in a way that changes its gameplay in a creative perspective.

Since the period of Bloons TD 6 Generation, which carried over the popularity of "mod" showcases, modding temporarily halted when the main playerbase shifted mostly to the at-the-time newest game Bloons TD 6. However, mods got a resurgence in popularity and showcasing, since November 2020. Since then, it has gotten noteworthy mention by Ninja Kiwi, who later tells the Bloons community about the use of mods only in a privately hosted manner without any abuse of them in public settings. However, hacking still has its ancient "bad-faith" roots by its prevalence in Bloons Adventure Time TD, as well as a lesser extent of hacking frequency in other BTD6 Generation games.

Pre-BTD5 generation games
Not much hacking has been known for pre-BTD5 generation games, although it's possible to play Flash games with hacked cash. It is likely possible to hack into any Flash game in Ninja Kiwi Archives, but mods for pre-BTD5 generation games are highly inaccessible outside of Flash games copied and modded by third-party sources. But since Adobe Flash Player will officially lose support starting from January 2021, the amount of hacking for pre-BTD5 generation games will likely be very limited.

Not much is known about the consequences of hacking for pre-BTD5 generation games, as there is almost no interaction for those games, with exception of in-app purchases via NK Coins.

BTD5 generation games on Flash
As for all BTD5 generation Flash games linked by Ninja Kiwi account, the player's Ninja Kiwi account will be banned if caught hacking. Achievements will also be revoked for an account who is caught hacking.

BTD5 Flash
Possible to hack in the game. Hacking is less of an issue than BTDB Flash or BMC Flash, but being caught hacking (with either Experience or suspiciously high rounds on leaderboards) will revoke access to linking with the player's Ninja Kiwi account. Online features such as Co-Op Mode, Achievements, and Daily Challenges are banned. The rest of BTD5 Flash can be played, however, using a guest account.

BTDB Flash
If the player is caught hacking, the player's account will be banned from playing the game. The screen immediately reveals a troll-face Dart Monkey prior to getting banned.

BMC Flash
It is possible to hack into the game. For instance, hacks for obtaining exceedingly high City Cash from Contested Territory is/was possible. Getting caught hacking will cause the game account to become revoked access to playing BMC Flash.

BTD5 Mobile
There have been several mods in BTD5 Mobile. There is a flag system, most likely, but it only realistically affects Co-Op Mode and Weekly Leaderboards.

Similarly should occur for Bloons TD 5 Steam, the Steam version of the game, and Bloons TD 5 Console, the console versions for the game.

BTDB Mobile
Mods are quite available and relatively easy to do, due to the 2D nature of the game. Tower mods, hypersonic mods, card mods, game mode mods, and hacked Sandbox Mode (at least prior to Version 6.9) mods are some of the few mods available, most of which are showcased in some YouTube videos relating to BTDB Mobile.

If the player is caught hacking (or attempts to play BTDB mods in a quick match/arena game), they immediately lose the current match and will be placed in the hacker pool. In the hacker pool, they may only play with other players who are also in the hacker pool.

BMC Mobile
There are currently no online reports of hacking in these games, although this game is entirely possible to hack into. Just like the previous two games, modding is possible in this game, and mods for BMC Mobile have been circulating in the Bloons community.

Bloons Supermonkey series
Much like BMC Mobile, this game can be hacked, although to a small degree. No adverse effects have been reported yet, nor have any mods been released for this game.

BTD6
There are many forms of ways to hack into the game. Creation of custom mods in BTD6 has been discovered as early as around October 2020. However, game hacks by creating pirated versions of BTD6, hacking in infinite cash, or hacking medals were released very early on during the game's lifecycle by online hackers. Hacking can cause the account to become flagged, which will lead to Ninja Kiwi to investigate the player's account for any suspicious behavior, and eventually may cause the account to become "banned" if found guilty.

Those affected by the flag will show a subtle pair of leaves above the settings button. While not always fatal, a flagged account will show signs of a banned account; in that case, attempting to access a completed Race Event will be shown as "empty". It is possible for the account to be unflagged, but only if the player contacts Ninja Kiwi and the support team approves of the decision to unflag the player's account. The process of doing so is highly unreliable (i.e. low unflagging rate), and therefore it is highly discouraged to get flagged in the first place. It is possible to also get the hacking flag by playing the game legitimately but with very unusual statistics (e.g. ending with $100,000+ in a Race Event, or winning Race Events with a lower time than usual relative to previous medals awarded by the player). Being unfortunately paired with a hacker in a public Co-Op pool can also cause the player to be flagged (or infecting them).

Occasionally, legitimate players in Race Events or Ranked Boss Bloon Events may be falsely flagged for hacking, even though they did not use mods or cheats. It is advised to e-mail NK Support if this happens; they usually unflag innocent players.

If the player ends up receiving a hacking flag, the common signs of being in the hacker pool for Co-Op Mode include:
 * Getting continually paired with players who suddenly earn extreme amounts of cash or otherwise use an unusual number of Powers in the first few seconds of a round.
 * Repetitive spamming of unusual cash amounts to another player during the first round and then later that player gaining an extreme amount of cash all of a sudden.

Even if there is no hacking flag shown in the main menu, a pirated version of BTD6 is prone to issues with updating new versions, not to mention that there is risk of containing malware.

Players accounts that are truly banned will receive the following changes:
 * There will be two leaves on top of the settings button to indicate the presence of such flag.
 * Players will not be listed on the leaderboards on Race Events and therefore can no longer gain rewards off them.
 * Players can no longer join public lobbies on Co-Op Mode. Instead, they are placed in the hacker pool.

These accounts still have access to these features:


 * All features on Challenge Editor are still enabled, and as such they can still play, create, and make challenges.

Various mods have been made for BTD6, many of which are often used in a non-invasive nature as a form of the community showcasing new perspectives to the game, including:
 * Tower mods (e.g. new towers, new classes, rearranged classes, etc.)
 * Bloon mods (e.g. regrow on MOAB-class bloons, excessive HP MOABs or excessive HP Ceramics)
 * Projectile mods (e.g. hypersonic attack speed, aggressively homing projectiles)
 * Graphics mods (e.g. rotating towers, rotating the entire game screen in 3D)
 * Map mods (e.g. inserting old maps adapted in BTD6 style, inserting popular meme maps)
 * Game mode mods (e.g. every X seconds a new gameplay change happens)
 * Upgrade mods (e.g. removing activated abilities and replacing with a weaker permanent ability, price adjustments, etc.)

Rohan Spibo from Ninja Kiwi says that the use of hacks in the BTD6 game should only be done on a secondary account and only involve elements of purely private gameplay, such as the aforementioned harmless mods. Link.

"Clarifying as this was not mentioned in the Preview Notes - the Trophy Store will now be unavailable for use whenever mods are active. Removing any mods from the install directory should restore it again. To be clear the goal here is purely to prevent players from bricking their accounts if they do mod, not to detract from modding."

The game automatically reminds the player about modded clients, at least they have started appearing from Version 30.0. Version 30.0's patch notes clarified what happens to Trophy Store items when mods are activated, stating that Trophy Store would be unavailable for use by players who have mods turned on. As Ninja Kiwi's way of supporting modding for legitimate, friendly uses, Ninja Kiwi has stated that they will eventually be adding official modding support into their games.

Bloons Adventure Time TD
Bloons Adventure Time TD has an online multiplayer component that can become an easy target for hackers. These hacks are most commonly absurdly high rounds in Martian Games, going as high as the billions (not legitimately feasible as a Martian Games event runs for 2 days, or 172,800 seconds, and completing one billion rounds on time requires completing each round in at most under a fraction of a millisecond on average), as reported from online communities.

There are also reports of being able to reach Level 9,999, which can be trivially determined to be the result of hacking. It is entirely possible to get higher levels than 100, but only possible before Version 1.0.4 capped levels to 100. Exceeding Level 100 was only possible to do before Version 1.0.4 which capped max level to 100 for players below Level 100, or the current level if already beyond Level 100. Even then, it would take extraordinary amounts of time to grind to higher levels beyond 100; therefore, a player with Level 9,999 is definitely hacking.

Other than that, there are currently no other online reports of hacking into this game.

Bloons Pop!
In Bloons Pop!, there is a hacker pool system incorporated into the game. However, there is currently no online-posted evidence to how the hacker pool system for Bloons Pop! works other than the existence of such.

Bloons TD Battles 2
Player accounts that are flagged will receive the following changes:
 * There will be a space in the version number on the main menu, for example, "v 1.0.5" as opposed to "v1.0.5"
 * The player will no longer be able to place on the Hall of Masters leaderboard
 * The player will be placed in a hacker pool for public matchmaking

Conditions for flagging an account are similar to the first game, and include, but are likely not limited to:
 * Having an unreasonably high amount of a currency (trophies, cash, etc.)
 * Unlocking towers and their upgrades for an amount much lower than normal or unreasonably quickly
 * Being in an arena while below its trophy requirement

Signs of being in the hacker pool (besides the space between "v" and the version number):
 * Very slow loading speed when queuing up into battle


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