Cheating in Gray Zone Warfare

[YeeYeet]

I'll start off by asking a question.

If you cheat and when caught will you get banned? Sure. The real question is, if you cheat and get banned does this mean you will have to create another steam account and purchase the game once again?

I figure if you cheat and get banned you will have to go through the trouble of creating a new account and re-purchasing the game (somewhat effective).

Services like ID.me could be a more sufficient way to play, there being that you will have to verify your true identity in order to create an account, in order to play. (extremely effective)


***TYPES OF BANS***
--IP Bans (less effective) Is not a recommended form of banishment.

--Account Bans (moderately effective) Is the typical way of doing it.

--HWID (Hardware ID) Bans (reasonably effective) Does this game support it? If not, maybe it should be considered.

--False bans (annoying) If you get banned (any type of ban) Will players get the option to appeal it and have the issue resolved within a few hours or days? Hopefully appeals can be resolved in a matter of an hour or so.

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Last question and it is up for debate,

Is there a way the game developer or a service provider (steam "for example") is able to implement a way to VERIFY the game files Before and After launch to make completely sure no other files are attached to the game files? Sure it'll take the game a little longer to load up, but I think it's worth it for sure.

Computer science is a big thing and I believe we are very close, if not there yet to having a clean, unbeatable gaming industry without the possibility of cheats and hacks.

Exploits are always going to be there, until fixed. Time and patience will resolve that problem, too.

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If you guys have any ideas or statements/questions that I haven't covered today, please feel free to announce them here.

Thank you and have a great day.

[Eightball]

Just wait for AI anti cheat. Probably soon. Otherwise i'm down for whatever service ID's me, preferably with a passport. GL getting a new passport if you get banned. I think an RL ID service is sorely needed to combat cheating. Or AI anti cheat, either of these is really the only true way forward IMO.

[YeeYeet]

Originally posted by Eightball:

Just wait for AI anti cheat. Probably soon. Otherwise i'm down for whatever service ID's me, preferably with a passport. GL getting a new passport if you get banned. I think an RL ID service is sorely needed to combat cheating. Or AI anti cheat, either of these is really the only true way forward IMO.

It's just a matter of how far developers are willing to go.

[Groblidor]

i doubt small games like this will ever use anything beyond EAC

[YeeYeet]

Originally posted by Groblidor:

i doubt small games like this will ever use anything beyond EAC

We will never foresee what the future holds. You may be surprised, one day. Take a look at how far technology has evolved.

[Reese]

I'll just address via paragraph.

1. Go for it.
2. At the moment, family sharing is an option, no need to purchase the game again(currently).
3. above
4. 100% against verifying my "true identity" just to play a game. Improve anti-cheat. I know it's difficult, but a good base can truly help future development to prevent damage down the road.

********

IP bans are indeed bad, especially with how some service providers use IP addresses. These days with IPV6 it wouldn't be so bad, but accidental punishment to real players that adopt an existing IP that's banned is a problem.

Account bans wouldn't be awful. Zero tolerance with confirmed cheaters hurts their wallet, but if someone is paying for cheats, paying for a new copy of the game won't be a big deterrent.

HWID bans are annoying. They're frustrating and get rid of the money-issue. If you instantly get banned just because of a matching HWID, it gets annoying quick. It's very effective but if players decide to no longer be a cheat, then it can cause issues with game health down the line.

All bans should be appealable. At that point it should be verified that there is sufficient evidence of cheating before denying an appeal. RuneScape gave the chance for players to appeal almost any ban and it would be manually reviewed. Years of "macroing" on many accounts, I was able to get all of them unbanned except my original main account. It was deserved, so I don't mind the refusal to unban, but I am grateful that they gave the opportunity to appeal in the first place.

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5. Generally cheats are added at runtime. They aren't installed. It's in memory, that's it. You can detect if that memory is being violated in an unapproved manner, but that alone isn't suspect for cheating. Anti-virus software will sometimes do that. You also have things like recording software that "hook" to the game via memory to provide proper screen recording. If you've used OBS, you may have noticed an option "Anti-cheat compatibility hook." These work the same way as cheats do.
6. You're very wrong. Even before all this fancy new AI detection stuff, the best way to stop cheaters was to detect them better. Cheats will never be undetectable, it's just a matter of how much you want to involve those who aren't cheating. It's like Denuvo DRM when that became a popular way to prevent piracy. When used effectively, it makes performance absolutely awful. I'm sure you're aware of how poorly GZW runs for most players. Imagine that 10 times worse.

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Once upon a time I used to provide support for paid cheats in popular FPS games, and eventually DayZ. Once DayZ started banning players with no easy way to start a new account, that's when I got out of cheating altogether.


At the end of the day, you can not prevent cheating. You can only discourage it and actively fight against it. With enough will, any anti-cheat can be bypassed. The best anti-cheat is player reporting with manual observation of GM. Maybe AI might be able to help with this issue, but certainly not to the extent that people give AI credit.

[Chef_423]

Originally posted by YeeYeet:

Originally posted by Groblidor:

i doubt small games like this will ever use anything beyond EAC

We will never foresee what the future holds. You may be surprised, one day. Take a look at how far technology has evolved.

'Technology'

[Chef_423]

Originally posted by Reese:

I'll just address via paragraph.

1. Go for it.
2. At the moment, family sharing is an option, no need to purchase the game again(currently).
3. above
4. 100% against verifying my "true identity" just to play a game. Improve anti-cheat. I know it's difficult, but a good base can truly help future development to prevent damage down the road.

********

IP bans are indeed bad, especially with how some service providers use IP addresses. These days with IPV6 it wouldn't be so bad, but accidental punishment to real players that adopt an existing IP that's banned is a problem.

Account bans wouldn't be awful. Zero tolerance with confirmed cheaters hurts their wallet, but if someone is paying for cheats, paying for a new copy of the game won't be a big deterrent.

HWID bans are annoying. They're frustrating and get rid of the money-issue. If you instantly get banned just because of a matching HWID, it gets annoying quick. It's very effective but if players decide to no longer be a cheat, then it can cause issues with game health down the line.

All bans should be appealable. At that point it should be verified that there is sufficient evidence of cheating before denying an appeal. RuneScape gave the chance for players to appeal almost any ban and it would be manually reviewed. Years of "macroing" on many accounts, I was able to get all of them unbanned except my original main account. It was deserved, so I don't mind the refusal to unban, but I am grateful that they gave the opportunity to appeal in the first place.

----
----

5. Generally cheats are added at runtime. They aren't installed. It's in memory, that's it. You can detect if that memory is being violated in an unapproved manner, but that alone isn't suspect for cheating. Anti-virus software will sometimes do that. You also have things like recording software that "hook" to the game via memory to provide proper screen recording. If you've used OBS, you may have noticed an option "Anti-cheat compatibility hook." These work the same way as cheats do.
6. You're very wrong. Even before all this fancy new AI detection stuff, the best way to stop cheaters was to detect them better. Cheats will never be undetectable, it's just a matter of how much you want to involve those who aren't cheating. It's like Denuvo DRM when that became a popular way to prevent piracy. When used effectively, it makes performance absolutely awful. I'm sure you're aware of how poorly GZW runs for most players. Imagine that 10 times worse.

----
----

Once upon a time I used to provide support for paid cheats in popular FPS games, and eventually DayZ. Once DayZ started banning players with no easy way to start a new account, that's when I got out of cheating altogether.


At the end of the day, you can not prevent cheating. You can only discourage it and actively fight against it. With enough will, any anti-cheat can be bypassed. The best anti-cheat is player reporting with manual observation of GM. Maybe AI might be able to help with this issue, but certainly not to the extent that people give AI credit.

Whats your point in cheating? There are enough D-Bags in the world. STOP IT.

[☠️ 𝕄𝔸𝕐ℍ𝔼𝕄]

Originally posted by YeeYeet:

I'll start off by asking a question.

If you cheat and when caught will you get banned? Sure. The real question is, if you cheat and get banned does this mean you will have to create another steam account and purchase the game once again?

I figure if you cheat and get banned you will have to go through the trouble of creating a new account and re-purchasing the game (somewhat effective).

Services like ID.me could be a more sufficient way to play, there being that you will have to verify your true identity in order to create an account, in order to play. (extremely effective)


***TYPES OF BANS***
--IP Bans (less effective) Is not a recommended form of banishment.

--Account Bans (moderately effective) Is the typical way of doing it.

--HWID (Hardware ID) Bans (reasonably effective) Does this game support it? If not, maybe it should be considered.

--False bans (annoying) If you get banned (any type of ban) Will players get the option to appeal it and have the issue resolved within a few hours or days? Hopefully appeals can be resolved in a matter of an hour or so.

---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------

Last question and it is up for debate,

Is there a way the game developer or a service provider (steam "for example") is able to implement a way to VERIFY the game files Before and After launch to make completely sure no other files are attached to the game files? Sure it'll take the game a little longer to load up, but I think it's worth it for sure.

Computer science is a big thing and I believe we are very close, if not there yet to having a clean, unbeatable gaming industry without the possibility of cheats and hacks.

Exploits are always going to be there, until fixed. Time and patience will resolve that problem, too.

---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------

If you guys have any ideas or statements/questions that I haven't covered today, please feel free to announce them here.

Thank you and have a great day.

lol you cannot stop cheating there is no anticheat on the planet or punishment great enough to ever stop it you are very misinformed if you think gaming is close to even slowing down cheating. while money exists its about as likely as the drug trade collapsing.

[YeeYeet]

I am against cheating and will never see a point in doing so. All it does is ruin the gaming experience, from head to toe.

Honestly, I've never learned nor was I trained in Computer Science, coding, creating, etc.. but if I did, I would love to spend every other week, if not every week researching and coming up with ideas on how to really make it effective.

Cheating is awful and should not ruin such a wonderful game, such as GZW.

[Deadly Chicken XoP']

someone found the SDK for anybrain anticheat in the game files, so even if its not in there yet it potentially will use AI learning to learn and fingerprint players so that even if they get a new steam and a new computer the way they play will be recognised and they can be rebanned.

how about just dont cheat ;)

[Kalimeru]

Cheating in a game is a controversial dilemma. No one can ban you, specially until the game is not ready. You paid for a game so you have the right to play it. It's a responsibility of the studio to fight and correct the exploits. When you cheat, you are only using a vulnerability of the game. Everyone is a coder in this new era but most of them are copy/paste tools. When problems arise, them they try to push it for us, the users, that are paying for all this. Most of the time, cheating is only possible because of bad code.

[The ProfzZ]

Originally posted by YeeYeet:

I'll start off by asking a question.

If you cheat and when caught will you get banned? Sure. The real question is, if you cheat and get banned does this mean you will have to create another steam account and purchase the game once again?

I figure if you cheat and get banned you will have to go through the trouble of creating a new account and re-purchasing the game (somewhat effective).

Services like ID.me could be a more sufficient way to play, there being that you will have to verify your true identity in order to create an account, in order to play. (extremely effective)

This is fing insane, bro. LOL. Government ID to play games, ayfkm? 🤣
Are you Chinese or something?

Computer science is a big thing and I believe we are very close, if not there yet to having a clean, unbeatable gaming industry without the possibility of cheats and hacks.

Exploits are always going to be there, until fixed. Time and patience will resolve that problem, too.

Err, no.
Not even with "AI". Cheat devs can use AI too, you know. It's not a one-way alleyway.
Cheating and hacking will always exist. There is a type of people that vehemently enjoys working around security measures. They will pick everything and anything apart to try and fool the system. Some might then commercialize, but you'll never stop people "security researching".

DMA and aimbots with webcam/phone pointed at the screen and an arduino controlled mouse exist.

Originally posted by Eightball:

Just wait for AI anti cheat. Probably soon. Otherwise i'm down for whatever service ID's me, preferably with a passport. GL getting a new passport if you get banned. I think an RL ID service is sorely needed to combat cheating. Or AI anti cheat, either of these is really the only true way forward IMO.

Getting a passport isn't always feasible for everyone. I've never held one, never needed it, and I'm not about to pay 150 Euros to get one, either.

Not to mention all the data breaches, poor security, and not to mention false IDs you can easily buy on the darknet (really.), and it is beyond understanding how people would just willingly take it up the bum like that.