Cheating in PC gaming, why is it still a huge issue? (with poll)

Are you willing to give developers you ID during account creation to prevent hacks and cheats?

  • Yes

    Votes: 24 52.2%
  • No

    Votes: 22 47.8%

  • Total voters
    46

Bruttle

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I have been playing video games since the very first ones. I played the very first FPS, Wolfenstein 3D. I was among the first players to experience FPS PVP when we installed Doom on a dozen or so computers in the college computer lab. I played UO, EQ, Unreal tournament, CS, and almost every single genre defining game since the 80's.

One thing that has remained constant through all this has been cheating. It has existed in varying degrees since PVP competition has existed. Some games are decent and some are really bad. Take PUBg. At the end of last year (2017), they had over 30 million accounts. At the same time, their anticheat had banned over 1.5 million of those (Citation). That's 1 cheater for every 20 players. That's not even taking into account the low profile cheaters that just gain a slight advantage, stay under the radar and never get caught.

As a long time player, you just get a feel for the hack/detection/ban cycle. It's like a tide actually. Someone generates a hack, it gets distributed, the hack detection patches against it, and tons of players disappear. The process then repeats over and over. Fresh after a ban wave, the game is amazing. Just before the ban wave though, it can be unplayable.

So why is it still such a huge problem? Why hasn't the collective game developer community found a solution? There are tons of things that could work, if they were implemented, but they almost never are. There are HID and IP bans, but they are hardly ever used. They can be bypassed, sure. But they take care of a huge amount of lazy "script kiddies". Those kids just want an easy download and most aren't willing to constantly go through the effort to bypass those bans. You can tell the games that use these methods vs ones that don't. It's a shocking difference.

Then you take Korean games. They port over to NA releases and are suddenly flooded with hacks. I was curious and looked into it one day. They get ported over with tons of available exploits. It's almost like they didn't even try. As I found out, that's because of the way Korea deals with hacks. They require an actual ID to make an account on most of their games. They decided to shut that shit down, and they did...

So hacking in Korean games are non existent over there. If they get caught cheating, their ACTUAL ID gets banned. So unless they get a fake ID (also a huge crime), they can get blacklisted for entire groups of games. So they don't even try. Hence when they get ported to another country, they are easy pickings for the cheats and script kiddies.

So why don't US companies follow suit? You already give them your credit card number, so giving a state ID number isn't a privacy issue. If it meant playing a cheater free game, I would GLADLY hand over my ID number. They can't do anything with it anyway except for preventing cheating in an actually effective manner.

Bringing it back to relevance, lets say SC releases with the usual anti-cheat. You would start running into the usual aimbots and wallhacks in the FPS portion. You would find triggerbots and AI in the ship combat. You would likely see them in the usual amounts and it will be a constant frustration for those that don't cheat. If mishandled, SC will take the road that so many other games take and end up with a bad reputation. All of the support and funding that we have put into the dreams of a great game will be ruined in the span of weeks. The game will die regardless of quality. Hackers ruin games. That is an unchangeable fact.

I think it would be absolutely negligent of CIG to make a revolutionary game without also dealing with this issue. It isn't sufficient to just deal with it though. It has to be dealt with in a manner that will SOLVE the issue instead of sweeping it under the rug. I don't want to see any half-hearted attempts like we usually get. These are merely designed to facilitate buying another copy. Hell, PUBg got an extra 1.5 million game sales and counting because they half-assed it.

The usual plan of attack is to hire a third party hack detection (so they can lay blame on them instead of taking responsibility). Then they completely downplay the situation. Forum posts are diverted or deleted. Situations are confronted with denial and misinformation. The real issue is minimized and everyone pretends it's not a problem (especially the cheaters themselves). However, the stark difference between playing the day before the anti-cheat patch and the day after the anti-cheat patch is immense. You suddenly feel like you are fighting on even ground. Hell, in some cases, the day after the ban wave you are absolutely unstoppable. Suddenly the 1-1 K/D that you struggled to keep turns into 2-1 or more. Overnight, you go from an average player to a great one. You start feeling like 1/20 is an understatement.

So what do you think? Do I stand alone in my hatred for cheaters? Has the rest of the PC gaming community just accepted them a fact of life? Do we want to allow this to continue to ruin our gaming experiences? Would you be willing to give up your illusion of anonymity for the sake of finally ending this stupidity by registering accounts to your actual ID?

TLDR: I fucking HATE hackers and script kiddies. They have, in some cases, single-handedly ruined games and continue ruining them to this day. This needs a real attempt to solve the issue instead of half-assing it like normal developers.
 

Stevetank

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I would like something so that people online stop saying that I'm hacking. I've been kicked from too many BF3 and BF4 servers due to 'hacking'. I'm in the other side of the boat where I don't hack at all, I just get banned because people think that I hack. I'm not even that good, I just get lucky sometimes because I do unexpected and non-meta things.

If the ID thing were in effect, I would eventually get perma-banned from playing online games.

If games are going to require an ID, then I would ask that they require hard evidence to prove that someone was hacking. I don't use an aimbot, I don't get alerts from anti-cheat programs, I don't cheat. I get banned from servers and things because admins don't like what I do and call me a cheater.

Like one time I was banned in BF2142 for getting 21 headshots in a row. People would be like, OMG Steve, 21? You hacker! No! Everyone was in a gunline setup shooting at my team in a hallways on the Titan ship. Everyone was focusing on my team in front of them. No one was moving and I was standing about 25 feet behind them with my 4x zoom scope. It was hard NOT to get a headshot, their heads took up most of the screen. Still, since no one would freaking turn around to shoot the one guy behind them, I got 21 headshots in a row and was considered a hacker and got banned. FML for bringing a sniper rifle into a close quarters battle!

As much as I like the idea of an ID, I want something that won't backfire and get me banned for life.
 

Hillhopper

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I do not like the idea of having my id online. I don't cheat, hack none of the above. And really my k/d sucks for the most part. I just like games. That being said, years back we ran a lot of servers. We dealt with a lot of hackers and yes they can quickly ruin your server and games. But we had to kick one of our members because he got banned in bf2 if I remember right. Some of us knew him pretty well. I had talked to him and gamed with him a lot and never thought of him as a hacker. He was good to a point but not that good. He appealed the ban to the well known anti-cheat party and was denied. He understood why we had to remove him from the roster. But I kept in touch. Nine months later they removed the ban. He had never cheated and they did find what triggered the ban. The thing is 99% of the bans issued are probably well deserved. There are going to be some that are not and may take a while to be removed. If he had not been persistent he would still have a ban tied to him. He went through a lot to get this proven and most people would not have gone that far.

I think they need to go after the coders like pubg did. If I remember right they slapped a high dollar law suit on the coders. You hit them in the pocket and you might get some results. But some people will always try to figure a way to beat the system. I always considered it to be a character flaw.
 

Bruttle

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I would like something so that people online stop saying that I'm hacking. I've been kicked from too many BF3 and BF4 servers due to 'hacking'. I'm in the other side of the boat where I don't hack at all, I just get banned because people think that I hack. I'm not even that good, I just get lucky sometimes because I do unexpected and non-meta things.

If the ID thing were in effect, I would eventually get perma-banned from playing online games.

If games are going to require an ID, then I would ask that they require hard evidence to prove that someone was hacking. I don't use an aimbot, I don't get alerts from anti-cheat programs, I don't cheat. I get banned from servers and things because admins don't like what I do and call me a cheater.

Like one time I was banned in BF2142 for getting 21 headshots in a row. People would be like, OMG Steve, 21? You hacker! No! Everyone was in a gunline setup shooting at my team in a hallways on the Titan ship. Everyone was focusing on my team in front of them. No one was moving and I was standing about 25 feet behind them with my 4x zoom scope. It was hard NOT to get a headshot, their heads took up most of the screen. Still, since no one would freaking turn around to shoot the one guy behind them, I got 21 headshots in a row and was considered a hacker and got banned. FML for bringing a sniper rifle into a close quarters battle!

As much as I like the idea of an ID, I want something that won't backfire and get me banned for life.
I think the one would solve the other. Right now, hacking is so rampant, people tend to think anyone good is hacking. I think most of us have been accused of hacking at one point or another. I mainly get accused of hacks though in games where hacking is rampant. When I play games with effective hack detection, I don't get those accusations.

The problem grows exponentially. When there are very few hackers, players are more confident in the hack detection. When a player does something amazing, the automatic though is just that. The player did something really cool. When hackers are everywhere, the players don't have confidence. So their first though is that the amazing shot is the result of hacks. People start yelling about hackers, more accusations are thrown around, people think everyone is hacking, so they go out and get hacks themselves. This leads to exponential growth in both the perceived and actual percentage of hackers.

This also leads to a breakdown in the review and appeal process. More bans mean more appeals. At some point, admins can't keep up with the work load and the false bans start sticking for days or weeks if not permanently. If everything is working properly though, false bans almost never happen and when they do, they are quickly repealed. So I don't think that it would be a case of eventually falling victim to a false ban. Checks and balances would actually work properly instead of being flooded out of existence.

At least, that would be my hope. Anything would be better than some of these hack filled games.
 

Vavrik

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TLDR: I fucking HATE hackers and script kiddies. They have, in some cases, single-handedly ruined games and continue ruining them to this day. This needs a real attempt to solve the issue instead of half-assing it like normal developers.
I hate script kiddies and hackers too. But I also value my privacy, and yes there is a big concern. It never ceases to amaze me how loose people are with their identity, yet we hear stories all the time about data break-in's that result in the theft of user identity and credit card information. If you give anyone your real name, credit card number or bank account information, and your driver's license number or social security number: they can be you. Any time they feel like it.

But it also turns out that many games are hacked because absolutely no security measures were taken in the software to prevent it. They don't even encrypt transactions between the client software and the server.
 

Stoutman

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If there is a on/off switch for pvp in SC, then 75%+ of the players will not have to worry about most cheating.

This is the only way that SC will be playable by most players, who do not want to pvp much, if at all. SC is the most complex game ever made, which means it has the potential to have the most bugs or exploits, all of which take time to fix. CIG can make the game as challenging as they want through the use of NPC encounters. It does not need PVP to be a challenge or fun.

SC can easily be made so that everyone can play the way they want and have fun!

I have no problem with an identity identifier. I have thought something like that would be a good idea for years now.
 

Bruttle

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You need a Korean social security to play Korean games. That is why they can ID ban across numerous games. I'm not going to give my social security to companies that ca not prevent people from hacking player data away. Identity theft would go through the rough.
Oh, I'm not talking about using your SSN. That's over the top for sure. I'm talking about a state issued ID. The drivers license/state id is difficult to forge. It is also, more to the point, illegal and prosecutable to try. It doesn't provide any real access to your life, but is a unique identifier that has it's uniqueness protected by law.

On the other hand, none of us are really secure against identity theft or cc hacks. The last two times my CC info was compromised wasn't from sharing the numbers with anyone, but from a brick and mortar purchase. One of which was Home Depot when the third party CC vendor they use got their database cracked.

In many ways, security, safety, and anonymity are only illusions. If someone wants to gain access to any part of your life, it's actually remarkably easy. Your information leaks out all the time, you just don't know about it. That's why there are so many checks and balances in the real world. Any abnormal charges on your CC get flagged and blocked. Any false credit lines are easily contested. Hell, even if you did open the line, chances are you can still contest it and get it removed.

I'm not trying to be arguementative, or trying to call anyone ignorant for feeling safe. Ultimately, we are all safe, just in a different way. We're not safe against our information being released, but rather against that information being used to take our money. Banks are REALLY good at preventing fraud nowdays.
 

Michael

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I don't use facebook, twitter, whatsapp and other kind. Actually i don't give away my credit card number too (if possible).
So if we had some kind of "krypto blockchain cyper physical deep learning system" (just throwing in buzzword cause i don't have any clue of this stuff) which is able to identify you uniquely i might go for that.

But i don't want to give away my personal data to anyone unless i absolutely need it.

Also what Steve said. (We need a hard proof if someone gets baned)
 

Talonsbane

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1st of all, I feel that this is a great thread topic for discussion @Bruttle . If it hasn't been done yet, I'm hoping that this subject matter will be brought to the attention of CIG management as a clear & reasonable concern. If it ends up taking an additional year to get SC & SQ42 released to prevent the damned cheaters & hackers from getting any sort of a hold in the game from the start, that is a sacrifice I'd happily make as it would benefit everybody except those who don't deserve to play because they can't play fairly.

TLDR: I fucking HATE hackers and script kiddies. They have, in some cases, single-handedly ruined games and continue ruining them to this day. This needs a real attempt to solve the issue instead of half-assing it like normal developers.
I agree wholeheartedly that something needs to be done to get rid of the cheaters & hackers. The only games that I've ever "cheated" on was the classic SimCity games in which the developer themselves revealed the IMACHEAT code to help players speed up the length of time getting things started. Which, in my honest opinion, isn't actually cheating since it was a single player game & the exploit I was using was freely given out by the developer.

If games are going to require an ID, then I would ask that they require hard evidence to prove that someone was hacking. I don't use an aimbot, I don't get alerts from anti-cheat programs, I don't cheat. I get banned from servers and things because admins don't like what I do and call me a cheater. ... As much as I like the idea of an ID, I want something that won't backfire and get me banned for life.
I feel that a lot of the problem with these anti-cheat systems is that usually they ban / remove players based on x amount of other players stating that they feel that the player is cheating in some manner without actually taking the time or spending the effort to check the logs & coding to see if that was actually the case or not. I agree that there should be a means of verifying this before action is taken by the player. I would like it if the coding made it impossible to make any additions to the game outside of their own PC's that would effect the outcome of the game for anybody else. Such as with the voice command systems that can be used presently. Do they help? Yes, but not to a point that they can't be overcome by another player that is either equally skilled or just plain lucky.

Right now, hacking is so rampant, people tend to think anyone good is hacking. I think most of us have been accused of hacking at one point or another. I mainly get accused of hacks though in games where hacking is rampant. When I play games with effective hack detection, I don't get those accusations.
On games like Overwatch, I had to stop playing the competitive games with friends because I play casually so my skills aren't all that great. I would get booted from those battles because other players that didn't know me would accuse me of intentionally throwing a game for some reason. Oh well, I know that I suck to a degree & I accept that. So I just to the free play sessions where I might get made fun of, but at least I'm not falsely accused of cheating a system somehow.

The problem grows exponentially. When there are very few hackers, players are more confident in the hack detection. When a player does something amazing, the automatic though is just that. The player did something really cool. When hackers are everywhere, the players don't have confidence. So their first though is that the amazing shot is the result of hacks. People start yelling about hackers, more accusations are thrown around, people think everyone is hacking, so they go out and get hacks themselves. This leads to exponential growth in both the perceived and actual percentage of hackers.

This also leads to a breakdown in the review and appeal process. More bans mean more appeals. At some point, admins can't keep up with the work load and the false bans start sticking for days or weeks if not permanently. If everything is working properly though, false bans almost never happen and when they do, they are quickly repealed. So I don't think that it would be a case of eventually falling victim to a false ban. Checks and balances would actually work properly instead of being flooded out of existence.

At least, that would be my hope. Anything would be better than some of these hack filled games.
This is all sad but true.

I hate script kiddies and hackers too. But I also value my privacy, and yes there is a big concern. It never ceases to amaze me how loose people are with their identity, yet we hear stories all the time about data break-in's that result in the theft of user identity and credit card information. If you give anyone your real name, credit card number or bank account information, and your driver's license number or social security number: they can be you. Any time they feel like it.

But it also turns out that many games are hacked because absolutely no security measures were taken in the software to prevent it. They don't even encrypt transactions between the client software and the server.
Very well put points @Vavrik

You need a Korean social security to play Korean games. That is why they can ID ban across numerous games. I'm not going to give my social security to companies that ca not prevent people from hacking player data away. Identity theft would go through the rough.
Also a very valid point @DontTouchMyHoHos .

If there is a on/off switch for pvp in SC, then 75%+ of the players will not have to worry about most cheating.

This is the only way that SC will be playable by most players, who do not want to pvp much, if at all. SC is the most complex game ever made, which means it has the potential to have the most bugs or exploits, all of which take time to fix. CIG can make the game as challenging as they want through the use of NPC encounters. It does not need PVP to be a challenge or fun.

SC can easily be made so that everyone can play the way they want and have fun!

I have no problem with an identity identifier. I have thought something like that would be a good idea for years now.
WoW has had this system in place for years & I've enjoyed it greatly. Sadly they seem hell bent of forcing players to PvP regardless of what the players actually want anymore, so I'm boycotting WoW until either this ends or the game fully dies.

Oh, I'm not talking about using your SSN. That's over the top for sure. I'm talking about a state issued ID. The drivers license/state id is difficult to forge. It is also, more to the point, illegal and prosecutable to try. It doesn't provide any real access to your life, but is a unique identifier that has it's uniqueness protected by law.
Unfortunately, some of the states in the US choose to use the person's SSN as the State ID number as well. It clearly makes it easier to steal the person's ID & life, but those state's "officials" think that the idea of people getting 2 felonies for committing 1 crime should be deterrent enough. Obviously they are fools.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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The less data you give out the less places that data is out there, however if one of those places is lax with their security or if they are just very very unlucky, your data is gone anyway.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/

Use the filters on the above and you may well find some surprises like some gaming ones, the Sony Playstation Network hack was well known but, Blizzard, Bethesda, Saga, Nintendo are on there too...

Some Big-Name banks are on that list as well. You got details anywhere they are just as at risk there as anywhere else if the fraudsters are committed enough to getting them, or the holders you gave the details to are lax with their security or just unlucky - accidents happen.

Now click he "Government" filter: The US Office of Personel Management (twice), the California Department of Child Support Services, Washington State Court System, the Oregon DMV, the State of Texas...

If you have information and it is digital... well, just like in the movie Doctor Strangelove, you'd better learn how to stop worrying and love the bomb.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3edi2Wkr5YI
 
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Tealwraith

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If there is a on/off switch for pvp in SC, then 75%+ of the players will not have to worry about most cheating.

This is the only way that SC will be playable by most players, who do not want to pvp much, if at all. SC is the most complex game ever made, which means it has the potential to have the most bugs or exploits, all of which take time to fix. CIG can make the game as challenging as they want through the use of NPC encounters. It does not need PVP to be a challenge or fun.

SC can easily be made so that everyone can play the way they want and have fun!

I have no problem with an identity identifier. I have thought something like that would be a good idea for years now.
This, 1000%.

Make some systems in cul-de-sacs that are 100% nullsec so you'd have to be going there on purpose. Make some well-defined areas in other systems that are nullsec and easily avoidable, though maybe a longer route around them. You can't make every area that is outside immediate ADVOCACY control nullsec or most people will never go exploring which is the major draw to the game. Who is going out with their Freelancer DUR to explore when they have to hire 2 Hornets, 3 Sabres and a Tortoise to protect them while they scan for something to make money?

I understand that hacks and mods could exploit exploration, mining, etc., but most people are more concerned about spending and enjoying time with friends. Getting jumped and killed is more of a concern for most gamers than if the attacking player is using an aimbot.
 

Radegast74

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Vavrik

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It's ass-hattery for sure, but not necessarily griefing. It depends on the game rules. If the rules don't penalize for lack of honor, then it's fair. He just took advantage of an opportunity.

When you have such an event in a PVP game or a PVP area in a game, without honor rules, you need to be prepared. Have enough security around. There have been such incidents in almost every game, including at least once at a player memorial for someone who had passed away in real life.

In WOW, there is an achievement for how many opposing faction players you can kill in their capitol city, even in PVE servers. If Blizzard didn't want this kind of thing to happen, there wouldn't be an achievement for it.
 

Michael

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What do you know, this just happened:
https://www.vg247.com/2018/07/02/fortnite-solo-kills-record/

And the dude seems pretty proud of it, too...
https://twitter.com/ElementaI_Ray

It's ass-hattery, but is it cheating? It certainly seems like griefing...what do you do with players like this?
Its not cheating because he used the given game mechanic.
Its not griefing because he didn't "harrassed" other players and took their fun away. (Well maybe this guy who was No1 before)
asshattery well yes maybe a little bit... but for this type of game it makes me smile too a little bit.
 

Radegast74

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It's ass-hattery for sure, but not necessarily griefing. It depends on the game rules. If the rules don't penalize for lack of honor, then it's fair. He just took advantage of an opportunity.

When you have such an event in a PVP game or a PVP area in a game, without honor rules, you need to be prepared. Have enough security around. There have been such incidents in almost every game, including at least once at a player memorial for someone who had passed away in real life.

In WOW, there is an achievement for how many opposing faction players you can kill in their capitol city, even in PVE servers. If Blizzard didn't want this kind of thing to happen, there wouldn't be an achievement for it.
Its not cheating because he used the given game mechanic.
Its not griefing because he didn't "harrassed" other players and took their fun away. (Well maybe this guy who was No1 before)
asshattery well yes maybe a little bit... but for this type of game it makes me smile too a little bit.
Thinking more, it's almost like the games are a metaphor for life...bear with me here...some people play to make friends and have cool experiences with their friends, while others just care about "having the high score" or "winning" no matter what.

In life, "having the high score" usually means wracking up as much money as possible (easy to keep score that way). Certainly in past times, having the high score in real kills was a thing, in certain times & era's. See:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/28/the-duellists-reel-history

However, now that we are "more civilized" (are we now?) most people talk about the importance of family, friends, children, etc. & shared positive experiences.

I guess if SC is going to be as realistic a sim as possible, it wall have to have outlets for all types of people. I guess this is another reason to belong to an Org, especially one that shares your values!
 
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