Cheating in NS2
th0r
Join Date: 2009-12-30 Member: 69829Members
Join Date: 2009-12-30 Member: 69829Members
Will anything be done to address cheating in NS2, or will it be as rampant as it is in NS1 now? I am so sick of having to accept 1 guy going 19-0 fifteen minutes into a game where all of his teammates have between 0 to 2 kills themselves. A quick search on google (or even youtube) brings up so many results for hacks, I have to imagine NS is currently as bad or worse than counterstrike ever was. As far as I can tell VAC does absolutely nothing.
Comments
The fact is there is both.
There is exellent players, there is cheater, and there is people who cheat with intelligence and skill so it's hard to figure they use some "illegal" help.
One of my friend decided to test cheats for fun, he had Wallhack, to see things coming and glowing, and Aimbots to help.
He just activated the second one with precaution to avoid suspicious behavior.
And there was a lot of others stuff.
In my opinion it would be cool to have scripts forbidden too and everything that modify the initial game.
It becomes boring when the NS League become the Tweaking league, and if you don't have the last pistol / lerk / Bunnyhop script, you can't be competitive.
You can't have fun and become frustrated once you know that you dont have the same "weapons" than the bests, because when someone get for example a pistol script when others peoples don't, it's like having an unfair advantage in the gameplay, so it's the same effect of cheat even if it's "legal" .
And when it's happen, i can't get fun anymore. I had somes friends quiting and went back to Counterstrike for this extrem scripting problem on NS (and TFC too).
So the solution would be to have each player to tweak and script his game a lot, but everyone scripting is the same than no-one scripting, except everyone scripting will never happens, everyone isn't ready to search on the net advanced topic of programmation and ".config files extrem customization" so if there is some usefull things, let it be from the start, one the "official menu", so everyone have it. Everything else should be forbidden.
Less is more.
Being a programmer myself, i have this answer for you :
Everything you put on the client side, can't be trusted.
The main solution is to hive everything on the server side, and let the server decide which player has to know which information, and have the server control the most of things.
But there is an impact, it's performance issue.
So you have to find a compromise...
One solution for wallhack is having the server analyzing which player can see wich player, and to transfer the location of others player only if they're in line of sight.
Same thing for speedhack, it has to be checked on serverside.
That being said, of course they will fight cheats and hacks, when ppl come up with that stuff.
As Tgaud already mentions the real issue is the customizing and tweaking of the game to gain advantages, but also to just simplify the game in certain areas, so you can focus more on the "more skillful" parts of the game.
This can and will be done anyway, especially with lua around I guess, and it'll totally depend on the ns2 leagues what is allowed and what not.
I've already said this somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure that all the possibilities provided by lua will split the playerbase. Not only pubbers from clanners, but also leagues among one another, because there will always be players who strive for more advantages and a "cleaner" game enviroment to focus on the competition and some players will always reject those "tweaks", because they consider them as cheats or exploits.
Of course this doesn't matter much as long as the playerbase is large enough, but I guess it might be harder to recruit pubbers for clanplay, if they have to overhaul almost their entire game to be able to keep up.
Example:
A players aim vector would go from ( 14, 530 , 100 ) to ( 600 , 200 , 450 ) instead of say...
( 14 , 530 , 100 )>( 34 , 430 , 200 )>( 50 , 300 , 350 )>etc.
The one vector almost "snaps" to a certain set of coordinates, where as the other is
gradually added to.
Another way to deal with those types of hacks is a "Script Enforcer" type deal.
Then if you have a system like that is place, VAC can do, ok with some of the hard-coded hacks.
Because you can be sure, that if something is possible, it will be used.
Scripts are on client side, so if they are possible, even if the league is "no script", they will be used.
If you give some kind of advantages possible to some players, they WILL be used, even if it's kill most of fun and even if they complain about it.
They won't take the risk to be the only ones not using this advantage, it's human.
Example:
A players aim vector would go from ( 14, 530 , 100 ) to ( 600 , 200 , 450 ) instead of say...
( 14 , 530 , 100 )>( 34 , 430 , 200 )>( 50 , 300 , 350 )>etc.
The one vector almost "snaps" to a certain set of coordinates, where as the other is
gradually added to.
Another way to deal with those types of hacks is a "Script Enforcer" type deal.
Then if you have a system like that is place, VAC can do, ok with some of the hard-coded hacks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This kind of feature is usefull is it's kept secret.
Once you told us how your anticheat works, it's very simple to modify the cheat so it can have some randomly vector move before going to the final position.
In NS it was always the responsibility of the server administrators to deal with cheaters, and on any respectable server I've never had any lasting problems with them. If you were playing on a popular server and the person in question wasn't banned, it's highly probable that he was simply a skilled player. Actually I haven't seen a cheater (or someone I suspected of cheating) in a number of years now, so I doubt it's as rampant as you depict.
VAC doesn't detect all cheats, but when it does detect a cheat it taints the offending steam account permanently. That's its advantage - mainly a deterrent.
Some of them are also skilled (you can figure of this when they play alien mostly).
The fact they aren't banned is just that its difficult to know if they 're cheating or not.
Most of them are intelligent, and once someone start whinning or someone spectate, they just stop cheating or change server.
Moreover, most of them play since a long time now, so their name are known, and sine they're not banned, most people think they're good player and don't listen
anyone whinning on them.
And they're smart enough to answer you with sarcasm when you tell them they're. In the end, everyone think that you're a bad player paranoid.
My friend was on TFC League, one of the best Bhoppers of times, and same in NS.
But severals years latter he was just bored and decided to try some.
No one managed to suspect him, No one, not Even VAC.
Some of them are stupid, wallhacking obviously when mt is not ready, or when you come silently by behind they make a 360 and kill you in the face with the exact number of bullet on you, everything in a blink of eye.
Thoses cheaters are obvious so it's easy to ban them.
Others get some hard to tell names like ":-)" or "."
Others changes their name a lot, so you can't stack your accusation on them, it seems that you're just accusing differents peoples, so that for you everyone is cheating, so that you're just a frustrated noob...
Anyway it's true that there are very good player too.
I play since TFC League, And been on NS since the beginning on league too, so i know that a very good player can seem being cheating.
It's why admin are powerless, they can't prove anything.
Some player are using light cheats like playing witout texture.
Others uses wallack, and aimbots.
The only cheat i never saw, or maybe just one time on NS, is the speedhack.
Others get some hard to tell names like ":-)" or "."
Others changes their name a lot, so you can't stack your accusation on them, it seems that you're just accusing differents peoples, so that for you everyone is cheating, so that you're just a frustrated noob...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Make sure to write a guide on how to spot a cheater...
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Some of them are stupid, wallhacking obviously when mt is not ready, or when you come silently by behind they make a 360 and kill you in the face with the exact number of bullet on you, everything in a blink of eye.
Thoses cheaters are obvious so it's easy to ban them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
360 are a piece of cake...no really..
It's obvious though that you mean 180 and with the proper training, mouse sensitivity and headphones it is not that hard to blast away a sneaky skulk after the first bite in your back with your shotgun.
Sound gives away the position and thus you know exactly, where that skulk hit you and it's all about practise and reflexes after that.
It's also hard to cheat in NS because there are alot of technical obstacles preventing you from being highly effective cheating as kharra, and players can see from your movement and knowledge of the game what your skill level should be expected to be, the bar is much higher in NS than it is in CS, alot of CS players get pretty good without having much knowledge about tactics air control, or engine mechanics, what is commonly accepted as a good NS player is visibly MASSIVELY different from what is commonly accepted as an average player. Someone who goes 23/0 in 7 minutes as marine (15 minutes is the duration of an average game, a really safe playing player on a winning marine team will probably get a score of 19 kills in a game with a bit of luck, I've done ratios like that, and I'm not even very good) but has a terrible bunnyhop, or no tactical awareness (looking at the right corners), is pretty obvious to qualify as a hacker.
There's a few really high level players that many believe do now, or have in the past, used hacks to raise themselfs from average to spectacular levels, but those cases are pretty well known, and they're banned from most servers.
[edit] NS2, especially while it's young, is likely to be much worse for hacker population than NS currently is because of the community size influx and the lack of established knowledge of who is who and what certain players are supposed to look like, although it may be an advantage to not have code derived from the Quake 2 engine, of which I'm sure there are libraries of known exploits and workarounds to use as openings.
Sound gives away the position and thus you know exactly, where that skulk hit you and it's all about practise and reflexes after that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah i meant 180 ^^
For the other point i was speaking of a "silence" skulk, with no bite given yet.
Thx for your demonstration but i'm not stupid, even me is able to one shot a skulk once i heard him, from his movment or a bite..
(i've a sensitivity of 12 on purpose).
For the other point i was speaking of a "silence" skulk, with no bite given yet.
Thx for your demonstration but i'm not stupid, even me is able to one shot a skulk once i heard him, from his movment or a bite..
(i've a sensitivity of 12 on purpose).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good marines back check alot even with headphones because there are alot of ways for skulks to sneak up on you without making sound, with or without silence. There might be cues you're not even familiar with that have nothing to do with intelligence or stupidity. I'm not that good, but certain corners and ceilings I will always check, and in certain areas I always travel with a lot of back check's if my alertness is tweaked at all. It might have been something like he saw the tip of your claw and knew you were going to attack some time soon but wasn't going to turn around and wait for you for whatever reason. It's also not outside the realm of sheer luck, simply because paranoia is inside the realm of how NS is normally played.
That being said, maby he was hacking.
You could try such a precise and fast rotation for year you couldn't get close. So fast that it was instant, you couldn't tell wich way he has rotated.
and all this when the player was moving randomly and was interested in something else. You can't fake that.
it was even surprising the player himself.
But anyway this kind of 360° aimbot is an exception, most of them are 120°, much less obvious. So i don't think it's appropriate to go further on this example.
Sounds more like a "lrn2play" issue on your part. Cheating in NS has never been much of a problem much less even comparable to CS. Most people who claim usually do so to massage their egos and refuse to believe the gap their skill levels is that large. In the rare cases when a player is hacking, it's usually obvious to decent players.
That being said, if NS2 will be using Steamworks, VAC is fine.
My best friend use his cheats for months now.
never got banned, neither by admin or by VAC.
Stop sleeping in your dream world
(exactly what i said in my first post on this topic. Once you start talking about cheat, people start talking about your skill...) stupid.
Although, there are alse scripts and exploits. Scripts are controllable but exploits, no. And that's how the game is built, until it is patched.
Remember First beta of 3.0 .. pancaking lerks :D
I was fairly good at NS due to playing Combat virtually nonstop. The best K/D I ever had was over 100 kills and 0 deaths (probably as a focus fade in combat, which again, doesn't mean much) however I played Combat about 3 weeks ago for the first time in years and even I could barely pull a positive K/D. To be one of those 'gods of war' in NS1 you have to constantly play it and be in top shape.
I see these accusations in games all the time. My friends and I tracked the servers we got banned from in NS1 back when we played, I've been banned from countless CoD4 servers, and I was recently banned from practically the only server in a mod for JKA called Movie Battles II. As someone on the other end of being accused in almost any FPS I choose to continually play I can tell you there aren't that many hackers in games outside of CS. It's just normal players who cannot get past their anger and judgments so, even if they spec the person, their mind is made up and they still think the player is cheating. When I spec other people accused of cheating it's clear to me that most of the time the player accused is just very skilled.
Or a guy who look in the corners ONLY when there is an alien there, and so sure of himslef that he never check nowhere else.
is it skill too ?
The obvious cheaters are easy to ban though. Just record a demo, get a snapshot of their steamid and contact an admin.
Or a guy who look in the corners ONLY when there is an alien there, and so sure of himslef that he never check nowhere else.
is it skill too ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ever hear of sound? Headphones allow me to track individuals with near precision through walls in all kinds of games.
so you take more time making your report, than the guy purchasing another account.
Outright aimbot hacking is VERY VERY rare in NS right now.
so you take more time making your report, than the guy purchasing another account.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's worth 5$ to be able to hack one more time in some random server before you get banned?
The very few cheaters that try to disguise themselves, and I emphasis the words "very few," can really only be detected by other very highly skilled players. If you make a thread complaining about hackers then run your argument in circles until you're blue in the face I think it's safe to say you don't have the level of skill needed to pass judgment.
If you're that worried buy your own server and ban whoever looks at you wrong.
and on the first page first answer, first line :
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Tgaud)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tgaud)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The problem in NS generally and this forum, is that each time you will tell someone is cheating, people will just come arguing it's skill, thats 19-0 is possible, and that you're a bad player.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nothing more to add.
Oh yes, except it's not me who launched this thread..
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw4jnopdo9U" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw4jnopdo9U</a>
Yes I agree that identifying cheaters nowadays is nearly impossible to do with certainty, but I believe it's reasonable to be suspicious when you 1) see someone soar ahead of their entire team in kills and do things like take out a roomfull of skulks with a single clip, and 2) have a game where it is possible to gain a great advantage from cheating without making oneself obvious. And when the person with the insane K:D ratio has a name like "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeblabcockassb1tch" and is spouting immature racist nonsense over voip, a certain picture starts to emerge.
While I suppose it's true that there will always be cheats of some kind in every game, I don't think it's true that they have to dominate gameplay. Developers can do a lot to build anti-cheating measures into their games (e.g. Blizzard's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_%28software%29" target="_blank">borderline draconian anti-cheat software</a>) That's the main reason why I was wondering if the dev's are planning on taking any serious measures against cheating in NS2.
The other reason was that I feel NS is a game where cheating makes a huge difference. Hacks in some games make relatively little difference (e.g. Battlefield 2 Project Reality), but in NS they can make all the difference. Maps are small and the action moves very fast, so there is a big emphasis on reaction time. Also, the things you need to be good at to be skilled at the game (e.g. tracking aliens as they fly across the screen and spotting them in dark corners) are things that even a total noob can do like a pro with the aid of h4x.
What you may get in games with bad skill curves is simply skilled players being hardly distinguishable from genuine hackers (no joke). Some of the best-selling games of all times are guilty of this: Counter-Strike, Quake, Unreal, Call of Duty games... God knows I've been accused of hacking as many times as I tried to check up on someone only to find out they have good aim in these...
As long as NS2 is anywhere near n00b-friendly, this shouldn't be an issue.