3 ms·

The server is all-seeing, if there is no way for the server to discriminate cheater from other player, then no player can possibly know there a cheater on the s

by choo-t 2y ago

The server is all-seeing, if there is no way for the server to discriminate cheater from other player, then no player can possibly know there a cheater on the server, thus cannot complain about cheating is either irrational or the server-side detection is severely flawed.

mjr00 2y ago
> The server is all-seeing, if there is no way for the server to discriminate cheater from other player, then no player can possibly know there a cheater on the server, thus cannot complain about cheating is either irrational or the server-side detection is severely flawed. It's impossible to tell in-game if a baseball player is using steroids, yet there's a laundry list of banned substances and players who got banned for taking them because the MLB believes it gives them an unfair advantage. It's called competitive integrity. Since it sounds like you don't play games, at least not competitively, I'll clarify that "cheating" in this case isn't the obvious stuff like "my gun does 100x damage" or "I move around at 100mph" or "I'm using custom player models with big spikes so I know everyone's location" that you would've seen on public Counter-Strike 1.6 servers in 2002. Cheating is aim assistance that nudges your cursor to compensate for spray patterns in CS, it's automatic DPs and throw breaks in Street Fighter 6 that are just at the threshold of human reaction timing, it's firing off skillshots in League of Legends with an overlay that says if it's going to kill the enemy player or not. All of this stuff is doable by a sufficiently skilled/lucky human, but not with the level of consistency you get from cheating.
- choo-t 2y ago
  > It's impossible to tell in-game if a baseball player is using steroids, yet there's a laundry list of banned substances and players who got banned for taking them because the MLB believes it gives them an unfair advantage. It's called competitive integrity. This is relative to meat-space, not videogame, but we could go there and say caffeine or Adderall use is cheating, thus making anti-cheat a little more invasive… And there another difference, you're referring to professional sport. I have no problem with invasive anti-cheat for professional gamer, even better it the gaming device is provided by tournament organization. But we're talking about anti-cheat used for all players, akin to asking people playing catch in their garden or playing baseball for fun an the local park to take a blood sample for drug test. > All of this stuff is doable by a sufficiently skilled/lucky human, but not with the level of consistency you get from cheating. That's the point, there no difference for the other players between playing against a cheater and playing against a better player. Any ELO-based matchmaking will solve this, cheater will end-up playing against each-other or against very skilled player. You could argue that they could create new account or purposely cripple their ELO ratting, but this is the exact same problem as smurfing.
  - mjr00 2y ago
    Many games have ranked ladders now which are taken fairly seriously. Success at high levels of ladder player often translates into career opportunities, especially in League of Legends. > Any ELO-based matchmaking will solve this, cheater will end-up playing against each-other or against very skilled player. Well, first, you're wrong, because cheating only makes them good at one part of the game, not every part of the game. e.g. in League of Legends, a scripting Xerath or Karthus who hits every skillshot is going to win laning phase hard. However, scripting isn't going to help if they have bad macro and end up caught out in the middle of the game, causing their team to lose. Most cheaters don't end up at the top of the ladder, they end up firmly in the upper-middle. Secondly, you're basically saying "cheating is OK because they'll end up at the top of the ladder." You don't realize how ridiculous this sounds? Third, ranked and competition aside, playing against someone who's cheating isn't fun, even if you end up winning because they make mistakes that their cheats can't help them with. You don't play competitive games, that's fine, but a lot of people do and they demand more competitive integrity than casual players.
    - choo-t 2y ago
      > You don't play competitive games, that's fine, but a lot of people do and they demand more competitive integrity than casual players. Little difference : I don't play competitive game with completes strangers on company run servers. I've played competitively on community based server, with people being screened by other players and the community able to regulate itself (ban or unban players). The problem space is vastly different, you don't need intrusive ring 0 anti-cheat for this. The whole kernel-level anticheat stuff is a poor solution to a self-made problem by the developer : they wanted to be the one in charge of the game and servers, so they needed to slash human moderation need. They also wanted to create a unique pool of player and didn't want the community to split between itself and play how they want.
      - mjr00 2y ago
        > Little difference : I don't play competitive game with completes strangers on company run servers. People don't consider playing around with your friends to be competitive. You don't get to choose who else is competing in the game or what strategies they use. This is just an area that you are clearly not familiar with. > The whole kernel-level anticheat stuff is a poor solution to a self-made problem by the developer : they wanted to be the one in charge of the game and servers, so they needed to slash human moderation need. They also wanted to create a unique pool of player and didn't want the community to split between itself and play how they want. This wasn't self-made by the developer, it was demanded by the players. Competitive games have almost exclusively moved to online, skill-based matchmaking with a ladder system because that's what players want.

by choo-t 2y ago

mjr00 2y ago

> The server is all-seeing, if there is no way for the server to discriminate cheater from other player, then no player can possibly know there a cheater on the server, thus cannot complain about cheating is either irrational or the server-side detection is severely flawed. It's impossible to tell in-game if a baseball player is using steroids, yet there's a laundry list of banned substances and players who got banned for taking them because the MLB believes it gives them an unfair advantage. It's called competitive integrity. Since it sounds like you don't play games, at least not competitively, I'll clarify that "cheating" in this case isn't the obvious stuff like "my gun does 100x damage" or "I move around at 100mph" or "I'm using custom player models with big spikes so I know everyone's location" that you would've seen on public Counter-Strike 1.6 servers in 2002. Cheating is aim assistance that nudges your cursor to compensate for spray patterns in CS, it's automatic DPs and throw breaks in Street Fighter 6 that are just at the threshold of human reaction timing, it's firing off skillshots in League of Legends with an overlay that says if it's going to kill the enemy player or not. All of this stuff is doable by a sufficiently skilled/lucky human, but not with the level of consistency you get from cheating.

choo-t 2y ago
> It's impossible to tell in-game if a baseball player is using steroids, yet there's a laundry list of banned substances and players who got banned for taking them because the MLB believes it gives them an unfair advantage. It's called competitive integrity. This is relative to meat-space, not videogame, but we could go there and say caffeine or Adderall use is cheating, thus making anti-cheat a little more invasive… And there another difference, you're referring to professional sport. I have no problem with invasive anti-cheat for professional gamer, even better it the gaming device is provided by tournament organization. But we're talking about anti-cheat used for all players, akin to asking people playing catch in their garden or playing baseball for fun an the local park to take a blood sample for drug test. > All of this stuff is doable by a sufficiently skilled/lucky human, but not with the level of consistency you get from cheating. That's the point, there no difference for the other players between playing against a cheater and playing against a better player. Any ELO-based matchmaking will solve this, cheater will end-up playing against each-other or against very skilled player. You could argue that they could create new account or purposely cripple their ELO ratting, but this is the exact same problem as smurfing.
- mjr00 2y ago
  Many games have ranked ladders now which are taken fairly seriously. Success at high levels of ladder player often translates into career opportunities, especially in League of Legends. > Any ELO-based matchmaking will solve this, cheater will end-up playing against each-other or against very skilled player. Well, first, you're wrong, because cheating only makes them good at one part of the game, not every part of the game. e.g. in League of Legends, a scripting Xerath or Karthus who hits every skillshot is going to win laning phase hard. However, scripting isn't going to help if they have bad macro and end up caught out in the middle of the game, causing their team to lose. Most cheaters don't end up at the top of the ladder, they end up firmly in the upper-middle. Secondly, you're basically saying "cheating is OK because they'll end up at the top of the ladder." You don't realize how ridiculous this sounds? Third, ranked and competition aside, playing against someone who's cheating isn't fun, even if you end up winning because they make mistakes that their cheats can't help them with. You don't play competitive games, that's fine, but a lot of people do and they demand more competitive integrity than casual players.
  - choo-t 2y ago
    > You don't play competitive games, that's fine, but a lot of people do and they demand more competitive integrity than casual players. Little difference : I don't play competitive game with completes strangers on company run servers. I've played competitively on community based server, with people being screened by other players and the community able to regulate itself (ban or unban players). The problem space is vastly different, you don't need intrusive ring 0 anti-cheat for this. The whole kernel-level anticheat stuff is a poor solution to a self-made problem by the developer : they wanted to be the one in charge of the game and servers, so they needed to slash human moderation need. They also wanted to create a unique pool of player and didn't want the community to split between itself and play how they want.
    - mjr00 2y ago
      > Little difference : I don't play competitive game with completes strangers on company run servers. People don't consider playing around with your friends to be competitive. You don't get to choose who else is competing in the game or what strategies they use. This is just an area that you are clearly not familiar with. > The whole kernel-level anticheat stuff is a poor solution to a self-made problem by the developer : they wanted to be the one in charge of the game and servers, so they needed to slash human moderation need. They also wanted to create a unique pool of player and didn't want the community to split between itself and play how they want. This wasn't self-made by the developer, it was demanded by the players. Competitive games have almost exclusively moved to online, skill-based matchmaking with a ladder system because that's what players want.