thoughts on hacking

(Nail) #21

doesn’t matter what upgrades you have, without practice using them you’ll still get your ass handed to you by someone who got them legit.

there is no +4 of instant pwnage

(Grimi) #22

[QUOTE=Nail;221548]doesn’t matter what upgrades you have, without practice using them you’ll still get your ass handed to you by someone who got them legit.

there is no +4 of instant pwnage[/QUOTE]

I guess you’re right. But what if you unlock them just to get to practice with them earlier, eh? Nah I’m not going to drag this one out. I guess in the end when people have got thier unlocks the normal way everything would be even, just down to who’s the better player. And someone who hacks to get unlocks faster is most likely to quit the game early as he couldn’t even take his time to actually enjoy it.

(redbeardraven) #23

I think everyone here has made some pretty valid points with hardly any momentum in either direction. I believe that single player and multiplayer should be completely separated unless there is a specific mode such as Free For All. This would not have any effect on your rank through multiplayer statistics but more only toward XP. Plus, you would know what you are getting into when you join a server.

With that said, I don’t ever see getting rid of hacks on any game. Hackers are always crafty and will find a way to modify their game content to give them the “edge”. The only thing that really be done is lessen the amount of modded activities in game or the amount of people that have access to hack the game.

If the game is completely server side stored then they will oust the people without internet connection. [although I don’t know why someone would buy a game that is gear toward multiplayer] But the hacks will still come, mainly from the PC version at first, and aggravation will still be there. If the game is totally client side stored then they will be giving more freedom to the players to roam around him on any platform and mods will be everywhere, until a patch is found to seal the crack.

With all of that said, I don’t believe the devs can completely eliminate the possibility of hacked materials in this game, or any game. But they can find ways to alienate the activities from modded material.

Even if the mods only affect the game aesthetically it will still lose it’s luster for those who like to earn their reward. If the mods can affect gameplay even in the smallest amounts it will push the “noobs” away from playing online or at all. This might not affect the majority of players or how they enjoy the game, but it could push new players away from being “owned”.

No an den.

(INF3RN0) #24

To be perfectly honest, I think allowing upgrades across all game modes would greatly reassure me of SD intentions to achieve perfect balance. If it doesn’t affect the game like we have been told, then there is no problem but personal preference :wink:.

(Apples) #25

Finaly you wake up? I told that like a month ago already…

If you can unlock stuff in SP and keep them unlocked for MP everyone will have all upgrades on day 1, not that I care that much anyway… a bigger gun dont make a noob better IMO.

Peace

(Nail) #26

you don’t get a bigger gun, you might get a bigger magazine, or a flash hider but not more damage

(H0RSE) #27

If you can unlock stuff in SP and keep them unlocked for MP everyone will have all upgrades on day 1
This is only if you can hack them, because I highly doubt a player will be able to legitimately unlock all the upgrades in 1 day, regardless if it’s SP or MP.

(tokamak) #28

Rahdo already gave his thoughts on this. He basically said that the people unlocking everything are only ruining their own game and not that of others.

I think the hackers are doing the community a service as they allow to test whether or not the end-game will stand the test of time from day one and whether or not they scale right with start-game characters.

If anything I prefer it over what happened in TF2, where you have these ‘achievement’ servers

You just get more options, not more power. If I get this right then a player will have a limited number of unlocks, say, five, which are filled up pretty easily in the first games or so and from there on there should be relative balance, with the higher players getting to adapt to situations more easily as they have more things to chose to put in thoses five slots.

I’ve just been doing some WoW again, it’s actually pretty fun to be the underdog in the CTF game. A level 29 player can beat the crap out of six level 20 players at once, but level 20’s can contribute a lot to the game in the sense of ‘flat’ contributions. I was playing a priest, a level 20 priests has very crappy healing never mind the damage, but the buffs he dishes out to the other players are considerable. He also has the ability to remove negative buffs from friendly players and positive buffs from enemy players.

So as a level 20 you can completely ruin the day of a level 29 if you eat all his buffs away while he’s carrying the flag, he’ll go down in no time.

So what I would do is to put all the unlocks that have something to do with buffing other players or sabotaging enemy players in a similar way in the first levels and the more personal power ups to characters, indeed like better fire power or more hp, at the higher tiers.

(Apples) #29

Well, from week 1 then… playing vs mindless bot you can unlock everything pretty fast.

I’m not sure that gettin everything fast will ruin my experience anyway, as I dont really care about perks and stuffs, I just want to be able to play at my higher level the soonest, so if I need to unlock everything then choose the right combo for me then yeah, i’ll gladly farm up, then I’ll enjoy the game in MP with the style I rather.

Peace

(darthmob) #30

I seriously doubt the game will be that flawed that it allows client side modification of attributes. And if someone downloads a savegame to unlock everything who cares? It’s his loss and that’s it.

Things that get called server hacks in MW2 are regular modifications in every other game. It’s your server so you can do whatever you want with it. Of course it won’t be running pure anymore but that’s what server filters are for. How many servers are there in ET that change gravity or playerspeeds? If it isn’t forbidden no one changes it because it doesn’t add to the fun of the game.

[QUOTE=redbeardraven;221556]I believe that single player and multiplayer should be completely separated unless there is a specific mode such as Free For All. This would not have any effect on your rank through multiplayer statistics but more only toward XP. Plus, you would know what you are getting into when you join a server.[/QUOTE]Blending SP and MP is one feature that makes Brink special.

(Sssaap) #31

First off:

Yes, Rahdo mentioned, that they’ll not have any protection against people altering their unlocks.

But when it comes to online gaming they sure as hell will have the servers check if you have altered unlocks(simple checksum imo:x)
same for the character stats, shouldn’t be a big problem to check if the skill points a character has are higher than the maximum you can reach/you should have at your level, so no worries about that either.

There definitely can’t be any difference for online and offline characters since their whole concept about just switching into online battle wouldn’t work anymore.

(Apples) #32

And no one see that bot in ridiculously low level are easier to play against than any real noodle?

Even if perks dont allow you to have “bigger” firepower, I’m sure they are at least a bit usefull, if not why would they ad them in the first place, it is a serious flaw, but we’ll see after i got all my upgrade and you dont :smiley:

Peace

(stealth6) #33

lol according to some peoples logic here, there will be no point in buying the game 2 months after release.

Since then people just buying the game are so useless that they can’t do anything against people that have been playing it since the start.

Also who cares if people hack their stats? That ruins their own fun and effects otther people in no way what so ever, it’s just like MW2, you can hack youself to level 70 prestige 10 in 2 minutes, the only way this effects other people is that they see that you have the highest rank… WOW! sucks to be them, they might aswell throw away their game now.

actually I think the underlying factor here is the xp people that are like I have to be the top of the leaderboard, so people can’t hack their xp thats crazy, while they don’t understand the fps mentality that who cares? gameplay > some crappy xp system

(H0RSE) #34

Also who cares if people hack their stats? That ruins their own fun and effects otther people in no way what so ever,

But that’s just it, we don’t know yet if it will have no effect whatsoever on other players. If you’re rank 10, playing with other rank 10’s, and someone hacked their stats to have access to unlocks that are around rank 30 status, we don’t know yet if his will be a negative effect on gameplay.

Besides, even if it truly has no effect on others, it’s the principle of the matter that bothers me. Players shouldn’t be hacking their stats, and more importantly, they shouldn’t be allowed to go online with them.

(redbeardraven) #35

[QUOTE=darthmob;221578]I seriously doubt the game will be that flawed that it allows client side modification of attributes. And if someone downloads a savegame to unlock everything who cares? It’s his loss and that’s it.

Things that get called server hacks in MW2 are regular modifications in every other game. It’s your server so you can do whatever you want with it. Of course it won’t be running pure anymore but that’s what server filters are for. How many servers are there in ET that change gravity or playerspeeds? If it isn’t forbidden no one changes it because it doesn’t add to the fun of the game.

Blending SP and MP is one feature that makes Brink special.[/QUOTE]

What I meant in saying is that I should be seperated UNLESS they add a mode for multiplayer which would allow you to play with your Single Player character on that mode for Multiplayer. You could also have another character which is for multiplayer only and you can develop each seperately ( or hack only the single player version to play only on that mode of multiplayer. )

I know that is a portion of what will make Brink special and I would still buy the game even if it did not have that concept behind it just because it is a great looking game that [visually] feels good in movement.

To get back on topic. Hacking is inevitable and we can only choose to deal with it in what we want. These “passive” bonus will still affect the way a person can play the game and can make a “noob” have somewhat of an advantage, but not change their skill in the game itself. I feel that hacking should not be brought to online in where it can have an affect on anyone else besides those who use it. And I am sure that if something malicious Splash Damage will find a way to remove or tone it down once the issue is identified.

(Grimi) #36

It’s not like they will release the game and then just jump onto the next project. Ofcourse they will notice if it takes 1 week to get all unlocks or max level and people have it after 1-2 days, and most likely they will do something about those people. And if people instead hacks it to get the unlocks at the time where everyone else will get it then what’s the problem? They will atleast not have an advantage against the others who have accomplished it for real. One way to solve this if the unlocks takes time is to save dates and other data on when/how they got the unlock, even in offline mode and when someone gets online the server might flag users with alot of unlocks in a short period of time and then have someone look into it. I don’t know, according to the info we have the unlocks won’t make the difference if you or the enemy wins the 1v1 fights. But it might make a difference in 8v8 but it will probably not be the main reason to your win/loss.

(Nail) #37

yea, I can see how someone having every tattoo and do-rag unlock will make them insta-leet

(Grimi) #38

Don’t you also unlock combative abilities? Nothing like +3000% damage or the ability to fly ofcourse, but as I think it was you said in an earlier post you might be able to carry more ammunition or have an additional grenade. Even if this are minor details they play thier part. But yes, hacking and cheating is for noobs and a noob can never be good!

(redbeardraven) #39

I just read the majority of this Q&A. Toward the bottom he explains that you can buy ( and sell back ) abilities in between matches.

He does explain that the majority of customization will be aesthetic, but there apparently is an option to customer your weapons as well. I have yet to find anything specific so it is hard to say now. Thought it might help.

(Nail) #40

The way I read the whole thing is that it’s more about personal preference over actual buffs, to make the character more “you” rather than getting uber weapons