Devs, sort out daily climb please

[Banzai]

This was an issue in STS1 but I honestly just ignored it since there were a couple of people who cheated the leaderboard over many years and after many people flagging it on that games forum nothing was done.

After picking this up yesterday I see that the same problem exists but magnified many times.

As a brand new game thats still being optimised and fixed, surely you can do something about this? And pls, if im wrong and its actually possible to get scores of 1m+ (2 billion for top guy) then let me know what im doing wrong.

Is such a shame since I been mostly enjoying the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3703456069

[junkevil]

Leaderboards with hackers in them? sad times, indeed. not like in the old days when the leaderboards were infested with hackers.

[Banzai]

Originally posted by junkevil:

Leaderboards with hackers in them? sad times, indeed. not like in the old days when the leaderboards were infested with hackers.

So its ok then? Impossible to sort out? And no, in STS1 there were a handful of people who did it on a regular basis and the game by then was finished and fully released. Since this is still in EA, surely the devs can have a look at this problem?

[junkevil]

It's not okay, it's lame. but it's an issue that exists in leaderboards everywhere and if you know you're competing with a bunch of cheaters then what does it matter? I did an A10 run earlier and got around 2500 points. I thought that was pretty good.

[Banzai]

Originally posted by junkevil:

It's not okay, it's lame. but it's an issue that exists in leaderboards everywhere and if you know you're competing with a bunch of cheaters then what does it matter? I did an A10 run earlier and got around 2500 points. I thought that was pretty good.

Kind of hoped that the devs might fix something in Slay2 that existed in 1. Is it really that hard for them to fix a problem of this sort while they are still actively developing the game? And maybe it is. I would have thought that they should be able to patch such exploits though. Just disappointing that an issue from the first game still exists here and hasnt been addressed.

And ofc we know when we have had a good run. Not really the point in this instance though. If people can just pretend to have scores in the millions/billions then why have a leaderboard feature at all?

[Crocosmile]

The logistics of fixing it is probably too hard for it to be worth it, as evidenced by every single game I ever played with a leaderboard had this issue...

Besides even if they fixed the scores of ppl with 18 quadrillion points, the hackers would just make the highest number they could thats still within a close range of the true highest score.

Its very easy to say "just fix it" when you know nothing about how "it" happens or what it involves.

[Banzai]

Originally posted by NearAngel:

The logistics of fixing it is probably too hard for it to be worth it, as evidenced by every single game I ever played with a leaderboard had this issue...

Besides even if they fixed the scores of ppl with 18 quadrillion points, the hackers would just make the highest number they could thats still within a close range of the true highest score.

Its very easy to say "just fix it" when you know nothing about how "it" happens or what it involves.

Freely admit I dont know how hard it would be to fix. Thats why i suggested the devs look at it. Bet they could work it out. Game is a couple of weeks old. Not unreasonable to ask them to at least try, especially while the game is still in EA.

[♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥]

They talked about this issue in the most recent patch notes. Mega Crit don't see a possibility to implement meaningful anticheat without invasive programming, so they're not going to.

The beta patch makes it so you only see your friends' scores by default.

[Banzai]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

They talked about this issue in the most recent patch notes. Mega Crit don't see a possibility to implement meaningful anticheat without invasive programming, so they're not going to.

The beta patch makes it so you only see your friends' scores by default.

Ok, this is helpful. I hadnt seen this from the devs so thanks for directing me to the news post.

Massive cop out from them tbh and extremely disappointing that they just say "sry guys, cant stop 'em cheating!" but at least they have made their opinion clear on the matter.

[Only Zuul]

Originally posted by Banzai:

Impossible to sort out?

Without implementing invasive anti-cheat that needs access to every single part of your computer, and that you have absolute zero control over as a legitimate player? Yes, that is impossible.

The question is whether you want legitimate players to have their privacy completely stripped away, their control over both software and hardware between diminished and lost, and some cheaters *still* slipping through OR if can find a way to emotionally deal with the fact that losers are going to cheat in games no matter what you think, say, or do.

I suppose the third option is to invent an effective anti-cheat that does not have any of the drawbacks. You would be a billionaire after licensing it to every major developer and publisher in the world.

[JermioneGranger]

Originally posted by Banzai:

Massive cop out from them tbh and extremely disappointing that they just say "sry guys, cant stop 'em cheating!" but at least they have made their opinion clear on the matter.

Not really. It is insanely hard to stop cheaters, and basically impossible without some kind of intrusive anticheat. Look at FPSes and how they can't stop cheaters either. There isn't really much Megacrit can realistically do.

[Banzai]

Originally posted by JermioneGranger:

Originally posted by Banzai:

Massive cop out from them tbh and extremely disappointing that they just say "sry guys, cant stop 'em cheating!" but at least they have made their opinion clear on the matter.

Not really. It is insanely hard to stop cheaters, and basically impossible without some kind of intrusive anticheat. Look at FPSes and how they can't stop cheaters either. There isn't really much Megacrit can realistically do.

Nah sry, but thats still a cop out. All it would take is the score being calculated server side. Wouldnt be very hard for an automated system to look at the decisions taken at every point in the run and work out an accurate score. Its a step above us just sending in our score and saying "this what I did, honest!" but is hardly beyond the realms of possibility.

For the record, Monster Train 2 does this. No cheaters on the daily leaderboards there, and as a side benefit you can look at literally any players deck and what they did in every fight.

And ofc some people will try and exploit games. Client side hacks are one thing (and not easy to stop) but server side ones are orders of magnitude harder.

[landmullet]

Just enjoy being creative with the daily... it's great for adaptability, flexibility and mixing it up with combinations one wouldn't normally choose.
No point caring about who is on top... just have fun.

[lordatog]

Originally posted by Banzai:

Originally posted by JermioneGranger:

Not really. It is insanely hard to stop cheaters, and basically impossible without some kind of intrusive anticheat. Look at FPSes and how they can't stop cheaters either. There isn't really much Megacrit can realistically do.

Nah sry, but thats still a cop out. All it would take is the score being calculated server side. Wouldnt be very hard for an automated system to look at the decisions taken at every point in the run and work out an accurate score. Its a step above us just sending in our score and saying "this what I did, honest!" but is hardly beyond the realms of possibility.

For the record, Monster Train 2 does this. No cheaters on the daily leaderboards there, and as a side benefit you can look at literally any players deck and what they did in every fight.

And ofc some people will try and exploit games. Client side hacks are one thing (and not easy to stop) but server side ones are orders of magnitude harder.

I agree this would work, but I disagree that it would be easy. This would require the game to track every choice made at every point in the entire run, then upon submission it would need to run through all of it, essentially simulating the whole run from scratch, in order to validate. That's not necessarily impossible, but it's not necessarily realistic, either. It's going to depend on a lot of factors under the hood that neither of us have access to.

Good on Monster Train for pulling it off, but a run of Monster Train involves significantly fewer actions than a run of StS, and also has a cap - every fight must end within a certain maximum number of rounds. StS has no such cap, and even if most runs end in a reasonable timeframe, not all will.

[Annalog]

Even just capping the Daily at 10k if the maximum amount of points you could realistically get is 5k-8k would be nice. If submitted_score > 10000, discard submitted_score.

Can they still figure out the maximum? Yeah, but it is just depressing to see the leaderboards full of botched scores. No it's not game breaking, but dang man, we don't have anything to do about that? Can't shadowban the same dozen people that do it on the daily?

I do hope they figure something out, because seeing what the playerbase can pull off is always fun in a game. And this, like I said, is just depressing. Womp womp, no idea what a realistic score even is. Did I do well? Did someone find a more broken deck? Who can say.

[Julez]

Originally posted by Annalog:

I do hope they figure something out, because seeing what the playerbase can pull off is always fun in a game. And this, like I said, is just depressing. Womp womp, no idea what a realistic score even is. Did I do well? Did someone find a more broken deck? Who can say.

They did vaguely mention that magic numbers won't be a thing anymore, meaning the scoring should be more transparent. This way, we should be able to tell which scores are realistic and how exactly they came to be.

But I suspect we'll just get a wall of perfect scores to scroll through, until you reach some less obvious vanity cheaters mixed with some genuinely good scores.