Punkbuster and the server

[Floyd]

you can spot obvious aimbots, you ban them, you don't sit about watching stuff, you play, if anything is suspicious go spectate, if it is obvious you kick/ban. You can also nip abuse in the bud if you are playing, anti-cheat doesn't do this. Fair enough some cheaters might slip through but if they are not obvious and not ruining everybody's fun then the damage will not be severe.

Most decent hacks are undetectable anyway, you wait for an update, if it happens don't play with your hack, wait for it to get updated, then play again. All anti-cheat is good for is catching cheap hacks and stupid kids, I have witnessed blatant cheaters, bragging about it, watched their steam account over long periods of time, no ban ever showing up. A cheater with half a brain will never be caught by anti-cheat software . imo.

also, obviously, the best is a combination of the two.

They are, after all, our own servers to do with as we wish so I don't mean to be condescending. And I do agree that a combination of the two is required. A good and faithful clientelle helps as well.

....However,I am at odds with the assertion that a cheater with half a brain will never be caught by anti-cheat software. I think its quite the other way around. Nor do I think that the cheater that isn't so obvious should be tolerated. A cheater is a cheater. They're not someone I really care to be associated with or have associated with one of my servers.

And quite obviously, catching the mal-tuned aimbot is easy and one doesn't have to wait for PB/VAC to deal with that low-life. Nor should we. That is just common sense. But <rhetorically speaking> what happens when its a hack banned by PB/VAC and admins are not on? They still ruin the play for our clients on during those times our admins are not.

Having been at the other end of the spectrum with my son (who played CoD2 'professionally' up until EA wouldn't let him compete with his team in the semi-finals because he was <17 at the time), I guess I look at banning through the lens of someone one that wants certainty. My son was banned by admins from more public servers for 'cheating' than 'Carter has pills'.

Its not as easy or definitive as some like to think..

 

[DasFist]

okay

here is a video of a cheater that I recorded in novemeber in mw3

My Movie.wmv - YouTube

also I posted a link to his steam account, you can see his name in game is hackmw3 and you can see in the aliases of his steam account the name hackmw3.

So I caught him, I recorded him, I have the evidence, this guy is obvious, yet 2 months later and still his account is not banned. This guy is not the only one, like I said previously I have monitored quite a few people like this, and a lot of the time no bans ever show up.

Now this guy is not some sneaky cheater, he is ****ing blatantly obvious to anybody who has eyes, yet not banned. Now if I were an admin on that server, how long you think this guy would be ruining everybody's game for? 30 seconds max? but no instead we have to rely on anti-cheat software, in the meantime I get more deaths and also a loss as you lose when you leave. Now I care not for stats but still I shouldn't be the one who is punished here.

This is why admins will always be better than anti-cheat. I understand that you say what happens when no admins on, servers do tend to have less admins on during the early hours of the morning etc. but they also tend to have less players as most people close to the server are sleeping, so yes this cheater willruin peoples day/night, but as my videos shows even with anti-cheat it doesn't matter.

How many cheaters has pb caught in ro2, like 20, c'mon that is not efficient.

 

[Floyd]

First of all, their Steam accounts do not get banned if they are caught cheating by VAC or PB. If caught by VAC (and if often takes months before any action is taken), they can no longer play on VAC secured servers. If caught by PB, they get kicked from the server they are playing on. Usually they can go join another PB server and play for a while until they are scanned again and get booted again. With both systems, they can play single player or on any non-Vac secured server and/or any non-PB running server.

If the server were streaming to PBbans and they were found exploiting the game (either by PB or by additional cvar/MD5 checks), then they are banned from ever joining that or any other server streaming to PBbans immediately (for that particular game of course). So rather than just getting banned from just one server, they get banned from multiple.

I've never claimed that software detection was perfect. And it is certainly not instantaneous (ie new cheat gets detected and processed the day it comes out). But saying that just because you filmed several cheaters that software hasn't caught yet proves that admins > Software is quite the stretch. How many wall hacks can you spot quickly and definitively? And I dare say that you have never caught chameleon skin hacker. How could you? And an esp hack? Pretty damn hard to pick those out, too. But if you can't tell that they are hacking with them, that's OK? Not on my watch... And too, the fact that the aim-botter was playing shows the problem when admins aren't around.

As far as I know, neither VAC or Evenbalance release their ban numbers. (I'm assuming the 20 comes from what PBbans is reporting from their streaming servers.) Now were the most popular servers streaming to PBbans, I have no doubt you'd see those numbers rise.

Don't know a whole lot about VAC, but I do know that a lot of Evenbalance's success (or lack thereof) goes hand in hand with the co-operation and help of the developer of the game. They are both aware of the issues at present. I'm hoping that they can work with TW to create a transparent and seamless protective layer.

The catch 22 of RO2 right now is that because its not so very popular, the hackers don't bother with it too much. Whats good for us is not so good for TW.

 

[DasFist]

vac cannot detect those things either though, especially external hacks when you play in windowed mode. When a player is detected as cheating they get a little thing saying ban(s) on record next to their name, this is what I am referring to, also you do not get banned from vac secured servers you only get banned for games running the same engine, so banned in one source game, banned from all.

Wallhackers are not that hard to spot, it really depends, but like I said vac doesn't detect them either, and texture modding (chameleon skin) is not a bannable offence according to vac.

Both things have their advantages and disadvantages. But imo anti cheat is kinda worthless for catching up-to-date cheats.

"Whats good for us is not so good for TW"

what did you mean by this sentence btw

 

[Floyd]

....also you do not get banned from vac secured servers you only get banned for games running the same engine, so banned in one source game, banned from all.

That was, in essence, what I meant to impart. Although I wonder if getting VAC banned for say MW2 gets you banned for MW or MW3? I would think that in EA's case, its per game only.

"Whats good for us is not so good for TW"

what did you mean by this sentence btw

I just meant that with lower player numbers there is less hacker interest (than when compared to say a BF or CoD pc title). While the lack of cheater interest is good for us, the lack of player numbers is not good for TW.

I gotta get some work done.....

 

[DasFist]

nah with the mw series it is diff engines, so mw2 was iw4 I think then mw3 is iw5 maybes or 6 I cannot remember. Also silly me I just couldn't ge my head around it, but yeah totally agree. get to work

 

[Nik21]

This is why admins will always be better than anti-cheat. I understand that you say what happens when no admins on, servers do tend to have less admins on during the early hours of the morning etc. but they also tend to have less players as most people close to the server are sleeping, so yes this cheater willruin peoples day/night, but as my videos shows even with anti-cheat it doesn't matter.

The best anti-cheat setup:
Punkbuster & Stream +
VAC +
Admins

How many cheaters has pb caught in ro2, like 20, c'mon that is not efficient.

around 50.
30 Global bans and 20 are Listed on PBBans.com.

 

[DasFist]

sure that is the best setup, if it doesn't cause problems, but it does

and 50, still not great