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Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

arstechnica.com

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Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#61

Post by jacobvm04 »

ALittleLight wrote: post #19

I wonder if the anti-cheat system could insert ghost enemies for a few frames, or about 20-30ms, fast enough that humans wouldn't really notice. If players are shooting too often at ghosts, that may be a good reason to ban.

On certain minecraft server anti cheats, this used to be a thing. People used to use a hack called "Kill aura" which automatically attacked anyone with a certain distance of you. Minecraft server anti cheats implemented a system which inserted an invisible fake player circling around the player, and if the play consistently hit the fake player they got banned. This system worked pretty well for a while until cheat developers realized they could pretty easily determine the real from the fake anti cheat inserted players.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#62

Post by jacobmischka »

void_mint wrote: post #54
jacobmischka wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people using steroids are equally as skilled as their opponents. Sure, because they were also doping. Seriously though, I wouldn't say steroids make you _more skilled_, but they absolutely give a physical advantage over natural athletes. Which is why there aren't any top level natural athletes anymore except in very dedicated natural-only circles.

I'm not sure what point you're making. My point is that steroids don't turn average people into elite athletes, which is much closer to what auto aim or wall hacking tools in FPS games do. Average people appear elite because their tools make them perform that way. This is not what steroids do. You're agreeing with me, I think, but in the form of an argument.

Sort of. A regular person on steroids could never compete with a skilled athlete who isn't, certainly. But in virtually all sports a skilled natural athlete also can't realistically compete with a skilled "enhanced" athlete.

It's not really cheating anymore, since everyone does it now, but the point I'm trying to make is that it's not nothing either.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#63

Post by allendoerfer »

stickfigure wrote: post #52
somebodythere wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could just modify the cheat to filter out enemies that appear for less than two frames .

True, but there would be a lag of days to weeks before the cheaters adapted. You could bust everyone in the mean time.

Valve is actually doing that. Sometimes when they update VAC, they intentionally do not ban anyone for a while to catch as many as possible. Not unlike the police is handling drug dealers.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#64

Post by Synaesthesia »

toxik wrote: post #40
ehnto wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analog to steroids and high-level competition is really interesting, something I've chatted with my friends about a bit. In some of the highest tier bodybuilding competitions, some people will be using steroids, and because that went unchecked and unspoken, now everyone has to or else they have no chance of competing. If you want to compete and you aren't using steroids, you will lose, so you have to start using…

A key difference is that steroids are a sacrifice. You mess with your actual body. Cheating in a game? Yeah you injected a DLL into dynamic memory…

Yeah and you're still going to have to do all the work and be a talented athlete to be at the top, unlike with hacks or cheats.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#66

Post by s5300 »

l33t2328 wrote: post #20
narrator wrote: post #14

The irony is that real war with actual guns that kill people will likely have aimbots on small arms in the next decade.

I’m afraid you’ve been watching too many movies. This tech isn’t close to deployment for an infantryman.

Who needs infantrymen when you have suicide drone swarms, bunker busters, MIRV's, thermobaric weapons (vacuum bombs), instant retina frying laser disco drones...

Infantry are going to be a thing of the past for anything more than proxy wars. Maybe frogmen will have their day or something.

The future of human violence at scale is fucking terrifying.

Edit:

Oh, and how could I forget. Our lovely fucking sword deploying hellfire missiles

https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/the-story-of-americas-hellfire-...

This is where you insert the joke about studying the blade I think.

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#67

Post by ajxs »

ToJans wrote: post #50
ajxs wrote: post #27

I played competitive level Quake 3/Quake Live for a number of years, during the height of its popularity. I also have friends who play more modern competitive FPS games, such as CS:GO. Even though QL was only a small online scene, the use aimbots, triggerbots, wallhacks, and similar tools was always very common at the competitive level. Quake Live had very limited anti-cheat functionality, so it was never relied upon…

I still play QuakeLive on a regular basis; the problem is mostly fixed by playing on servers with a stable community. AFAIK no players are actively cheating in that community, although some prefer to play using timenudge, which could be considered an "allowed cheat". Fortunately it's quite easy to spot those laggards, and it's up to yourself to decide whether you want to opt for fair play or not... (Also, it feels qu…

> ...although some prefer to play using timenudge...

Timenudge is not cheating by any stretch. It's been a long time since I looked into Quake Live's netcode. Someone here will probably know about this, so if you know more please correct me.

The server that you're playing on has a fixed framerate (server 'tick rate'), and periodically sends packets to connected clients containing the current gamestate (player locations, scores, etc). Your client deals with the latency involved by interpolating between the last two received packets. This means that what you're seeing is always (your_ping + server_tick_rate)ms behind 'reality'. Quake Live uses 'backwards reconciliation' on the server. When you fire a hitscan weapon the server looks at the server frame (your_ping)ms back in time to see if you hit something. These two reasons are why you might have experienced being railed around corners by high ping players. You were under their crosshair on their screen, but on yours you're in the clear.

What timenudge does is adjust the client's interpolation period. A server_tick_rate of 40fps makes for a delay between packets of 25ms. Since the client is interpolating between the last two received packets, your client is working with what is effectively an artificial 25ms delay. A timenudge of -20 tells your client to reduce that interpolation frame, at the cost of some accuracy. It's not cheating. It doesn't really give people any practical advantage at all unless you've got a totally obscene ping. If anything it'll exacerbate the effects of other players warping (caused by the server not receiving their client packets in the right order, or at all).

There's some good information on how this system works here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160302024647/https://www.ra.is...

Re: Cheating in FPS by using a second computer to move mouse

#70

Post by kilburn »

toxik wrote: post #42
kilburn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are spot on: statistical player profiling + controlled environment testing is the good and potentially permanent solution to this problem. In my vision every game creates a model of your behavior/capabilities (server-side). For example, in a fps game it could consider your reaction times, overshoot distance on quick movements, look-around frequency, movement patterns, etc.. When you reach certain level yo…

And then I open my verification center where subtle cheating is okay.

I don't see it.

To be in this business you need the companies making games to trust you. Otherwise your certifications are worth nothing.

Would you really risk your reputation (and hence your entire business) for peanuts? If you systematically certify people above their level or advertise in any way that you do you will get caught. If you don't you won't profit much from it, and will always be at risk.

I just don't see how this would be a significant issue.

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