27 replies to this topic

[Sky Ferrix]

Every game should have some kind of anti-cheat service attached to it. I'm sure we can all agree on that.

But it's the Free to Play games that absolutely, no ifs, ands, or buts, need a very strict anti-cheat service. I've played several F2P games in the past, (Crossfire, Battlefield Heroes, etc.) and have run into hackers and cheaters just about every time I played. The anti-cheat always seems to be blind as a damn bat!

Why so many hackers on F2P you may wonder? Because if they get banned, they don't need to BUY a new copy. They can just make a new account and go right back to ruining everyone's day. Imagine what some scumbag with an anti-heat hack could do. Sickens me to think about it. I haven't heard much in the way of anti-cheat services for MWO, but I'm hoping that changes soon. I really don't want to see the good old mechwarrior fall prey to today's modern multiplayer scourges.

[DirtyDrifter]

I believe the best anti-cheat is a well admin'd public server. Since this game won't have servers that are run by the players we'll always have to settle with a little bit of nonsense.

[Exilyth]

Every anti cheat service/program can be circumvented.

As far as we know, most stuff in MWO is determined serverside, e.g. the client just sends what keys you pressed and draws what the server tells him. Movement, Line of sight, shooting e.t.c. is calculated on the server. Which means, aside from wallhacks, no hacks are possible.

Also, this has already been discussed at length, please use the search function.

Edited by Exilyth, 08 September 2012 - 10:26 AM.

[lonewolfsx]

I agree, but luckily the premise of mechwarrior makes it somewhat more difficult to cheat. Of course you could aimbot headshots but that's difficult with various weapons and torso twist speeds prevent snapping and such, and of course a no heat hack or similar would be ridiculous.

EDIT: and oh thank goodness hit detection and heat is calculated server-side, that immediately takes out a bunch of cheats. I used to play Planetside a bit and the client-side hit detection meant the cheating was just fricken out of control sometimes.

In-game if someone were cheating there's currently no way to report though, which kind of sucks. I'm sure something will be added in the future, but hopefully it will never be a big problem... I feel like in the past the MW series has been relatively safe from cheaters.

Edited by lonewolfsx, 08 September 2012 - 10:01 AM.

[Scarborn]

I really hope some kind of anti-cheat gets put in the game.
Like you said, cheating in F2P games has became rampant, I wouldn't like to see MWO ruined by cheaters.

[Justin Xang Allard]

Exilyth, on 08 September 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:

Every anti cheat service/program can be circumvented.

As far as we know, most stuff in MWO is determined serverside, e.g. the client just sends what keys you pressed and draws what the server tells him. Movement, Line of sight, shooting e.t.c. is calculated on the server. Which means, aside from wallhacks, no hacks are possible.

ya i hope this holds true. i love a fair fight, and theres nothing that makes me more upset than cheating.

[Kurayami]

idk about cheats but there is already a BOT system of some kind. it currently only following predefined way points in fixed manner and shooting ground while shacking forward-backward when shot at. so if you see someone standing for a few mins and then suddenly doing for base cap while navigating strange and sometimes shooting ground to only stop inside or near base cap square and start shooting transmitter in center endlessly - congratulations you found it. me and my team stumbled upon this one 3 or 5 times its buggy so its not allays reaching cap square but all times when shot at it starts to move forward-backward while shooting ground ahead of it. my guess someone testing it while no one watching.

Edited by Kurayami, 08 September 2012 - 10:16 AM.

[Tannhauser Gate]

Just to catch everyone up to date, cheating, hacking, exploiting ect. has been a major focus of MWO since the very first planing stages. They ill be using very sophisticated tools to keep cheating to a absolute minimum. They havent revealed what they are going to do that I know of except for one.

All combat commands from the player clients are routed through the server before they take place in game and checked so that mechs and weapons cant be influenced by client side cheating. (This does create a tiny bit of lag in the reponsiveness of controls but its a worthwhile trade off for security of the game.)

Its impossible to stop all cheating but PGI has this issue well in hand and they are designing the game from the ground up to be secure.

[Rennon]

I read a bit about the trade off for security a while ago and im hoping they keep with ideas like this.

[alfalfasprossen]

best method against annoying cheaters that just want to wreck a game is to enforce a votekick on every server. maybe weightet between the teams to ensure people are not simply kicking the best players of the winning team and such.

[Hexenhammer]

alfalfasprossen, on 08 September 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

best method against annoying cheaters that just want to wreck a game is to enforce a votekick on every server. maybe weightet between the teams to ensure people are not simply kicking the best players of the winning team and such.

The trick would be to make the kick vote system easy to use in the middle of a firefight.

[bikerbass77]

The devs have already announced that they have an anti-cheat system in place. I may be wrong but I believe it is server based which will make it harder for cheats as they will not be able to analyse it as they would a punk-buster type of system that sits on their computers.

[TROWAHC]

Foxx, on 08 September 2012 - 09:45 AM, said:

Every game should have some kind of anti-cheat service attached to it. I'm sure we can all agree on that.

But it's the Free to Play games that absolutely, no ifs, ands, or buts, need a very strict anti-cheat service. I've played several F2P games in the past, (Crossfire, Battlefield Heroes, etc.) and have run into hackers and cheaters just about every time I played. The anti-cheat always seems to be blind as a damn bat!

Why so many hackers on F2P you may wonder? Because if they get banned, they don't need to BUY a new copy. They can just make a new account and go right back to ruining everyone's day. Imagine what some scumbag with an anti-heat hack could do. Sickens me to think about it. I haven't heard much in the way of anti-cheat services for MWO, but I'm hoping that changes soon. I really don't want to see the good old mechwarrior fall prey to today's modern multiplayer scourges.

I agree that some form of anti-cheat system is required. but its will be based on how the online components work. If the system is completely server side, then hacking becomes harder but if the system is more peer2peer then some external hacking system will be required but could cause mass issues.
I can't tell you how many times I've had punkbuster kick me out cause it thinks I'm hacking when I've never have a single hack installed.

I'm positive the dev's will be looking into this, and trying to make sure there is something to combat hackers at launch.

[Atomic Weapon]

A lot of players are aware of what they're doing but I think if we use a different method on attacking these problems
for example say someone is caught instead of bannding them are getting rid of them I really think it would be up to
the people playing to allow them to voice their opinions so another words post the individual's name up on the messageboard
and let him defend himself for approximately 3 days that way there it will give everybody the full benefit of making a harsh decision
if the individual does not change his way or his habits. In all reality if I got caught and I had to defend myself
I would be posting up sorry I'm not going to do that again blah blah now if I really meant it I wouldn't do it once I gave my word.

I really believe this would be a change on the developers to make a ruling based on the communities outlook.

The developers can be the judge and the community can be the jury and executioner.


This would seem to be a fair way to judge an individual that has been caught cheating by postings information up and discussing the problems with them by multiple people could really pinpoint one why people do it and another by addressing the issue to allow individuals to change their behavior or else suffer the consequences.

[Deathz Jester]

If I see punkbuster I'll quit playing forever

[Sky Ferrix]

alfalfasprossen, on 08 September 2012 - 11:03 AM, said:

best method against annoying cheaters that just want to wreck a game is to enforce a votekick on every server. maybe weightet between the teams to ensure people are not simply kicking the best players of the winning team and such.

This really comes down to the maturity of the players. Crossfire had something like this, and it was abused time and time again. I've been kicked from servers several times for just doing well. Of course, I'd imagine the Mechwarrior fanbase is a little more mature than most others.

Exilyth, on 08 September 2012 - 09:58 AM, said:

Also, this has already been discussed at length, please use the search function.

Apologies, I had searched before I posted but didn't find much. Just did another search and had a better turnout... Even still, it's a topic worth repeatedly discussing.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

It isn't just cheaters you have to worry about but also botters. It won't take long for C-Bill farming bots to appear on this simple game structure. They will basically auto-queue, run into a wall firing lasers, and the owner will get 100% for every game he "in". League of Legends is an example of a game that is great at stopping cheaters... but it has plenty of AFK farmers. Luckily Riot is very strict with reports and ban such users. They also have it set that you get 0% rewards if you simply sit in the spawn like a worthless bench. Their game is very good at anti AFK/AFK botting and this game needs to be too. If Piranha doesn't do anything about it, I swear you'll see AFK Mechs running into walls every day for free C-Bills.

[Teglaary]

Ban cheater IP please.

[Ranek Blackstone]

Teglaary, on 01 March 2013 - 06:41 PM, said:

Ban cheater IP please.

Most IPs are dynamic. All you need to do to fix an IP ban is shut your modem off, go get something to drink, come back and flip it on.

My brother used to bot diablo 2, and every time Blizz IP blocked him, he'd just reset the modem, and it'd get him a new IP.

EDIT: Because all the info is stored server side, things like speed hacks and no heat hacks aren't possible. Aimbots and fram bots tend to stand out a bunch when you look over player stats (like % of shots fired hitting the head, path your mech takes, etc)

Edited by Ranek Blackstone, 01 March 2013 - 06:56 PM.

[Tyrnaan]

I agree that their needs to be some sort of report service in the game. Just finished a match, opponents Mech was same class as mine, hitting him continually with 3 PPC at 300m range, no damage. The he's is sitting "Out of Bounds" firing on me until he took me out. Went on to kill 3 others w/o damage??????????? Something very wrong here...