Radar

[Psychiatrist]

When NF came, I was happy to see GOA announcing that lots of people was banned for using radar. However, after some time I saw that 90% of the people using it could still play. Sure, more of those eventually got caught, but there's a lot of people that doesn't seem to get caught.


And to this day, people still use it. There is no autodetection that mythic/goa so highly spoke about - anyone using radar will be found automatically and instantly banned, they said.


I would just like to know, are you even trying to implement new ways to counter-act cheating and to detect and ban people?


Cheating happens when the client knows too much - this info will always be used by certain players to gain advantages over others. For example, the client teleports and such when it lags - you can still move your character even when your server-side position isn't updated. This means the client can tell the server where it is - hence all the people using speedhacks.


When will we see a change for the better? As long as you let people cheat, they will cheat. You let them by giving them the possibility to do so.


This should be the number one goal for you, to stop cheating. All players trust you to make this game better and more enjoyable - and the most needed change is anti-cheat if you ask me.


Just some thoughts before bedtime. Don't want this thread to be about namecalling and what realm uses it the most, etc. Just want to know if anyone know anything about if they try to make new ways of stopping cheats.

[Ethild]

Client positioning works that way because it needs to.

There is no way to make a game cheat proof. Mythic don't spend long enough thinking content through (Hi Warlocks) as it is, I don't really think its worth them investing their time fighting a battle that is near impossible to win.

[Elfinaaaaii]

(good thread btw)
first of all, ur playing a RPG, if ur cheating... where's the R in the PG?;p
cheating aint funny ;S u don't play doom with godlike cheat on do you?

cheating sux - i don't see it hapen allot, if i do see it hapen, most of the times or whole MA goes on that guy, frapping it and sending it to goa, thats the best thing u can do.

best anti cheat thing = FRAPS

[HappyG]

best anti cheat thing = FRAPS

I recently frapsed a 1v1 vs some inf, who used a cheat similar to lag strafing, only that I got "target to far away to attack" message, while he was hitting me with styles. In the whole fight, I hit him 3 times, and when I dropped dead he had 80% HP left. GOA's answer: "That particular problem is caused when the other player is strafing to get into position for a positional attack. It can cause lag on both ends as your client tries to update where they are. It isn't punishable but it isn't very good play either."

In old frontiers I sent 2 reports suspecting a particular mincer using a radar. He's movement around tower was way to coordinated, and reflected my pops from stealth way to good to be random. Well that mincer is still playing nowadays.

best anti cheat thing = cheat, before you get cheated :mojo: :treeee:

[Mojo]

The advent of frontiers made me quite hopefull about the anti cheat thing but it does seem to have died a death. I agree that it's not possible to catch all but enough to put the rest off or make them think harder would be enough. A strong deterrent like public humiliation (irl) for offenders imo.

else :mojo: em in the face

[awarkle]

Goa cant use any screenshots or video as evidence of radar however rightnow everyone you beleive to radar because they have a list and when they get spare time they do actually check up on certain players. They dont have to have flagged (GM lvl 100 in emain) to know that they are online. They can watch any character and can see exactly what buffs they have running.

SO say you see someone suddenly dive out of a fight and fly off into the distance and there excuse is "Wingboots charge" they will be able to see weather that buff was up and if it was what was the maximum speed they could move and thus determine if it was speed hacking or a buff/ra.

The best course of action is never to come onto a forum and say "OMG PLAYER X was cheating and i caught it all on fraps im so going to ban j00" because the chances are that player will stop using that cheat for a few months till they feel its safe then go straight back too it.

Trust me gms do keep and eye on cheaters.

[Gandelf]

One day someone will think of a really excellent idea to stop cheating.

But what is cheating? At what level does giving yourself an unfair advantage over others become cheating? When is an exploit severe enough to be classed as a cheat? etc. etc.

What if Mythic introduced Radar as a legitimate part of the game, that every player had and could use? Would this be a good idea, even though it would solve the radar issue once and for all?

[Lothandar]

This means the client can tell the server where it is

For the server telling where the client is see half-life before its netcode was reworked.


With 200 ping you had to aim ahead of your enemy because of your delayed shooting.


Try that in daoc, delayed movement, would annoy me to death.


You have to use client side prediction, can't get rid of it, it's too good. Of course it opens gate to a lot of client side cheats but nothing is perfect, stuff would be more safe if it was server side but it would be more laggy as well.

[Psychiatrist]

There's perfect examples of where good serverside programming does not cause lag. Lots of people use that as an excuse. Just optimize everything much better, this game could get a lot better at optimizing things.

As to what Gandelf said - I have been thinking of that a lot myself.


Perhaps it would mean that fgs would run over every soloer out there.

Though a lot of speedclasses or convokers with speedwarps would be able to get away. Or stealthers.


It would for sure give everyone the same chance. Though effect on smaller groups or soloers is hard to predict. Perhaps with more group fights avaliable for fgs, they'd leave soloers alone and go for harder targets.

[Requiel]

People are still caught and perma-banned for radaring. As recently as last Wednesday I personally banned 6 players from the English servers who had been caught by our radar detection tools. Most had mains on Camlann however there was a high profile Excal and a high profile Pryd player in the list. There is a list generated every week by our radar detection tool, anyone who appears on it will lose their account.

What Awarkle says is also true. We have watch lists of people we strongly suspect are cheating and when we get the opportunity we follow them around for a bit in super-anon mode. When we find evidence of them cheating, they are banned. It's possible for us at any time to see who a player is grouped with, and all the active effects on him. If he pops Arms Reach/Winged Helm/SoS etc we'll see the effect appear. If he suddenly runs off at speed 5 and we don't see anything like that then he has some explaining to do.

Mostly people aren't stupid/honest enough to come clean and admit they've been caught cheating although occasionally they do and make my day.