The ultimate thread about Arma 3 anti-cheat discussion

[k3lt 3]

Over 100.000 Global Bans by BE since June 15, 2012.

Comparison: 11,974 Global Punkbuster GUID Bans cached by PBBans in Battlefield 3 since October 25, 2011. http://www.pbbans.com/mbi-overall-ban-statistics.html

Need more?

I wasn't even mentioning PB so i'd take it your reading comprehension is lacking.

Also, probably about half of those BE bans are stolen cdkeys. ;)

Edited March 20, 2013 by k3lt

[nik21 1]

I wasn't even mentioning PB so i'd take it your reading comprehension is lacking.

Also, probably about half of those BE bans are stolen cdkeys. ;)

It doesen't matter if these keys are stolen or not. The GUID that gets cheated on gets banned, regardless who used it.

Also, PB is more effective than VAC... ever played something like MW2 or MW3 when it was even more popular? An aimbotter in every lobby. VAC only. Feel free to look up public cheats for VAC games like Counterstrike X, MW2/ MW3, Homefront, stuff like that. You will find serveral ones which went undetected for years and still are.

The time it takes for VAC to pick up a cheat is miles away from the dimensions of BE or PB.

Edited March 20, 2013 by Nik21

[WalkerDown 1]

Over 100.000 Global Bans by BE since June 15, 2012.

Comparison: 11,974 Global Punkbuster GUID Bans cached by PBBans in Battlefield 3 since October 25, 2011. http://www.pbbans.com/mbi-overall-ban-statistics.html

Need more?

You should analyze the numbers: when the cheater doesn't care of being banned, he uses any shit without care, multiple times, because he knows that he can have a new key and another and another and another without much hassle.

So in example, 100,000 A2 keys means more: 200,000 dollars wasted, because who's going to be banned is the cheater that have bought that stolen key for cheap ($1/$2) .. so the real owner is loosing the original money, but the cheater (who's being banned) is loosing 1/10 of that.

On the other hand 10,000 BF3 keys means around: 300,000 dollars wasted, because the marked of the stolen keys (and the simplicity to find new ones) isn't that big like in ArmA, so a key is really the retail price in most cases, so the cheater (before using a cheat, risking of being banned) takes much more precautions: he doesn't uses one of the millions public cheats available.

This is why you have 10 more times bans in A2, coz the (stolen) keys costs nothing and there's a much faster "recycle". Yesterday night i banned the same guy 6 times in 30 minutes! He didn't even care to change his nickname or the IP, he just entered again and again using a new key, because he had dozens in the pocket.

[TSAndrey 1]

WalkerDown, may I ask what your argument point is? Why do you hate BE? What are you fighting for?

We all agree that BE & VAC wouldn't hurt (probably), but you're a fool if you think VAC or PB would do a better job than BE.

Edited March 21, 2013 by TSAndrey

[WalkerDown 1]

WalkerDown, may I ask what your argument point is?

BE alone is not effective against fighting the cheating, we're counting on the fact that the cheaters will be less due to less key stolen, that is probably true, but this strategy isn't going to work on the long term, especially when the price of the game will goes budget (ie: we will return to the current situation with A2). We need a better plan, if the problem is the engine itself, we need the anti-cheat developers (BE or anyone else...) to talk with the A3 devs to better integrate the two, making em more effective.

Why do you hate BE?

I don't.

What are you fighting for?

I'm fighting to have "something" that actually works to lower the number of cheaters (zeroing em is an utopia), i don't care if it is BE, VAC or BIS fixing the scripting engine.

We all agree that BE & VAC wouldn't hurt (probably), but you're a fool if you think VAC or PB would do a better job than BE.

It couldn't be worse, if added together with BE. If only the VAC flagging helps to eliminate the 0.1% more of those cheating, it still better than the 0%.

[EDcase 87]

There is a lot of confusion regarding the cheating and hacking with tha ARMA series

MOST of the problems are caused by scripts that are run on servers to screw things up. These are not hacks that can be detected by BE, PB, Vac or any ani-cheat because they are part of how ARMA works.

The server admin has the option to block scripts & unauthorized addons but because most of the servers are started by people who don't know how to set them up it leaves them vulnerable.

Hopefully BIS will improve the admin tools to make it easier to set up and control

Its a pitty A3 was cracked so fast and that there seems to be no way to ban them or close the Steam accounts that use them.

[Averyling 1]

All cheating behaviors shoud be seriously punished for justice - -

[nik21 1]

On the other hand 10,000 BF3 keys means around: 300,000 dollars wasted, because the marked of the stolen keys (and the simplicity to find new ones) isn't that big like in ArmA, so a key is really the retail price in most cases, so the cheater (before using a cheat, risking of being banned) takes much more precautions: he doesn't uses one of the millions public cheats available.

There are no "stolen keys" in BF3 since the game is linked to the respective Origin Account, the only way to "steal" the game from another Person would be account theft (Same with Steam, however it is much much more difficult to steal whole Steam/ Origin account than it is to simply read a key from the registry).

Also, russian keys for BF3 are around 10$.

BE alone is not effective against fighting the cheating, we're counting on the fact that the cheaters will be less due to less key stolen, that is probably true, but this strategy isn't going to work on the long term, especially when the price of the game will goes budget

Wrong, since keys can no longer be stolen and the retail price will raise once the game is in beta and final stages (45€ final) BE bans will make cheaters mad. Really mad. ;) Edited March 21, 2013 by Nik21

[Akumu 1]

I've played BF3 and ArmA 2. I must say I have seen more cheating in BF3 than in ArmA.

[TSAndrey 1]

BE alone is not effective against fighting the cheating, we're counting on the fact that the cheaters will be less due to less key stolen, that is probably true, but this strategy isn't going to work on the long term, especially when the price of the game will goes budget (ie: we will return to the current situation with A2). We need a better plan, if the problem is the engine itself, we need the anti-cheat developers (BE or anyone else...) to talk with the A3 devs to better integrate the two, making em more effective.

You can't "fix" scripting. Scripts are a core part of Arma modding, and they obviously won't remove it (why would they?). Unfortunately, perfect security with scripting like this can never be achieved, but BattlEye + smart admins will block most scripting attempts.

[Mirudes 1]

[snip]Wrong, since keys can no longer be stolen and the retail price will raise once the game is in beta and final stages (45€ final) BE bans will make cheaters mad. Really mad.

Since ArmA3 is contributed with Steam, this would be valid of course also for the Steam-Network and VAC.

Where one can only presume it for BattlEye...the proof is missing.;)

[WalkerDown 1]

There are no "stolen keys" in BF3 since the game is linked to the respective Origin Account, the only way to "steal" the game from another Person would be account theft (Same with Steam, however it is much much more difficult to steal whole Steam/ Origin account than it is to simply read a key from the registry).

Also, russian keys for BF3 are around 10$.

There's a black market for BF3 as well, but the way to access to the game is a way more expensive than obtain a simple A2 key (atm).

Wrong, since keys can no longer be stolen and the retail price will raise once the game is in beta and final stages (45€ final) BE bans will make cheaters mad. Really mad. ;)

Wrong? I'm not: when the game goes budget you can buy it for a very little price (or much lower than the full price at launch), and lower is the price, less "scared" will be the cheaters to be caught (because they can buy another copy for cheap), this is why we need (ideally) a long term solution, not one that will works only when the game is at full price, in other words we cannot count only the fact that a cheater won't cheat because he's risking 45 euro.. we need something that works even when the game will costs 6 euro.

---------- Post added at 22:17 ---------- Previous post was at 22:12 ----------

You can't "fix" scripting. Scripts are a core part of Arma modding, and they obviously won't remove it (why would they?). Unfortunately, perfect security with scripting like this can never be achieved, but BattlEye + smart admins will block most scripting attempts.

Fixing the scripting engine doesn't mean remove it, the current engine is heavily hacked because of a very bad design.. or to be honest because it is designed without considering the cheating possibilities at all (it were originally aimed to an adult audience, where the cheating wouldn't have make any sense: why the hell you should cheat in a simulation? Do you ever seen someone cheating in DCS? lol). There's multiple possibilities to fix the current engine, but unfortunately the whole engine (under that aspect) hasn't been touched at all apparently... limiting the cheats based on the scripting means changing the whole logic behind it, and this won't happens, nor in ArmA3 at least.

So yes, you can perfectly "fix" the scripting if you want: you need time, resource, and the whilling of doing it... apparently BIS didn't had the time at this round.

[nik21 1]

Wrong? I'm not: when the game goes budget you can buy it for a very little price (or much lower than the full price at launch), and lower is the price, less "scared" will be the cheaters to be caught (because they can buy another copy for cheap), this is why we need (ideally) a long term solution, not one that will works only when the game is at full price, in other words we cannot count only the fact that a cheater won't cheat because he's risking 45 euro.. we need something that works even when the game will costs 6 euro.

That being?

Also, why the hell should the game cost 6€.. Even Call of Duty 1 is still like 20€ on steam. Prices don't get lowered as drasticially as you are describing it... and cheaters were pissed off by constant BE bans even when the keys for OA were 15€.

So yes, you can perfectly "fix" the scripting if you want: you need time, resource, and the whilling of doing it... apparently BIS didn't had the time at this round.

As Dwarden said, Anti-Cheat measures are WIP.

[Mirudes 1]

We could have 100% security when we would take out the modding capability.

Nobody wants that.

BIS as a company could sell more licences due to the fact that more people gets banned - think about it.

More profit for a weaker protection. That's just wrong.

Same with official DLCs: BIS could sell more of its own DLCs with digital signatures.

Leaving the unofficial Mods to Steam - monetizing.

[byrgesen 1]

Fixing the scripting engine doesn't mean remove it, the current engine is heavily hacked because of a very bad design.. or to be honest because it is designed without considering the cheating possibilities at all (it were originally aimed to an adult audience, where the cheating wouldn't have make any sense: why the hell you should cheat in a simulation? Do you ever seen someone cheating in DCS? lol). There's multiple possibilities to fix the current engine, but unfortunately the whole engine (under that aspect) hasn't been touched at all apparently... limiting the cheats based on the scripting means changing the whole logic behind it, and this won't happens, nor in ArmA3 at least.

So yes, you can perfectly "fix" the scripting if you want: you need time, resource, and the whilling of doing it... apparently BIS didn't had the time at this round.

Well if its that easy go right ahead... You are talking about a complete rewamp of the entire engine, making it no longer Arma.

Theres nothing wrong with the enging, its far from a "bad design" lol.

Its one of the few games left in the world that actually trusts the player. It was designed that way, so its actually a very good design. Just not for your purpose.

Think of it this way, in Arma you are innocent till proven guilty. In ALL OTHER GAMES you are guilty untill proven innocent.

The main reason its so easy to hack is stupid Admins. If every single admin were to throw PW and sig verification on right now, there would be a limited amount of hackers left and they would eventually leave because they can only play on servers filled with other hackers. (the few public ones left)

You cant expect a game, which wasnt ment to be played on public servers, to have awsome protection, especially in such an early build.

It was the same in Arma II, stupid admins not using all tools to take care of theyre server, setting up BE filters wrong, all that stuf.. It gave the skiddies "free-reigns" basicly.

Play it in communities, the way it was always ment to be played, and 99% of all your hacker issues go away.

Dont come running here screaming about bad engine design when your using it for something it wasnt intended for....

That being said, its gonna be nice to get some anti cheat. I hope for BE 2.0 ;) Loved BE and despite peoples "hate-campaign" it did the job very well. Again it all comes down to stupid admins :) All the anti-cheat in the world wont help if people cant setup a server correctly...

What we really need is a system to prevent people with illegal copies of Arma joining legal servers. Some kind of steam verification process. Once that gets implemented we are gonna see a huge drop in skiddies and hacks.

Nobody is gonna buy arma III on steam just to get the entire steam account banned.

Edited March 26, 2013 by Byrgesen

[Freeborne 10]

Byrgesen, I don't think you know what you are talking about sorry. You are wrong on so many accounts you just delude this argument with lies and false information.

The main reason it's easy to hack in ARMA is NOT stupid admins. If you think all that's needed to stop most hacks is just a server password and signature verification you should label yourself one of those stupid server admins.

BattlEye has been bypassed many times in the past, so hackers/cheaters can still join a server and run their hacks without the server admin even knowing it. It's only if they do something that is obvious that you'll ever catch them. They could easily do subtle cheats like heal themselves or replenish their ammo and unless you write your own VERY complex missions to test for all possibilities, you'll never stop them.

BattlEye filters are a fairly recent addition as well. Saying BattlEye has served well for years is a total lie really. It's only because ARMA has had a small and mature group of players that it's had low amounts of hackers. That does NOT mean BE was effective. Hackers also have a habit of joining popular servers with 50+ players. There are plenty of such servers nowadays, but 12 months ago it was a rare thing. Nonetheless, THOSE servers were the ones often targeted by hackers, not small clan servers. That does not mean those clan servers were more secure, they were just less tempting targets.

Play it in communities, the way it was always ment to be played, and 99% of all your hacker issues go away.

Dont come running here screaming about bad engine design when your using it for something it wasnt intended for....

You honestly sound like one of the 'elitest' ArmA players that believes ARMA should only be played one way (your way) and that if public servers are hacked, it is their own fault for not restricting their player-base to a small bunch of tight-knit people that have to jump through hoops to get approved. PvP, Warfare, DayZ, Wasteland, Life mods... all of these are probably not your cup of tea, but they deserve a place in the ArmAverse as much as tactical coop does.

I don't necessarily want BattlEye support to be dropped as I'm not sure how effective VAC would be with community mods, but I do want BI to integrate the game more with Steam and give server admins more tools to secure their servers. For example, admins should be able to ban via Steam ID and not ProfileID (which can be changed).

[TSAndrey 1]

The main reason it's easy to hack in ARMA is NOT stupid admins. If you think all that's needed to stop most hacks is just a server password and signature verification you should label yourself one of those stupid server admins.

It's not the main reason, but it's one of the big ones. Most server admins never cared about script filters

BattlEye has been bypassed many times in the past, so hackers/cheaters can still join a server and run their hacks without the server admin even knowing it. It's only if they do something that is obvious that you'll ever catch them. They could easily do subtle cheats like heal themselves or replenish their ammo and unless you write your own VERY complex missions to test for all possibilities, you'll never stop them.

Any anti-cheat can be bypassed, effectiveness is measured in the time it takes to detect the bypass. BE detected bypasses over and over again.

BattlEye filters are a fairly recent addition as well. Saying BattlEye has served well for years is a total lie really. It's only because ARMA has had a small and mature group of players that it's had low amounts of hackers. That does NOT mean BE was effective. Hackers also have a habit of joining popular servers with 50+ players. There are plenty of such servers nowadays, but 12 months ago it was a rare thing. Nonetheless, THOSE servers were the ones often targeted by hackers, not small clan servers. That does not mean those clan servers were more secure, they were just less tempting targets.

The amount of hacking has nothing to do with BE. If any other anti-cheat was used, the cheating would be much much worse.

Before you tell other people that they are lying and then post lies, do some research.

[WalkerDown 1]

Well if its that easy go right ahead... You are talking about a complete rewamp of the entire engine, making it no longer Arma.

The script usage for the users (and contents creator) would be exactly the same (if not even better), it's the logic behind it that would change. Do not confuse the dev part with the final users part. One of the most "stupid" things of ArmA is that actually is the client to tell the server what to do, and the logic behind it doesn't even take in consideration that the user may be malicious, BE is just a patch to arginate the problem, it's the whole scripting engine that is very primitive.

Just not for your purpose.

My purpose? I'm not sure if you understand that this is a mass market title, not a niche product, and that part of those millions buyers out there are potential cheaters... this is not just my affair, this is about everyone's game ruined by those kids.

It was the same in Arma II, stupid admins not using all tools to take care of theyre server, setting up BE filters wrong, all that stuf.. It gave the skiddies "free-reigns" basicly.

So now the exagerated number of cheaters in ArmA are not because of the crap script designed, bad anti-cheating, millions of stolen keys.. but because of "stupid admins"? The solution is to find a skilled admin then. It must be really hard to be that such admin nowaday, since i didn't found a single server without multiple cheaters aboard (including the white-listed ones) of ArmA2 (and before you say this is a Arma3... under this aspect the two games are perfectly identical).

Play it in communities, the way it was always ment to be played, and 99% of all your hacker issues go away.

This is the way YOU want to to be played, unfortunately this excuse lasted for too long.. you're telling the ppl to not go in that part of the city if they won't get robbed, instead of fighting the crime. This is not about solving the problem, this is about ignoring the problem and pretend to eliminate the casual gaming (where ironically 90% of buyers are in fact casual players).

using it for something it wasnt intended for....

This is exactly what the cheaters does, but not ruining their own experience, but everyone's else gameplay.

[TSAndrey 1]

So now the exagerated number of cheaters in ArmA are not because of the crap script designed, bad anti-cheating, millions of stolen keys.. but because of "stupid admins"? The solution is to find a skilled admin then. It must be really hard to be that such admin nowaday, since i didn't found a single server without multiple cheaters aboard (including the white-listed ones) of ArmA2 (and before you say this is a Arma3... under this aspect the two games are perfectly identical).

Bad admining is not the main reason, but it's one of the big ones. If admins set up their server filters properly and modders made their mission more secure, scripters would have a harder time.

[byrgesen 1]

The script usage for the users (and contents creator) would be exactly the same (if not even better), it's the logic behind it that would change. Do not confuse the dev part with the final users part. One of the most "stupid" things of ArmA is that actually is the client to tell the server what to do, and the logic behind it doesn't even take in consideration that the user may be malicious, BE is just a patch to arginate the problem, it's the whole scripting engine that is very primitive.

But what you are talking about is the very foundation of Arma, allowing clients to run scripts... Thats what arma was build on and that is most likely one thing that will never ever change.

What i was trying to explain (sorry for the lack of words) was if the Alpha doesnt have anti-cheat, then one could simply conclude its not ment to be tested on open servers... (hence the "way its suppose to be played")

Yes stupids admins arent the main reason, but its damn close tbh.

All im trying to say is, there are very simple ways ATM to avoid almost all hacking. (PW and sig verification)

But putting up a public server, even with sig verification, in an Alpha with no anti-cheat is about as dumb as shooting your own foot off when you go hunting...

And for the record, i love pretty much all gamemodes in Arma, sure i have favorites, but theres room for all and i play all, love diversity.

I am not telling you how you should play, i am simply stating the Alpha is obviously not ment for the amount of public servers we have atm... Or we would have had anti-cheat form the beginning...

Ohh and one other thing, Arma is very much a niche game, has always been and Arma III doesnt change that. Its still the same enging basicly and so far from "mainstream" FPS games really.

You also make it sound like its impossible to find a casual community, it really isnt...

@Freeborne & WalkerDown

I feel like i need to paint you a picture and you are reading everything to litteral tbh. I never intended to insult you, but you sure took it that way lol.

BattlEye filters are a fairly recent addition as well. Saying BattlEye has served well for years is a total lie really. It's only because ARMA has had a small and mature group of players that it's had low amounts of hackers. That does NOT mean BE was effective. Hackers also have a habit of joining popular servers with 50+ players. There are plenty of such servers nowadays, but 12 months ago it was a rare thing. Nonetheless, THOSE servers were the ones often targeted by hackers, not small clan servers. That does not mean those clan servers were more secure, they were just less tempting targets.

As far as i can see i never said anything like that.....

Again simply stating BE did actually help and did actually do its job fairly well in Arma II. Just think about the amount of money and time they invest in it now and you can almost imagine it getting better heh.

Hackers develop hacks and AC's develop AC features against it, its a never ending race.

About the server size and such, you are totally right. They tend to go for high population servers, but that has nothing to do with the actual AC and how it works tbh.

Thats just hacker behavior and we wont ever be able to do anything about that. AC how ever we can do something about.

Ive been running both Arma II and DayZ servers (now Arma III), from a dedi box for over a year, so i think ive got a small clue as to what this is all about.

We had a regular base of around 30 people, every day, and we didnt have insane haker issues. Sure we had hacker visits, but they was delt with fast.

Clever and active admins makes a world of a difference.

Call me an idiot but i will almost bet my life BI didnt release the Alpha for us to test it (without AC) on open public servers. Seriously doubt it.

EDIT:

Read the posts again and just had to add this:

BattlEye has been bypassed many times in the past, so hackers/cheaters can still join a server and run their hacks without the server admin even knowing it. It's only if they do something that is obvious that you'll ever catch them. They could easily do subtle cheats like heal themselves or replenish their ammo and unless you write your own VERY complex missions to test for all possibilities, you'll never stop them.

.

An admin, who knows how to read logs, will know if theres hackers 99% of the time. With or without AC... Thats simply a matter of how "educated" he is the matter of reading thoose logs.

If BI were to coorperate better with BE and provide server hosters with the nessecary documentation to jump right into "log reading", we would have far less problems tbh.

You can spot a hacker, without BE noticing, if you know what to look for.

Sure theres new and advanced hacks, but guess what, BE or Admins will figure them out and work out measures to prevent them.

Thats gotta be both a fact and simple logics. :)

EDIT2:

Now i feel abit like i have to apoligize for the rant lol. Sry ;)

Edited March 27, 2013 by Byrgesen
Had to add more :)

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

It would be easier to make the punching thru the internet...tool.

The more hacks are made, the longer it takes to catch them, as AC software has to read and compare.

I've seen them play for 30+ minutes before a cheat was detected.

I'm referring to all AC software.

/end rant

[dnk 13]

You honestly sound like one of the 'elitest' ArmA players that believes ARMA should only be played one way (your way) and that if public servers are hacked, it is their own fault for not restricting their player-base to a small bunch of tight-knit people that have to jump through hoops to get approved. PvP, Warfare, DayZ, Wasteland, Life mods... all of these are probably not your cup of tea, but they deserve a place in the ArmAverse as much as tactical coop does.

I have played on at least 2 separate DayZ communities' servers, which would regularly see 50+ people playing, one of which has a good number of the highest-player servers on DayZ Commander (BMRF - 3-4 at a time at peak with 30-50 players each, the other is now mostly defunct but was fairly secure in its heyday). These are communities with hundreds, perhaps 4-digits, of players. Yes, they suffered from cheating/hacks sometimes, but what community that large doesn't in any game?

On the whole, though, they were well administered, with whitelists and active admins who knew their stuff, and consequently I could count on one finger the number of times I had obvious, clear cheating happening in over a hundred hours of gameplay. There may be "health cheats" and some others happening rarely, but looking through cheat reports lately, more come down to "bugs" than to cheats/exploits, maybe 1 real cheating incident per 24 hours of hundreds of players' playing (players seem to overreport if anything). That's extremely low by any gaming standard. It can be done even for the MP community, not just the tactical realism types with a 30-player base.

Understandably, many servers don't have this level of security, and it does take a good bit of knowledge/effort to keep them secure, so it would be best if there were easier options available, especially regarding the low-hanging-fruit sorts of blatant supercheats (mass object spawning, movepos stuff, etc).

[Marlit 1]

Loged to "youtubers" server yesterday, just to find out that its being nucked all the time. Most servers I log in, I die from explosions, or nocliping and rapid fire.. kids like to troll. Its imposible to test this alpha.

Bad FPS in multiplayer + Trolls = me watcing Discovery instead of playig :)

[WalkerDown 1]

Loged to "youtubers" server yesterday, just to find out that its being nucked all the time. Most servers I log in, I die from explosions, or nocliping and rapid fire.. kids like to troll. Its imposible to test this alpha.

Bad FPS in multiplayer + Trolls = me watcing Discovery instead of playig :)

I found a solution: ...stay away until ArmA3 will be enjoyable enough to be played (and i mean stable FPS on my rig, and no or minimal crashes)... assuming this day will ever arrives. :)

[byrgesen 1]

I found a solution: ...stay away until ArmA3 will be enjoyable enough to be played (and i mean stable FPS on my rig, and no or minimal crashes)... assuming this day will ever arrives. :)

Got another suggestion :)

Go here and write a post. You will get a PM from someone if you sound interesting hehe.

Its a great thread to find people to play with, untill we can actually play on public servers :)