PROmod and Anti Cheat

(ToonBE) #1

Some posts were recently made: XIGNcode will be a thing and no client side demo recording (yes maybe server side but not sure as well)

I am really disappointed with that… I was hoping for a decent anti cheat policy. This game wants to be a competitive team based shooter, but without some serious anti cheat it will not work out. People just become toxic and many others will leave. Also considering that this game will be free to play it will attract many cheaters.

This game needs a promod:

  • auto upload of player cfg after an official ladder/cup match
  • auto demorecording and auto upload (I don’t realy care if it is client or server side: we just need it)
  • a way to download both files
  • a way to review them (as an internal or external tool) + a wallhack feature to check for hacks (look at how they caught the CSGO pro’s) + feature to make timestamps + anything else usefull
  • a good anti cheat program detecting hacking software
  • a well thought out banning system
  • a public shame wall (everyone needs to know who got busted and for what)
  • server settings optimized for match play (f.e. No mini tutorials, etc…)

Please give such a promod a thought… A competitive FPS needs this to function well…

(Njsfirth) #2

Most “PROmod”'s are exactly that, MODS, user created modifications to make the game able to be played in a competitive environment. The game would probably need to be released as well as an SDK for there to be a Promod made for it.

(Floris) #3

While I don’t have a lot of hope for Xigncode3, I think it is too early to say it won’t do its job when the game is released. I would hope however that SD, Nexon and Wellbia take cheating very seriously and put in a lot of effort to make a great anti-cheat. The only ingredients required for making a good anti cheat are an investment of time and money. It has to be strong but doesn’t have to be fool proof, W:ET was free, there were cheaters, but that didn’t make people toxic.

I like the ProMod SD made for ET:QW, as far as I remember it contained everything needed to play the game competitively while keeping the core mechanics the same. Regarding your suggestions:

  • Uploading of cfg’s should not be necessary as people should not be able to cheat with cfg’s in the first place. Instead, I would like to see the ability for server admins to pose automatically enforced limitations to client cfg’s so leagues themselves can decide to use stricter rules than the base game itself does.
  • Yay for demo recording, I prefer server side recording (assuming they give an accurate representation of each client’s states) with them being accessible for clients after the match is finished. I would want such a feature to be available for every match played, not just competitive ones. If that is not possible, for public play I would still like to see client side demos.

Other important features I would like to see is DBTV (like ETTV and HLTV, allowing players to spectate a semi-live replay of a match - I never liked the streams with a video feed that much), server side cvars to control max mercs allowed and a mechanism for enforcing server side configuration settings.

(Njsfirth) #4

[QUOTE=Florisjuh;519353]

  • Yay for demo recording, I prefer server side recording (assuming they give an accurate representation of each client’s states) with them being accessible for clients after the match is finished. I would want such a feature to be available for every match played, not just competitive ones. If that is not possible, for public play I would still like to see client side demos.
    .[/QUOTE]

Coming from a TF2 background, the only Anti-Cheat we had was VAC and and Anti-Cheat “team” that would watch back demos of suspected cheaters, this would require client side demos as server side will always have some kind of latency and won’t always match up to client side.

I feel if you are going to have a demo system, it has to be able to record client side. This would also have the added benefit of letting users create much better content using the game. I can record my live matches with a client side demo, then turn up the settings to max to render a video of that match.

But i feel we’re a long way off from release yet so I’d give xIGN time to improve. The more we help spot problems with it, the better it will get.

(Floris) #5

[QUOTE=Njsfirth;519354]Coming from a TF2 background, the only Anti-Cheat we had was VAC and and Anti-Cheat “team” that would watch back demos of suspected cheaters, this would require client side demos as server side will always have some kind of latency and won’t always match up to client side.

I feel if you are going to have a demo system, it has to be able to record client side. This would also have the added benefit of letting users create much better content using the game. I can record my live matches with a client side demo, then turn up the settings to max to render a video of that match.

But i feel we’re a long way off from release yet so I’d give xIGN time to improve. The more we help spot problems with it, the better it will get.[/QUOTE]

So which demo’s are you watching. one you record as spectator or the one from the player? The one you watch as spectator obviously depends on the information you get from the server, so in this case server side demo’s would be just as accurate. If you watch the demo from the player, these might be tampered with. In the end I think the server is the most trustworthy source of data.

Like an SD employee commented in another thread, the server does not get all data from the clients. The solution imo is not to switch to client side demo’s, but to submit more data to the server. Unless there are other technical issues, the extra bandwidth/processing costs could be covered by having competitive servers as a premium feature. In this scenario however, we would still need client side demos for public play.

(Njsfirth) #6

You always watch the player recorded demos, how would you tamper with one? You start recording a demo at the start of a game then stop at the end, then you upload the full file.

As far as server recorded demos go, how do you tell if someone’s AIM is weird or if its Latency? How can you tell if someone’s movements with a mouse are legit or if the server just wasnt recording it properly.

I’ve seen some very weird things happen to my body and viewpoint when I die, when the server has to make sense of where i was compared to the client.

(Floris) #7

Servers receive information from the clients at a certain interval, which include information allowing the server to determine the players location and what the player is aiming at. Latency to my knowledge is not a problem in a replay as every update send by the client can contain the exact time at which it was send. For server side demo’s to be accurate, you would need a very high interval rate.

About tampering with demo’s, a cheat could automate the tampering.

(modded) #8

Regarding the .cfg upload, this actually could be pertinent. I remember in BLR some people got busted for figuring out how to mod a config file so that when using HRV the world wouldn’t turn blue.

May not be an issue now, but you never know for sure.

(chippy) #9

Where did you read this? As far as I’m aware this is on the TODO list and something SD stated they really wanted to implement.

(ToonBE) #10

Hi chippy,

They mentioned that in the topic “demos planned?”

(chippy) #11

[QUOTE=ToonBE;519404]Hi chippy,

They mentioned that in the topic “demos planned?”[/QUOTE]

Must’ve missed that one. Just read it and I read it as the want to do client side recording but at the time server side recordings (“if done right”) are the way forward. While the posts does not guarantee client side recordings, they at the same time don’t rule out that possibility entirely.

I do agree though, client side > server side (if not “done right”). Will be interesting to see what happens.

(Njsfirth) #12

[QUOTE=modded;519401]Regarding the .cfg upload, this actually could be pertinent. I remember in BLR some people got busted for figuring out how to mod a config file so that when using HRV the world wouldn’t turn blue.

May not be an issue now, but you never know for sure.[/QUOTE]

There is apparently a way to remove smoke with a cfg, i don’t know how though, just a rumour i heard on TS.

(Rex) #13

I’m sure you haven’t meant it like this, but I have to repeat myself once again when this topic arises. A game doesn’t need a promod, when the game already has the features which enable competitive play. I’m talking here about an additional mod to the game. We have the special advantage to have a game being still in the development where everything could get implemented. Because unfortunately a mod has also some downsides.

  • auto upload of player cfg after an official ladder/cup match

Has nothing to do with the game as this is league related.

  • auto demorecording and auto upload (I don’t realy care if it is client or server side: we just need it)

Auto demo recording yes, auto uploading on the other hand could cause problems.

  • a way to download both files

League dependent.

  • a way to review them (as an internal or external tool) + a wallhack feature to check for hacks (look at how they caught the CSGO pro’s) + feature to make timestamps + anything else usefull

YES. That’s something which isn’t only used for hunting cheaters but also for movie making.

  • a good anti cheat program detecting hacking software

No matter what anti cheat program you choose in the end, there will be always cheaters. Especially in a f2p game. So demos become more relevant in this regard.

  • a well thought out banning system

This one will be difficult.

  • a public shame wall (everyone needs to know who got busted and for what)

Yeah I like this one. Back then we had pb ban list + announcements on esport sites.

  • server settings optimized for match play (f.e. No mini tutorials, etc…)

Well, this point could easily fill a new thread alone and needs to be dicussed somewhen.

Beside all the cheater stuff, the next big question will be balance regarding the f2p model. (Example: Competitive play and augments)

(ToonBE) #14

@Rex I did indeed not mean it like an actual mod. We just need server settings optimized for competitive matches and decent anti cheat features. Maybe call it a competitive ‘mode’.

I do think uploading a cfg could be usefull. The game I used to play back in the days used the idtech3 engine and there were ton of consolecommands who were forbidden. F.e. the use of r_light_nolight 1 was forbidden because it made the characters glow which made them much more visible. I have no problems with highly modified cfgs (which is essential also for low end pc’s I could not play with modded textures f.e.) but there are some exploits possible. I saw a dirty bomb screenshot on steam where a guy disabled the textures of character models which gave them all very shiny colors and thus way more easy to spot (a bit like r_light_nolight 1)

About the AC software. Yes it is never perfect because there are always bypasses. That is why I think demorecording is essential to catch hackers and aimbotters. The tool would make that really easy… Those CSGO pro’s would never have been caught without it!

(Floris) #15

If demo’s are recorded server side and Nexon controls the servers (assuming the only way to get a server is through Nexon, similar to Quake Live) a download facility has to be made available by Nexon.

(Njsfirth) #16

I assume that a lot of the more “cheaty” commands will be flagged as such by SD and won’t make it into the regular game when we get closer to release. They just need to “flag” the command as a cheat and it will only work with cheats enabled on a server, so I don’t think the config thing is needed and even so, again, it’s a League issue not a developer issue. It’s down to individual leagues to require that kind of thing.

The developers mentioned that they will be flagging some commands as cheats a couple of days ago on TS, so I imagine they are already on the right track in the config department.

(Floris) #17

Leagues might want to have stricter enforcement of settings than the developers do, so a facility to configure the allowed ranges of config settings and enforcing this automatically (like ETPRO had) would still be useful imo. This should however be done automatically and not require the uploading of config files.

(Rex) #18

[QUOTE=Njsfirth;519461]They just need to “flag” the command as a cheat and it will only work with cheats enabled on a server, …

The developers mentioned that they will be flagging some commands as cheats a couple of days ago on TS, …[/QUOTE]

That’s a good solution. And yes config restrictions are really needed.

(BomBaKlaK) #19

This ! To many abuse in old SD games

(gangstarN) #20

-Remove recoil, a little spread is ok and can be different on some weapons. (rtcw/et style)

-Strafejumping like q3 engine.

-Vertical sens changer in options, m_pitch option.

-Able to tweak graphics more in options, but a overrall gfx tweak restriction.

-Force same netsettings for all.

-Remove some public mercs in competition-mode, have one medic, field ops, engi, covert, 1 soldier class thats enough.

& and a lot more, but this needs to be done for competition atleast.

-Able to have drawgun 0, no need to have a weapon take up whole screen.

-Every merc should NOTbe able to do everything, like healing and planting and defusing.

-No iron sights

-Able to tweak hud in ingame options

-Overrall low spread on weapons, but add more spread when jumping. So this noob jumpers disepear.