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Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

dev.epicgames.com

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Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#271

Post by smegger001 »

devwastaken wrote: post #258
thirtyseven wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a game dev but I don't think that's really feasible in a world where network latency is a thing, and it's necessary to send game state to a client that may not currently be visible on screen, unless you'd like us to move to a Stadia-like model of game streaming and dumb terminals.

You don't need game state. Good cheaters don't need to look behind walls, and it's obvious when they do so. You can theoretically build your own bot simply from visual recognition that plays pretty well.

I wonder if you could train an ai using screen grab and the mouse/keyboard input of players as a training set. so that it would look like a natural player rather than a aimbot

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#272

Post by fletchowns »

armchairhacker wrote: post #210
fletchowns wrote: post #89

I wish there was some well respected third party reputation service that I could prove my identity to (government id, utility statements, etc) and then all games just integrate with this third party reputation service. Sort of an Olympic committee for gaming. Give me the option to only play with other verified players. Getting caught cheating in one game then impacts your reputation in _all_ games. There's a gazillio…

As a casual player another way to alleviate cheating is good matchmaking, so cheaters all rank up to other cheaters. This doesn’t help higher-level players though. Some cheats run outside the OS and are basically indistinguishable from regular players. So anti-cheat won’t work. Good matchmaking + still catching cheats for impossible stuff + real tournaments requiring in-person attendance or heavy monitoring, should s…

In a world of free to play games, cheaters just keep making new accounts. I don't think it can be solved simply by matchmaking.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#273

Post by novok »

rcoveson wrote: post #218
tablespoon wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguably necessary when cheats people install themselves are actual rootkits. There's a hardware cheat that's actually in the wild that uses a capture card, computer vision, and hardware input devices to run entirely outside the OS: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/cheat-maker-brags-of-...

With all my heart, I'm rooting for the authors of this approach. Anti-cheat and DRM hide behind the defense of practicality and cost efficiency, but these products are absolutely evil. As personal computers are becoming more and more an extension of our bodies and minds, it is essential that they act in our interests and nobody else's. Imagine a prosthetic leg that phoned the insurance company if it detected illegal…

This will eventually lead to online multiplayer games to only be playable of a game console of sorts for ranked matches, where you are not the root user is implicit from the start.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#274

Post by novok »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #263
woobilicious wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're downplaying how genuinely hard it is to do server side stuff on a game with 60+ players, a lot of this stuff is O(n^2), and the bottle necks is network packet sizes as well where players will start to complain about packet loss because they play on WiFi connection with someone else who watches YouTube or Netflix. Apex legends does in fact do fully simulated bullet dropoff server side with temporal rewinding, a…

Its not _hard_ its $$$ expensive . You'll need bigger processors and more servers. I mean, I guess its _hard_ to choose what compromises to make, but not technically hard. Anyhow, I'm no expert. The solution to competitive gaming is streaming, not anti-cheat. Everybody gets the same resolution, same frame-rate, same latency. Fair is fair.

Honestly think it's game consoles with keyboards and mice that are bound to proprietary crypto protocols, much like the anti-piracy that the current xbox has. Can't do video stream HID interception unless you make a robot, and you've just raised the barrier of entry so high to get rid of %99.9 of it. And in pro matches you can just watch them in person.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#275

Post by fletchowns »

TillE wrote: post #151
nightowl_games wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a startup opportunity. Lookin' forward to the pitch deck!

What kind of massive startup ROI are you expecting to make from a highly niche bit of middleware? Just because something is possible doesn't make it profitable.

Video game industry is massive, and cheating is rampant and ruining peoples experience in game. I don't think it's the craziest idea

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#276

Post by BirdPlusPlus »

Many of you haven't noticed yet, but contemporary AAA devs realized years ago how much easier to make something compulsive than compelling and substituted addiction for fun, taking inspiration from slot machines and abandoning past masterpieces.

Shooters aren't enjoyable enough to justify this shit. Other genres are more respectful of your time, money, and efforts than to dribble content you purchased at a rate just slow enough that you'll keep playing. Your time and attention are valuable non-renewable resources. Consider how well you're spending them.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#277

Post by sascha_sl »

Razengan wrote: post #187
judge2020 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably necessary when cheats people install themselves are actual rootkits.

> cheats people install themselves are actual rootkits. reply Examples? That’s like the “Apple shouldn’t allow third-party stores because of malware” argument.

Vanguard blocked some tools that had easily exploitable kernel modules at the start because people were using them to get cheats into kernel mode.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#278

Post by novok »

tester756 wrote: post #170
SXX wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh oh what would stop my ML-based auto-aim from cheating in FPS running on cloud? Cheats now might be fine with just video feed as input.

If that was 2015 or 2010 then I'd say: why would people competent in computer vision waste time on making 30$ cheats when they can use their skills at faang for probably 200k? but nowadays idk whether it stands

Because they are kids and they use it as a practice ground to gain those skills inadvertently. Or they use it as a practice ground where they don't have to deal with bigtech BS and can just develop with no design reviews and all the miles of BS getting in your way.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#279

Post by stubish »

phone8675309 wrote: post #267
cooljacob204 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I have completely given up on competitive fps games. The cheating situation has only gotten worse and I really don't see anti-cheat makers winning.

If only there were a way to play the single player parts of shooters without the intrusive anti-cheat... Singlehandedly killed my desire in multiple games.

Developers can support this, if they want. Conan Exiles guides you to install the 3rd party anti-cheat, but you can opt out and play single player fine or even multiplayer on servers that allow it.

Re: Epic launches anti-cheat support for Linux, Mac, and Steam Deck

#280

Post by oliwarner »

temporarrry0923 wrote: post #64
AustinDev wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those aren't even cheaters using a full DMA module and separate PC which is nearly impossible to detect if done properly.

Or worse machine-learning-to-bounding-box that takes the video stream through HDMI, identifies character heads, intercepts the USB HID mouse, and injects movement commands to move the center of the screen towards the nearest "head". Literally (not nearly) impossible to detect, there is no difference between this and just aiming by hand. The video is already out of the box, and the USB HID packets look the same as the…

Physical aimbots are a much fairer cheat than picking apart the render pipeline to see through walls. A good player can still beat them.

I'm not saying I'm for any sort of cheat, including the built-in aim-assist for people who choose to play with a controller, but if I absolutely had to play against an unknown number of cheaters, I would prefer they were at least playing with the same deck as me.

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