Foliage hiding / wallhack / aimbot

[Major Bungholio]

Hello,
I really like this game, but yesterday was a big drawback - as soon as a game rises in MP, cheaters/bug-/expoit-users will come.

I saw at least two people (I don't know names or steam-profiles, how should I?) on two different servers, who were obviously

• either not displaying bushes/foliage on their PC
  
• or using a wallhack
  
• or using an aimbot

so they could shoot anyone easily without being seen by any opponent.

As I don't know WHO was killing me, what can I do? Even with admins on the server, how am I supposed to point at the cheater? The only actual solution would be (IF you see the guy using five tickets from your team and always go back to your previous death-spot) to know where he is, then switch the team, go there to verify the behavior of this guy and report him to a local admin (if available). But this will take at least 15 minutes of a match. Not very fun.

Desired solutions:

1. We seriously need killcams at the end of a match or replays/demos, where you can easily switch between every player in the game and verify abusing behavior.
   
2. We need a reporting mechanism and ban(wave)s. Adding feedback for previous reports would be nice.

[SnazzyDuckling]

Originally posted by DumbNumpty:

Originally posted by 2.FJgSnazzyDuckling-ENG:

Please remember that sharing links to cheats and hacks are against the guidelines. (This includes youtube videos or other material featuring it)

That is a completely ridiculous stance, denial that they exist and censorship to game flaws that allow cheats.
Cheats should be published so then the community knows exactly what they are and how to spot them, so that they can report.
Keeping the community blind and ignorant allows those who employ them to go undetected.

We're not denying their existence. But sharing links to said cheats are still violation of our guidelines.

[Winter Fritz]

Originally posted by Major ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Hello,
I really like this game, but yesterday was a big drawback - as soon as a game rises in MP, cheaters/bug-/expoit-users will come.

I saw at least two people (I don't know names or steam-profiles, how should I?) on two different servers, who were obviously

• either not displaying bushes/foliage on their PC
  
• or using a wallhack
  
• or using an aimbot

so they could shoot anyone easily without being seen by any opponent.

As I don't know WHO was killing me, what can I do? Even with admins on the server, how am I supposed to point at the cheater? The only actual solution would be (IF you see the guy using five tickets from your team and always go back to your previous death-spot) to know where he is, then switch the team, go there to verify the behavior of this guy and report him to a local admin (if available). But this will take at least 15 minutes of a match. Not very fun.

Desired solutions:

1. We seriously need killcams at the end of a match or replays/demos, where you can easily switch between every player in the game and verify abusing behavior.
   
2. We need a reporting mechanism and ban(wave)s. Adding feedback for previous reports would be nice.

Yeah, I encountered an aimbotter the other day. Killed the entire squad a few times over with one-shot kills from miles away.

Aimbots could really ruin this game which has so much potential otherwise.

I agree that a replay mode would be a great addition. I't would help identify cheaters and would be much more rewarding than an achievment system. I really don't play this game for achievments anyway. I play because the physics just feel right and it feels like every shot counts. Aimbots will ruin that and could ultimately doom Post Scriptum to becoming a very frustrating and unplayable experience. But a replay mode would weed out the aimbots and let us relive our greatest moments. I think one of the previous iterations of COD had a replay feature. It was the only thing I ever enjoyed about COD.

[Andy]

The trouble with replay/kill cams is they give you a view of the player that killed you while you are in communication with the rest of your squad.
There would also be alot of people that might, having seen one enemy at X. Assume he's not alone and start fireing in the bushes leading up to X.
On the kill cam, it's someone that can't see you shoots you. Mabee a fellow squad member aswell. Will create alot of false positives.


I think instead we should be asking what easy anti cheat is going to do about the hack.
But alas, for me thier support page won't load on thier website.

[✚Panzerlang✚]

Admins should have spectator-mode available to them, so they can catch these vermin and have their game perma-banned at Steam root-level.

[Josh]

as soon as they will bring a kill cam, i am out of this game, and many others too. Its not an acarde s h i t , its like a simulation. A stupid kill cam is for kids or cod players and will not be welcome here.
I also saw a lot of peeps who doesnt understand the game...a MG gunner for example got a medic next to him as spotter with binocs, and thy dont have to see anyone. they just shoot at a point where they believe someone is movin. If i saw nme far away with me rifle or hear some shootin....i just empty my clip in that direction, and sometimes i a hit someone.
PEEPS realy need to understand this is not BF or COD or CC or others acarde junk.

[Major Bungholio]

Originally posted by KGW~Panzerlang:

Admins should have spectator-mode available to them, so they can catch these vermin and have their game perma-banned at Steam root-level.

Giving a person, who is only qualified by owning/adminster a server, should not be allowed to ban people on "steam root level". Thats BS, sorry.
I agree that a ban on a server should be reported to the devs. If one guy is constantly (2 times?) banned from servers within a week, he could be banned from the game. Just one example.

Originally posted by Andy:

The trouble with replay/kill cams is they give you a view of the player that killed you while you are in communication with the rest of your squad.
There would also be alot of people that might, having seen one enemy at X. Assume he's not alone and start fireing in the bushes leading up to X.
On the kill cam, it's someone that can't see you shoots you. Mabee a fellow squad member aswell. Will create alot of false positives.

Originally posted by SdKfz234:

as soon as they will bring a kill cam, i am out of this game, and many others too. Its not an acarde s h i t , its like a simulation. A stupid kill cam is for kids or cod players and will not be welcome here.

@SDKFZ: Please do not rage like an aggressive kid loosing its toy. ;-)

As soon as I said "kill-cam", I also mentioned, that this should be available AFTER the match to avoid these situations. An instant kill cam is OK for fast paced gameplay, but not PS.
Let's say that after the match (while looking at the scoreboard), all shots that killed you, are being replayed, so you see every death of yourself in another perspective. If you could flag someone as possible cheater suspect, this would be nice. An admin could replay these kills somewhen to ban locally on his server. Devs/EAC guys could ban on a higher level.

[Andy]

Originally posted by Major ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Originally posted by Andy:

The trouble with replay/kill cams is they give you a view of the player that killed you while you are in communication with the rest of your squad.
There would also be alot of people that might, having seen one enemy at X. Assume he's not alone and start fireing in the bushes leading up to X.
On the kill cam, it's someone that can't see you shoots you. Mabee a fellow squad member aswell. Will create alot of false positives.

As soon as I said "kill-cam", I also mentioned, that this should be available AFTER the match to avoid these situations. An instant kill cam is OK for fast paced gameplay, but not PS.
Let's say that after the match (while looking at the scoreboard), all shots that killed you, are being replayed, so you see every death of yourself in another perspective. If you could flag someone as possible cheater suspect, this would be nice. An admin could replay these kills somewhen to ban locally on his server. Devs/EAC guys could ban on a higher level.

If you get shot 20 times, that means the system needs to save files for you being killed 20 times.
I'm not sure that's practical given the trouble in game already with optimisation/memory leaks etc.
You've still got the problem of false positives aswell. If you just see someone shooting through a bush as your kill cam. Outside of context, that can look like hakers.
If however, they saw someone infront of you 30 seconds early, and preceded to shoot 10 rounds alone the bush line. Your seeing that 1 shot that kills you out of context
Getting yourself on a clan server and hoping an admin notices high kill counts/unusual behaviour is probably the best way to avoid hackers at the moment.
You can use the text chat to highlight odd behaviour aswell.
Not always going to be an admin there though.

[Major Bungholio]

Originally posted by Andy:

If you get shot 20 times, that means the system needs to save files for you being killed 20 times.

I would ammediately fire my dev, if he would save 20 movie files for 20 deaths on a local machine, which are sent from the server or something like this.

One single replay file (no movie, just the server communication, which is sent anyway to your client) is saved. This replay file is somewhere at (lets say) 15MB on your client. Again - this is transferred to you ANYWAY, it is just saved now and can be replayed in different perspectives etc.

For 20 kills, you only save two single values:
-The suspect's ID/name/whatever to manage your camera POV for the replay.
-The time position of the replay.

Both values can be generated at your machine, so no additional server-client communication is needed. Let's say the last replay is autosaved and overwritten after each match. But you can save into a separate file on demand.

You can even replay the WHOLE match, if there is a simple timeline, where you can skip to any position in time. So even if you see the kill in a wrong context at first, you can just watch
a larger timeframe.

If there is a claimed positive cheater (for you), it should be possible to view other kills of this guy, too. So if this guy shoots 40 people throught bushes etc. this should be a real positive.

[Barrelz]

Kill cams would be the very worst idea to bring to this title. It would ridicule any attempt at realism. Please do not mock the genre with such an arcady gimmick.
I think panzerlangs idea of a spectator mode is the best idea so far.

In other news, Panzerlang, you got banned? Not surprised really, you really did get quite personal with the devs.

[el cid]

i am experienced with this game now and 3 times in a match i got killed from behind while crawling in cover, they just run up to you shooting you from behind like they know it is safe to do so to me that is too fishy, i feel it is happening more and more now since release.

[Andy]

Originally posted by Major ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Originally posted by Andy:

If you get shot 20 times, that means the system needs to save files for you being killed 20 times.

I would ammediately fire my dev, if he would save 20 movie files for 20 deaths on a local machine, which are sent from the server or something like this.

One single replay file (no movie, just the server communication, which is sent anyway to your client) is saved. This replay file is somewhere at (lets say) 15MB on your client. Again - this is transferred to you ANYWAY, it is just saved now and can be replayed in different perspectives etc.

For 20 kills, you only save two single values:
-The suspect's ID/name/whatever to manage your camera POV for the replay.
-The time position of the replay.

Both values can be generated at your machine, so no additional server-client communication is needed. Let's say the last replay is autosaved and overwritten after each match. But you can save into a separate file on demand.

You can even replay the WHOLE match, if there is a simple timeline, where you can skip to any position in time. So even if you see the kill in a wrong context at first, you can just watch
a larger timeframe.

If there is a claimed positive cheater (for you), it should be possible to view other kills of this guy, too. So if this guy shoots 40 people throught bushes etc. this should be a real positive.

If they can do that. That would be great.
The only time i've seen anything like that implemented was in Iracing. Where the replay is saved as a data scource, rather than a video file.
But it did allow you to view from other players view points aswell.

I don't know of the pheasability of having that system in this title though. But if it could be done. And was only available to view at the end of the round. That would be great.

[A Real Firecracker]

I dunno about all of this video storage talk. Server admins need the ability to view players who they suspect from first person and there needs to be a statistical based tracking system.

Neither of those methods are fool-proof. So, in addition, there needs to be a competent hack detection team that can keep up with the new hacks as they're modified to undetectable.

Huge companies with tremendous resources aren't able to keep up with the hack makers, so, unforutnately, I can't imagine this develper being able to keep up either. But something has to be done to ban the accounts of the hackers and begin to weed them out by forcing them to buy new accounts.

[Major Bungholio]

Originally posted by Barrelz:

Kill cams would be the very worst idea to bring to this title. It would ridicule any attempt at realism. Please do not mock the genre with such an arcady gimmick.

Whats wrong about killcams as I mentioned one post before? If you first need spectators to inspect suspects.... this can take time.
Don't get me wrong - I would like a spectator mode so much, but killcam at the end of a round would be such a nice feature.

Originally posted by II-1stGa BCpl.El Cid:

i am experienced with this game now and 3 times in a match i got killed from behind while crawling in cover, they just run up to you shooting you from behind like they know it is safe to do so to me that is too fishy, i feel it is happening more and more now since release.

Crawling at wrong positions? :D Crawl as a squad to make sure you can support each other.
The better question is - even if they know it's save: Why IS it save? Because you're a lone wolf with your squad 3km away from you? ;-) Upcoming enemies should be easily taken out by your mates who cover you.

Originally posted by Andy:

If they can do that. That would be great.
The only time i've seen anything like that implemented was in Iracing. Where the replay is saved as a data scource, rather than a video file.

Just two examples:
-Counter Strike (1.X, Condition Zero, Source) as a shooter. CSGO has another approach, but this can only be done, if you have so much more computation and storage power like these mainstream games. But that is not necessary for PS.
-Company of Heroes 1 & 2 as an RTS.

Originally posted by Conga-Line Bob:

I dunno about all of this video storage talk. Server admins need the ability to view players who they suspect from first person and there needs to be a statistical based tracking system.

Neither of those methods are fool-proof. So, in addition, there needs to be a competent hack detection team that can keep up with the new hacks as they're modified to undetectable.

Huge companies with tremendous resources aren't able to keep up with the hack makers, so, unforutnately, I can't imagine this develper being able to keep up either. But something has to be done to ban the accounts of the hackers and begin to weed them out by forcing them to buy new accounts.

Nice post :-)
I think all Anti-Cheat tools are somewhat weird. They claim they protect us from cheating, but they only protect us from well-known cheats, which are available right now and already identified. It's like a anti-virus software.

As soon as a new cheat is developed and sold, the devs have to adapt their anticheat for this particular cheat. This can take time. So we're doomed while this is not done. Crowd-based approaches are more fool-proof. Humans can detect anormal behavior and suspicous mouse movement without inspecting any cheat software. If a guy is banned from 5 servers for cheating, ..... so what the heck?

But 1st: Luckily PS isn't such a BIG player like other mainstream games, so people are not investing that much for cheats here.
2nd: PS has no ladder, global progression or in-match leveling. The only benefit is a smaaaaaall number at the end of a round.

[Tajin]

Originally posted by Major ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

who were obviously
either not displaying bushes/foliage on their PC
or using a wallhack
or using an aimbot
so they could shoot anyone easily without being seen by any opponent.

Not sure what exactly the situation was there but people often forget that you're rather easy to spot (and hit) even behind bushes and foliage when the background is brighter than the bushes and you move around behind them.

The human eye will easily pick up the movement of your silhouette behind those bushes if the background is bright enough.


Just keep that in mind.

[Onkel Horten]

Originally posted by Tajin:

Originally posted by Major ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

who were obviously
either not displaying bushes/foliage on their PC
or using a wallhack
or using an aimbot
so they could shoot anyone easily without being seen by any opponent.

Not sure what exactly the situation was there but people often forget that you're rather easy to spot (and hit) even behind bushes and foliage when the background is brighter than the bushes and you move around behind them.

The human eye will easily pick up the movement of your silhouette behind those bushes if the background is bright enough.


Just keep that in mind.

Sadly you cant see the cheat vids anymore. Check Youtube to find out whats happening and that there are cheaters around. It undeniable after you have seen the vids. Has nothing to do with getting spotted or bushes sprayed. There are Aimbots and other kind of hacks around.