senadraxx

You see, I've been worried about getting flagged as a cheater because I personally am better with a pistol than most weapons. Not as crazy as what you're describing though. Some of these videos of cheaters are just ridiculous!

I feel like I need to give everyone a warning before I post this, as this is going to be a long post that contains a LOT of speculation about the way 343's game servers/anticheat work. I'm fairly familiar with computers, but I'm not an expert and do not know the limitations of the agreements between 343/microsoft, so nobody take any of my assumptions as fact. But I've got a fun idea for how to tackle PC client cheaters. Will summarize in a TL;DR down below. Intro: permissions There are 4 levels of system permissions that most Anti-cheat software operates around. some of the most important to consider is level 3, User-side, and level 0, kernel-side permissions. Most cheating software uses Kernel-level permissions, which allows it to read and alter any byte of data present on the host system, which makes it easy for the user-side of the game to exploit the engine in the form of wall hacks and aimbots, and harder for the game to detect. Level 0 anti-cheat on a user device is a big deal, and not a preferable option, as this exposes devices to instability and privacy issues. kernel-level access on a game like this also opens a backdoor to cybersecurity threats and is not ideal. But what about anticheat on a game server, that uses a user-level update client-side to record and compare inputs from all connected machines? Step 1: Recording input An update gets rolled out, that records the button input during active matches from all users during a match. You can use a machine-learning algorithm to watch matches live, from different perspectives. e.g a person getting killed during a match, and the one who killed them. This (maybe AI? we'll call it an AI) will have the ability to match input with in-game behavior, like watching a player lock on their reticle to another player's head through a wall, even though server-side, the game can't see that a user is using a wallhack to show other players' outlines. It would be able to do this more efficiently than a human. Such a program would be able to theoretically tell the difference between an aim-assisted kill and a regular kill, and be able to see when players are snapping to other players' heads. The challenge is training a machine to differentiate between professional players and hackers by spectating. However, if you have a program on the server reviewing all this, it could look at the match from all 8 player perspectives at once. discrepancies are easier to spot in a dataset like that. When you throw your own bots into the mix, especially since they're learning from people, this may also help them learn how to perfect their skills in matches, as well as recognizing the cheaters. Step 2: making decisions AI don't make decisions correctly 100% of the time, but when combined with human input, can increase certainty. Having an in-game report option would be immensely helpful, even if all that report does is flag the match for the AI to review. I am unsure of what happens during the regular reporting process, and how those matches get reviewed, but yes, the button would be incredibly helpful. For the first several hundred matches, you may need community assistance to help flag matches for such an AI. After a certain period of time, my assumption is that the AI has probably watched enough matches, and seen certain players flagged enough times to be aware of what cheating looks like. Step 3: where it gets fun Once an AI/human team can review enough matches and sift through the data to differentiate cheaters from people who are just really really good, Don't ban the cheaters from matches right away. Wait for them to get flagged more than once in a day. Flagging them and then being patient, instead of immediate action, will also make them cocky and unsure of whether or not their cheating software can be detected. Some Cheaters can turn on/off their anti-cheat at will, so the bot registering suspicious input (switching in and out of the game, esp. during matches, clicking areas in the game window on a pause menu that the game doesn't register visual assets in) isn't necessarily a clear case of cheating, but can be suspicious enough to warrant a closer look into input and gameplay analysis. But some cases are more clear-cut than others. in a case of 100% certainty (or whatever the industry average threshold on certainty is, in these events), here's what should happen: Instead of banning them outright, have the game spawn a special bot. This bot's mission is to go after the cheater it registers. Assign the bot to an unused team (Team 3, so Teams 1 and 2 can't benefit from its killcount), make it unkillable, and give it active camo. Why not a sword, sniper rifle, or a special loadout to make this thing a pain? The Cheater will either ragequit, disconnect upon seeing that they've been killed by the special bot, or alternatively, you can have an entire lobby of cheaters quit when they see the bot, because they don't know who the bot's going for. Again, the special bot shows up when the system Absolutely, Positively suspects cheating is going on in the match, and if the cheater disconnects, the bot can despawn or just stand still, in camo in a corner or whatever. Call it Joyeuse or the Ghost of Lockout, the fans would get some chuckles. It used to be a bug, make it a feature. TL;DR: Let the server learn how users are inputting controls into the game, and teach it to find discrepancies. If cheating has been flagged and confirmed, send the Ghost of Lockout to kill the cheaters and make them rage quit. Once a cheater is in a match, it stops being a legitimate match, and if the cheater is occupied or disconnects, everyone else can still have fun. Thank you everyone for letting me subject you to this idea salad, I hope this makes for a good contribution. Again, I am uncertain of a lot of things and how feasible an idea like this would be to execute, but if there's any game company I trust to come up with creative uses for AI, it's 343.

Oh man, I just made a really lengthy comment about this in another thread. I'm just gonna link it here because im too lazy to copy/paste, and I dont necessarily want to clog up the forum with reposts: I'm also new to these forums, and still figuring out where all the juicy threads are. But TL;DR version, for folks who dont want to slog through my comment on that thread: -Provide both a free currency and a paid currency with an equivalent exchange rate. the free currency is rewarded from challenge progression, but battle pass progression would be good too. -Do not limit the list of weekly challenges, instead offer a tiered reward system for weekly challenge completion on an endlessly rotating list, to satisfy players with different amounts of hours they can set aside for the game in a given week. -For players who have previously unlocked certain items during other weeks, offer in equivalent reward in the form of a consumable or XP grant toward the battle pass. Hopefully some of these ideas can satisfy most folks. Thank you all for working together on discussion about this!

Just want to let you know, I think your ideas are great and I hope 343 considers them! I agree that there needs to be a minimum of 1 free challenge swap a day. But I've got a couple more ideas that work very well with your ideas, I think. I had a difficult time with challenges the other night. I stayed up all night to grind through the entire list, and 2 minutes before reset (at 9am) a 21st(?) challenge popped up out of nowhere on the list, preventing me from getting that armor coating. Looking back on that experience, here are some points of feedback I have. Fair warning, this will be a long list. -Tiered challenge reward system, with a tracking counter. 5-10-20+ challenges completed, you should get some kind of reward, that increases in coolness, instead of just one reward for the week. 20 is a good place to put an armor coating, but how many challenges are things like a charm or a nameplate "worth", exactly? For your all-day players, how many matches do they go through on average per session, per diem? for your average players and your least-attendance players, what are their averages? there should be a tiered-something for everybody. -Now, these don't have to be armor coatings or keychains, or even necessarily armor pieces/vehicle/weapon skins; although that would be nice for the community to see. It can be something as simple as in-game-currency, or challenge swaps, etc. for lower tiers. You can have repeating items week to week, if you want to make sure everyone gets a chance to get them. For players who complete challenges and reach a tier they've already received, they'd probably love an alternative reward, even if its a consumable or xp. -people lately have been upset about paywalls, and offering the ability to earn 50-100 in-game-currency at a time, every 5+ matches, will make them feel much better about it. then people could earn the extra battle pass slot for free, and might be inclined to support the developers. Other solutions to the paywall problem include offering two separate currencies, (one you buy, one your earn) and giving them an equivalent exchange rate... but that's a topic for another post. -Dont put a cap on challenges. let the players go through as many as they want to go through in a day. That way you keep your serious all-day players happy, and able to do all the progression they want to, and your part-time players who have actual work/life balance feel included. -On that note, that gives you room to make as many fun challenges as you like! e.g, Earning points for 5 double kills, on top of the xp for those double kill medals? I'm not sure how big your master list is, but if its endlessly repeating on shuffle, the players will have a lot more engaging variety. -Include a challenge counter in the score menu (back button) in-match, with live updates. If you are intent on including challenges into the gameplay, you might as well make them as accessible as possible. If you have that one player who is adamant on finishing them all in one day, people might lose track of their list or be thinking about BRs, for example, when what they really need is Chopper kills. There's even the possibility that those kills might be more satisfying, if the players can keep an eye on them! Hopefully, these ideas will help player engagement, and help everyone feel more fulfilled when playing this game! I understand that there may be some roadblocks when it comes to the in-game-currency ideas, because large publishing companies are worried about de-incentivizing microtransactions. However, the important part is that it makes the players feel accomplished. The players actively spending money on xp boosts/cosmetics will continue to do that, and the average player might be more inclined to use the shop interface. Even if theyre not spending real money, that doesn't mean they wont. You may even get a sudden influx of people buying things, out of a desire to support the developers, which is ultimately the goal, right? But anyway, I hope this is a helpful contribution. @BardicSound thank you for making this thread and starting the conversation! you have great ideas!