[quote=“BlackFro;71392”]Whether or not the AC works is of little concern to me, and should not be a concern of other players.
The important thing is the efficiency and response time of the report system.
Reports should be checked everyday.
AC can’t always catch hackers, but other players can.[/quote]
claps
“AC can’t always catch hackers, but other players can.” If only there was a simple in-game report feature…
Really don’t know how I should feel if such an urgent thing gets a running gag, even I am laughing about? I’d go with bad, but it’s already going on way to long to feel bad, sry.
I have one problem tho which I do not think it has anything to do with the anti-cheat. I was playing a competitive game and i was suddenly disconnected. I received a message saying that if I do not go back I would get penalized. So instead of completely leaving my team in the dirt I rejoined and kept playing. But that was only the beginning. After every 7 minutes (yes i started to time it) I would randomly get disconnected and rejoin. at the end. I received no xp points, and only the base fee. it was a US EAST server 5v5-45 room. and I usually never get something like this. Anybody would be furious about this but im simply asking what would be the problem here?
Ask APB:Reloaded’s developers how dealing with cheaters has gone. They have several layers of the most advanced anti-cheat systems ever built and it’s not enough. They’ve gone as far as name and shaming hackers with the in-game notification system so all the regular players can be appeased whenever a hacker gets picked off. Still, there’s a several day evaluation period that the AC has to go through before determining if someone is worthy of a ban. During that 24-48 hour waiting period, the offender can ruin hundreds of matches. Much more time than the 3 minutes that’s required to make a new account and get back to business as if nothing happened.
Sadly, no matter what solution is put in place, people find a way past detection. New hacks can be made, IP’s can be changed, and new emails/accounts can be made. Hack designers are so good at what they do, It only takes a week or two before you’d never know an AC was even in place. The only true way to deflect cheaters is to have a price tag on the game while having a report system that’s actually moderated. Eventually the script kiddy’s mom will get sick of all the credit card transactions and cut him off from the nipple. Hackers are just a byproduct of the free 2 play model and there is literally nothing that can be done to stop it short of a moderator watching every match like on community ran CS and CoD servers. Even that solution has its downsides.
Even worse, when hackers become an accepted part of the game’s culture people develop this complex that forces them to consider anyone better than them a hacker. This means that many reports from players can become false positives, if they bother to report at all. Most of the hackers i’ve seen have 2-3 VAC bans on record already. So if they just get a slap on the wrist, then what’s the point of jumping through all the hoops? They just ruin every match they enter for 40-80 gameplay hours, get banned after enough people complain about it, make a new account, and rinse/repeat until they get bored and move on. What kind of “anti-cheat” system is that?
More hilarious still, Splash Damage has the gall to show the hackers respect by having a no name and shame policy. They say. “Oh, just secretly report it to our parent company through their system that never seems to be functioning while we publicly sweep it under the rug”. They say, “As always, we look forward to your feedback in the official forums about this major change to Dirty Bomb” and then instalock any posts regarding cheating or the ACS unless it’s being praised. They say, “I will be locking this thread as Spam. It serves no purpose on this forum besides to incite response”. Well isn’t that what you asked for? Something called feedback? Or they’ll say, “I don’t believe you, you’re exaggerating, where’s your proof of all these hackers? Oh you named them on the forums to prove the point? Post deleted.” Sounds pretty reminiscent of how G1 handled their problem before the well known hackers became brave enough to DDOS them almost out of business. It took them contacting the FBI and getting the punks arrested to stop it.
I dunno. Maybe i’m just being too salty about it. After spending 5 years in the APB community and witnessing how their battle unfolded through the years, seeing Nexon follow in the same footsteps just saddens me to the core. The community, and myself especially, just has to accept this is how all free 2 play games are. It will never be any different regardless what gimmicks or silver bullets they try to bandage in. 1 out of every 10 of your matches will be ruined by somebody cheating, it’s just the way it is. Until the offenders are at risk of losing something they value, it’s a waste of time even trying to stop them.
Putting a reasonable price tag never changed anything on cheaters. CS:GO is literally crowded with cheaters, even in the top end professional side of it. Do some matchmaking in it and you’ll encounter a cheater in one out of ten games. Every steam sale put this game at the equivalent of 3 $/€. It’s like giving it for free. And nowadays, except bf/cod fans, no one will pay a 60 bucks entry fine to get access to a multiplayer game.
The price tag, especially when you are a small game developer/editor and put it too high, is just limiting your audience, thus limiting the potential amount of cheaters in the same way. In my opinion, that’s a necessary risk to put your game free to play or nearly it (10 to 20 bucks regular price, then below 5 during sales).
So far, SD and Nexon have done a good job releasing this new AC, we will see how it goes in the long run. You definitely can’t tell what is going to happen. A specific situation in a specific game is certainly not going to repeat in the exact same way. 100% cheater free game is impossible, we all know this. But I’ve seen a couple of F2P having no trouble dealing with cheaters. Tribes : Ascend (during its populated time) had a low amount of cheaters and no one seemed to complain about it. And until it went totally forgotten by its developers, people tend to give it the same fast fps comp oriented fate Dirty Bomb has right now. So I keep hoping this new AC and the future reporting system will somehow resolve the past situation decently. No more no less. It’s totally possible to maintain cheaters at concealed levels.
And about no naming and shaming policy, as I said in an older post, is just a real world concern. Imagine a store, where you did not pay something by inadvertence, placing pictures of you everywhere claiming you’re a thief. Real world justice, at least where I live (France) simply does not work like this.
@sprightlySedan As far as I agree with you at most part of the post, I still would like to say that naming & shaming policy is here for a good reason:
The rule isn’t about “protecting cheaters.” That forum rule is protecting also these players that very likely would get accused for being a cheater and it’s a fact that sometimes people can’t see a difference between skilled player and real cheater. (Even if there’s a video about it.)
Naming & shaming can quickly ruin reputation of an innocent player, if enough people believe (s)he is cheating. (Even if it’s false accusation.) For innocent player it might turn hard or even impossible to defend him/herself.
I’ve seen it happening already in another game, before moderators deleted the topic.
Sadly it was already too late: even accused player’s own friends didn’t believe him anymore.
He was a cheater in other’s eyes.
I understand that many of those recorded evidence about cheaters probably most are right, but you should understand why this forum is not correct place to post those report topics.
Like I said before, you just need one innocent player to make the whole rule worth it.
Though this is one of those never ending conversations about naming & shaming, so I will leave this to be my last post about the same topic.
[quote=“sprightlySedan;71839”]Ask APB:Reloaded’s developers how dealing with cheaters has gone. They have several layers of the most advanced anti-cheat systems ever built and it’s not enough. They’ve gone as far as name and shaming hackers with the in-game notification system so all the regular players can be appeased whenever a hacker gets picked off. Still, there’s a several day evaluation period that the AC has to go through before determining if someone is worthy of a ban. During that 24-48 hour waiting period, the offender can ruin hundreds of matches. Much more time than the 3 minutes that’s required to make a new account and get back to business as if nothing happened.
[/quote]
I still remember the day when they introduced the FairFight for the first time but kept quiet about it. The games went back to live after the patch, we logged back, and the rain happened. The rain of the nicknames of banned people.
@Fiktio Ah, i suppose that’s true. Its hard to say to what extent that would have an affect on the innocent player though. I’ve been called a hacker quite a few times, but i certainly don’t have a “reputation” as far as i know. Apart from just being an opinionated jerk on the forums. If i was named and shamed i’d probably say “Heck yeah! My mommy bought those hacks for me, you like em?” But of course not everyone feels or thinks the same way i do, and i sometimes forget that.
[quote=“B. Montiel;71862”]
And about no naming and shaming policy, as I said in an older post, is just a real world concern. Imagine a store, where you did not pay something by inadvertence, placing pictures of you everywhere claiming you’re a thief. Real world justice, at least where I live (France) simply does not work like this. [/quote]
Yeah, here in America you’d probably be arrested or shot and end up on CNN. Different cultures i suppose.
If i remember correctly Tribes had a focus on bullet timey stuff like rockets. I imagine it’s significantly harder to program a quality aimbot in something like that vs a bullet hose hitscan style fps like Dirty Bomb, CS, CoD ect. Its probably why Starcraft and the mobas don’t have a great deal of hacker complaints aside from map hackers. And honestly, its not like they can’t still be outplayed. On Dirty Bomb you just run into what they refer to in APB as “SHAWCopters” where they get the fastest firing gun, sit at the spawn, and spin getting instant bleedout kills through walls and stuff. Its not like hack has to compensate for bullet time, it’s just lock on and score a hit. People have been making hacks like that for 20 years.
[quote=“prudentMan;71884”]
I still remember the day when they introduced the FairFight for the first time but kept quiet about it. The games went back to live after the patch, we logged back, and the rain happened. The rain of the nicknames of banned people.[/quote]
Oh dude, it was epic! If only Fairfight was that aggressive all the time. They still get this one hack where the offender lags around at hyper speed with an aimbot. Its pretty hilarious to watch tbh. But for the sake of APB’s dwindling community, i wish it would stop. I love APB so much and it breaks my heart to see it slowly fade away because of jerks doing that.
Don’t forget that those cheaters you’re mentioning in APB are just a shallow and obvious problem. People using Wallhacks or triggerbots are far harder to detect, even for the experienced eye or a good anti-cheat. This is where NGS needs to be efficient. We don’t have enough steps back to judge this by now. As for myself, I might have seen someone triggerbotting yesterday, and he’d be the first cheater I’ve met since last week. One in a week is incredibly low.
Tribes ascend was indeed projectile based in most parts. Some weapons were still hitscan. Either way, a Hi-Rez coder (!) showed in a youtube video an aimbot he created able to calculate enemy trajectories and fire accordingly, resulting in extreme accuracy even on long range. And I don’t think he was the only one to achieve this :p…
[quote=“B. Montiel;71926”]
Tribes ascend was indeed projectile based in most parts. Some weapons were still hitscan. Either way, a Hi-Rez coder (!) showed in a youtube video an aimbot he created able to calculate enemy trajectories and fire accordingly, resulting in extreme accuracy even on long range. And I don’t think he was the only one to achieve this :p…[/quote]
That’s impressive!
[quote=“B. Montiel;71926”]
Don’t forget that those cheaters you’re mentioning in APB are just a shallow and obvious problem. People using Wallhacks or triggerbots are far harder to detect, even for the experienced eye or a good anti-cheat. This is where NGS needs to be efficient. We don’t have enough steps back to judge this by now. As for myself, I might have seen someone triggerbotting yesterday, and he’d be the first cheater I’ve met since last week. One in a week is incredibly low.[/quote]
Yeah, i hear ya there. Its tough when you think someone is just a little too good, but you can’t report them because any video evidence you provide will just make you look like a hackusater. So what if a guy goes 65-5, he could be totally legit, or he could be supplementing his skill with walls. You never really know for sure, but it’s still frustrating to have that feeling and be unable to prove it. Especially when you look it up on youtube and run across 100 videos of guys using supplements. Of course its really no different than map hacks in Starcraft. They can still be outplayed and beat, they just have an unfair advantage. Tbh, i don’t really worry about that as much as full on batant game ending shawcopter hacks. Especially when ranked punishes you for leaving early.
