Cheating and Discipline


(pHine4s) #1

cheating. A pest of every team-based counter-party FPS. Motivation of doing so and how one can be satisfied of ruining a honest moment of fun will never be understood by anyone being a member of a committed playerbase.
Unfortunately not only gaming has evolved the last dekade, so has the cheat-industy, too.
And we have to face the fact, that even with an anti-hack-system being state-of-the-art-good, there will always be coders to bypass any action of prevention.
I just read an article about cheating on Day-Z from the GDC 2015,


It says:
Commercial websites making more than 100000$, Single-working Coders up to 40000$ and dedicated nerds up to 5000$ - a month.
Here we really have to start thinking about that selling aimbots might even be more profitable than running the affected game … Conspiracy theorists might make their own story out of that.

For the time being I contemplated a bit and brought up following ideas - dreams probably, that could help a bit:

  1. Vote-kick obviously doesn’t work. Why? Cheater-teammates are not too good to take the credits in the end AND/OR everbody is too busy to even notice the vote.

Solution would be to make all players more sensible for the long-term-impact cheaters can have on the game and the sweet yield of fun achieved by tactics/teamplay/skill only.

How to achieve this? (the dreaming-part)

Implementation of a playerbase-coporate-behaviour (don’t wanna use the term “codex” here). Don’t be a dick, remember?

If sure a hacker is onboard, no matter which side, go spec.
Don’t leave the server to the cheater. If the aware part of the players do so, fun will at least not only die on us but the haxor will soon have noone to harvest his strange kind of satisfaction also.
Since everbody has nothing to do, message-log will be much more focused, a vote now might be more successful.
Players just joining are being informed what’s going on.

  1. Dream one might sound a bit overdone, it means to be more disciplined and concentrated and actually I came to have some casual fun with like-minded individuals. Too much a hazzle, what a fuss for a bit playin’ … Yeah, i see …

So here’s a more dev-sided solution:
Give us an implemented aimbot!
I don’t really care for cheating, even if it would be easy and thus tempting. The thing that satisfies my hunger can only be achieved by coordinated teamplay - which sure is a thing on pubs i mostly play on, but i saw it happen. Nothing better than being in a spontaneously arosen team operating together even without teamspeak, only the sheer knowledgement everbody is doing the job and paying attention for your life and actions, all being total strangers!
That’s the spirit.

But i was drifting away, back to the aimbot.
Whaaaaat, an ingame-aimbot, what a retard!
Maybe. Works quite easy.
needs discplined players, too.

Aimbot-alarm approved?
Switch on your in-game-aimbot.
Everybody.
Imagine yourself, what happens.
Sure, ruining the game - but not the time playing.
Everybody can see by a list or char-color, that you have your aimbot on.
Aware players all go for the cheater now. Almost a bit fun, ey?

Might be a silly post, but yes, i do care and i admit that these ideas are born out of desperation rather than ratio.


(Violator) #2

Not sure about giving everyone an aimbot - its like saying the cure for crack addition is to hook the whole population on the stuff ;). The voting system is completely ineffectual as it needs 100% contribution in favour - since alpha I’ve seen one vote pass. I’ve had rebalance shuffles lose 10-1, it only takes one dissenter to cancel the vote. This works for a regular jury in a murder trial but its a bit extreme for a computer game.

There was a hacker yesterday but his nick had 12 odd pages in steam so wasn’t sure how to find the right one to report.


(pHine4s) #3

[QUOTE=Violator;536629]I’ve had rebalance shuffles lose 10-1, it only takes one dissenter to cancel the vote.

There was a hacker yesterday but his nick had 12 odd pages in steam so wasn’t sure how to find the right one to report.[/QUOTE]

For the aimbot:
Everybody can see it’s active and it gives you no xp or credits

For the votes:
If a vote fails against a majority, maybe it could be done like the vote auto-repeats, this time with a signifant alert-popup in the center of the screen, saying something like:

n of x players voted for xyz, plz give your vote.
whereby
n >= 1/2x
and
n > 50% of occupied slots

Or if it is so that a vast majority voted, the game even pauses, re-introducing the vote, with significant request to vote.
Annoying imagination, yes.

Any pragmatic ideas, so silly they might be?
Maybe a pragmatical mechanic will be found, that we, the playerbase can do?
Resistance is not futile!

And for the hackers: Had one too, looked up steam-account, found 12 (!) identical accounts, same avatar, same settings, just different amount of hours played. I was not aware of this possibility, how naiv am i?


(tangoliber) #4

We could have a hacker-hunting minigame to earn XP.

Players hop around silently spectating suspected hackers that have been reported… It takes something like 10 votes and a 75% majority to convict a suspected hacker. (Assign them to hacker only matchmaking). You earn XP for your time.


(pHine4s) #5

The point is:
suspecting and denouncing is a very sensitive matter and a community based on this never ends well.
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
freedom is important.
But when a group of like-minded ppl get together and commit to a set of rules for having fun,
a hermetic session starts where freedom means not to cheat.
How much power should intruders have over the rest?
Is there something, we as dedicated community can do?

I mean, there’s always so much talk about modern times, and social networking, and how descisions and even resistance and stuff comes easy with the internet and the world changes butwhen it comes to an overseeable group like here, we seem to be impotent against some party poopers because everybody acts individually.
Ya, weepy attitude.

After 600 more hours i will be probably done with DB anyway, so why the uprising.


(Violator) #6

I can see where you’re coming from with the ‘visible aimbot’ but I still wouldn’t want to play against it any more than a ‘real’ one. It would work to have dedicated servers for aimbotters to play on and get it out of their system, this was done in one game iirc - Titanfall? You are always going to get idiots who want to cheat / shortcut their way to ‘victory’ / ruin things for others though.

The voting system definately needs improvement - discount non-voters, allow a contribution from the enemy team, require say 80% rather than 100% of votes for it to pass on the friendly team, making voting more obvious when it happens. Allow viewing of a player’s ban status in-game - https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_Web_API#GetPlayerBans_.28v1.29 - stick a big red sticker on them in the team list / lower the vote requirement count for already banned players.


(Decayed) #7

You can right click on his name in game and it will link directly to his profile.


(Protekt1) #8

Someone has to make an engine that cannot be rigged to cheat or at least rigged in a way that it would be completely obvious if people are cheating. There must be a way and it is pretty much essential for the long term viability of fps esports. Even CSGO has cheaters… in pro scene iirc.


(Phantomchan) #9

Near impossible or very hard to do so.


(ispellcorrectly) #10

The ideas on this thread are getting stupidly funny! Talk about mini games to catch cheaters… This’ll end up an mmocc (catching cheaters) the next Pokémon?

Gotta catch 'em all dir-ty-bomb!


(Mustang) #11

I’d play it! :smiley:


(stealth6) #12

Let’s just change the whole game. It’s now about catching cheaters, all objectives are now secondary objectives.


(ispellcorrectly) #13

disable weapons, anybody caught killing obviously cheats!


(sunshinefats) #14

It’s not that they can’t…it’s that it’s not cost effective for them. It’s all about money. The less they spend on this the larger their profits are(or so they think) in the end. On a basic level it makes sense…if you can produce something serviceable for a nickel then sell it for a dollar you’re making great profit. What this fails to take into account, however, is what if you could get more sales long term by raising your production costs to a dime? What if that could triple or quadruple them? It seems like an obvious choice since it would equal larger profits overall, but unfortunately, most people only see the initial profit margin and the potential bonus they might get off it…it’s also harder to predict the long term…particularly with games that have a history of steadily declining in sales over time to begin with…so, on the other side of it, can you blame them for playing it safe? I dunno, I wish I had some magic solution too, but I don’t.
The whole situation makes me nostalgic for the “old days” where it was more about making something cool than it was making a dollar…maybe I’m just getting too old and cynical lol.


(edxot) #15

[QUOTE=sunshinefats;536808]
The whole situation makes me nostalgic for the “old days” where it was more about making something cool than it was making a dollar…maybe I’m just getting too old and cynical lol.[/QUOTE]

yes. today whenever someone has to decide whether to miss a deadline or to deliver with bugs, the second option is always chosen.


(Protekt1) #16

[QUOTE=sunshinefats;536808]It’s not that they can’t…it’s that it’s not cost effective for them. It’s all about money. The less they spend on this the larger their profits are(or so they think) in the end. On a basic level it makes sense…if you can produce something serviceable for a nickel then sell it for a dollar you’re making great profit. What this fails to take into account, however, is what if you could get more sales long term by raising your production costs to a dime? What if that could triple or quadruple them? It seems like an obvious choice since it would equal larger profits overall, but unfortunately, most people only see the initial profit margin and the potential bonus they might get off it…it’s also harder to predict the long term…particularly with games that have a history of steadily declining in sales over time to begin with…so, on the other side of it, can you blame them for playing it safe? I dunno, I wish I had some magic solution too, but I don’t.
The whole situation makes me nostalgic for the “old days” where it was more about making something cool than it was making a dollar…maybe I’m just getting too old and cynical lol.[/QUOTE]

If developers never made new engines then we wouldn’t be playing any games. So saying it is not cost effective to make a new engine is just absurd.


(Phantomchan) #17

It isn’t cost efficient for most developers because a lot of developers don’t have the time and money to create a whole new engine. Most developers are using third-party engines like Unreal or alterations of older engines. There goes more work in an whole new engine than in a game.


(neg0ne) #18

back to discipline and the role that we all play in this cheating-mess:

i was on a server where one guy in the enemy team obviously cheatet - he even changed his name permanently, so everybody in both teams was aware that he is cheating.
what happened ???
Nothing.

the worst: the ppl in his team kept playing! and that is a very big issue. They seemms to be hoping for a cheap win or something and gave the cheater the stage and the oportunity to enjoy his doing.
As long as people dont take an tiny izibizzi bit of responsebility any AC is just cosmetics.

So - not being a dick means:

  • Stop playing as soon as a cheater is on the server. if he is running around alone, killing static targets at the spaws and nobody is fighting he will loose interest soon.
  • Votekick.
    Not being a Dick-Developer means : give us obvious Votes-Kick options the are seen by everybody. Place the !)"§/$")(§vote over the crossair so that everybody gets aware.
    if still people enjoy playing with hackers and dont votekick - fine - time to leave the server.

but: dont complain about a very bad AC if you keep playing with a cheater in your team.


(pHine4s) #19

[QUOTE=ispellcorrectly;536790]The ideas on this thread are getting stupidly funny! Talk about mini games to catch cheaters… This’ll end up an mmocc (catching cheaters) the next Pokémon?
Gotta catch 'em all dir-ty-bomb![/QUOTE]

Sure silly but doin this a month and cheaters may be gone -> back to business. Not very realistic, i know.

I feel the same, but it’s no so much the “back-then-everything-was-better”-mood rather than the astonishment how easy cheaters were vote-kicked in ET, almost thrusted away by players of both teams. Or are my memories just yet injected by that “back-then-everything-was-better”? What happened?

My outing:
I believe that ET:QW was the perfect balanced with the optimal variation of actions and counter actions and a nice-to-play-speed Team Objective FPS. A true Evolution of ET.
Man, turning dead enemys into Spawnhost, how ingenious is this. Shields that could be attached to vehicles, which came in wide variety land, water and airborne. And a familiar playerbase, as everybody had only a couple of favorite servers where you met and stayed on for the whole evening. vote-kicking cheaters like wiping a fly from the table.
A classic i missed there and do miss in DB:
Disguised enemy! Would love that.


(sunshinefats) #20

That’s not what I was saying. I was saying it isn’t cost effective to make a super duper extraordinary anti-cheat system.