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There are probably plenty of ways to tell "fake controller input from a bot" from "actual human controller input" today. Sounds like a scary arms-race, though.

There are probably plenty of ways to tell "fake controller input from a bot" from "actual human controller input" today. Sounds like a scary arms-race, though. At some point the bots will probably be very hard to distinguish from "skilled human." It will be sad if online play becomes only enjoyable with people you already know. I'm surprised how gleeful some people seem to be about this sort of "soon cheating will be undectable!" tech advancement. Or you just go all-in on the surveillance path and there are models that look at your performance in the game over time, your performance in other games over time, etc. Mediocre player suddenly amazing? Probably a cheater! etc... Not great sounding privacy-wise, but Steam probably has access to the data to do this.

the8472 5y ago
> Sounds like a scary arms-race Or a GAN
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Also, there is enough variance amongst human that eventually the generator network can actually slip under the noise floor and become 100% undetectable.
- greenknight 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhK8lUfIlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhK8lUfIlc They are using deep learning to detect hackers, since 2018
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    And it's not working too well.
mikenew 5y ago
> There are probably plenty of ways to tell "fake controller input from a bot" from "actual human controller input" today. Only in the "do these movement patterns appear human-like or not" sense. These aim bots can use assistive devices to input mouse movements and there's no way to tell whether or not there's a human hand moving the mouse.
sudosysgen 5y ago
There might be for now. You just have to train a second model that actually moves the cursor towards the target on normal player behaviour, eventually it becomes essentially perfect, and what then? As far as performance improvements, oh it's going to make the cheat programmers even more money as they implement a skill ramp up period and get to charge more. The only way in which I'm "gleeful" is that it might finally put an end to the spyware when we realize that controlling someone else's computer is a losing proposition. Otherwise yeah it does suck.
nullsmack 5y ago
There's a form of cheating I've heard about a while back called softaim. Basically the cheating software doesn't aim for you, but it can tell if you're aiming at the person and pull the trigger for you. The YOLO stuff combined with softaim is going to be pretty hard to detect. The game can't tell if your video is going into the cheating device. Even if it can tell if there's a secondary input coming in for the trigger... people could just mod their mouse to take external input for the button. Someone pathetic enough to cheat absolutely would do this. I honestly don't know how multiplayer will even work in a year's time or maybe even less!
- cle 5y ago
  > I honestly don't know how multiplayer will even work in a year's time or maybe even less! It's easy, IMO: remove the incentives for cheating. If this is the only way forward, I might be more likely to actually participate in the industry, because it'll put the focus back on intrinsically-fun games, instead of treating games as merely a vehicle for chasing status/rankings/items/etc.
  - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
    It's easy, just destroy the entire esports industry?
    - cle 5y ago
      It's an easy concept. A lot of people might not like it. But I would like it.
      - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
        Just play the games you like then and stop commenting how other types of games that you don't even play need to change
  - twojacobtwo 5y ago
    Multiplayer FPS (PvP) games are my favorite - could you explain how they can remove the incentives therein? Almost the entire incentive behind PvP games is beating the other person in any given battle/arena/skirmish. Even if ranks/bonuses/items were detached from "skill", most of the incentive still remains for PvP. Having encountered a number of cheaters over the years, I know they still get joy out of winning the objective of the game with no obvious side benefit.
giantrobot 5y ago
> It will be sad if online play becomes only enjoyable with people you already know. For me this has always been the case. I've felt the same since the days of Kali. There's enough jagoffs running around in games to spoil playing with the normal people. To the jagoffs, they're playing the metagame of cheats/trolling and the game itself is incidental.
Shorel 5y ago
Yep. At least for simracing, it is only enjoyable with the same people race after race. Random drivers are just too stupid/reckless.
blooalien 5y ago
> "It will be sad if online play becomes only enjoyable with people you already know." Already long since passed that point for me quite a couple few years back. Thankfully, it's not that hard to build up a little circle of gamer friends who are fun to play with these days. The messaging options alone currently available are many and featureful, making it dead easy to gather a little group and keep in contact with them to organize a game session any ol' time.

the8472 5y ago

> Sounds like a scary arms-race Or a GAN

sudosysgen 5y ago
Also, there is enough variance amongst human that eventually the generator network can actually slip under the noise floor and become 100% undetectable.
greenknight 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhK8lUfIlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhK8lUfIlc They are using deep learning to detect hackers, since 2018
- mhh__ 5y ago
  And it's not working too well.

mikenew 5y ago

> There are probably plenty of ways to tell "fake controller input from a bot" from "actual human controller input" today. Only in the "do these movement patterns appear human-like or not" sense. These aim bots can use assistive devices to input mouse movements and there's no way to tell whether or not there's a human hand moving the mouse.

sudosysgen 5y ago

There might be for now. You just have to train a second model that actually moves the cursor towards the target on normal player behaviour, eventually it becomes essentially perfect, and what then? As far as performance improvements, oh it's going to make the cheat programmers even more money as they implement a skill ramp up period and get to charge more. The only way in which I'm "gleeful" is that it might finally put an end to the spyware when we realize that controlling someone else's computer is a losing proposition. Otherwise yeah it does suck.

nullsmack 5y ago

There's a form of cheating I've heard about a while back called softaim. Basically the cheating software doesn't aim for you, but it can tell if you're aiming at the person and pull the trigger for you. The YOLO stuff combined with softaim is going to be pretty hard to detect. The game can't tell if your video is going into the cheating device. Even if it can tell if there's a secondary input coming in for the trigger... people could just mod their mouse to take external input for the button. Someone pathetic enough to cheat absolutely would do this. I honestly don't know how multiplayer will even work in a year's time or maybe even less!

cle 5y ago
> I honestly don't know how multiplayer will even work in a year's time or maybe even less! It's easy, IMO: remove the incentives for cheating. If this is the only way forward, I might be more likely to actually participate in the industry, because it'll put the focus back on intrinsically-fun games, instead of treating games as merely a vehicle for chasing status/rankings/items/etc.
- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  It's easy, just destroy the entire esports industry?
  - cle 5y ago
    It's an easy concept. A lot of people might not like it. But I would like it.
    - weird-eye-issue 5y ago
      Just play the games you like then and stop commenting how other types of games that you don't even play need to change
- twojacobtwo 5y ago
  Multiplayer FPS (PvP) games are my favorite - could you explain how they can remove the incentives therein? Almost the entire incentive behind PvP games is beating the other person in any given battle/arena/skirmish. Even if ranks/bonuses/items were detached from "skill", most of the incentive still remains for PvP. Having encountered a number of cheaters over the years, I know they still get joy out of winning the objective of the game with no obvious side benefit.

giantrobot 5y ago

> It will be sad if online play becomes only enjoyable with people you already know. For me this has always been the case. I've felt the same since the days of Kali. There's enough jagoffs running around in games to spoil playing with the normal people. To the jagoffs, they're playing the metagame of cheats/trolling and the game itself is incidental.

Shorel 5y ago

Yep. At least for simracing, it is only enjoyable with the same people race after race. Random drivers are just too stupid/reckless.

blooalien 5y ago

> "It will be sad if online play becomes only enjoyable with people you already know." Already long since passed that point for me quite a couple few years back. Thankfully, it's not that hard to build up a little circle of gamer friends who are fun to play with these days. The messaging options alone currently available are many and featureful, making it dead easy to gather a little group and keep in contact with them to organize a game session any ol' time.