My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat

@foambreaker said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

"anything running in system memory that can alter the state of things"

That is the very definition of illegal software, anything that MODIFIES state.

You know what I meant, I gave examples. I'm talking about software that is active in memory but not interacting with the game in any way. Software that controls RGB or the feed of your fans is not illegal, but that's just two examples of such software. I know Razer Chroma was an issue for a lot of games running, I don't know if that's ever been fixed since I nuked it from my system and continue to nuke it on any new PCs.

All that info is why I keep gaming on consoles. The walled garden lol.

@realstyli said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

I also hope Rare Support/Enforcers are trained on these possibilities and a fair appeals system put in place for such eventualities.

All kinds of this. I read horror stories occasionally from people who caught a ban, claim it's unjustified, and reach out to Rare support for help. They get the standard "you're banned, deal with it" response. Then the person catches a streamer's ear or, if maybe they have a bit of clout in the SoT community, they are able to get a group of people on board to help make enough noise about their ban. Only then will Rare dig a little deeper and discover, lo and behold, they were unintentionally snapped up.

It's not a super common experience, but it does happen. And every time it happens I feel for the people who have to go through that. If any form of rigorous anti-cheat goes into effect that will hand out bans, the support team must treat appeals with more care and attention than they do currently.

That why nothing been revealed.
Rare has a team and Im sure like many others, they have gone over every tiny small little thing that could be posed a sa cheat but isn't. BUT you have to think...some cheats uses those same methods to work, too fool the anti-cheat...

"Sacrifices must be made"

@wolfmanbush said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@tangus-00 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@realstyli said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

I also hope Rare Support/Enforcers are trained on these possibilities and a fair appeals system put in place for such eventualities.

All kinds of this. I read horror stories occasionally from people who caught a ban, claim it's unjustified, and reach out to Rare support for help. They get the standard "you're banned, deal with it" response. Then the person catches a streamer's ear or, if maybe they have a bit of clout in the SoT community, they are able to get a group of people on board to help make enough noise about their ban. Only then will Rare dig a little deeper and discover, lo and behold, they were unintentionally snapped up.

It's not a super common experience, but it does happen. And every time it happens I feel for the people who have to go through that. If any form of rigorous anti-cheat goes into effect that will hand out bans, the support team must treat appeals with more care and attention than they do currently.

It is true that is happens but it's nearly impossible to tell the truth as an observer in the cases as they are talked about in social spaces.

That was hardly my point, and I could care less what truth someone observes in social spaces. I'm specifically referring to people who were later cleared by Rare once an appropriate investigation was conducted. And how, currently, appropriate investigations sometimes don't happen. I'm not at all interested in whatever narrative you, or anyone else, wants to put forth [this reads harsh, but I don't mean it harshly]. I'm interested in innocent people having recourse to appeal an unwarranted ban. Simple as that. :-)

@wolfmanbush said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@tangus-00 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

That was hardly my point, and I could care less what truth someone observes in social spaces. I'm specifically referring to people who were later cleared by Rare once an appropriate investigation was conducted. And how, currently, appropriate investigations sometimes don't happen. I'm not at all interested in whatever narrative you, or anyone else, wants to put forth. I'm interested in innocent people having recourse to appeal an unwarranted ban. Simple as that. :-)

You don't really know that they were cleared by it going through the social ladder. Is it possible? yes, but there is nothing to confirm that people were not cleared by going through the support system as anyone would.

Weird take. At least since you concede it's possible, there's no need to get into examples. So, one way or the other, as long as it's possible, I don't really understand why you are being contrary. Anyone who was inadvertently banned should have better recourse than they do currently. It says a lot more about anyone who would be against this idea than it does those who support it.

Also, most of the big sot viral type of situations are not typically only cheating/not cheating. There are often other factors involved that an "anti-cheat" wouldn't really have anything to do with.

Then an anti-cheat won't snap them up and there's nothing to worry about. So... it's moot for the purposes of this discussion. Yes?

@wolfmanbush said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@tangus-00 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@wolfmanbush said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@tangus-00 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

That was hardly my point, and I could care less what truth someone observes in social spaces. I'm specifically referring to people who were later cleared by Rare once an appropriate investigation was conducted. And how, currently, appropriate investigations sometimes don't happen. I'm not at all interested in whatever narrative you, or anyone else, wants to put forth. I'm interested in innocent people having recourse to appeal an unwarranted ban. Simple as that. :-)

You don't really know that they were cleared by it going through the social ladder. Is it possible? yes, but there is nothing to confirm that people were not cleared by going through the support system as anyone would.

Weird take. At least since you concede it's possible, there's no need to get into examples. So, one way or the other, as long as it's possible, I don't really understand why you are being contrary. Anyone who was inadvertently banned should have better recourse than they do currently. It says a lot more about anyone who would be against this idea than it does those who support it.

Also, most of the big sot viral type of situations are not typically only cheating/not cheating. There are often other factors involved that an "anti-cheat" wouldn't really have anything to do with.

Then an anti-cheat won't snap them up and there's nothing to worry about. So... it's moot for the purposes of this discussion. Yes?

Challenging hearsay on social media as a basis for claiming inadequacy in the system is not a weird take.

It is when you immediately mention that it's possible afterwards.

People being lead astray about support has lead to more issues around cheating. "I am concerned" is much different than "the system isn't good enough, isn't reliable, etc"

If no one said "the system isn't good enough" things would almost never improve. It's almost frightening that you equate a negative connotation with someone respectfully calling for improvement.

Either way, I'm not interested in continuing the discussion any more. It's starting to derail the purpose of the thread, I've made my point clear, and so have you. You can have the last word if you want it. Have a good rest of your day.

@tangus-00 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@wolfmanbush said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@tangus-00 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@realstyli said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

I also hope Rare Support/Enforcers are trained on these possibilities and a fair appeals system put in place for such eventualities.

All kinds of this. I read horror stories occasionally from people who caught a ban, claim it's unjustified, and reach out to Rare support for help. They get the standard "you're banned, deal with it" response. Then the person catches a streamer's ear or, if maybe they have a bit of clout in the SoT community, they are able to get a group of people on board to help make enough noise about their ban. Only then will Rare dig a little deeper and discover, lo and behold, they were unintentionally snapped up.

It's not a super common experience, but it does happen. And every time it happens I feel for the people who have to go through that. If any form of rigorous anti-cheat goes into effect that will hand out bans, the support team must treat appeals with more care and attention than they do currently.

It is true that is happens but it's nearly impossible to tell the truth as an observer in the cases as they are talked about in social spaces.

That was hardly my point, and I could care less what truth someone observes in social spaces. I'm specifically referring to people who were later cleared by Rare once an appropriate investigation was conducted. And how, currently, appropriate investigations sometimes don't happen. I'm not at all interested in whatever narrative you, or anyone else, wants to put forth [this reads harsh, but I don't mean it harshly]. I'm interested in innocent people having recourse to appeal an unwarranted ban. Simple as that. :-)

This is really the point I was getting to, yeah. In Sea of Thieves, unlike a lot of games, a permaban is actually a permanent ban... forever. A lot of games do 6 months to a year, and I think the Xbox Live maximum is now 1 year(?). In any case, it's my concern that some might get hit by a permanent ban due to a software they use legitimately being flagged as a cheat.

And, to be clear, I don't mean some homebrew or amateur app made by a hobbyist. As I mentioned before, Razer Chroma used to cause issues and I think a lot of people would consider Razer as mainstream and trustworthy? But issues happen with even trustworthy apps, maybe an update causes a bug which gets flags as unusual behaviour.

I posted a link in my original post to Luke Lafreniere's situation that happened with WoW a few years ago. Luke, who was working for LTT at the time, couldn't figure out what caused it and all Blizzard would tell him is that he was banned for the use of an unauthorised app and cheating. If someone who is working for a tech company can't figure this out, what chance does a random casual have?

Hopefully, as I said, this won't be an issue and that both Rare and the anti-cheat company will have done extensive testing for edge cases.

@crowedhunter said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

How does that affect like capture cards and Razer Synapse stuff?

I think capture cards should be fine as they're just capturing the PC output and there's no reason anticheat would enable HDCP on your output, I don't think. It's one reason a lot of bigger streamers use dual PC setups still. So I'm 99% certain that shouldn't be affected.

Unsure about Razer Synapse. I switched to a Logitech mouse a year or so ago and I make sure even its G Hub app isn't running unless I need to change a mouse setting. But I do use programs like Voicemeeter, Focusrite Control, MSI Afterburner, and MSI Center that are always running. I'm hopeful they should be fine, but we'll see.

@crowedhunter said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@realstyli I've got my LEDs on my PC to a specific color. I always made fun of them but now I keep buying Razer stuff bc it's black and green and they're way into LEDs. Only way to keep it from changing color and being distracting is to have Synapse running. I also need it for the sensitivity clutch on my mouse to work.

I wouldn't be overly concerned right now. The post was just to raise awareness of the potential for an issue and more in hope that Rare's enforcement policies are adapted to take such circumstances into account.

While these issues do arise, they are uncommon enough to be called edge cases... but that leads into WolfManBush's reply...

@wolfmanbush said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@realstyli said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@crowedhunter said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

How does that affect like capture cards and Razer Synapse stuff?

I think capture cards should be fine as they're just capturing the PC output and there's no reason anticheat would enable HDCP on your output, I don't think. It's one reason a lot of bigger streamers use dual PC setups still. So I'm 99% certain that shouldn't be affected.

Unsure about Razer Synapse. I switched to a Logitech mouse a year or so ago and I make sure even its G Hub app isn't running unless I need to change a mouse setting. But I do use programs like Voicemeeter, Focusrite Control, MSI Afterburner, and MSI Center that are always running. I'm hopeful they should be fine, but we'll see.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic but I would think that it would be a situation of people getting their support tickets in and Rare at some point releasing the "after review we have reinstated accounts that were banned for A B or C" response

any issues like that are gonna effect plenty of people

This is kind of my hope, yes. But it does require Rare to be less rigid about their approach to appeals and bring their enforcement more in-line with the global Xbox Live enforcement policies as well.

While some might be happy to say "sacrifices need to be made", I'm more empathic and suggest that one person permabanned (forever) incorrectly is too many. Especially considering how much this game means to so many people.

TLDR version of this thread.

Cheaters panicking about their "Moods" read (cheats) being detected and them getting banned.

Strap in boys were about to see a lot of salty excuses posts in the coming months.

@gracie-grog6769 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

TLDR version of this thread.

Cheaters panicking about their "Moods" read (cheats) being detected and them getting banned.

Strap in boys were about to see a lot of salty excuses posts in the coming months.

3000 hours in the game, a perfect Xbox Live reputation for 15 years. I use a controller on PC. I take complete and utter umbrage to being labelled a cheater. This thread was made out of genuine concern and I gave an example of a high profile tech expert who had a similar problem in WoW. If you get banned wrongly because of some software you use, I hope you remember this.

@realstyli I dont and never will game on pc. I even own a laptop good enough for Sot. Only use it for rendering 4k movies. Getting banned for software is a pc issue.

@gracie-grog6769 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

@realstyli I dont and never will game on pc. I even own a laptop good enough for Sot. Only use it for rendering 4k movies. Getting banned for software is a pc issue.

So you don't know what you're talking about? Gotcha.

@d3adst1ck

Ouch! That's a particularly bad problem... but highlights the exact kind of thing I am referring to.

Hopefully it will tell you to close this or that program and won't allow you to play with them running. I think that's how they should handle the stuff that isn't cheats but might be suspicious. I don't think that stuff would be an instant ban.

@magicjack5 said in My "Minor" Concerns Over Anti-Cheat:

Hopefully it will tell you to close this or that program and won't allow you to play with them running. I think that's how they should handle the stuff that isn't cheats but might be suspicious. I don't think that stuff would be an instant ban.

You would think so, but what's happening with the AMD's Anti-Lag+ in CS2 right now would suggest that's not usually what happens at all. You get banned and then, if you're lucky, the enforcement team work with whatever software company caused the issue to identify it, update the AC, and over-turn any bans related to it. But that can take time.

In an ideal world, yes, the Anti-Cheat could warn the user but that's opening up the system to another potential exploit, so it's really never going to happen.