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I think that this is a response to the rising usage of the Cronus and/or other controller modification tools that give players advantages (cheats). For example

I think that this is a response to the rising usage of the Cronus and/or other controller modification tools that give players advantages (cheats). For example one of these "Mods" for Cronus state that they are: a dynamic, fully-automated Anti-Recoil system that transforms your in-game character into a laser-guided juggernaut we've affectionately dubbed as [BEAM] Battling cheaters in video games is a never-ending chase, but I appreciate that they are attempting something. I wish that a gaming company could figure out a less invasive way to detect these cheaters.

Waterluvian 3y ago
Heuristics that identify inhuman inputs.
- 0x500x79 3y ago
  This has always been my thoughts as well, and it seems like they have the data required, but I always think they are worried about some false positive issues. These companies should have the resources to build deployable models for this.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Klonoar 3y ago
  Cheating in games - like web scraping - are both arms races where this only works well to a point. It’s absolutely possible to fake it.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Heuristics in competitive games will always bring their own sets of issues. As it's an arms race, controller tweaks will adjust to be at the borderline of what the system detects, and on the other hand the 0.001% of the most dedicated players that actually beat that borderline will get pushined with a mere "no human can be that good" response, which is the worse outcome when the game's whole point _is_ to be that good.
- einr 3y ago
  In the speedrunning community there are plenty of players who can fairly reliably perform frame-accurate inputs (i.e. press a button exactly on a specific 1/60th of a second) so it seems to me that you would have a very, very hard time distinguishing the best legitimate players from cheaters.
harry8 3y ago
They've gone into every xbox owner's house and destroyed their property with prejudice. 3rd party controllers, all of them, including all never used to cheat become non-functional and worthless. At that point I don't give a flying fig what excuse they are using. Neither should the law when it comes to wanton destruction of property. Property rights are a thing!
- 0x500x79 3y ago
  It is not all 3rd party controllers. It is "unauthorized accessory" controllers which excludes devices that are part of the "designed for Xbox” hardware partner program.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
    So become part of their cartel or die?
    - wernercd 3y ago
      or join with the authorities to maintain law and order. You spin it as "cartel" but why can't it be spun as Law & Order? Or do you think that cheaters should have unrestricted control and the ability to destroy the economy of any given game? You think people will play on platforms that aren't working to keep things even? This is the same argument for P2W games where you can just pay to be the best. A few people will argue for that as they drop thousands to get those "rare" loot boxes and the rest will say "it's no fun to play a game against someone who's paying to be better than they really are".
      - harry8 3y ago
        > why can't it be spun as Law & Order Law & Order is neither profit making nor competition destroying.
        wernercd 3y ago
        and a cartel isn't made to have a level playing field fighting cheaters. Cartels are made to make money. you want to cut the Law and Order angle then you need to also cut the "cartel" angle. Fact is that if XBox doesn't take steps then their platform becomes less valuable meaning less people want to play there. "it's only about money" is a short sighted and overly simplistic answer just like "M$ is a cartel".
codeTired 3y ago
No, they are not doing this to stop cheaters. It might be a nice side effect. They are doing it because money.
- 0x500x79 3y ago
  Possibly, I think the math on number of people that currently purchase controllers that will be blocked in the future is a very small amount of money compared to the possibility of losing that revenue to other gaming sources if that is the reason. "Preserving console experience" really feels like corporatespeak to say "cheaters" without saying the devices in question (because then it raises visibility to those devices). I think the "doing this for money" is the people who are currently not gaming due to rampant cheating in games like R6S, Apex, COD, etc.
  - soraminazuki 3y ago
    That's a convenient metric. Or rather, the lack of it. My common sense tells me there are significantly more people using third party controllers than there are cheaters, though.
    - 0x500x79 3y ago
      I think the metric is blocked controllers, which is a small subset of 3rd party controllers. So far the most common people complaining about this change is cronus and xim users not legit players. Most 3rd party controllers that are being sold online are still compatible afaict.
      - ThatPlayer 3y ago
        I don't think it has affected xim or cronus at all. They use official first party Xbox controllers to handle authentication, and MITM them to inject inputs. Instead the big one affected has been Brooks, who make very popular boards for custom fighting game controllers. https://www.brookaccessory.com/support/xbox-Issue-update.php https://www.brookaccessory.com/support/xbox-Issue-update.php https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/1718811336493482448 https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/1718811336493482448
donatj 3y ago
I don't think this is even going to stop the Cronus. The Cronus already requires an OEM controller plugged into it to authenticate. If it does, a Cronus firmware update will probably figure out a way around it as it has an OEM device to work with. For what it's worth, I own a Cronus and it's not nearly as much of an advantage as they sell it as. I bought it just to use as a fightstick adapter and it's kind of mediocre at that too.
- VincentEvans 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - donatj 3y ago
    Meh I'm a 40 year old man with the reflexes of a 60 year old man. I didn't buy it to cheat at online games, I don't play them. I bought it so I could use my PS3 fightsticks in Soul Calibur 6. The Brook adapter works(worked, past tense soon?) way better and is way more cost effective. The Cronus might make you a little better at a game if you're already really good. If you're bad at the game like me, you're still going to be bad at it.
    - vultour 3y ago
      You say you don't play online games and bought the controller for a fighting game so how can you tell how much of a cheat it is? The parent comment said it has anti-recoil which is a huge advantage in FPS games.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    You think even most cheaters will claim it's a fightstick adapter in particular?
    - VincentEvans 3y ago
      Every cheater will buy a cheating peripheral, and then go around saying how it isn’t all that much of an advantage, and how they don’t even need it, and have some story how they got it for some other reason entirely and certainly not for the reasons stated on the box. And then continue using it. The poster claims to somehow know how much of an advantage it is. Wonder how that knowledge was acquired? I am sure that too was perfectly innocent and just “that one time”. Then why all the hand-wringing about these cheats getting blocked?
rtpg 3y ago
I generally agree with the accessibility arguments against doing anything for this, but if you are going to do something, I feel like "give dev's a way to opt into this check, limit to online play" feels like a reasonable system. That would allow fighting games in particular to not opt in. Sony has something like this setup with screen recording, where some parts of games (cutscenes in some stuff) can't get recorded. It's annoying, but at least it's not the whole game, and the feature exists.
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  > give dev's a way to opt into this check, limit to online play In theory, that would have less of a PR risk / impact, too -- if they provide it as a configuration option, they can shift the blame onto third-party devs. who change a value in some XML file somewhere. (Not that I particularly care about Microsoft's PR, just thought it to be interesting commentary.)
justin_oaks 3y ago
If it's to stop cheaters, then why not disable the controller only during multiplayer?
happymellon 3y ago
This doesn't stop you using custom controllers. It just means you have to pay Microsoft for the ports (which is available to anyone) rather than a 3rd party.
jeffreygoesto 3y ago
Like QuickShot Joysticks with an automated NE555 fire?
kevincox 3y ago
If they were trying to stop cheaters they could just ban "unauthorized" controllers for online play. This would give a much more understandable message "Unauthorized controllers can't be used for online play to ensure that no player gains an unfair advantage."

Waterluvian 3y ago

Heuristics that identify inhuman inputs.

0x500x79 3y ago
This has always been my thoughts as well, and it seems like they have the data required, but I always think they are worried about some false positive issues. These companies should have the resources to build deployable models for this.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Klonoar 3y ago
Cheating in games - like web scraping - are both arms races where this only works well to a point. It’s absolutely possible to fake it.
makeitdouble 3y ago
Heuristics in competitive games will always bring their own sets of issues. As it's an arms race, controller tweaks will adjust to be at the borderline of what the system detects, and on the other hand the 0.001% of the most dedicated players that actually beat that borderline will get pushined with a mere "no human can be that good" response, which is the worse outcome when the game's whole point _is_ to be that good.
einr 3y ago
In the speedrunning community there are plenty of players who can fairly reliably perform frame-accurate inputs (i.e. press a button exactly on a specific 1/60th of a second) so it seems to me that you would have a very, very hard time distinguishing the best legitimate players from cheaters.

harry8 3y ago

They've gone into every xbox owner's house and destroyed their property with prejudice. 3rd party controllers, all of them, including all never used to cheat become non-functional and worthless. At that point I don't give a flying fig what excuse they are using. Neither should the law when it comes to wanton destruction of property. Property rights are a thing!

0x500x79 3y ago
It is not all 3rd party controllers. It is "unauthorized accessory" controllers which excludes devices that are part of the "designed for Xbox” hardware partner program.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
  So become part of their cartel or die?
  - wernercd 3y ago
    or join with the authorities to maintain law and order. You spin it as "cartel" but why can't it be spun as Law & Order? Or do you think that cheaters should have unrestricted control and the ability to destroy the economy of any given game? You think people will play on platforms that aren't working to keep things even? This is the same argument for P2W games where you can just pay to be the best. A few people will argue for that as they drop thousands to get those "rare" loot boxes and the rest will say "it's no fun to play a game against someone who's paying to be better than they really are".
    - harry8 3y ago
      > why can't it be spun as Law & Order Law & Order is neither profit making nor competition destroying.
      - wernercd 3y ago
        and a cartel isn't made to have a level playing field fighting cheaters. Cartels are made to make money. you want to cut the Law and Order angle then you need to also cut the "cartel" angle. Fact is that if XBox doesn't take steps then their platform becomes less valuable meaning less people want to play there. "it's only about money" is a short sighted and overly simplistic answer just like "M$ is a cartel".

codeTired 3y ago

No, they are not doing this to stop cheaters. It might be a nice side effect. They are doing it because money.

0x500x79 3y ago
Possibly, I think the math on number of people that currently purchase controllers that will be blocked in the future is a very small amount of money compared to the possibility of losing that revenue to other gaming sources if that is the reason. "Preserving console experience" really feels like corporatespeak to say "cheaters" without saying the devices in question (because then it raises visibility to those devices). I think the "doing this for money" is the people who are currently not gaming due to rampant cheating in games like R6S, Apex, COD, etc.
- soraminazuki 3y ago
  That's a convenient metric. Or rather, the lack of it. My common sense tells me there are significantly more people using third party controllers than there are cheaters, though.
  - 0x500x79 3y ago
    I think the metric is blocked controllers, which is a small subset of 3rd party controllers. So far the most common people complaining about this change is cronus and xim users not legit players. Most 3rd party controllers that are being sold online are still compatible afaict.
    - ThatPlayer 3y ago
      I don't think it has affected xim or cronus at all. They use official first party Xbox controllers to handle authentication, and MITM them to inject inputs. Instead the big one affected has been Brooks, who make very popular boards for custom fighting game controllers. https://www.brookaccessory.com/support/xbox-Issue-update.php https://www.brookaccessory.com/support/xbox-Issue-update.php https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/1718811336493482448 https://twitter.com/maximilian_/status/1718811336493482448

donatj 3y ago

I don't think this is even going to stop the Cronus. The Cronus already requires an OEM controller plugged into it to authenticate. If it does, a Cronus firmware update will probably figure out a way around it as it has an OEM device to work with. For what it's worth, I own a Cronus and it's not nearly as much of an advantage as they sell it as. I bought it just to use as a fightstick adapter and it's kind of mediocre at that too.

VincentEvans 3y ago
[flagged]
- donatj 3y ago
  Meh I'm a 40 year old man with the reflexes of a 60 year old man. I didn't buy it to cheat at online games, I don't play them. I bought it so I could use my PS3 fightsticks in Soul Calibur 6. The Brook adapter works(worked, past tense soon?) way better and is way more cost effective. The Cronus might make you a little better at a game if you're already really good. If you're bad at the game like me, you're still going to be bad at it.
  - vultour 3y ago
    You say you don't play online games and bought the controller for a fighting game so how can you tell how much of a cheat it is? The parent comment said it has anti-recoil which is a huge advantage in FPS games.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  You think even most cheaters will claim it's a fightstick adapter in particular?
  - VincentEvans 3y ago
    Every cheater will buy a cheating peripheral, and then go around saying how it isn’t all that much of an advantage, and how they don’t even need it, and have some story how they got it for some other reason entirely and certainly not for the reasons stated on the box. And then continue using it. The poster claims to somehow know how much of an advantage it is. Wonder how that knowledge was acquired? I am sure that too was perfectly innocent and just “that one time”. Then why all the hand-wringing about these cheats getting blocked?

rtpg 3y ago

I generally agree with the accessibility arguments against doing anything for this, but if you are going to do something, I feel like "give dev's a way to opt into this check, limit to online play" feels like a reasonable system. That would allow fighting games in particular to not opt in. Sony has something like this setup with screen recording, where some parts of games (cutscenes in some stuff) can't get recorded. It's annoying, but at least it's not the whole game, and the feature exists.

tentacleuno 3y ago
> give dev's a way to opt into this check, limit to online play In theory, that would have less of a PR risk / impact, too -- if they provide it as a configuration option, they can shift the blame onto third-party devs. who change a value in some XML file somewhere. (Not that I particularly care about Microsoft's PR, just thought it to be interesting commentary.)

justin_oaks 3y ago

If it's to stop cheaters, then why not disable the controller only during multiplayer?

happymellon 3y ago

This doesn't stop you using custom controllers. It just means you have to pay Microsoft for the ports (which is available to anyone) rather than a 3rd party.

jeffreygoesto 3y ago

Like QuickShot Joysticks with an automated NE555 fire?

kevincox 3y ago

If they were trying to stop cheaters they could just ban "unauthorized" controllers for online play. This would give a much more understandable message "Unauthorized controllers can't be used for online play to ensure that no player gains an unfair advantage."