It's great to see EA step things up to combat cheating, but there is one thing I worry about with such ease of reporting, and the current frenzy about cheating: False positives.
I have watched streams of guys playing FPS games, and some of these guys are truly, amazingly talented. They can destroy an opposing team, and rarely die. They have researched the hot spots on the maps, choose great loadouts for each map, effectively use area-denial tools, properly check corners, use proper teamwork to their advantage, etc. In other words, they play smart.
Are they cheating? From what I have witnessed, no; they are just that good. And I've heard ragers yell "cheater!" in the mic when they get repeatedly owned (No, bruh, he wasn't cheating; you just aren't very good.)
I want to see true cheaters SLAMMED, but just because someone goes 50-5 it doesn't necessarily mean they are cheating. They may just be awesome, get all the lucky breaks, and the other team may just royally suck--and I don't want to see anyone reported, because someone got butt-hurt and wanted petty revenge.
I think all things should be considered before we get trigger-happy with the reports.
I have posted this before, but I think it is worth repeating...
"A quick scan of EA patents (source: https://companyprofiles.justia.com/company/electronic-arts) reveal the following:
Secure anti-cheat system
Granted Oct 1, 2019
An anti-cheat system may be accessed over a network and stored directly into volatile memory of a user computing system. In some embodiments, this anti-cheat system may scan, or access portions of, the volatile memory of the user computing system to detect whether cheat software or other unauthorized software that may interact with a game application is detected on the user computing system. The accessed portions of the volatile memory may be compared with one or more signatures that are associated with the execution of cheat software on a computing system. The anti-cheat system may be prevented from being stored within non-volatile memory, thereby preventing malicious users from modifying the anti-cheat system."
So, additional AC could still be added to EAC, as well as player reporting.
@ChugKendall wrote:It's great to see EA step things up to combat cheating, but there is one thing I worry about with such ease of reporting, and the current frenzy about cheating: False positives.
I have watched streams of guys playing FPS games, and some of these guys are truly, amazingly talented. They can destroy an opposing team, and rarely die. They have researched the hot spots on the maps, choose great loadouts for each map, effectively use area-denial tools, properly check corners, use proper teamwork to their advantage, etc. In other words, they play smart.
Are they cheating? From what I have witnessed, no; they are just that good. And I've heard ragers yell "cheater!" in the mic when they get repeatedly owned (No, bruh, he wasn't cheating; you just aren't very good.)
I want to see true cheaters SLAMMED, but just because someone goes 50-5 it doesn't necessarily mean they are cheating. They may just be awesome, get all the lucky breaks, and the other team may just royally suck--and I don't want to see anyone reported, because someone got butt-hurt and wanted petty revenge.
I think all things should be considered before we get trigger-happy with the reports.
True @ChugKendall ,
Just by going 50-3 does not make you a cheater!
And on our servers we run, we often see such great or even much greater scores like 110-20, while we at the same time ban cheaters that despite their cheats just manages to go like 45-37 in a high ticket match. But the trained admin can quickly tell the difference and so can most veteran players. So I am not really worried about false positives, as long as we have solid ways to document the facts. Spectator mode for the admins is one such great tool as are server data loggers on soldier actions/results. Also the ones pushing the 'ban that guy'-button without solid evidence should also be notified about their false reporting (and potential penalty for themselves). Aka Sony does this very well for years, so that is not a problem certainly in the Sony world.
Many players are very loud and aggressive in their mouths also when sharing their opinions with their gamer friends, but they quickly turn more quiet when they understand the reality and have to face the consequences of their own misbehaviors. That counts for all, both the cheaters and the false accusers.
EA is now doing a multitude of new AC things to make BF2042 a better world for us. Now we should embrace it and work together to make it reality!
Just to chime in on the flipside of that 50-5 scenario, while i agree that you can absolutely go that number or better on a meatgrinder server as infantry (or especially HC), it generally means you've been angle camping (which is fine, the point is to grind out the other team's tickets after all and if they walk into your spam over and over, their problem not yours) or playing super cautious/vehicle camping on large conquest maps.
Or, you just run with a well coordinated group that means you can make pushes or such knowing that your flanks are covered or you'll get a rez if you go down, that alone makes a huge difference.
Where i tend to get a little twitchy is when someone is running point in team pushes and constantly downing 3 people when running into the fire of half a team, using whatever max rmp subgun/AR they can get and manage to down 2-3 people each mag while bunnyhopping around like a loon, when that hitrate is pushing the limits of a perfect set of clipped bursts even if you were prone/still/ADS for max spread minimization.
(not to mention using regular optics or irons but still seeing people through all kids of distractions and effects/smoke)
Combine that with always coming out prefiring in the correct spots from chokepoints or timing it *just* right with reloads of the enemy or the second a flank is exposed, not once getting caught facing the wrong way or sweeping into an empty area to make sure nobody is there, because they always seem to pick the right way to run, *those* are the ones at least I use the 50-5 example for in terms of being shady.
Combine that with the obvious explosion of available cheats and use (especially in conjunction with people wanting to "make it" on twitch or youtube) and i generally have a hard time with people who run 10/1 K/Ds round after round while being in the thick of it constantly, nobody has that kind of natural situational awareness unless they're doing what i mentioned in the first paragraph.
Yea, you can play and practice like a fiend, and yes, that does give you quite an advantage, but those gilded bucket players are few and far, far between, but it seems there's a minimum of 2-6 of them on any given server these days, and that's more or less statistically impossible, not to mention they're usually solo/not in a guild group.
(and don't get me started on when they have a ping of 150+ or rank 3 supports running and gunning with the chinese starter lmg like it was an m82 with a box mag)
At that point if i even bother to say anything it's generally "GG, that's one hell of a gaming chair".
All that being said, i don't think there's going to be any more or less false positives insofar as reporting goes, people have and always will report people because they think they're cheating just because they got killed a few times by the same person, or won't report them even if they're fairly sure because you don't want to be "that guy" reporting everything that moves.
For me to bother reporting someone, they basically have to be doing something ala the obvious LMG rund and gun aimbot stuff where it's so blatant there's exactly zero doubt, the rest i'll generally leave to the systems in place.
Exceptions would be seeing them on the killcam "tabbing" through targets through walls or floors/ceilings after they picked me off or "stutter aiming" (where you can see the gun is snapping back every half second to a point even though the player is obviously trying to pan one way or another).
I might report that if i see it repeatedly in a round, but that's about it.
Agreed @Fringerunner ,
Reporting of direct wall/ceiling/floor glitchers will probably be the most dominant and rational thing to be reporting on. As also the burden of proof is fairly straight forward with screenshots/video snip of the observed situation. Next we also have the invisibility pranksters and similar. Again, evidence is fairly easy to capture. If we get the spectator mode, then also all the PC player hacks will be direct visible and reportable for the ordinary players.
The bullet sponging bunny hoppers you refer to though, that often goes round after round with hilarious high k/d scores are an entirely different matter. As when checking their details, they often are not doing anything that can be deemed outright cheating. What we most often can conclude when checking their stats and all, is that they most often are having very questionable network connections to the game server, resulting in missing hit registrations when shooting at them. Aka very far out of region players, from aka Japan or South America playing on a European based server often have a latency of 800+ milliseconds, many even nearer the full 2 seconds! Spice that up with also a high degree of packet loss and you have a toxic cocktail against a fair gameplay experience...
Reason why I sincerely hope that EA will display the ping rates for all players on the scorecard. And most ideal, enable that we can set up our portal servers with criteria to join of latency below a certain threshold value as we may desire. Certainly all the PC players may otherwise be in for a big surprise, when facing high-ping console players that keeps running despite emptying a full clip into their backs. 😦
Still very excited about these great news from EA on the AC toolbox at our disposal now. Look forward to seeing it in action already here next week when we start the beta fun! 👍
@carsono311 At least in the UK that's how it works IP wise... Sever admins ban reset router and back again :P Unless things has drastically changed in last 10+ years.
@ChugKendall wrote:It's great to see EA step things up to combat cheating, but there is one thing I worry about with such ease of reporting, and the current frenzy about cheating: False positives.
I wouldn't worry about it. I'm one of the most highly reported players in BF1 on PC and I've never been false banned. And that's after at least 100 different people reporting me for cheating in BF1.
@1Hairy-GorillaYour router at home is using a public, static IP address. You might get a different local, private IP on your computer at home upon reset, but the public is static. This is pretty standard worldwide.
VPN IP addressing is the same and I would expect commonly used VPN services have known static IP blocks that could be preemptively blocked if EA DICE so chooses… but I doubt it.
@carsono311 All I know is some salty admin banned me and was back after a few minutes.
No you have to give a static IP to a device over here if you want to.
German Providers and public ipv4 adresses:
Telekom - forced new ipv4 adress every 24h
Vodafone DSL - forced new ipv4 adress every 24h
Vodafone Cable - forced new ipv4 adress about 180 days, if you reboot your router new ip adress with every reboot
1 & 1 - forced new ipv4 adress every 24h
O2Online - forced new ipv4 adress every 24h
and the list goes on ...
In Germany we need to pay an extra fee or to have a business contract to get a static public adress
@frantaypsWell I take it back… does the 24 hour static stay in place or does a reboot change it as previously mentioned?
@kregoraOkay, interesting. So the IPv6 address traffic is forwarded to an IPv4 and both are dynamically assigned on a 24hr timer… interesting.
Makes sense, however what about inbound traffic? Does the ISP vlan it? Centrally managing the router configs / ARPs seems simple enough…
@carsono311Inbound traffic that is initiated from the outside usually doesn't work. So your home network can be a VPN client, but can't be a VPN server for example.
I assume the ISPs use NAT/IP Masquerading to realize this, similar to what the home network router is doing.
Every Router reconnect forces a fresh ipv4 address.
AND on top of that
Every 24h you have a forced disconnect reconnect with your router from the providers side.
So if a player gets an IP ban in the IP-Range my internet provider. Chances (in time) for me are getting higher that i get assigned a previously banned ip.
The ipv6 / ipv4 Dual Stack (lite) is described here:
@frantaypsYeah. I thought of the possibility of getting a “recycled” IP, but had assumed the overall shared block would be large enough for it to be a lower likelihood… but perhaps not. Only helps us keep the cheaters out!
What do you mean that's not how it works?
Optionally you can reboot your router. Doing this on mine ALWAYS gives me a new IP.
Bruh I'm getting a new Public IP on router restart AND when I do ipconfig/renew.
My ISP is Verizon. I have Fios Fiber...Dynamic IP Address. Every time we get a power outage (hurricanes) my Public IP Adress changes on router/modem power up. Same applies to Ipconfig/Renew.
I have a few dev domains that can only be accessed via hardcoded IP. So each time any of this occurs, or my ISP updates my address I have to update the database.
I cant wait to see how well it does!
I agree @Rev0verDrive ,
The IP bans are no longer a viable option, as most ISP these days issue their IPs dynamically ad-hoc on new connection requests, and some even refresh on 24h shifts as you highlight.
Its actually because many ISPs have started to monetize providing an exclusive and fixed IP as a premium service to some of their clients. So YES, you can get a fixed IP, but you have to pay extra for it! 😀 The rest of us cheap gamers connecting through our local ISP just have to be happy with whatever IP they assign us at the time and place...
The only place where IP bans still works, is if wanting to avoid users to login through VPN connections, as the VPN vendors have a static IP address range pool they own, so to speak. And that is publicly kept up to date globally by IANA (function under ICANN). Many may object to this, as there are thousands of alternative VPN service providers out there. But they do all not to confirm with the intl norms for connecting their service to the net. And the simple use of BGP and DNS hostname lookup is providing info if a given connecting IP is belonging to a VPN service.
Anyway, the most solid approach forward for EA (and all of us!) in this domain to ban a given user is to issue a ban to individual game licenses and potentially combined with or on top also a ban on the client's hardware finger print. The AC is running on the kernel, so its not for the ordinary dimwit to circumnavigate. And to get back on for a previous banned cheater will always incur then a substantial cost to culprit. And in all circumstances, the original soldier in the game is no longer active, so it will be starting all over from scratch with a new soldier from XP=0.
No warnings and no silly temporary suspensions anymore.
Play fair by the rules or you are out!
Just this last point is a huge improvement versus previous and makes me confident the fair-play results will be substantial, making the BF2042 eco-system a great place to have fun for the next many years out!
@CyberDyme Yeah the whole IP thing to me is fluff. I've been PC MP gaming since the early 90's and it's never worked like it was supposed to. Client-side AC in my experience is also a pipe dream. Even at kernel level, dkom cheats have higher authority.
AC should always start at the game level. In the character class, weapon class, game mode/state, player state etc. Never trust the client. Validate and scrutinize at the server before replicating the action/event. Then add client-side ac to reduce server overhead (script kiddy).
I work with UE4/5 and this is one of the core fundamentals of my class foundations. Client inits an event, some action happens locally, a request (RPC) is sent to the server to replicate it over the network. Server scrutinizes, if valid the server auths it and then replicates over the network. Otherwise the instigating client is corrected and flagged where need be.
Builds are bigger, server needs more resources etc. But its worth it.
My only problem with all of it is the potential for False Bans where toxic people report innocent players who might be doing great without cheating in order to get them banned.
I might only play with the AI Soldiers in Solo and Private matches for All Out Warfare and Portal until I see how it goes and whether or not there are a lot of false bans.
