5 ms·

I'm curious about what data the "cheats" were reading and how it gave them an advantage

by s09dfhks 4y ago

CursedUrn 4y ago
Some of them read unit positions/type/health to auto-aim at the best target.
gregw134 4y ago
I heard you could tell when your opponents had vision on you. Useful for detecting ward spots or incoming ganks.
- macinjosh 4y ago
  > Useful for detecting ward spots or incoming ganks. This phrase makes me feel old, haha. No idea what it means. As a programmer with no game dev experience what are the most common technical mechanisms used for cheating? Are they modifying outgoing network traffic on the fly or something like that?
  - margorczynski 4y ago
    Ward - object placed somewhere to give you vision around it Gank - suprise attack basically, usually when a guy from one lane go to another one to suprise kill an enemy player
  - zinclozenge 4y ago
    I'm no longer in the game, but circa counter-strike 1.1 or 1.3, the typical way was using windows hooking API to load your hack into the running process. You could then simply use the freely available half life modding sdk to use the same structs and things like that. Network related stuff also happened, but I never paid attention to it.
  - acchow 4y ago
    It's not really an age thing. If you don't know anything about Dota or the MOBA genre, these concepts will be meaningless. Let's translate to the more commonly understood First Person Shooters. In a FPS, you don't know if someone is hiding behind a door. But with cheats on, the cheat program could be reading game data and know that someone is behind a door. It could highlight that person on your screen in a red color, that way you can see them even tho they are hidden. It could also move your mouse cursor automatically for you so you get an easy headshot without even trying to aim. Neither of these involve modifying outgoing network traffic.
  - xvinci 4y ago
    Everything that goes is common sadly. This includes: - Reading from and writing to memory (either by direct means provided by windows, by custom drivers, or by exploiting installed vulnerable drivers to bypass secure boot and such) - Reading network traffic (particularly nasty because it can be done on a device where the game and Anti-Cheat is NOT running provided you get access to SSL decryption keys) - Having an external device react to your video feed only (either "dumb" aka on colors, pixels shapes etc. or fancy with AI and stuff) and then react by a "faked" input device (mouse, controller, etc). - Modifying game files (e.g. replace texture walls with transparent textures) - The very easy way: Simply exploiting game bugs. E.g. you can cheat in Fifa on console (!) since years by doing stuff in the system menu. Fifa will just disconnect the game without giving you a loss for the match.
rootcage 4y ago
Does it matter? If external software is accessing data within the game client, that itself is a breach of contract.
- andybak 4y ago
  Contracts are often overly restrictive and I want to use software I've bought in any legitimate way I can. For example - VR mods for older games give me great pleasure and a ban because they used internal hooks would make me very angry.
  - babypuncher 4y ago
    Are you arguing that cheaters should be allowed to run rampant in multiplayer games purely because that is how they want to use their software? Because at that point, there is no reason to even have multiplayer games.
    - aaomidi 4y ago
      Honestly the solution to this is to have 1. Self hosted servers. Let communities do their own moderation. 2. As part of #1, cheating/sandbox lobbies.
      - babypuncher 4y ago
        I get the desire to go back to community hosted servers, but there are real tangible benefits to modern matchmaking systems, particularly for games with a competitive focus.
        aaomidi 4y ago
        I want options tbh, not one solution fits all.
    - andybak 4y ago
      Absolutely not. I must be honest, I don't particularly care about competitive multiplayer but I do hate cheats and griefers. But I don't like overly broad bans based on flawed heuristics either. Or restrictions on software that I "own" and want to use in sensible ways.
noxvilleza 4y ago
There's a variety of different parts, I can describe some. * A flag on each CDOTA_Unit which includes heroes for example CDOTA_Unit_Hero_Weaver has a called m_iTaggedAsVisibleByTeam which allows you to tell which teams this entity is visible to, so you can tell if the enemy can see you or not. * Particles (which affect things like Town Portal scrolls, Smoke of Deceit, attacking neutral camps, etc). There are some things that happen in the game that need to be sent to all clients (even if it's happening in the fog of war for this client), otherwise things would look weird if you were to suddenly get vision of these areas. There's a great explanation by one of the Valve Dota devs on this exact topic and why it's hard to solve: https://old.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/uywfxi/comment/ia85uik/?&context=3 https://old.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/uywfxi/comment/ia85u... * Some other cheat modules are able to see spells cast, so they can track cooldowns of spells (with indicators above each hero). They can also track cooldowns of specific events: when a player uses buyback there is a cooldown before they can buyback again, when Roshan is killed his respawn time is randomly decided within two bounds so you want to track those bounds.
powersnail 4y ago
I've heard of the following cheats in dota2 - Tell you where the enemy is during TP. This is really useful for, for instance, Zeus, who has a stun (stops TP) that can be placed anywhere on the map. - Show you where enemy has vision, which makes de-ward a trivial task, and therefore makes sure the enemy has basically no vision. - Instant skill casting when an enemy comes into vision. Useful for heroes with instant stuns/silence, makes them be impossible to be jumped, basically an impeccable counter-initiate, but not always an advantage when initiating.

I'm curious about what data the "cheats" were reading and how it gave them an advantage

CursedUrn 4y ago

Some of them read unit positions/type/health to auto-aim at the best target.

gregw134 4y ago

I heard you could tell when your opponents had vision on you. Useful for detecting ward spots or incoming ganks.

macinjosh 4y ago
> Useful for detecting ward spots or incoming ganks. This phrase makes me feel old, haha. No idea what it means. As a programmer with no game dev experience what are the most common technical mechanisms used for cheating? Are they modifying outgoing network traffic on the fly or something like that?
- margorczynski 4y ago
  Ward - object placed somewhere to give you vision around it Gank - suprise attack basically, usually when a guy from one lane go to another one to suprise kill an enemy player
- zinclozenge 4y ago
  I'm no longer in the game, but circa counter-strike 1.1 or 1.3, the typical way was using windows hooking API to load your hack into the running process. You could then simply use the freely available half life modding sdk to use the same structs and things like that. Network related stuff also happened, but I never paid attention to it.
- acchow 4y ago
  It's not really an age thing. If you don't know anything about Dota or the MOBA genre, these concepts will be meaningless. Let's translate to the more commonly understood First Person Shooters. In a FPS, you don't know if someone is hiding behind a door. But with cheats on, the cheat program could be reading game data and know that someone is behind a door. It could highlight that person on your screen in a red color, that way you can see them even tho they are hidden. It could also move your mouse cursor automatically for you so you get an easy headshot without even trying to aim. Neither of these involve modifying outgoing network traffic.
- xvinci 4y ago
  Everything that goes is common sadly. This includes: - Reading from and writing to memory (either by direct means provided by windows, by custom drivers, or by exploiting installed vulnerable drivers to bypass secure boot and such) - Reading network traffic (particularly nasty because it can be done on a device where the game and Anti-Cheat is NOT running provided you get access to SSL decryption keys) - Having an external device react to your video feed only (either "dumb" aka on colors, pixels shapes etc. or fancy with AI and stuff) and then react by a "faked" input device (mouse, controller, etc). - Modifying game files (e.g. replace texture walls with transparent textures) - The very easy way: Simply exploiting game bugs. E.g. you can cheat in Fifa on console (!) since years by doing stuff in the system menu. Fifa will just disconnect the game without giving you a loss for the match.

rootcage 4y ago

Does it matter? If external software is accessing data within the game client, that itself is a breach of contract.

andybak 4y ago
Contracts are often overly restrictive and I want to use software I've bought in any legitimate way I can. For example - VR mods for older games give me great pleasure and a ban because they used internal hooks would make me very angry.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  Are you arguing that cheaters should be allowed to run rampant in multiplayer games purely because that is how they want to use their software? Because at that point, there is no reason to even have multiplayer games.
  - aaomidi 4y ago
    Honestly the solution to this is to have 1. Self hosted servers. Let communities do their own moderation. 2. As part of #1, cheating/sandbox lobbies.
    - babypuncher 4y ago
      I get the desire to go back to community hosted servers, but there are real tangible benefits to modern matchmaking systems, particularly for games with a competitive focus.
      - aaomidi 4y ago
        I want options tbh, not one solution fits all.
  - andybak 4y ago
    Absolutely not. I must be honest, I don't particularly care about competitive multiplayer but I do hate cheats and griefers. But I don't like overly broad bans based on flawed heuristics either. Or restrictions on software that I "own" and want to use in sensible ways.

noxvilleza 4y ago

There's a variety of different parts, I can describe some. * A flag on each CDOTA_Unit which includes heroes for example CDOTA_Unit_Hero_Weaver has a called m_iTaggedAsVisibleByTeam which allows you to tell which teams this entity is visible to, so you can tell if the enemy can see you or not. * Particles (which affect things like Town Portal scrolls, Smoke of Deceit, attacking neutral camps, etc). There are some things that happen in the game that need to be sent to all clients (even if it's happening in the fog of war for this client), otherwise things would look weird if you were to suddenly get vision of these areas. There's a great explanation by one of the Valve Dota devs on this exact topic and why it's hard to solve: https://old.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/uywfxi/comment/ia85uik/?&context=3 https://old.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/uywfxi/comment/ia85u... * Some other cheat modules are able to see spells cast, so they can track cooldowns of spells (with indicators above each hero). They can also track cooldowns of specific events: when a player uses buyback there is a cooldown before they can buyback again, when Roshan is killed his respawn time is randomly decided within two bounds so you want to track those bounds.

powersnail 4y ago

I've heard of the following cheats in dota2 - Tell you where the enemy is during TP. This is really useful for, for instance, Zeus, who has a stun (stops TP) that can be placed anywhere on the map. - Show you where enemy has vision, which makes de-ward a trivial task, and therefore makes sure the enemy has basically no vision. - Instant skill casting when an enemy comes into vision. Useful for heroes with instant stuns/silence, makes them be impossible to be jumped, basically an impeccable counter-initiate, but not always an advantage when initiating.