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Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

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Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#71

Post by Cthulhu_ »

lawn wrote: post #68

This is one reason the Steam Deck model of being an open console system is the future. Some dinosaurs wants to preserve the old locked-down console experience, where you have exclusive games, controllers and digital stores. But its just worse for the customer in every way.

Not every way; you have more control over quality and experience in a closed system. I mean yeah it sucks, but so does spending money on a controller that isn't good enough.

edit: I'm reading somewhere else it's to stop cheat enabled controllers. Wouldn't want to play multiplayer games if someone has an unfair advantage like that.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#72

Post by waveBidder »

lawn wrote: post #68

This is one reason the Steam Deck model of being an open console system is the future. Some dinosaurs wants to preserve the old locked-down console experience, where you have exclusive games, controllers and digital stores. But its just worse for the customer in every way.

Good thing Microsoft didn't just buy a major AAA game company to decrease the odds of that working.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#73

Post by NotOscarWilde »

anonymousab wrote: post #66
jack1243star wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How hard is it really to have two queues based on your input type? Basically impossible. Some players will always try to spoof it, either for an advantage or the challenge.

Isn't the problem de facto solved by matchmaking? The player that aims better will quickly win more and be elevated to the level of opponents on par with them. From the perspective of the player that loses to them, it's no different than losing to a regular player who aimed really well; you're quickly separated from them in the queue. This wouldn't apply to games with only a few hundred active players but I think mos…

> Isn't the problem de facto solved by matchmaking? The player that aims better will quickly win more and be elevated to the level of opponents on par with them.

Matchmaking decreases the odds you meet a cheater for low rank players, and significantly increases it for higher rank players -- and since there's fewer of them due to the Bell curve, they are going to feel the cheaters that much more.

If you just rely on rank and not on anti-cheat efforts, you'd be just destroying one of the loyal cores of the playerbase, one which is also quite vocal online.

From my personal experience of thousands of hours in competitive FPS shooters on PC, there is no point in ranking where playing against a cheater becomes fair or fun.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#74

Post by serf »

This is a money grab with the polish of a pro-gamer cheat-cleanup.

Why do I say that?

Microsoft can fix most of the 'cheats' that a software controller can implement in software. Auto-fire is trivial to detect, as is a KBM setup where it doesn't belong. Out of the ordinary joystick characteristics/speed/hysteresis/range would make it obvious to them which controllers are aftermarket if they cared to disallow them after only a few minutes of profiling the player.

and the fun point I bring up with regards to this : the determined cheaters will just pin-out a 'qualified authentic' controller to any choice of small prototyping boards and just re-create a 'Cronus-like' device higher up the device chain without detection, and this will continue until Microsoft implements software side detection via some sort of clever profiling scheme.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#75

Post by Cthulhu_ »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #48
AustinDev wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are most definitely doing this to combat cheaters. I tried out Cronus + KBM on my friend's Xbox S and it was comical. I had aim assist, no recoil and a keyboard and mouse. I was running 100:3 K:D on COD:MW2. If you don't think cheating is a big part of the reason you've never played console games competitively.

If they were trying to combat cheaters, they wouldn't have released an official controller that allows generic, 3rd party, unauthenticated inputs: the Xbox Adaptive Controller. It would be pretty trivial to hook up a Pi Pico through the jacks and USB ports to be able to make a KBM adapter like that. There just hasn't been a point making such a device when the xim/cronus works fine. It might not even need the jacks, a…

"Pretty trivial" but only for the small percentage of people that are tech minded like that and who can be bothered; it's not an issue, not compared to laypeople being able to buy an off the shelf ready to use product.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#76

Post by extraduder_ire »

Seems strange that they're doing this mid-generation, rather than when coming out with new controllers/console.

Last time I remember this happening was in the middle of the ps3's lifecycle, and I had to return a generic controller because of it.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#77

Post by milesvp »

anonymousab wrote: post #66
jack1243star wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How hard is it really to have two queues based on your input type? Basically impossible. Some players will always try to spoof it, either for an advantage or the challenge.

Isn't the problem de facto solved by matchmaking? The player that aims better will quickly win more and be elevated to the level of opponents on par with them. From the perspective of the player that loses to them, it's no different than losing to a regular player who aimed really well; you're quickly separated from them in the queue. This wouldn't apply to games with only a few hundred active players but I think mos…

Generally yes in any tier with a big enough pool, and has been my experience. I've been playing team based competitive shooters for over 2 decades, and while I occasionally notice an obvious cheater with amazing aim and improbable aim jumps during replays. My experience is that they often aren't very good at the game in general. Or at least, it's their crutch to play at my level. Cheating was a much bigger problem for me when I'd personally pick the servers I played on, but I hardly think about it any more. Modern match making tends to be pretty good at leveling the playing field. Cheating kind of sucks, but generally I don't notice on the games I like to play. Plus, there's just as much chance the cheater will be on my team as the opponent, so it evens out that way as well.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#78

Post by ThatPlayer »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #75
ThatPlayer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were trying to combat cheaters, they wouldn't have released an official controller that allows generic, 3rd party, unauthenticated inputs: the Xbox Adaptive Controller. It would be pretty trivial to hook up a Pi Pico through the jacks and USB ports to be able to make a KBM adapter like that. There just hasn't been a point making such a device when the xim/cronus works fine. It might not even need the jacks, a…

"Pretty trivial" but only for the small percentage of people that are tech minded like that and who can be bothered; it's not an issue, not compared to laypeople being able to buy an off the shelf ready to use product.

Yes, and once a company like xim makes one, they can sell it and laypeople will buy it off the shelves. This method doesn't require any internal modifications or anything, that's the whole point of the adaptive controller.

The creators of the xim will want to make a new product to sell if their old one no longer works. It might even be possible with a software update.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#79

Post by TeMPOraL »

AustinDev wrote: post #29
codeTired wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are not doing this to stop cheaters. It might be a nice side effect. They are doing it because money.

They are most definitely doing this to combat cheaters. I tried out Cronus + KBM on my friend's Xbox S and it was comical. I had aim assist, no recoil and a keyboard and mouse. I was running 100:3 K:D on COD:MW2. If you don't think cheating is a big part of the reason you've never played console games competitively.

That's the problem though: pampering to competitive gamers ruins the experience for the vast majority of people, who just want to, you know, enjoy a game. Unfortunately, competitive gamers are the only ones that matter - they're the cash cows of this part of the industry, which now focuses on creating as many such players as they can, and milking them for all they're worth.

Consider how cheating was handled back before AAA games turned into videogame equivalent of Marvel Cinematic Universe movies: if you were found cheating, you were booted off the server, period. There was no matchmaking bullshit, the games weren't nudging or limiting you to play on the ladder, against global ranking. Instead, you had local and international servers, public and private; you had neighbourhood servers, and servers run by groups of friends, and themed servers, etc. - in other words, servers were communities. As diverse and rich as human communities can be. And they handled cheating in ways communities do it.

On smaller / local servers, people wouldn't cheat because the community extended past the game to other on-line places, and/or to meatspace. Everyone was friends with each other, and being a cheating asshole is a fast way to lose your friends. Scaling up, you had all the mechanisms one also saw on discussion boards: some servers had owner or moderators ban anyone they didn't like; others voted. It was nicely self-regulating: servers weren't sticky, so being banned as false positive (or out of spite) didn't hurt. People didn't like power-tripping server operators? They'd switch over to a new server, run by someone saner.

Were there still cheaters? Yes. Assholes and griefers happened. But without a single global ranking to compete for, cheating was mostly self-defeating: there was no reward, no incentive, and you'd be just ruining the fun for yourself.

Yes, cheating is kind of a proxy reason why I don't enjoy multiplayer games. But the real reason is this: modern games feel like suddenly all the little soccer leagues were required to follow all the FIFA rules, were allowed only to play registered games, only to use pitches and equipment and balls and clothes that are certifiably up to spec, regularly audited - all because it might happen that our ad-hoc team of Sunday players would one day be visited by a World Cup team, and it would suck if we had an unfair advantage.

It's just ruining the game for everyone, for the sake of a small group of people running a racket.

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