7 ms·

They are most definitely doing this to combat cheaters. I tried out Cronus + KBM on my friend's Xbox S and it was comical. I had aim assist, no recoil and a key

They are most definitely doing this to combat cheaters. I tried out Cronus + KBM on my friend's Xbox S and it was comical. I had aim assist, no recoil and a keyboard and mouse. I was running 100:3 K:D on COD:MW2. If you don't think cheating is a big part of the reason you've never played console games competitively.

rvnx 3y ago
I wonder what popular Twitch streamers are going to do once their Cronus Zen is detected.
- monocasa 3y ago
  But a new one that'll be built around an official controller, or respond correctly to whatever crypto they're using?
ThatPlayer 3y ago
If they were trying to combat cheaters, they wouldn't have released an official controller that allows generic, 3rd party, unauthenticated inputs: the Xbox Adaptive Controller. It would be pretty trivial to hook up a Pi Pico through the jacks and USB ports to be able to make a KBM adapter like that. There just hasn't been a point making such a device when the xim/cronus works fine. It might not even need the jacks, according to https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/account-profile/accessibility/devices-that-work-with-adaptive-controller https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/account-profile/accessib... the USB-A ports accept HID gamepads.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  "Pretty trivial" but only for the small percentage of people that are tech minded like that and who can be bothered; it's not an issue, not compared to laypeople being able to buy an off the shelf ready to use product.
  - ThatPlayer 3y ago
    Yes, and once a company like xim makes one, they can sell it and laypeople will buy it off the shelves. This method doesn't require any internal modifications or anything, that's the whole point of the adaptive controller. The creators of the xim will want to make a new product to sell if their old one no longer works. It might even be possible with a software update.
  - realusername 3y ago
    Those off the shelf ready to use cheating products will still be there, they are just going to use a modified xbox controller instead of a third-party one because that's what microsoft allows. The difference is Microsoft will now get more money out of the cheating products than before, not sure that sounds the right incentive but that's what is going to happen. Those things cannot be fixed with software.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    If this ban affects cheaters at all (after the next firmware update), the next Chronus could very well be a little box with a bunch of colour coded wires that you plug into an Xbox accessibility controller. All the cheater logic ("no recoil", mouse like precision on the analog sticks) would still work perfectly.
TMWNN 3y ago
>They are most definitely doing this to combat cheaters. I tried out Cronus + KBM on my friend's Xbox S and it was comical. I have sold a half-dozen Cronus Zen adapters in person via Craigslist/OfferUp. Every single buyer claimed that it was for a friend, brother, etc.
- dizzi90 3y ago
  > I have sold a half-dozen Cronus Zen adapters Don't do that, please. Sell drugs or something, less damaging to society.
  - master-lincoln 3y ago
    How is cheating in video games hurting society? I would assume it drives people off playing multiplayer games, but I fail to see how this would be bad for society.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Cheating in anything is bad for society, mostly because it reinforces cheaters’ false perception that “everyone is cheating” (FWIW I don’t think it’s worse than [some] drugs and I doubt GP does either)
    - smcl 3y ago
      I think it was a joke :-)
TeMPOraL 3y ago
That's the problem though: pampering to competitive gamers ruins the experience for the vast majority of people, who just want to, you know, enjoy a game. Unfortunately, competitive gamers are the only ones that matter - they're the cash cows of this part of the industry, which now focuses on creating as many such players as they can, and milking them for all they're worth. Consider how cheating was handled back before AAA games turned into videogame equivalent of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies: if you were found cheating, you were booted off the server, period. There was no matchmaking bullshit, the games weren't nudging or limiting you to play on the ladder, against global ranking. Instead, you had local and international servers, public and private; you had neighbourhood servers, and servers run by groups of friends, and themed servers, etc. - in other words, servers were communities. As diverse and rich as human communities can be. And they handled cheating in ways communities do it. On smaller / local servers, people wouldn't cheat because the community extended past the game to other on-line places, and/or to meatspace. Everyone was friends with each other, and being a cheating asshole is a fast way to lose your friends. Scaling up, you had all the mechanisms one also saw on discussion boards: some servers had owner or moderators ban anyone they didn't like; others voted. It was nicely self-regulating: servers weren't sticky, so being banned as false positive (or out of spite) didn't hurt. People didn't like power-tripping server operators? They'd switch over to a new server, run by someone saner. Were there still cheaters? Yes. Assholes and griefers happened. But without a single global ranking to compete for, cheating was mostly self-defeating: there was no reward, no incentive, and you'd be just ruining the fun for yourself. Yes, cheating is kind of a proxy reason why I don't enjoy multiplayer games. But the real reason is this: modern games feel like suddenly all the little soccer leagues were required to follow all the FIFA rules, were allowed only to play registered games, only to use pitches and equipment and balls and clothes that are certifiably up to spec, regularly audited - all because it might happen that our ad-hoc team of Sunday players would one day be visited by a World Cup team, and it would suck if we had an unfair advantage. It's just ruining the game for everyone, for the sake of a small group of people running a racket.
- rootlocus 3y ago
  This reminds me of Wildstar. The MMO was intentionally dedicated to hardcore players, making progression nearly impossible for casuals. They were pretty smug about it as I recall. It eventually died, as there weren't enough players paying micro-transactions to keep the servers online.

rvnx 3y ago

I wonder what popular Twitch streamers are going to do once their Cronus Zen is detected.

monocasa 3y ago
But a new one that'll be built around an official controller, or respond correctly to whatever crypto they're using?

ThatPlayer 3y ago

If they were trying to combat cheaters, they wouldn't have released an official controller that allows generic, 3rd party, unauthenticated inputs: the Xbox Adaptive Controller. It would be pretty trivial to hook up a Pi Pico through the jacks and USB ports to be able to make a KBM adapter like that. There just hasn't been a point making such a device when the xim/cronus works fine. It might not even need the jacks, according to https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/account-profile/accessibility/devices-that-work-with-adaptive-controller https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/account-profile/accessib... the USB-A ports accept HID gamepads.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
"Pretty trivial" but only for the small percentage of people that are tech minded like that and who can be bothered; it's not an issue, not compared to laypeople being able to buy an off the shelf ready to use product.
- ThatPlayer 3y ago
  Yes, and once a company like xim makes one, they can sell it and laypeople will buy it off the shelves. This method doesn't require any internal modifications or anything, that's the whole point of the adaptive controller. The creators of the xim will want to make a new product to sell if their old one no longer works. It might even be possible with a software update.
- realusername 3y ago
  Those off the shelf ready to use cheating products will still be there, they are just going to use a modified xbox controller instead of a third-party one because that's what microsoft allows. The difference is Microsoft will now get more money out of the cheating products than before, not sure that sounds the right incentive but that's what is going to happen. Those things cannot be fixed with software.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  If this ban affects cheaters at all (after the next firmware update), the next Chronus could very well be a little box with a bunch of colour coded wires that you plug into an Xbox accessibility controller. All the cheater logic ("no recoil", mouse like precision on the analog sticks) would still work perfectly.

TMWNN 3y ago

>They are most definitely doing this to combat cheaters. I tried out Cronus + KBM on my friend's Xbox S and it was comical. I have sold a half-dozen Cronus Zen adapters in person via Craigslist/OfferUp. Every single buyer claimed that it was for a friend, brother, etc.

dizzi90 3y ago
> I have sold a half-dozen Cronus Zen adapters Don't do that, please. Sell drugs or something, less damaging to society.
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  How is cheating in video games hurting society? I would assume it drives people off playing multiplayer games, but I fail to see how this would be bad for society.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Cheating in anything is bad for society, mostly because it reinforces cheaters’ false perception that “everyone is cheating” (FWIW I don’t think it’s worse than [some] drugs and I doubt GP does either)
  - smcl 3y ago
    I think it was a joke :-)

TeMPOraL 3y ago

That's the problem though: pampering to competitive gamers ruins the experience for the vast majority of people, who just want to, you know, enjoy a game. Unfortunately, competitive gamers are the only ones that matter - they're the cash cows of this part of the industry, which now focuses on creating as many such players as they can, and milking them for all they're worth. Consider how cheating was handled back before AAA games turned into videogame equivalent of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies: if you were found cheating, you were booted off the server, period. There was no matchmaking bullshit, the games weren't nudging or limiting you to play on the ladder, against global ranking. Instead, you had local and international servers, public and private; you had neighbourhood servers, and servers run by groups of friends, and themed servers, etc. - in other words, servers were communities. As diverse and rich as human communities can be. And they handled cheating in ways communities do it. On smaller / local servers, people wouldn't cheat because the community extended past the game to other on-line places, and/or to meatspace. Everyone was friends with each other, and being a cheating asshole is a fast way to lose your friends. Scaling up, you had all the mechanisms one also saw on discussion boards: some servers had owner or moderators ban anyone they didn't like; others voted. It was nicely self-regulating: servers weren't sticky, so being banned as false positive (or out of spite) didn't hurt. People didn't like power-tripping server operators? They'd switch over to a new server, run by someone saner. Were there still cheaters? Yes. Assholes and griefers happened. But without a single global ranking to compete for, cheating was mostly self-defeating: there was no reward, no incentive, and you'd be just ruining the fun for yourself. Yes, cheating is kind of a proxy reason why I don't enjoy multiplayer games. But the real reason is this: modern games feel like suddenly all the little soccer leagues were required to follow all the FIFA rules, were allowed only to play registered games, only to use pitches and equipment and balls and clothes that are certifiably up to spec, regularly audited - all because it might happen that our ad-hoc team of Sunday players would one day be visited by a World Cup team, and it would suck if we had an unfair advantage. It's just ruining the game for everyone, for the sake of a small group of people running a racket.

rootlocus 3y ago
This reminds me of Wildstar. The MMO was intentionally dedicated to hardcore players, making progression nearly impossible for casuals. They were pretty smug about it as I recall. It eventually died, as there weren't enough players paying micro-transactions to keep the servers online.