The Highscores in Arcade Mode...

[Enoen]

What is..GOING ON?

1. #Despair 1410076507 Points
2. Megawhoop 500003750 Points
3. Yamaraja666 100252275 Points

I saw this today as well as many other ridiculous point counts and became insanely demotivated to try to beat Enfyny. Not that I stood a chance but due to not realizing people can easily manipulate their scores I'm just wondering why they'd do it in the first place other than to give the devs trouble.

Not that I want any dev right now to sweat about this; we are still in beta and honestly they might just give the high scorers a wall of fame or something when the rest of the Arcade stages come out or wipe out all scores period but I feel it's worth discussing the fact that players are kind of trolling the score boards.

I don't really know where I'm going with this; I guess I shouldn't be surprised that players can hack anything in this game but I kinda wish the score board wasn't one of these things; I don't want them to get in trouble and if possible maybe ponder the idea of weekly clearing those scores without punishment (I'm a little naive in that aspect) without giving the devs something to bother them.

I guess what I'm trying to talk about is what would be the least stressful way for anyone managing the high score boards to deal with the situation? I like to believe these players are just having their little fun and could potentially play the game regularly to earn their scores and what not so when I sat down and thought "These guys could get banned for this" it felt weird so I felt like posting this ramblefest for everyone's opinion.

 

[Erisior]

Nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs to vent their feelings from time to time.

 

[HexZyle]

It's constant clean-up work for the developers, and the fact that you can do it I would think gives the impression that the programming of the game is unprofessional
They shouldn't be banned from the game, but definitely blacklisted from the high scores server (and something done to auto-remove their scores) and possibly marking all characters created on that steam account as memory editors/cheaters visible whenever they play multiplayer.

 

[Erisior]

Maybe set a score cap determined by the highest possible combination of scores and anything that exceeds that blacklists the account front submitting any other scores. I'm sure that can be implemented. Or a more complex variant.

 

[Erisior]

Or a stronger encryption on their coding to prevent it from being so easily altered.

 

[HexZyle]

Maybe set a score cap determined by the highest possible combination of scores and anything that exceeds that blacklists the account front submitting any other scores. I'm sure that can be implemented. Or a more complex variant.

The thing is, not all hacked scores are blatantly obvious like the ones in the multi-billion point range.

Or a stronger encryption on their coding to prevent it from being so easily altered.

The hackers are memory editing/packet editing, which means they are modifying the runtime values of the code (or the network message containing the score values to the server), which can't be "encrypted" per se. However, I came up with a value protection method a couple years ago that, to my understanding is practically flawless, since it revolves around using a dynamic key & variable system. (If you edit the variable, you also have to edit the key the inverse amount, in the same game tick otherwise the game detects it as tampered with. A really really simple implementation of this is

if (key + score != max_possible_score)
    {hacked = true}

Note that this isn't limited to addition, you could multiply the values together, or even have more than one key! Or, the different elements of the score could be stored in different variables: kills, time bonuses, coins, etc, to practically act as its own key.
Of course, you could also use this same security method for the hacked variable, and if it's tampered with, modify the score to something that would flag the hacked variable again. (So to unmark your run as hacked, you would need to simultaneously edit four values minimum)

 

[Erisior]

Yeah, I'm aware of what they're doing. I just wasn't sure what the proper way to convey my point was since I am not proficient in the terminology of the exploitation world. Even though packet editing is super simple and even I can do it.

 

[Own]

It's fine if they do this. Their hack gets detected, the devs look into the scoreboards every now and then, those people are banned from life from the scoreboards. They're warned if they try to submit a score. It's just a matter of weeding them out of eligibility one by one. This has been happening all the time, you only notice it when they take a day to get around to banning them.

Nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs to vent their feelings from time to time. I was a bit discouraged as well after seeing all of that and the hard work I put into earning my spot in the highschores.

You admitted you used packet editors to get the #1 score. You earned nothing.

 

[Teddy]

The reason you're both seeing all those scores is because you both were detected by the game as editing its memory and flagged for blacklisting. Blacklisting in this game means that instead of competing against regular people or getting banned outright, you'll get to compete against the other blacklisted people!

All blacklisted users get the run leading to the blacklist saved, in case there's a false positive (up until now there's been 0 false positives afaik), so I went in and checked the data of the run to make sure the system hadn't hickupped.

According to the system, Erisior was banned for editing pretty much everything under the sun. It all checks out with the provided metadata. I'm extremely confident this was a true positive.

Heilias didn't edit that much, but an attack stat of ~44000 isn't all that common! The collected data for the run also checks out.

 

[HexZyle]

The reason you're both seeing all those scores is because you both were detected by the game as editing its memory and flagged for blacklisting. Blacklisting in this game means that instead of competing against regular people or getting banned outright, you'll get to compete against the other blacklisted people!

Woah! Never mind my idea then, you guys are CLEARLY on top of this issue. Color me impressed.

 

[Teddy]

Blacklisting in this game means that instead of competing against regular people or getting banned outright, you'll get to compete against the other blacklisted people!

As I was doing the dishes I got to thinking that, while providing some good ol' ironic justice, now that it has happened to a couple of otherwise upstanding members of the community I realize that maybe it isn't the best way to go.

A better solution would perhaps be to let them see their own scores, but not the scores of other cheaters.

If that had been the case here, neither Erisior nor Heilias would've felt compelled to complain about the more obvious cheaters that were outscoring their more tempered and graceful cheating!

 

[Own]

I actually like the idea of cheaters being put alongside cheaters. Same way that some online games only matchmake cheaters / abusive players with other cheaters / abusive players instead of banning them outright.

You can still see your scores in Arcade Mode itself by inspecting the board, I mean. Seeing people with cheated scores complain about even more cheated scores seems kind of amusing, to me.

I do have a question, though.

Cheater A cheats, gets put on the blacklist. They then do a co-op run with Non-Cheater B, but don't cheat. Do both their scores automatically get put on the blacklist? Can B not see a record of their score anywhere on the non-blacklist?

If you're a flagged cheater and your co-op scores don't get added no matter what, it would be helpful to have a red flag next to people's names in the lobby menu for Arcade. I'd rather not have my scores wasted due to playing with blacklisted folks, after all.

 

[Teddy]

Cheater A cheats, gets put on the blacklist. They then do a co-op run with Non-Cheater B, but don't cheat. Do both their scores automatically get put on the blacklist? Can B not see a record of their score anywhere on the non-blacklist?

In a multiplayer run, if a confirmed cheater is in the team, you won't even get the option to upload the score to Steam!

In a multiplayer run where a not-confirmed (because he doesn't upload the scores) cheater cheats, the scores of the other players will be marked as such and I usually just delete them without blacklisting them.

Seeing people with cheated scores complain about even more cheated scores seems kind of amusing, to me.

Well, yeah, I agree there is some value of comedy there (which is why I designed the system to work that way), but I honestly feel a bit bad for both @Erisior and @Heilias because I know from empirical studies that they are both good guys. I guess they just like to see if they can fool the system, and then had the lapse of judgement to raise the issue on the forums in this manner.

Since using the more chilled out form of shadowbanning would result in the exact same thing for the non-cheaters (not seeing the cheaters), maaaybeeee it would be prudent to use that rather than having a system that almost baits this kind of reaction! After all, if a paying customer cheats his way to #1 and rests easy believing he cheated so smartly he gets to keep that spot (while other cheaters magically disappear if they beat him)... I guess that's a good way for everyone to get what they want?

Except for those of us who'll miss these ironic topics, of course. But I wouldn't worry! Even with the other system I'm sure someone will decide to brag with their shining, invisible #1 trophy at some point!

 

[Kidef242]

I didn't expect this kind of plot twist.

10/10.

 

[Own]

In a multiplayer run, if a confirmed cheater is in the team, you won't even get the option to upload the score to Steam!

That being the case, I'd especially love a red flag by their name in the lobby. Or some sort of warning that the player is flagged. People not being able to submit their scores and not knowing why is kind of bad, no?

 

[HexZyle]

It certainly reminds me of the system that developer Dez added into OBEY, the /troll command.

Since griefing is actually encouraged by the game (it's a psychological KOTH game where all the tools provided can be used however you want, so if you want to make enemies, it's only going to hurt your own chances to win: you need to pay people to deliver you points, and having friends means they can rat out other people who plan on overthrowing you) the only purpose of this function is to deal with people who are abusive of other players over mic chat and are generally foul mannered.

What it does is mutes the player for all other players, and puts a massive arrow over their head that everyone else can see except them. (In a stealth game where everyone is hiding from, or following the orders of the player in the giant, heavily armed robot, you can imagine the hilarity that ensues)
If they happen to take control of the robot, messages regarding firing the robot's weapons is not sent to the server, although it still looks like it's shooting on their screen. So it's like that old Chinese guy with a banana scene from RIPD

 

[Own]

By the way, out of curiousity - how many people are on the blacklist high scores? Is it really that big of a problem?

 

[Teddy]

By the way, out of curiousity - how many people are on the blacklist high scores? Is it really that big of a problem?

It's not a huge problem! 43 people are on the blacklist. Most of those are in top #30 though, so for a player inside the blacklist that seems pretty bad

 

[A-Jay]

How about someone who just alters the speed at which the game is running?

I for one am looking forward to seeing a TAS.

 

[Own]

I think doing a frame-by-frame playthrough would probably count as a severely unfair advantage. Leave the leaderboards to people playing the game naturally.