11 replies to this topic

[BROARL]

this free to play game benefits from people spending.
lots of people who would spend money have been banned over the years.

what if... instead of banning people PGI just banished the team killers and toxic players onto their own server then everyone could just kill each other and swear at each other and do all the other bromantic stuff that people who don't give a f*k about anything and the people who understand its just a game want to and are inclined to do AND they can all still spend money which benefits the gentle people who are prone to reporting as the reporter people still get maps etc, right?

it's just my opinion but i bet there'd be a mass exodus to the free to kill servers and i would like to think that at least a few old faces may be on the field again.
PGI please let us have a place where it could be ok to kill everyone? just ban the cheats.

[ScrapIron Prime]

The sole exception to the Law's jurisdiction is the colony of New Hong Kong. The planetary government there wound up being protected from the 'protection' of the Law Machines when a hacker entered a new 'law' to be voted into place (and it was, overwhelmingly): There shall be no laws on New Hong Kong.

- Buck Godot, Zap Gun For Hire

Edited by ScrapIron Prime, 10 October 2021 - 07:35 PM.

[martian]

BROARL, on 08 October 2021 - 07:49 PM, said:

...
PGI please let us have a place where it could be ok to kill everyone? just ban the cheats.

It is not that simple. The problem is that many (former) players have been banned over the years for cheating.

You can check their profiles ... They are marked with "Banned - Cheating".

And of course, there is the second problem: The more buckets you create, the longer people wait for the game.

[LordNothing]

its sort of like why i play minecraft anarchy servers. anything goes, swearing, blatant hate speech, homoerrotic dialog, even cheating. i dont have to cater to the nanny state or the woke sjw thought police just to continue my hobby. its the ultimate libertarian experiment, and it just works.

that said i dont think a business would do this for legal reasons. its just minecraft is kind of old skool where you can run your own damn server and aren't dependent on a centralized authoritative server. thus the developer can divorce themselves from any of the bad behavior of the player base without banning them outright.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 October 2021 - 04:16 PM.

[LordNothing]

martian, on 10 October 2021 - 11:38 PM, said:

It is not that simple. The problem is that many (former) players have been banned over the years for cheating.

You can check their profiles ... They are marked with "Banned - Cheating".

And of course, there is the second problem: The more buckets you create, the longer people wait for the game.

i often question how many of those accounts are real. how do i know they arent pgi employees who were told to go on with hax, cause a ruckus and then pgi can do their public ban wave without violating their own name and shame policy. then again an entire unit got banned for hax, or so the pgi would have us believe.id dig into it more but then id have to go buy more tinfoil.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 October 2021 - 04:23 PM.

[martian]

LordNothing, on 13 October 2021 - 04:21 PM, said:

i often question how many of those accounts are real. how do i know they arent pgi employees who were told to go on with hax, cause a ruckus and then pgi can do their public ban wave without violating their own name and shame policy. then again an entire unit got banned for hax, or so the pgi would have us believe.id dig into it more but then id have to go buy more tinfoil.

Although possible, I know with some degree of certainty that at least some of those banned players were real players, since they were active in some groups, there were some videos, etc.

And of course, Russ Bullock is not cunning enough for this kind of trick.

[LordNothing]

martian, on 13 October 2021 - 10:48 PM, said:

Although possible, I know with some degree of certainty that at least some of those banned players were real players, since they were active in some groups, there were some videos, etc.

And of course, Russ Bullock is not cunning enough for this kind of trick.

i have my doubts about cheat detection systems. the number of times ive been hit by false bans (not in mwo mind you) is non-zero, so there is an accuracy problem. some of the cheat technology is undetectable. machine learning solutions using fpgas to decode the video streams right off the video interface or even cameras pointed at the screen and input injection that is indistinguishable from a real controller.

then you have to resort to behavioral analysis to detect cheating (also using machine learning, its an arms race) and that is going to come with some degree of error. you can still put out false permabans or account deletions, and so long as the small percentage of those doesnt affect the bottom line, who cares? or you can use social engineering as a deterrence, show people getting banned as a warning to others, even if the people being banned are in fact bots.

pgi uses the 'if it looks like a potato, but can get multiple head shots at 900 meters, it must be a cheater' method. but that comes with the problem that it cant detect high skill players using them conservatively to boost their stats. even competitive types cheat, see the concealed motor systems some cyclists were caught using on their bikes during the tour de france.

Edited by LordNothing, 14 October 2021 - 11:46 AM.

[martian]

LordNothing, on 14 October 2021 - 11:45 AM, said:

i have my doubts about cheat detection systems. the number of times ive been hit by false bans (not in mwo mind you) is non-zero, so there is an accuracy problem. some of the cheat technology is undetectable. machine learning solutions using fpgas to decode the video streams right off the video interface or even cameras pointed at the screen and input injection that is indistinguishable from a real controller.

These methods can improve somebody's accuracy, but they can not solve the problem of positioning and tactical thinking.

LordNothing, on 14 October 2021 - 11:45 AM, said:

then you have to resort to behavioral analysis to detect cheating (also using machine learning, its an arms race) and that is going to come with some degree of error. you can still put out false permabans or account deletions, and so long as the small percentage of those doesnt affect the bottom line, who cares?

Even for that you need some proofs like videos, etc.

LordNothing, on 14 October 2021 - 11:45 AM, said:

or you can use social engineering as a deterrence, show people getting banned as a warning to others, even if the people being banned are in fact bots.

Some people banned for cheating had literally thousands of posts on this forums, so they were obviously no bots.

Just a random banned cheater: Bhael Fire. He had 4000 forum posts so he was no bot or PGI employee. His badge shows that he spent $360 on MWO.

Or this one: Faith McCarron Had account with hundreds of posts, bought the Project Phoenix pack and wasted such account ...

LordNothing, on 14 October 2021 - 11:45 AM, said:

pgi uses the 'if it looks like a potato, but can get multiple head shots at 900 meters, it must be a cheater' method. but that comes with the problem that it cant detect high skill players using them conservatively to boost their stats. even competitive types cheat, see the concealed motor systems some cyclists were caught using on their bikes during the tour de france.

Sure, that can happen. But many top players are just "that good".

[LordNothing]

martian, on 15 October 2021 - 01:57 AM, said:

These methods can improve somebody's accuracy, but they can not solve the problem of positioning and tactical thinking.



Even for that you need some proofs like videos, etc.



Some people banned for cheating had literally thousands of posts on this forums, so they were obviously no bots.

Just a random banned cheater: Bhael Fire. He had 4000 forum posts so he was no bot or PGI employee. His badge shows that he spent $360 on MWO.

Or this one: Faith McCarron Had account with hundreds of posts, bought the Project Phoenix pack and wasted such account ...



Sure, that can happen. But many top players are just "that good".

i think you missed the point. i was mostly talking about cheat technology and its counters, not its application in mwo (well maybe in the last paragraph). its only a tech discussion. where i mentioned accuracy, i was referring to that of automatic cheat detection, not of players in the game. false bans suck, especially if you purchased content. that kind of thing can make somone leave the game. the games where i received false bans, i don't play those anymore. its easier for a game company to live with one less customer than to make the cheat detector 100% accurate (99.9% is "good enough").

the pgi method is related to what russ bullock said about cheaters being "mediocre" (that spawned a lot of memes). i only postulate that cheat detection is harder at higher levels of play. if the player performance is close (or sometimes better) to that of the aimbot, how does one tell the difference? using the cheat a small fraction of the time can be used to trim the stats, so to speak.

Edited by LordNothing, 15 October 2021 - 08:09 AM.

[martian]

If you say so.

[Ghoja]

This is only sort of on topic... The original post mentioned throwing people on a server where you could kill anyone... That would be a good game mode... Last Man Standing FFA brawl. Use FP maps to allow some space between players on drop, and let the chaos ensue. I don't cheat, but I'd want in on that.

[StankDog the damp]

The 12v12 Battle Royale does sound interesting.