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Honestly I'd prefer it if games could permaban based on just heuristics and the EULA simply stated "tough luck, buy the game again". I'd happily pay for that, k

Honestly I'd prefer it if games could permaban based on just heuristics and the EULA simply stated "tough luck, buy the game again". I'd happily pay for that, knowing my money is at least not going to some 2 year legal fight. I get that I might be the one accused of cheating next time. But if that risk is tiny and the cost when it happens is $50 or $100 it sounds a lot more attractive than the alternative. Also (obviously) I don't care about the account itself. I wouldn't play a game where I aggregate long term stats/items/status/whatever. In a perfect world you just have private servers where you can have 90% effective anticheat and have humans sort out the rest.

bob1029 2y ago
I think stat based bans are the ultimate solution for all the client side bullshit. If you use statistics, you will sometimes get it wrong, but in the other cases the cheaters are completely out of luck. You could offer the source code to your game willingly and it wouldn't help them very much. If the cost of a false positive is $50 for the gamer and the chance of it happening is rare, I think many would quickly understand the value proposition from a game experience perspective. Assuming your false negative rate is low (I.e., you have high classification margins), you can make it extremely undesirable for players to engage in unfair play. Even soft cheating like aiding teammates with streaming and discord side channels could get picked up by these techniques.
- raxxor 2y ago
  Nah, that won't do it. Even if you had a rare false positive rate, it would be significantly higher for players with a profile similar to ones that trigger bans. It would be even worse than the bans some developers hand out now because their inherit randomness would be essentially just that. Not acceptable for any form of service.
- michaelt 2y ago
  > I think stat based bans are the ultimate solution for all the client side bullshit. When I play basketball I keep getting stuck playing against 7'6" guys with an 83% free throw percentage which is statistically very unlikely. Alas my arguments they should be banned on statistical grounds have fallen on deaf ears :)
- mavamaarten 2y ago
  I feel like pretty much all cheaters can be detected by just looking at mouse movements vs enemy positions. If you can easily spot cheaters through a killcam or spectator view, they can be detected through a serverside watchdog, no?
  - foooorsyth 2y ago
    Unfortunately the cheats are way ahead of this. Most modern aimbots in shooters like Counter-Strike are (intentionally) not-obvious. They give minor advantages and do tiny corrections for an already-immensely-skilled player to gain a small edge. In a game where the difference between a great player and an elite player is small, they can be the invisible difference maker.
- foooorsyth 2y ago
  >I think many would quickly understand the value proposition I think thousands of innocent teenagers without credit cards will be furious. Not to mention anyone that takes a game semi-seriously and cares about their reputation after getting banned. Also, with real-dollar values tied to skins, you’re not just nuking someone’s $50 account — accounts and their associated items can be worth a lot of money. Anti-cheats should need to be certain. They should also, however, ban the hardware ID, which lots of games companies choose not to do (because they’d lose money).

bob1029 2y ago

I think stat based bans are the ultimate solution for all the client side bullshit. If you use statistics, you will sometimes get it wrong, but in the other cases the cheaters are completely out of luck. You could offer the source code to your game willingly and it wouldn't help them very much. If the cost of a false positive is $50 for the gamer and the chance of it happening is rare, I think many would quickly understand the value proposition from a game experience perspective. Assuming your false negative rate is low (I.e., you have high classification margins), you can make it extremely undesirable for players to engage in unfair play. Even soft cheating like aiding teammates with streaming and discord side channels could get picked up by these techniques.

raxxor 2y ago
Nah, that won't do it. Even if you had a rare false positive rate, it would be significantly higher for players with a profile similar to ones that trigger bans. It would be even worse than the bans some developers hand out now because their inherit randomness would be essentially just that. Not acceptable for any form of service.
michaelt 2y ago
> I think stat based bans are the ultimate solution for all the client side bullshit. When I play basketball I keep getting stuck playing against 7'6" guys with an 83% free throw percentage which is statistically very unlikely. Alas my arguments they should be banned on statistical grounds have fallen on deaf ears :)
mavamaarten 2y ago
I feel like pretty much all cheaters can be detected by just looking at mouse movements vs enemy positions. If you can easily spot cheaters through a killcam or spectator view, they can be detected through a serverside watchdog, no?
- foooorsyth 2y ago
  Unfortunately the cheats are way ahead of this. Most modern aimbots in shooters like Counter-Strike are (intentionally) not-obvious. They give minor advantages and do tiny corrections for an already-immensely-skilled player to gain a small edge. In a game where the difference between a great player and an elite player is small, they can be the invisible difference maker.
foooorsyth 2y ago
>I think many would quickly understand the value proposition I think thousands of innocent teenagers without credit cards will be furious. Not to mention anyone that takes a game semi-seriously and cares about their reputation after getting banned. Also, with real-dollar values tied to skins, you’re not just nuking someone’s $50 account — accounts and their associated items can be worth a lot of money. Anti-cheats should need to be certain. They should also, however, ban the hardware ID, which lots of games companies choose not to do (because they’d lose money).