Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#11

Post by liamneesonsarm » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:03 AM UTC

cowthulhu wrote: post #9

liamneesonsarm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the boosts had queued with cheaters. I do agree though that this could have false-positives. Right now anyone marked as guilty a moderator had went through and looked at stats or a demo if not sure. Which boosted ones looks skeptical to you? Im wondering if i should have information about who reviewed the report and have something written up in steps taken for proof. Thoughts?

How do you tell the difference between someone being boosted by a cheater, and someone playing with their friend, who they don’t know is a cheater? I think the distinction to me is whether there is reasonable doubt. If a player has a VAC ban, sure, not much doubt there. But queuing with cheaters seems murkier! I’m not sure how you’d prove boosting by watching a replay, but I could be missing something.

Yes that’s a good question and something I’ll take into account when reviewing. TBH these reports are all the obvious ones. Like straight up aim lock or spinning. I basically just took people queuing with them because they 100% know they’re cheating. You’ll notice there are several that have “needs more evidence” and I personally viewed the stats and found them inconclusive. I tried a demo but it was expired so it got the needs more evidence status and I emailed the reported to add more context.

If there is someone you see that you feel is misreported I’m happy to explain or delete it if wrong. Maybe I need a “contest report” feature so you can make your case for why it’s a false report.

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#12

Post by reactordev » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:08 AM UTC

This isn’t the way. The way is to allow private servers/matchmaking with your friends. Make friends outside of the games to play with. Smurfs and throwers and racists and mic djs and all of those people are your experience because devs decided rando-army matchmaking was a good idea. It’s not.

Also, you will never have a cheat less video game. There will always be a way. And if you don’t think there is, then they can continue their current iteration in perpetuity.

It’s too easy for someone to pull out their credit card and buy a cheat than it is to catch them.

I don’t play FPS games anymore because every lobby is full of them. Tracking behaviors and putting them into their own tier of matchmaking is one way. Detecting modifications of memory and banning is another. The issue is that most game devs are using an engine and the engines themselves are vulnerable.

Private servers, self-hosted servers, are the way. You get admin control and you decide who you want to play with.

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#13

Post by cowthulhu » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:10 AM UTC

liamneesonsarm wrote: post #11

cowthulhu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you tell the difference between someone being boosted by a cheater, and someone playing with their friend, who they don’t know is a cheater? I think the distinction to me is whether there is reasonable doubt. If a player has a VAC ban, sure, not much doubt there. But queuing with cheaters seems murkier! I’m not sure how you’d prove boosting by watching a replay, but I could be missing something.

Yes that’s a good question and something I’ll take into account when reviewing. TBH these reports are all the obvious ones. Like straight up aim lock or spinning. I basically just took people queuing with them because they 100% know they’re cheating. You’ll notice there are several that have “needs more evidence” and I personally viewed the stats and found them inconclusive. I tried a demo but it was expired so it go…

I think the concept is somewhat fatally flawed, so I don’t really have any suggestions about how to improve it.

I totally get that I’m just throwing a bunch of problems at you without providing solutions, sorry I know that’s not very fun to deal with. It definitely shows through that you are doing this with good intentions!

I hope you figure out solid solutions to the issues… if in five years I’m playing on servers that use a version of your system to do a better job of keeping the cheaters/griefers off, I will definitely owe you one!

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#14

Post by viraptor » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:11 AM UTC

liamneesonsarm wrote: post #5

cowthulhu wrote: post #3

I think a service like this is incredibly prone to false-positives and abuse, especially if you’re going to try to flag subjective things such as throwing or smurfing. It also seems like it could be damaging, and I’m skeptical of this the “proof” in all of these proof-based accusations of boosting I’m seeing on the site. If I can find the steam ID of the owner of the site, I know who my first totally-proof-based repo…

All the boosts had queued with cheaters. I do agree though that this could have false-positives. Right now anyone marked as guilty a moderator had went through and looked at stats or a demo if not sure. Which boosted ones looks skeptical to you? Im wondering if i should have information about who reviewed the report and have something written up in steps taken for proof. Thoughts?

Smurfing and throwing is totally subjective though. I've played on really bad days that someone could classified as throwing and then I regained rank quickly which someone could clarify as smurfing. I've also tried playing some moba and after my 4th game I got placed in their cheater purgatory. Why? No idea, I didn't even understand all the game mechanics yet. So yeah, I would totally expect grey area, even with human review of the demos.

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#15

Post by liamneesonsarm » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:19 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #14

liamneesonsarm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the boosts had queued with cheaters. I do agree though that this could have false-positives. Right now anyone marked as guilty a moderator had went through and looked at stats or a demo if not sure. Which boosted ones looks skeptical to you? Im wondering if i should have information about who reviewed the report and have something written up in steps taken for proof. Thoughts?

Smurfing and throwing is totally subjective though. I've played on really bad days that someone could classified as throwing and then I regained rank quickly which someone could clarify as smurfing. I've also tried playing some moba and after my 4th game I got placed in their cheater purgatory. Why? No idea, I didn't even understand all the game mechanics yet. So yeah, I would totally expect grey area, even with huma…

These are all good points and I think you’re right. I’ll most likely get rid of smurfs and throwers as a report since it makes sense the grey area.

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#16

Post by liamneesonsarm » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:22 AM UTC

cowthulhu wrote: post #13

liamneesonsarm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that’s a good question and something I’ll take into account when reviewing. TBH these reports are all the obvious ones. Like straight up aim lock or spinning. I basically just took people queuing with them because they 100% know they’re cheating. You’ll notice there are several that have “needs more evidence” and I personally viewed the stats and found them inconclusive. I tried a demo but it was expired so it go…

I think the concept is somewhat fatally flawed, so I don’t really have any suggestions about how to improve it. I totally get that I’m just throwing a bunch of problems at you without providing solutions, sorry I know that’s not very fun to deal with. It definitely shows through that you are doing this with good intentions! I hope you figure out solid solutions to the issues… if in five years I’m playing on servers t…

All good I appreciate you voicing your opinion. I’m not 100% sold either but it’s worth a shot and I’m a new Dad so have had time on my hands and wanted to build something. Dealing with cheaters is also time consuming and frustrating.

Hope that I see you in five years too

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#17

Post by username923409 » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:23 AM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #12

This isn’t the way. The way is to allow private servers/matchmaking with your friends. Make friends outside of the games to play with. Smurfs and throwers and racists and mic djs and all of those people are your experience because devs decided rando-army matchmaking was a good idea. It’s not. Also, you will never have a cheat less video game. There will always be a way. And if you don’t think there is, then they can…

CS2 (the topical game of the post) allows for playing exactly how you outlined to be the "ideal" way. however, this method of playing will never* come back to be the most popular way to play the game. so, i don't see the harm in this attempt at a contribution to counteract the largest problem with the most popular way of playing.

* at least until there are so few players searching for matchmaking games that it never succeeds in finding a lobby, of course. see diabotical for example ;-(

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#18

Post by liamneesonsarm » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:34 AM UTC

reactordev wrote: post #12

This isn’t the way. The way is to allow private servers/matchmaking with your friends. Make friends outside of the games to play with. Smurfs and throwers and racists and mic djs and all of those people are your experience because devs decided rando-army matchmaking was a good idea. It’s not. Also, you will never have a cheat less video game. There will always be a way. And if you don’t think there is, then they can…

I played Counter Strike Source and that community experience is one of the drivers for my idea. I want to build a community that you can see as “friends” and people you can trust.

From my experience it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare to organize groups and cost prohibitive to spin up servers. Yea we can typically get 5 but a full balanced 10 man is real hard.

100% agree you can’t rid of cheaters but this is the hope to just avoid them through a platform.

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#19

Post by liamneesonsarm » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:42 AM UTC

username923409 wrote: post #17

reactordev wrote: post #12

This isn’t the way. The way is to allow private servers/matchmaking with your friends. Make friends outside of the games to play with. Smurfs and throwers and racists and mic djs and all of those people are your experience because devs decided rando-army matchmaking was a good idea. It’s not. Also, you will never have a cheat less video game. There will always be a way. And if you don’t think there is, then they can…

CS2 (the topical game of the post) allows for playing exactly how you outlined to be the "ideal" way. however, this method of playing will never* come back to be the most popular way to play the game. so, i don't see the harm in this attempt at a contribution to counteract the largest problem with the most popular way of playing. * at least until there are so few players searching for matchmaking games that it never…

Appreciate the support. Yea the having enough people for matchmaking is for sure a challenge.

Re: Show HN: A searchable public database of cheaters in video games

#20

Post by golergka » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:48 AM UTC

> Furthermore, some of the solutions to deal with cheaters are to play on 3rd party services (i.e. FACEIT) that require you to install an "anti-cheat" that gives kernel level access and is owned by some questionable folks (I won't get into the details of that you can do your own research).

I worked on one of these services, http://fastcup.net, and AFAIK that's all the service did — anti-cheat, although I must admit I didn't work on it myself. What questionable stuff have you heard about these services?