MACRO cheats? No Recoil etc

[Felon]

Many years ago I was involved with testing Punkbuster and stats wise no matter how good the analysis system was there was always at least 1 genuine player, etc. who'd trip the system unless you dialled it back to the point it was only detecting people with near if not pixel perfect aim/snapping to target. I doubt even these newer machine learning/AI systems will entirely fix that.

I think you're a bit out of date..

Rage-hackers (spinbots, speedhacks etc) are easy to ban with most systems, they generally get nailed in 1-2 games with Valorant's system.

The hardest ones to catch are bots and people boosting, as none of those two will exhibit any obvious behaviour that looks like cheating - but when you look at the data, it doesn't play the game like a human at all. Or in the case of a booster - the average ELO skill rating jumped from 500 to 8000 over the space of 5-6 games, which is impossible, it's like me playing tennis as me, then turning into Roger Feder in the space of 5 games.

This REWASD thing does look like it should be very easy to stop, it just looks like people have found quite an innovative way to cheese the system, and I imagine it'll get patched out.

 

[rumple9]

Sales of it probably up 500% today because of Jack

 

[Rroff]

I think you're a bit out of date..

Rage-hackers (spinbots, speedhacks etc) are easy to ban with most systems, they generally get nailed in 1-2 games with Valorant's system.

The hardest ones to catch are bots and people boosting, as none of those two will exhibit any obvious behaviour that looks like cheating - but when you look at the data, it doesn't play the game like a human at all. Or in the case of a booster - the average ELO skill rating jumped from 500 to 8000 over the space of 5-6 games, which is impossible, it's like me playing tennis as me, then turning into Roger Feder in the space of 5 games.

This REWASD thing does look like it should be very easy to stop, it just looks like people have found quite an innovative way to cheese the system, and I imagine it'll get patched out.

Someone who is a very very good player with a lot of experience of similar games absolutely can go from poor to average to absolute mastery in a very short space of time in a specific game when they've got to grips with it. People smurfing, etc. or just someone who lets someone much better than themselves play on their account, etc.

Catching insta-360 aimbots, speedhacks etc. is one thing but "smooth" bots, people who actually use ESP well without obviously following people through walls, etc. is another and I've seen some really clever people try and tackle this.

And there are still alternative ways to cheat in games like Valorant and all PC Fps games. Machine Learning image detection software trained on yolov4 and v5 models as well as Direct Memory Access via a 2nd pc/laptop running custom firmware.

I'm not going to elaborate too much but there is an easy way to do it if you have physical access to a system using an ARM based microcontroller which can be used both to leak memory completely invisible to anything running under Windows at any level and appear as a legit HID to the OS (so input modification can't be detected due to the presence of memory manipulation). LogoFAIL probably makes it even easier to achieve.

 

[IronWarrior]

Sad state of FPS gaming, even monitors have "gaming crosshairs" now, no way to detect this stuff.

 

[Felon]

Someone who is a very very good player with a lot of experience of similar games absolutely can go from poor to average to absolute mastery in a very short space of time in a specific game when they've got to grips with it.

Yes - to a well designed system, they’ll still look like a real player and not a cheater.

It’s almost always the case, that somebody who is cheating plays completely differently to someone who has legit mastered the game, and it’s easy to detect, using data.

(Which is why it’s such a successful anti-cheat method)

 

[Grim5]

Just wonder how long before this gets banned? Personally Aim Assist should NEVER have been added to MP games

Both Sony and MS are clamping down on consoles by only allowing approved usb devices to connect to the game console, locking these 3rd party hardware hacks out of the system completely. But there is no fix on PC, you can still trick a game into giving you aimbot using this software

 

[Vidar]

I honestly don't think they'll ever be able to completely stamp out cheating in these games. Some clever sod will always find a way around whatever system is put in place. It's a shame as I used to love jumping into these games with friends but there's just no point playing them anymore.

 

[Felon]

I honestly don't think they'll ever be able to completely stamp out cheating in these games.

Yeah,

The problem is to do it properly, to build a system that works is very expensive and it essentially creates an arms-race.

I also think that it’s only really going to be the big eSports studios such as Valve and Riot who will invest the effort, as cheaters actually kill their games, if left to run rampant.

For less-competitive games like COD/Battlefield etc, they’re never going to make the effort to stop cheating, as it just doesn’t impact their business as much.

 

[Kyo]

This is a problem for Apex Legends as well. There literally is no game integrity if they was ever was. The community which consists mostly of adolescents would abuse and use any exploit to get ahead. The whole roller AA scenario is a good example, mostly if not all player base have switched to roller because regardless how you good you are with MnK your never going to be as consistent as Aimassist (AA). Its not just AA its rotational AA, where it turns your pov and locks on for you once it locks on all they do is hold down the trigger. Its absolutely bonkers how the devs have brought this into it and normalised it as being legit even on the pro scene, now i am not saying there isnt any skill to using a roller there is but for me its artificial its not completely down to that person skill or ability. Its got so bad to a point where you cant tell a cheater to someone good playing with AA.

Its hardly surprising now people resorting to this, having AA which quite frankly is a cut down aimbot is widely accepted so why not add scripts and other means to absolute absue it. The Developers have normalised this and made it widely acceptable as not cheating until it is.

They dont care at this point, as long as its popular and its raking money they wont change it. They dont want to make the best game, they want to make the most addictive and most importantly profitable game.

 

[Semple]

Same thing in every FPS. Either exploiting aim assist or configs to map the recoil; honestly don’t get it - you must have a really empty life to want to spend it doing this.

Apparently Valorant has virtually no cheaters because the anti-cheat is kernel level. Controversial but effective.

I'd have thought it was obvious the reason behind it. These kind of players have no particular skill, even worse if they stream because honestly they're not going to get much of an audience watching them die repeatedly. So they have to resort to using cheats.

 

[Kyo]

I'd have thought it was obvious the reason behind it. These kind of players have no particular skill, even worse if they stream because honestly they're not going to get much of an audience watching them die repeatedly. So they have to resort to using cheats.

In Apex the cheaters dont even care if they get caught they spoof their clients and just load up fresh ones. Its pretty lucrative, lots of desperate players will pay good money for badges and boost profiles. Where there is money to be made it will be exploited.

 

[Semple]

For less-competitive games like COD/Battlefield etc, they’re never going to make the effort to stop cheating, as it just doesn’t impact their business as much.

I'd disagree with the impact - but yeah they don't seem interested in making an effort. Last battlefield I played was 5 and you could clearly see there was still rife cheating going on (you can tell how quickly a full server empties when someone jumps in and very shortly gets up to a 100/1 KD ratio). I know it got to a point where people just stopped bothering to report players because it was obvious they weren't doing anything about it. Only thing you can do is hop server and hope not to bump into another cheater.

In reality they either need community run servers - which isn't always great if you get power-hungry mods, or implement a vote-kick system. Most players on a server are likely to vote to kick someone who is obviously cheating.

 

[Vidar]

There's two ways of combating this I think, dev monitoring of each round on every server which isn't feasible or create a game based around all these cheats so it's part of the core game play, thus removing any advantage.

 

[Semple]

In Apex the cheaters dont even care if they get caught they spoof their clients and just load up fresh ones. Its pretty lucrative, lots of desperate players will pay good money for badges and boost profiles. Where there is money to be made it will be exploited.

Yeah :|

Needs some way to lock a profile to a licensed account, where you ban the license requiring the cheater to keep buying a new license. - I imagine that'll get tiring quick.

 

[Semple]

There's two ways of combating this I think, dev monitoring of each round on every server which isn't feasible or create a game based around all these cheats so it's part of the core game play, thus removing any advantage.

The problem IMO with that approach is that it "kiddifies" a game. You want a game with realistic graphics etc, but then have to put up with very basic combat controls, part of the realism comes with various skill levels to master combat controls.

 

[Kyo]

Yeah :|

Needs some way to lock a profile to a licensed account, where you ban the license requiring the cheater to keep buying a new license. - I imagine that'll get tiring quick.

True unfortunately Apex is free to pay and they just keep making new profiles. Here a good video of what i was talking about. This streamer managed to talk to a cheater and ask him why he did this.

***Removed due to swearing***

 

[Felon]

In reality they either need community run servers - which isn't always great if you get power-hungry mods, or implement a vote-kick system. Most players on a server are likely to vote to kick someone who is obviously cheating.

The main problem is resource and cost.

If you have a large, popular multiplayer game, and it’s running in EU-West at 8pm on a Friday night - you may have as many as 5-6 million players in a game, which will require tens of thousands of servers.

You can’t scale that type of system and have the community (human beings) police it, it has to be automated and it has to be governed by data and AI - there’s no other way that will work.

These games are absolutely huge, even gamers themselves often have no idea of the scale and resources required, to make these things work.

 

[Vidar]

The problem IMO with that approach is that it "kiddifies" a game. You want a game with realistic graphics etc, but then have to put up with very basic combat controls, part of the realism comes with various skill levels to master combat controls.

But that's my point, you either have devs sat in every match monitoring players or level the playing field. Maybe once AGI hits the market the first option becomes viable.

 

[Felon]

True unfortunately Apex is free to pay and they just keep making new profiles.

One of the ways LoL dealt with this problem, (dealing with cheaters in a free to play game), is not to ban them - just have the matchmaking system place them in games against other cheaters.

It’s expensive as you’re paying money just to host servers full of bots and griefers, but in the final analysis that’s more cost effective, than endless negative press and people leaving the game.

Especially when your revenue is based only on in game purchases.

 

[Mesai]

The main problem is resource and cost.

If you have a large, popular multiplayer game, and it’s running in EU-West at 8pm on a Friday night - you may have as many as 5-6 million players in a game, which will require tens of thousands of servers.

You can’t scale that type of system and have the community (human beings) police it, it has to be automated and it has to be governed by data and AI - there’s no other way that will work.

These games are absolutely huge, even gamers themselves often have no idea of the scale and resources required, to make these things work.

If you captured the right data it would be so obvious, especially for an existing account tracking damage and kd. Next level would be rapid movement/input, etc. Machine learning could work at another level for anomaly detection.

The main problem is that these games have a lifespan and they’ll milk it at the expense of those who just want to play. Apex probably put more effort into this next event where you need $300 to get all of the items, than the game itself - look at the mid season patch notes where they added a voice line and rotated some maps.