Please do something about cheaters

[noclantalula]

Hi everyone. Sometimes i do get piss off, that ....i don't understand how some top players make theirs times. Do you know when you know that you doing everything like on the spot ( on the spot it's like if you go further you touch the wall )??? and even you losing time?? and some wanker comes to you and talk about tricks??? i know the tricks it's like follow what the track offers you in terms of getting speed, that it's a trick!!! so i leave you guys with this video from Youtube. LAST CHEAT it's something that i ALWAYS knew that was possible that some hacker or a good programer could do. LAst cheat it's like the no grass or dirt it's like tarmac all the time, but in this case you can choose how you want it like find a better configuration for dirt!! so i leave you all with this and think about it PLEASE because i do think that some ( or all ) top players using it. And please don't tell me that 9/11 wasn't a inside job or that Armstrong didn't use doping to win 7 times the tour de france!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zZ9L4DjPQs

PLEASE GUYS DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT you guys are geeks so build something that block players with changed cars configurations!!! it's that so difficult???? not talking about skins ok xd but talking about values of handling and engine.
Using Cheates like in Tony Hawks or something similar no worries not in a game that played buy millions and there's fucking competitions and WORLD CUPS!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm really tired of this. Build a program and give it to me and i will report to you guys as I DID BEFORE or make the game clean of Cheaters.

[The_Big_Boo]

Keep calm ^_^

Those using this for solo mode official tries will see their times removed and may be banned (it happened in TMUF), even if it takes time at the moment because it has to be done manually.
Those using this online will either be auto-ban on the server (I think it can detect immediately at least some of the cheats) or by an admin, will most probably be banned from DediMania if the server uses it, their replays can be auto-saved for future proof and soon they won't have any server to join.

TrackMania is usually rather clean of cheaters, especially if you compare with other racing online games so there's not a lot to worry about. Let them do to let them cry when they'll have to buy another key to play again.


Edit: I love how the cheat for Platform is totally pointless and useless. You can't use it online (the server is counting respawns, you can't cheat it) and there's nothing to win from having every medal in the campaign (it's mostly personal satisfaction imo).

[Rots]

Checkpoint jumping doesn't work either (not by personal experience ) Xaseco counts the checkpoints. You get instaban if there is a checkpoint incoherence online. If used in an oficial time in solo you will get your time deleted too... Seen this in tmuf.

[noclantalula]

Big Boo but you talking about a plugin for servers?

[Xymph]

Those using this online will either be auto-ban on the server (I think it can detect immediately at least some of the cheats) or by an admin, will most probably be banned from DediMania if the server uses it, their replays can be auto-saved for future proof and soon they won't have any server to join.

The dedicated server detects some cheating with its incoherence checks, but plenty of online cheating passes through and cannot (easily) be detected automatically by server controllers nor the Dedimania system.

Replay saving in Dedimania helps, but currently they still have to be checked manually for suspect logins/records, because automatic batch-wise validation is and has always been broken to various degrees (xbx fixed some validation bugs in MP this Spring but it's not usable yet, and will forever remain broken in TMF because that client isn't updated anymore).

So fighting Dedimania cheaters is, by and large, still a script-assisted but manual process, and that doesn't scale if and when* TM2 cheating becomes more rampant and/or sophisticated. And that video indicates it can be quite sophisticated already.

*Meaning that if the planned TM2 demo will allow to freely create demo logins for online racing, then I expect online cheating to become just as rampant in TM2 as in TMF.

TrackMania is usually rather clean of cheaters, especially if you compare with other racing online games so there's not a lot to worry about.

I don't play any other racing games, but while online cheating in TM2 appears to be rather limited (or flies below my radar), it is pretty common in TMF due to the free Nations accounts. And if your perception of TMF being clean of cheaters too is based on what you see on servers and in Dedimania, that's only because I clean most of it manually, as reported in this thread.

In four+ years I've banned 702 TMUF logins (or nearly 15% of the total) and 4018 TMNF logins from Dedimania, and deleted tens of thousands of cheated records (also those of the 2800+ logins that cheated at least once but not enough to get banned). That's not "usually rather clean" just by the game's nature, it takes daily maintenance. And I'm not going to do the same in TM2 if cheating becomes significant there.

Therefore Slig and I have decided the following:

If the TM2 demo indeed allows online racing with free demo logins, we expect Nadeo to make the account status available via the Web Services API/SDK and the dedicated's Get(Detailed)PlayerInfo method.
The Dedimania API will then require server controllers to include the account status for all players, and the master server will ignore records by demo players.

Servers & controllers that do not include the account status will be ignored altogether, so all will have to be updated.

Obviously, if the TM2 demo will not allow online racing, then we can just breathe a little easier.

[The_Big_Boo]

As I've almost never played on Stadium only servers in TMF, I admit my feeling about this is a bit biased and indeed, free accounts is an open-door to cheat in multiplayer. I also know you're doing a wonderful work with Slig (already said it in a totally different topic ^_^).

But I was talking more globally, because free accounts can't do official tries for instance. In other racing games, as soon as there is some kind of TA solo ranking, it's full of cheated times and I'm not talking about 1 or 2 guys but dozens of them (who paid for the game). I'm not even talking about multiplayers where I just can't have fun because it's totally anonymous and full of people who got nothing better to do than crap.

[noclantalula]

Well guys i think that some off you are doing a great job in fighting cheaters but at the same time that's a stupid job to do manualy, as you just described Xymph. In game Trackmania stadium 2 ( like the other versions with multiplayer racing ) there's always a connection between players, so why don't you guys use that also to find cheaters. The same way that i get the information from a skin why not use that for Engine and handling? Those are the values that you guys should have in count. Forget the no wall friction and the rest because those we can see it those are stupid but not the last one. (The last one it's like in F1 or the old great game Grand Prix 1,2,3,4 that you can setup your car as you wanted. MOre down force less you name it ) Those values are the same for everyone they the default values. So if there's a cheater racing with me i'm getting those values from him but i can't see them, right? But if you guys create something that goes in the game for everyone that can read the values Engine and handling of the ones that i'm racing with ( the same way i'm getting times and the skins ) and if there's someone with no default values, that racer i'll get a sign on him like the players name if you want to see the names of the racers in front of you. Then i just have to make a printscreen and get the login of the player ( /players in the chat box ) and send to you guys. Looks easy and i think it is, to make! i'm not a programer but this must be so easy to do. And let us help you guys we are a big community in Dirty ,and in dirt that's where we have more problems with cheaters. Can you imagine that last cheat ( engine & handling ) in dirt??? it's not funny i tell you, they just need to find the right values but not to much just to give them that little more that they need.....and in times and this is what the game is TIMES beat your and everyones times it's like a secound to me at the end. SInce i start to have a team and get in competitions ( i'm the Portuguese dirt team cap ) i can do dedis and sometimes good ones but at the end i'm always and it was ever , a secound or a little less from 1 dedi. I don't know if i explain myself correctly but please Bring the joy to the game make it fair for everyone and not just for a few. This is not just make good games and sell it this is TRACKMANIA one of the most successful games ever made. Help us helping you guys and finish this greed of the world ( in this case just a few people that don't have civility or respect for others ) ty

[Slig]

The same way that i get the information from a skin why not use that for Engine and handling? Those are the values that you guys should have in count. Forget the no wall friction and the rest because those we can see it those are stupid but not the last one. (The last one it's like in F1 or the old great game Grand Prix 1,2,3,4 that you can setup your car as you wanted. MOre down force less you name it ) Those values are the same for everyone they the default values. So if there's a cheater racing with me i'm getting those values from him but i can't see them, right? But if you guys create something that goes in the game for everyone that can read the values Engine and handling of the ones that i'm racing with ( the same way i'm getting times and the skins ) and if there's someone with no default values, that racer i'll get a sign on him like the players name if you want to see the names of the racers in front of you. Then i just have to make a printscreen and get the login of the player ( /players in the chat box ) and send to you guys. Looks easy and i think it is, to make! i'm not a programer but this must be so easy to do.

What you say is not difficult: it's just not possible at all.

[noclantalula]

why not? seriously? it doesn't make sense to me. If i get the information of a players skin ( a custom one ) why not the default or not, of the values of a engine? the only way i see that, that it's not possible it's because of the engine of the game. The game just send information of the times and coordinates it with the players skin in the track you playing? sorry about my questions but i'm a noob. Never wanted to learn this things just play.

[The_Big_Boo]

What's the point of doing that anyway? If they can change values on their games, they can fake the ones which will be sent to the server.

A straightforward solution would be to use the same netcode than SM where everything is computed by the server while clients are only predicting what it should be (which is supposed to be the same concerning your own movements). But it also means issues with lag.

However, there may be an hybrid solution. Inputs should be sent to the server so it can check if the time is valid but the main netcode stays the same. As the server now includes the .pak (which was not the case before ManiaPlanet), it can simulate physics. So even if someone uses a cheat, he can't apply its cheat on the server.

I don't know what's planned about this but considering what have been done for SM, that would be a logical way to do it.