The leaderboard, banning of players is wrong and should never happen

[Grant]

Note the below is just my own opinion and not of CnCNet.  I want to start some points on this because I've seen quite a few concerns and assumptions.

 

We're fast approaching our first release for a leaderboard, and its safe to say there are still some unknowns with how losses/disconnecting or cheating will be handled within the community. So I wanted to express some of my views...

 

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Banning players for cheating, it's wrong and should never have started on the first alternative servers

Coming from a background where banning players for cheating was the 'right thing to do', I believe it was now totally the wrong approach and should never have started. 

 

Players should not be to blame if they have cheated, or abused the system to achieve a good rank. If a player is banned because he has cheated, or disconnected then that is wrong. 

 

Why?

It is up to the service supporting the game to prevent a cheat from working in the first place. If a cheat does not work, 9 times out of 10 the player will just give up and either play the game as it was meant to be played, or not bother with it again.

 

If we also assume a player disconnected the game on purpose to avoid a loss on their profile, and base that evidence on a bunch of game units leftover in stats, what's to say that wasn't an accident or a complete coincidence with a powercut, and whats to say he/she wasn't winning the game anyway?

 

The same for a reconnection error, it can be caused intentionally or it can be associated with something entirely different too so why do we look at this as a cheat.

 

If a player disconnects, so be it. You get that on FIFA all the time, if it happens again, avoid the player.

If a player cheats, report the cheat not the player, we'll block it.

 

 

 

 

[Guest ehy]

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[Plokite_Wolf]

Banning players for cheating, it's wrong and should never have started on the first alternative servers

Coming from a background where banning players for cheating was the 'right thing to do', I believe it was now totally the wrong approach and should never have started. 

Also coming from a background where banning players for cheating is the right thing to do, I say you have 0 idea on what you're talking about.

 

You ban cheaters, you create a normal environment for everyone to play and enjoy. It's how it is.

 

 

 

I almost can't believe you're saying that cheaters shouldn't be blamed for cheating other players.

Cheaters do the cheating. Cheating is wrong and doing wrong to others is wrong. Wrong to blame the wrongdoer? (nope, doh)

 

So why not keep doing both, banning them and blocking the cheats. Not banning them would be a victory for cheaters and cheat creators.

 

^This!

[Grant]

(I think) you guys have missed my point of why. If a cheat no-longer works because we've blocked it, there is no more action required. If it does, so be it, we'll block it so it doesn't happen again and repeat if a new version appears.

 

Punishing a player for using cheats is what caused (amongst various additional rule creep) destroyed the playerbase on the replacement servers for WOL. If they had proactively blocked the cheats, they would not have had to ban someone from playing.

 

The label cheater is now so serious for a game that is so old - banning someone for something we can actively prevent is silly. The games are too fragile to implement old style banning methods.

 

[Plokite_Wolf]

(I think) you guys have missed my point of why. If a cheat no-longer works because we've blocked it, there is no more action required. If it does, so be it, we'll block it so it doesn't happen again and repeat if a new version appears.

 

Punishing a player for using cheats is what caused (amongst various additional rule creep) destroyed the playerbase on the replacement servers for WOL. If they had proactively blocked the cheats, they would not have had to ban someone from playing.

 

The label cheater is now so serious for a game that is so old - banning someone for something we can actively prevent is silly. The games are too fragile to implement old style banning methods.

You make it sound cheaters are not guilty of their misdeeds and/or they do not do it voluntarily. They do it either to get a win they didn't deserve or to annoy their opponent(s). Neither is in ANY WAY tolerable on ANY SERVER that cares for its reputation, regardless of the game in question. This buddy-buddy neoliberal bullshit you advocate will not work. Sure, you need to patch every hole you encounter that may allow cheats from the server- and client-side, no doubt about that, but you also have to ban everyone who is not there to have fun, but to destroy other people's sense of entertainment in these games. If you disable one cheat, they will search for another and/or be absolute douchebags on the server until/if they no longer find it fun for them. They are not constructive members of the community and they WILL NEVER BE. EVER!! Giving them amnesty like you did with that cunt Shortbus only deepens the hole the server and its belonging community are in more with each one you give.

 

If it narrows the player count, so fucking what. At least the remaining ones will be relatively normal people and will enjoy what is left of this forsaken community.

[Rampastring]

Cheaters should be banned IMO, at least from "ranked" games. If people actually get interested in these games and the leaderboard, there will be a lot of cheats, and we won't be able to block them all due to the P2P based system of these games. At best it'll become a cat-and-mouse game, where the mouse aka the cheat creators always have the surprise advantage on their side. Simply allowing cheaters to play again and again with new cheats is going to destroy the ladder.

[NerdSlayer]

Brb, robbing your house m8. You should be perfectly understanding if I steal your TV because you didn't have the correct countermeasures in place. No hard feelings right?

[hifi]

I think banning is useless because it's laughably easy to go around. Instead I support the idea of having an inner circle that you can get kicked out of - a premium subscription. You can still play, naturally, but can't compete in the ladder.

 

Unfortunately having a paid-for premium service makes it very unfair to all those people who don't have access to PayPal and/or don't have access to a CC and/or just can't pay a reasonable fee (like $5/mo or something) because it's a lot of money for quite many. Not having a subscription fee or it being too low would make recreating premium accounts too easy.

 

Also it's fine for me we get paid if someone gets caught for cheating and buys another subscription, that's how almost all online games work, people just literally buy around their bans. Having high enough initial payment makes it always less desirable to cheat because it gets expensive real quick if you get caught. Maybe this could be used to have a price pool each month, as more cheaters get caught the bigger the prize pool is

 

Realistictly there's nothing that can be done to cheating except have a wall of shame (I think there already is for Red Alert) and people just avoid playing with the cheating folks. When it comes to the ladder, I don't really like competetive play because it encourages cheating even more.

 

My advice pretty much comes down to: "Play with your friends. Don't have any? Tough."

[Plokite_Wolf]

Subscription isn't a viable solution. Having concrete user accounts is (I take it that used to be an idea all along?) You have an account - if you're caught cheating, your account, IP and machine get banned. Easy as that.

 

Realistictly there's nothing that can be done to cheating except have a wall of shame (I think there already is for Red Alert) and people just avoid playing with the cheating folks.

Currently, it's impossible to avoid them as anyone and everyone can use any username they wish, including that of people who are offline at that moment.

 

When it comes to the ladder, I don't really like competetive play because it encourages cheating even more.

Bullshit. You've never played post-Zero Hour games - nobody on the ladder cheats. If they do cheat or are involved in point-pushing, they're sanctioned. It's still a competitive and relatively healthy environment for play.

[hifi]

Subscription isn't a viable solution. Having concrete user accounts is (I take it that used to be an idea all along?) You have an account - if you're caught cheating, your account, IP and machine get banned. Easy as that.

 

And then they create another one. You can't reliably ban a machine. Banning an ip could potentially block more than one player and most ips are dynamic so they just reset that as well. Unless there's monetary penalty or someone checking your passport when you create one it's always easy to create accounts. Create them on a virtual machine and/or play on the virtual machine, vpn, whatever. Just don't tell me you can ban anonymous people.

 

Realistictly there's nothing that can be done to cheating except have a wall of shame (I think there already is for Red Alert) and people just avoid playing with the cheating folks.

Currently, it's impossible to avoid them as anyone and everyone can use any username they wish, including that of people who are offline at that moment.

 

That is true. But you do know your friends, right?

 

When it comes to the ladder, I don't really like competetive play because it encourages cheating even more.

Bullshit. You've never played post-Zero Hour games - nobody on the ladder cheats. If they do cheat or are involved in point-pushing, they're sanctioned. It's still a competitive and relatively healthy environment for play.

 

I play CS:GO and cheating is more frequent there than on CnCNet, I can be sure of that. Just having a funny rank next to your name is enough to get them interested enough in cheating. And in general just making the day worse for everyone else.

 

I'm going to guess post-Zero Hour games use some EA account that actually has value, right?

[Plokite_Wolf]

And then they create another one. You can't reliably ban a machine.

It still significantly slows down anyone seriously determined to wreck a private server thingy.

 

Banning an ip could potentially block more than one player and most ips are dynamic so they just reset that as well.

Not all are. IP bans can be placed on 1-3 month intervals, though.

 

Create them on a virtual machine and/or play on the virtual machine, vpn, whatever.

Don't virtual machines use your same IP?

 

That is true. But you do know your friends, right?

Yes, but I don't play with friends (they don't play C&C anyway). I play with whoever stumbles in. Constantly playing with the same people gets boring and is not a true test of skill. Mr. Closed-Off.

 

I play CS:GO

Not quite comparable. It's a hyped FPS where you have a 99,999999999999999% likeliness of playing with stupid kids who bitch, whine, cheat and wallhack. You kinda know to expect that

 

I'm going to guess post-Zero Hour games use some EA account that actually has value, right?

Used to, but EA didn't moderate the now-defunct GameSpy servers, at least not in its final years. GameReplays did. Now it's all handled here (requires Revora forum account to play and fair play accusations are again done on GameReplays) and all trespasses are dealt with accordingly and as hastily as possible.

[MattAttack]

Well I can't think of a more pathetic thing than someone cheating at these old-ass games and I can definitely see the validity of most of the viewpoints being expressed here.  But I think there's some realities to face.  First of all, this isn't anybody's full time job so the dedication needed to constantly monitor and investigate allegations of cheating just isn't there.  It's an easy accusation to toss around-- even when I was noob I sometimes suspected people of cheating, but I know now that they were just astronomically better than me.  Also, I'd imagine cheaters would be a little more proficient at getting around a ban than your average player.  I like the "wall of shame" idea, but again, what proof would be required to make these accusations?  As we've seen here recently on the forums, it only takes one person making "wall of text" claims to slander someone.  I suppose I'm lucky though being strictly a TD player since it is such a small community and I just plain know who to avoid.  (I don't believe anyone is actively cheating there, though)

[Plokite_Wolf]

First of all, this isn't anybody's full time job so the dedication needed to constantly monitor and investigate allegations of cheating just isn't there.

Very true. Unless you can get a number of dedicated fair play specialists, don't even bother adding new features to this. It's what comes with the job of developing an online service.

 

It's an easy accusation to toss around-- even when I was noob I sometimes suspected people of cheating, but I know now that they were just astronomically better than me.

(...)

I like the "wall of shame" idea, but again, what proof would be required to make these accusations?

Too bad CnCNet's supported games don't have replay systems, else it would be very easy to see what the suspected player was doing when you enter his exact viewpoint with fog of war and shroud etc. Though, when you see Tiberian Fiends in TS coming right at you, you screenshot that and report the SoB as soon as you can and watch the fireworks.

 

XWIS' screenshot tool is a good idea of bypassing the absence of replays.

[Guest ehy]

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[hifi]

I think banning is useless because it's laughably easy to go around.

Banning is the right thing to do regardless of how useless you think it is. I think bans have worked great so far and even the minimum effect is an annoyance to the cheater.

 

Well of course it's the right thing to do. But when the methods are sub par it's just more annoying that unseful. That's why some sort of persistent accounts that are hard to get would help "solve" that problem.

 

Instead I support the idea of having an inner circle that you can get kicked out of - a premium subscription. You can still play, naturally, but can't compete in the ladder.

...

Also it's fine for me we get paid if someone gets caught for cheating and buys another subscription, that's how almost all online games work, people just literally buy around their bans...

Not so "free, forever", if you have to buy premium to get fair play. Yeah, it's fine for you because you don't play and in that scenario you would probably be the first one to get paid if someone cheats, at the expense of legit players. That would be unethical.

 

I didn't coin that slogan and we're talking about personal opinion here I think. It's not so unethical as you think. I did point out that it would be unfair to people who can't afford it. If you want bans that hold you need a money gate. Seriously. When Valve has a sale and people create Steam accounts to buy cheap copies of CS:GO the matches get flooded with cheaters. Over time they get caught and it stabilizes a bit. It just means $10-$15 is cheap enough for most cheaters to pay to go ruin the game but $20+ not so much anymore.

 

If there would be a better way to force one account per person policy I would definitely support it but money is the only thing that I've seen working in bigger scale. Money is just the easiest way to hurt people when it comes to cheating.

 

My advice pretty much comes down to: "Play with your friends. Don't have any? Tough."

So every cheat is detectable and friends can't cheat?

 

If you don't trust your friends that's your issue.

 

You can't detect all cheats so why even bother is what I've been saying for the last 7 years I've been with CnCNet. People disagree with me (mostly everyone) and put their effort into preventing cheating. That's fine. Just don't start demanding I put my time on something that even big companies like Valve can't "fix".

 

I said this on IRC before and Plokite_Wolf mentioned it as well. If there would be a good replay system it would be possible to detect some cheats and that's what Valve is actually doing in large scale. They have outsourced people watching demos to some portion of the player base called "Overwatch" where you get candy for doing that and can weigh in if someone is cheating or not in your opinion.

[KHANIVORE]

of course should ban cheaters and such that are proven. anyways, lets get rid of the nick name storing on cncnet so i can smurf ffs :ranting: :ranting: :ranting:

[amokk]

being able to smurf will sure help keep the cheaters (and other assorted pains in the butt) in check...not

 

[Plokite_Wolf]

being able to smurf will sure help keep the cheaters (and other assorted pains in the butt) in check...not

If smurfs would be attached to a single main account like it's the case in post-YR games, it would both make things easier for legit players AND make it easier to hunt down cheaters.

[Guest ehy]

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[Tore]

People who cheat should be punished and the cheat prevented from working.

 

Banning does work to an extent, anti-cheats work to an extent. In an ideal world games would be secure enough so that no cheat would work. This however is not quite possible; people make mistakes. In CnCNet's case it is even harder because there is no access to the source code of the games.

 

If a ladder is going to be taken seriously it has to be moderated. If a game is popular enough people will volunteer to do so. I think an auto screenshot system could work. Maybe screenshots taken several times from all angles of the game at random intervals. It will be a good tool to those who moderate.

 

If nothing is done cheaters will destroy the games ladder or no ladder. As cheaters have done many times before. The main reason people migrated to XWIS from WOL 11 years ago was because it was actually moderated. Cheating on WOL was common in it's last years of operation. XWIS didn't even require a valid CD-key back then and yet cheating was less common.

 

That being said evading conventional bans is easy and thus applying monetary value to something does prevent some people from cheating as it basically means that if they are caught they loose money. 

 

 

[HerrKhosse]

Having people pay money to be able to play is not to avoid cheaters, it's to get money, successful online games these days are often F2P (League of Legends, DOTA2, Heroes of the Storm, Dirty Bomb ...) and cheating is not an actual problem with these games. The most obvious reason why having a paywall for CNCNET would be disastrous, would be that nobody would pay for it. How big is the current playerbase? Do a survey, ask them how many would pay for it. So why do matchmaking and a ranking system at all, if it'll only benefit an incredibly small margin of players?

 

The "competitive" and "elitism" argument I see here is completely ridiculous, you don't have a ranking system and matchmaking to grow these games into an esports because these games aren't good esports games to begin with. The reason why still these things are _incredibly_ important is because of getting more people to play these games and having a good time with it. What I see here is a bunch of old-timers and loyal fans, who are part of this community, proclaiming they really don't care about making this a pleasant experience for newcomers and currently it really, really really isn't.

 

I'm saddened to read hifis view on this as essentially: our service is one that can't scale, you've got to have a small circle of people you know and that's it. Isn't the whole point of CNCNET to bring C&C to bigger masses?

 

Saying a ranking system would invite cheaters is like saying buying expensive electronics invites theft, so you rather twiddle your thumbs, of course you'll get more cheaters if more people have a reason to actually play the game.

 

I can go into detail with my experience when I played RA, but it boils down to: nobody in his right mind is going to repeatiedly get rejected when trying to find a game, or partake in some male dominated circlejerk hierarchy in order to find strangers to play your game with and none of the people who are willing to do this are going to pay money for it either.

 

Cheating in popular F2P games seems to be usually mitigated by:

 

* Adding time-intensive barriers to rise in ranks, maybe you need to play X unranked games before you can participate in the ladder altogether (e.g. DOTA2), this works much better then requiring money because you can't have people pay a lot of money either or you won't have a playerbase so it'll end up that cheaters will just buy a new account. Once they get banned they have to do a lot of work to able to participate again. Once your game gets big enough they'll hire indians that do that for them. But this should be none of CNCNETs issues.

 

* Game-design, don't make a game that has mechanics that are easily exploitable, RTSes that heavily rely on partial-information via fog-of-war are very susceptible to this, but it really depends how significant that is to the outcome of the game, e.g. it's incredibly important in StarCraft 2, much less so in StarCraft 1

 

* Have an automated report system and ignore everything but outliers.

 

I find Grants initial post to be completely unrealistic, as especially with old C&C titles, there's so many ways to cheat and preventing cheating at all in RTSs (e.g. Maphack) is an impossibility in itself and even the biggest AAA titles (StarCraft 2 etc.) can't prevent it.

 

A step that would need to happen in parallel with developing the tech behind the ranking system and matchmaking would be to finally get some honest players together and give them incentives to build a map-pool.

[amokk]

mmaybe this is a good idea 1:offense 4 days ban

2 offense 8 days and go on and on and on

 

tired of on and on and on....lol