Cheating everywhere, GMs???

[OuterChimp]

This shit never happened on Teal.

[titanshub]

It all looks pretty damning to me. Especially the part where Detoxx arrives to dismiss the idea by implying he has an unhealthy obsession.

I'd love to see a more formalized presentation of this but I can understand that GM's may not have a background in math and it was designed to be approachable by them. However, if you have a valid argument against the methodology used to come to these conclusions then lets see it.

Until that happens this looks pretty convincing to me and the ball is in the staffs court. Based on rulings in the past I don't hold out much hope they will adequately address the rampant cheating on this server but I really hope they will do something to punish the people participating in it or at least change the rules so they don't favor cheaters. Staff please help those of us trying to play within the rules here. It's not just raiders who are negatively effected by this its everyone on the server. Allowing this undermines the legitimacy this project.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by titanshub [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It all looks pretty damning to me. Especially the part where Detoxx arrives to dismiss the idea by implying he has an unhealthy obsession.

I'd love to see a more formalized presentation of this but I can understand that GM's may not have a background in math and it was designed to be approachable by them. However, if you have a valid argument against the methodology used to come to these conclusions then lets see it.

Until that happens this looks pretty convincing to me and the ball is in the staffs court. Based on rulings in the past I don't hold out much hope they will adequately address the rampant cheating on this server but I really hope they will do something to punish the people participating in it or at least change the rules so they don't favor cheaters. Staff please help those of us trying to play within the rules here. It's not just raiders who are negatively effected by this its everyone on the server. Allowing this undermines the legitimacy this project.

Unfortunately it is not very damning, due to OP missing the computer science aspect of this equation. I'll repost what I said earlier:

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sadly OP didn't take into account the computer science aspect of the problem. He would need to have all of this data I list below to even begin to have a shot at proving anything concretely:

1. Where does everybody on the line live in relation to the server? The farther the distance from the server, the longer it will take to send and receive packets.

2. What is the average ping for everybody on the line? It is 100% possible Furoar has a lower ping than the majority of players on the server for whatever reason, which is why he has an advantage.

3. What ISP is everybody using on the line? Not all ISP's are created equal, and that may contribute to things like packet loss and data routing time.

4. What is the computer specs of everybody on the line? Framerate will differ between players, which means they may receive an update a bit slower.

5. What monitors are being used by everybody on the line? Same point as number 4.

6. How does the game prioritize and send out packets? Do you even know the rate at which the server sends message data vs. player update data? It is possible the data for players starting to move arrived at your computer before the message data. It is also possible message data gets sent less often than player update data.


Online games by their very nature have these kinds of variables built into the cake. The only way you could really compare reaction times is if everybody was playing in the same room, with the same computers and monitors, and the server was also in the same room. Think of a LAN party.

[karadin]

Originally Posted by titanshub [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It all looks pretty damning to me. Especially the part where Detoxx arrives to dismiss the idea by implying he has an unhealthy obsession.

I'd love to see a more formalized presentation of this but I can understand that GM's may not have a background in math and it was designed to be approachable by them. However, if you have a valid argument against the methodology used to come to these conclusions then lets see it.

Until that happens this looks pretty convincing to me and the ball is in the staffs court. Based on rulings in the past I don't hold out much hope they will adequately address the rampant cheating on this server but I really hope they will do something to punish the people participating in it or at least change the rules so they don't favor cheaters. Staff please help those of us trying to play within the rules here. It's not just raiders who are negatively effected by this its everyone on the server. Allowing this undermines the legitimacy this project.

OP gives every other player the rubber banding "benefit of the doubt" except for Stunningly. Once both players get a sync, you can even see in the video that Kickenit gets a slight update forwards, Stunningly gets a large update backwards. I'll repost this screenshot for your benefit. Our "control" is 150ms+ ahead of Stunningly.

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[titanshub]

Originally Posted by karadin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

OP gives every other player the rubber banding "benefit of the doubt" except for Stunningly. Once both players get a sync, you can even see in the video that Kickenit gets a slight update forwards, Stunningly gets a large update backwards. I'll repost this screenshot for your benefit. Our "control" is 150ms+ ahead of Stunningly.

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you examine the footage in question (Kickenit) you will see the druid rubber bands back into the pack and stays there. The false start is an obvious anomaly. I had the same questions when I was looking at that footage frame by frame but you can see him on the line still standing there once the line starts to clear out.

If its true then it should be easy to demonstrate from the footage that Stunningly appearing on the recording in a place he was not.

[karadin]

Originally Posted by titanshub [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you examine the footage in question (Kickenit) you will see the druid rubber bands back into the pack and stays there. The false start is an obvious anomaly. I had the same questions when I was looking at that footage frame by frame but you can see him on the line still standing there once the line starts to clear out.

If its true then it should be easy to demonstrate from the footage that Stunningly appearing on the recording in a place he was not.

But if Stunningly is clearly 150ms+ behind the control (Kickenit, who is definitely scripting) by that last frame, how do we accommodate for that? Ignoring that seems to run counter to the logic the OP uses on other racers (not just Givincer). IMO, the fact that Kickenit is so far ahead in that last frame when no other input is needed is really damning to OP's case.

[titanshub]

Originally Posted by karadin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But if Stunningly is clearly 150ms+ behind the control (Kickenit, who is definitely scripting) by that last frame, how do we accommodate for that? Ignoring that seems to run counter to the logic the OP uses on other racers (not just Givincer). IMO, the fact that Kickenit is so far ahead in that last frame when no other input is needed is really damning to OP's case.

The racers with the lowest latency has the biggest advantage. If I had to guess other factors are at play here as well such as read write speeds on the I/O. The game is writing that 900+ random to a log file that then needs to be read by the 3rd party software so delays here might be significant or not. None of that negates the use of cheat software. The claim being made by the OP that they are cheating and I'm pointing out that extra sources of lag on his computer alone does not exonerate them from that accusation. The other racers all fell within that statistical distribution dataset from humanbenchmark.com.

The argument presented here is looking at statistical distributions of the reaction times of racers (not just the accused). The OP has controlled for the major and obvious sources of latency and mechanical lag to the user as best as he can. When we do this over multiple races we can see a pattern of inhuman reaction times emerging.

If this was about 1 time then it would be an anomaly. It's the fact that it repeatedly happens time and time again is the accusation. Statistically he should fall further back in that distribution across multiple races. It's always possible that the OP cherrypicked the data which is why a more formalized accusation would be nice to see.

However, even if the OP cherrypicked the data then we are meant to believe that multiple people who have world class Olympian level reaction times all play classic everquest, are very unusually much older than normal for people with these sorts of reaction times, and all play in vanquish. (I assume nobody in riot has been caught doing this but if they are caught everyone should be banned).

I'm skeptical af about that being true. However, I'm not an expert in these things and this is just my understanding of what was presented.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by titanshub [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you examine the footage in question (Kickenit) you will see the druid rubber bands back into the pack and stays there. The false start is an obvious anomaly. I had the same questions when I was looking at that footage frame by frame but you can see him on the line still standing there once the line starts to clear out.

If its true then it should be easy to demonstrate from the footage that Stunningly appearing on the recording in a place he was not.

None of the footage is very reliable sadly when we are talking about small variations in player location with an online game. Especially an old one where the interpolation code isn't that advanced. The only way you could show obvious cheating is if a player teleported a distance that was farther than someone could possibly go in that period of time.

Lets say the top speed of a racer is 10 meters a second after all regulation buffs have been applied (this isn't supposed to be a real number, just an example). If you see the racer jump ahead 150 meters in 2 seconds, there is no possible way for that to happen, even accounting for lag. I don't see anything like that in OP's videos.

Can I guarantee cheating did not occur? No, but the difference is small enough to fall within the normal range of expected behavior when dealing with an online game.

If the Dev's don't see any clear red flags of cheating in whatever data they capture or player made videos, they can't prove it. Honestly I would rather have Dev's that assume players are innocent until proven guilty, instead of the other way around. It would really suck to get banned for playing the game normally.

[titanshub]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

None of the footage is very reliable sadly when we are talking about small variations in player location with an online game. Especially an old one where the interpolation code isn't that advanced. The only way you could show obvious cheating is if a player teleported a distance that was farther than someone could possibly go in that period of time.

Lets say the top speed of a racer is 10 meters a second after all regulation buffs have been applied (this isn't supposed to be a real number, just an example). If you see the racer jump ahead 150 meters in 2 seconds, there is no possible way for that to happen, even accounting for lag. I don't see anything like that in OP's videos.

Can I guarantee cheating did not occur? No, but the difference is small enough to fall within the normal range of expected behavior when dealing with an online game.

If the Dev's don't see any clear red flags of cheating in whatever data they capture or player made videos, they can't prove it. Honestly I would rather have Dev's that assume players are innocent until proven guilty, instead of the other way around. It would really suck to get banned for playing the game normally.

Yeah Baz, like I said in another post. Nothing is ever 100% provable. To set the bar so high its impossible to reach undermined the legitimacy of the server. This accusation isn't proof they cheated its evidence. Given the consequences to the server of allowing people to cheat as much as they want I think the bar that needs to be used is beyond a reasonable doubt. To most people, I think that line was crossed a long time ago. However, where you draw that line has major impacts on fairness to the individuals accused as well.

If the methodology and calculations used in this argument stand up I have a hard time understanding how someone could make an honest argument in favor of not punishing those who are accused because it seems unbelievable to the point of absurdity that they are not cheating. However, the real question is does OP's argument really hold water or did he make some mistakes. I think that should be demonstrateable. Go look at races further back, make a dataset and show the pack, not the outliers not conforming to the statistical distribution we expect from the human benchmark data.

[MaCtastic]

inb4 everyone starts getting 100ms and some guild asks to change the rules to something else.