12 ms·

Nothing ruins the fun faster than lag-switching lamers. Accordingly, one can never trust client side security enforcement, or you just create a tit-for-tat ec

Nothing ruins the fun faster than lag-switching lamers. Accordingly, one can never trust client side security enforcement, or you just create a tit-for-tat economy with cheat-code authors. The better solution is often live admins with a cheat-report button, server-side physics reconciliation trip-wires/audits (no time-travelers), and using clipped areas for character buffering (x-ray vision attempts floods buffers and crashes the client.) The only information an online game-engine should be pulling is the hashed GPU chip serial-number for account ban enforcement. The worst part about cheats is they ruin the fun for themselves too, as a game becomes pointless and boring. Installing a RAT has no justification on hardware people didn't pay for...

Terr_ 2y ago
Some chunk of the problem comes from companies trying to avoid spending money on dedicated+good servers, and choosing business models that are hostile to the idea of players banding together to subsidize their own little institutions.
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  I think it is more of a fools errand to cost-optimize into a "cloud", as by its very design the lag gets worse with high concurrency loads. There are better solutions, but as you stated they are not cheap or easy to monetize. =)
wizzwizz4 2y ago
> The only information an online game-engine should be pulling is the hashed GPU chip serial-number for account ban enforcement. Isn't that literally client-side security enforcement?
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  1. Submitting an already active card signature is an instant ban 2. Spoofing a signature will still force you to re-register, lose your current rankings, and zero your nontransferable e-store account balance. 3. Most people don't account for the other system signatures that will also get randomly audited over several months 4. Remember part of offline audits is comparing each clients game-log to look for suspicious glitches like inhuman aim behind occluded objects, and "weird" physics. Hope they find it is a QA issue on replay... =) Have a nice day, =)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    Are you saying that accounts should match one-to-one to GPUs, and that two instances of the game can't run on the same machine at once? These assumptions are unrealistic: what if I upgrade my graphics card? What if my friend wants to play too, and remotes into my machine to do so? And I don't understand which cheating behaviours this restriction is supposed to prevent.
    - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
      No, there should only be 1 GPU with a specific signature active at any given time. If multiple user accounts are tainted by the same flagged signatures, than you risk getting everyone on that hardware banned. It is usually clearly stated in the EULA expected fair play section, and it is at the admins discretion... Buy that used cheap rtx3090 at your own risk... ;) "two instances of the game can't run on the same machine at once?" In general, most performance heavy platforms are not going to support multi-account mode anyways. "what if I upgrade my graphics card?" Your associated hardware signature would simply be updated upon login. However, accounts associated with flagged signatures often remain inactive to block logins/new-account-registration/store-access. "What if my friend wants to play too, and remotes into my machine to do so?" Depends how the admins enforce the signature collision events. In most cases, all users will get a 1 week ban, and a warning a 1 year ban will follow. Again, the admins usually have discretion about believing users stories... "And I don't understand which cheating behaviours this restriction is supposed to prevent" It helps prevent persistent cheats returning their hardware purchases, re-registering, and continuing to annoy other players. This is a very common practice on Desktops, but rare on console games for obvious reasons. =3
      - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
        > Buy that used cheap rtx3090 at your own risk... ;) Which is why this is completely unreasonable.
nemothekid 2y ago
>The better solution is often live admins with a cheat-report button, server-side physics reconciliation trip-wires/audits (no time-travelers), and using clipped areas for character buffering (x-ray vision attempts floods buffers and crashes the client.) A lot of these mitigations are table stakes, even cs1.6 had server-side physics reconciliation. Aimbots are a type of cheat that cannot be detected by the above and completely ruin games. If cheaters proliferate in your game, you end up with a dead game.
- eikenberry 2y ago
  Isn't a solution to this to frame the game around communities of some sort, teams, parties, squads, bands or whatever. Basically a group you can trust. You can then play with them without worry of cheating. This works best for co-op games but some competitive games could be modeled in a way to make this work.
  - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
    In general, people that are having fun with their friends are usually not laming up their own server events. Have an awesome day, =)
  - baby 2y ago
    Try that on a 50 person map in battlefield
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  I assure you aim-bots are easily detectable, as many simply use client log-replay comparisons. People will often get bounced to a cheaters server at some point while the admins laugh at their antics while trying to QA the issue. Have a great day, and let the ban-hammer fall =)
skizm 2y ago
> The better solution is often live admins “Admin! He’s doing it sideways!”
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  Well, I assure you most people are not trained to do Pirouettes in a battle field when they get shot at... Now there's gonna be a guy that does this specifically just to prove us wrong... lol =)

Terr_ 2y ago

Some chunk of the problem comes from companies trying to avoid spending money on dedicated+good servers, and choosing business models that are hostile to the idea of players banding together to subsidize their own little institutions.

Joel_Mckay 2y ago
I think it is more of a fools errand to cost-optimize into a "cloud", as by its very design the lag gets worse with high concurrency loads. There are better solutions, but as you stated they are not cheap or easy to monetize. =)

wizzwizz4 2y ago

> The only information an online game-engine should be pulling is the hashed GPU chip serial-number for account ban enforcement. Isn't that literally client-side security enforcement?

Joel_Mckay 2y ago
1. Submitting an already active card signature is an instant ban 2. Spoofing a signature will still force you to re-register, lose your current rankings, and zero your nontransferable e-store account balance. 3. Most people don't account for the other system signatures that will also get randomly audited over several months 4. Remember part of offline audits is comparing each clients game-log to look for suspicious glitches like inhuman aim behind occluded objects, and "weird" physics. Hope they find it is a QA issue on replay... =) Have a nice day, =)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  Are you saying that accounts should match one-to-one to GPUs, and that two instances of the game can't run on the same machine at once? These assumptions are unrealistic: what if I upgrade my graphics card? What if my friend wants to play too, and remotes into my machine to do so? And I don't understand which cheating behaviours this restriction is supposed to prevent.
  - Joel_Mckay 2y ago
    No, there should only be 1 GPU with a specific signature active at any given time. If multiple user accounts are tainted by the same flagged signatures, than you risk getting everyone on that hardware banned. It is usually clearly stated in the EULA expected fair play section, and it is at the admins discretion... Buy that used cheap rtx3090 at your own risk... ;) "two instances of the game can't run on the same machine at once?" In general, most performance heavy platforms are not going to support multi-account mode anyways. "what if I upgrade my graphics card?" Your associated hardware signature would simply be updated upon login. However, accounts associated with flagged signatures often remain inactive to block logins/new-account-registration/store-access. "What if my friend wants to play too, and remotes into my machine to do so?" Depends how the admins enforce the signature collision events. In most cases, all users will get a 1 week ban, and a warning a 1 year ban will follow. Again, the admins usually have discretion about believing users stories... "And I don't understand which cheating behaviours this restriction is supposed to prevent" It helps prevent persistent cheats returning their hardware purchases, re-registering, and continuing to annoy other players. This is a very common practice on Desktops, but rare on console games for obvious reasons. =3
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      > Buy that used cheap rtx3090 at your own risk... ;) Which is why this is completely unreasonable.

nemothekid 2y ago

>The better solution is often live admins with a cheat-report button, server-side physics reconciliation trip-wires/audits (no time-travelers), and using clipped areas for character buffering (x-ray vision attempts floods buffers and crashes the client.) A lot of these mitigations are table stakes, even cs1.6 had server-side physics reconciliation. Aimbots are a type of cheat that cannot be detected by the above and completely ruin games. If cheaters proliferate in your game, you end up with a dead game.

eikenberry 2y ago
Isn't a solution to this to frame the game around communities of some sort, teams, parties, squads, bands or whatever. Basically a group you can trust. You can then play with them without worry of cheating. This works best for co-op games but some competitive games could be modeled in a way to make this work.
- Joel_Mckay 2y ago
  In general, people that are having fun with their friends are usually not laming up their own server events. Have an awesome day, =)
- baby 2y ago
  Try that on a 50 person map in battlefield
Joel_Mckay 2y ago
I assure you aim-bots are easily detectable, as many simply use client log-replay comparisons. People will often get bounced to a cheaters server at some point while the admins laugh at their antics while trying to QA the issue. Have a great day, and let the ban-hammer fall =)

skizm 2y ago

> The better solution is often live admins “Admin! He’s doing it sideways!”

Joel_Mckay 2y ago
Well, I assure you most people are not trained to do Pirouettes in a battle field when they get shot at... Now there's gonna be a guy that does this specifically just to prove us wrong... lol =)