HazelrahFiver wrote:
zeech wrote:It's not possible to bypass peer-to-peer checks.
If it is so easy to instill a system of checks to disallow cheaters, why is it that NOT ONE game does so? There must be some reason that developers don't include this kind of anti-cheating, because I never heard of a game that cannot be hacked and the online play ruined.
Now, I'm guessing that actual, dedicated servers aren't subject to the methods you suggested, which would explain a lot of games not being able to stop cheating. If that ISN'T the case, then I revert to my original question.
well, it depends on what games you play. games with servers are easy to secure against cheats, so cheating is rarer on those, as you mentioned. (edit: oh wait, you meant the exact opposite! well my answer still mostly applies. give me some examples and maybe I can explain them.)
As for p2p games, a good example of the exact technique I described is the RTS supreme commander. it uses de sync detection just like I said.
also, if you play fighting games, they usually use this sort of technique to make their net code work, so they get anti cheat features for free. (FGs usually just send control inputs and both clients run independently)
why dont more games do it? well, it requires you to make your game deterministic. if you have random numbers, you need to send a random seed so all clients generate the same random numbers. you need to use integer math so different hardware don't calculate floating point numbers slightly differently. you also need to be able to checksum your game state and compare. and you need to decide what to do when a de sync occurs.
all of this is not hard, but it's not trivial either. most games that I've played that has rampant numerical cheating have been Japanese (pso being one example). I usually put this down to the Japanese being bad at internet software. they're fairly behind the west in this field.
what western games have this sort of cheating? I haven't heard of any fps or rts games that can cheat like this. peer to peer games are somewhat rare anyways - it's usually much easier to do client server, except you have to pay for a server.
usually the cheats I hear about are things like auto headshot , reveal fog of war, see through walls, etc. those things can be done completely locally so other PCs cannot check or stop you. are there western games where you can have more damage or health with a cheat in multi?