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Thank You, Valve

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Re: Thank You, Valve

#201

Post by striking »

donatj wrote: post #173
Chris2048 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why? Shouldn't Apple be doing the work?

Apple dropped 32 bit support, it was intentional. They’re not going back on it. They have a long history of showing no interest in software preservation. Valve has the technology. Wine runs on macOS. Just need to apply it to Steam for Mac.

I think you're missing the spirit of the question. If Apple doesn't want to wreck gaming on its platform, and if there are few gamers on Apple platforms, and supporting Apple platforms doesn't give Valve the upper hand against MS the same way supporting Linux would... Why would Valve bother? Why shouldn't it be on Apple to make it work?

Maybe install Crossover and play the Windows versions of games through there?

Re: Thank You, Valve

#202

Post by yccs27 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #135
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average cheater is most certainly not investing in thousands of dollars of hardware to run intense AI models on a second high power machine. These are mostly theoretical hacks. The average cheater is paying $10-50 for cheat software. You may not like the anti-cheat software, but it works against the most common cheats. I think they could have an opt-out league that doesn’t require anti-cheat but remains separate.…

You don't need thousands of dollars of hardware. You need one (1) Raspberry Pi 4, plus an HDMI capture card and a Raspberry Pi Zero to act as fake mouse/keyboard. You can totally do that for $50. (Probably less if you use an Arduino clone instead of a Raspberry Pi Zero.) Heuristic software works against the most common cheats. Standard anti-piracy tricks work against the most common cheats. Kernel-level anticheat is…

The big issue is not the existence of cheating, but the scale of the problem. A software hack is infinitely scalable, a hardware setup is not.

Some cheat dev only needs to develop that "high-end software cheat" once and can sell it millions of times around the world, with super easy distribution over the internet. A setup with hardware video capture costs $50-$200 for every single user for hardware alone, and needs at least a bit of computer knowledge to set up.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#203

Post by hfourm »

rnhmjoj wrote: post #153
gambiting wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. As someone who plays online shooters only casually once or twice a week, nothing sucks more than having a full session in Apex ruined by an obvious cheater. The fact that I don't spend 8 hours a day doing this makes it far worse for me, the time for gaming is very limited when you have a small child and having it ruined because of some script kiddies is incredibly demoralizing. Let me put it this way - I'…

You used to be able to vote-kick the obvious cheater, not sure why that is not an option anymore, these days.

Abuse usually...

Re: Thank You, Valve

#204

Post by longsword »

busterarm wrote: post #82
dagw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I played competitive video games seriously I would absolutely want them to take cheating seriously and take any necessary measure to stop it. At the same time I think they should also make the most serious kernel/driver level anti-cheat software optional. If you don't to want to install it you can still play the game, just not on any of the 'pro' servers. Think of it a bit like doping tests in sports. As long as y…

The serious cheats in competitive games these days don't rely on hacking the game anymore. They use a separate computer connected taking your HDMI out as an input and then controls your mouse and keyboard inputs. They use ML models and OpenCV. You watch the second computer's monitor and it draws huge boxes around things you shoot and it assists your aim. It doesn't even have to be a PC game, you can do the same with…

> Kernel level anti-cheat is meaningless

Anti-Cheat on the Account-Level is meaningless. You ban a cheater? Who cares. He will back with a new Account some Minutes later. Hardware Bans are useless aswell, as they can easily be spoofed. The only effective strategy for Anti-Cheat is a Universal Identity Provider, which can proof you are a real Human with no Cheat Record.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#205

Post by gambiting »

realusername wrote: post #137
gambiting wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. As someone who plays online shooters only casually once or twice a week, nothing sucks more than having a full session in Apex ruined by an obvious cheater. The fact that I don't spend 8 hours a day doing this makes it far worse for me, the time for gaming is very limited when you have a small child and having it ruined because of some script kiddies is incredibly demoralizing. Let me put it this way - I'…

A kernel anti-cheat isn't going to fix that, by far the best servers are community moderated and usually cheats aren't really complicated.

Yes, but as many other people have said - no technical solution will elminiate all cheaters, but aggressive anti cheat does make a positive difference to the experience. It can make a difference between running into cheaters in 1 out of 10 games vs running into cheaters every single game.

And yes, community moderation is great, except that it has mostly gone away in most games.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#206

Post by LanceH »

judge2020 wrote: post #94
LanceH wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, anti-cheat software doesn't guarantee anything of the sort. There are still plenty of cheats out there. Second, this was already a solved problem since we could run our own servers and kick whoever we wanted. But this has largely been taken away, to the point that people don't know it ever existed.

most regular players want MMR and matchmaking so they can play against similarly-skilled teams and can see themselves improve by winning against better opponents over time. They don’t want to have to weed through a lobby list to maybe get into an evenly-matched game, or maybe get destroyed by someone leagues better than them.

So letting people run their own servers where the kernel doesn't need to be compromised for all the players will have minimal impact. Gotcha. So we agree, let them run their own servers and the minority who are security conscious can game away happily.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#207

Post by notreallyserio »

pdimitar wrote: post #175
maccard wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, anti-cheat software doesn't guarantee anything of the sort. There are still plenty of cheats out there. It's not a binary thing. There will always be cheats. It's about raising the bar to be difficult enough for enough people to not bother. If you want an example of the effect cheating can have on games, look at Fall guys. It shipped as a unity game, was immediately reverse engineered and the game was effect…

> It's about raising the bar to be difficult enough for enough people to not bother. It does not do that either. I've been on certain... interesting forums, shall we say (in Tor; and I don't remember the names, was a casual stroll through it and I made no effort to write down any place I checked on -- before you ask). Whoever wants a cheat eventually finds the best cheat authors who are quiet and are not drawing atte…

> And everybody else loses

Everybody but all the non-cheating gamers that don't have to face cheaters in literally every single match. Where I think you and many others in this thread differ from folks like me is that you seem to expect a perfect solution whereas I will accept a solution that reduces the problem enough that it is barely noticeable. I don't care if "dedicated cheaters" will still cheat.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#208

Post by modo_mario »

toyg wrote: post #151
tapoxi wrote: post #30

Is it too little, too late? Microsoft now owns a lot of the biggest game franchises through the Activision and Bethesda acquisitions, and I wouldn't be surprised if they actively block Proton support by using UWP or Windows-specific anticheat.

Microsoft cannot politically afford such brazen anti-competitive moves. Because of accidents of history, their position is somewhat unique. They can close the platform to third-parties if they really want (although I don't think it will ever happen), but actively blocking interop efforts would directly contravene a lot of very well-established legislation.

They just have to make it annoying and perhaps the options that favour them more convenient as they have routinely done.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#209

Post by gambiting »

hfourm wrote: post #203
rnhmjoj wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You used to be able to vote-kick the obvious cheater, not sure why that is not an option anymore, these days.

Abuse usually...

Yep, people just spamming cheater reports on someone who killed them, it's worthless without human verification and that's expensive/difficult.

Re: Thank You, Valve

#210

Post by crtasm »

parkingrift wrote: post #125
busterarm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The serious cheats in competitive games these days don't rely on hacking the game anymore. They use a separate computer connected taking your HDMI out as an input and then controls your mouse and keyboard inputs. They use ML models and OpenCV. You watch the second computer's monitor and it draws huge boxes around things you shoot and it assists your aim. It doesn't even have to be a PC game, you can do the same with…

This is why anti-cheat should be performance based. Build a model based on the way that verified elite players play the game, and their performance. Compare “normal” players against the model and look for outliers. Manually review accounts that look suspicious. Cheat behavior is obvious. Ridiculous long distance accuracy. Weird movement. Weird map awareness. Weird awareness of other players. Etc.

Valve do this, here's a good talk:

Robocalypse Now: Using Deep Learning to Combat Cheating in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiP0zKF9bc

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