Anti-cheat update

[Sayori 311]

Nice but you shouldn't have posted a notice on the forums. Just go for it and  catch the people who don't pay attention to the updates.

 

P.S. Can mods damn stop giving me warnings for name and shame when I've not mentioned a name?  But funny to see how that streamer quickly recognized himself and reported me :^)

[Mitne 724]

On 6/1/2020 at 11:08 AM, Sayori said:

Nice but you shouldn't have posted a notice on the forums. Just go for it and  catch the people who don't pay attention to the updates.

Agreed. But being silent about it would had repercussions. Someone would find out that we are back to BattlEye, make thread and then it would be community shitstorm...

Better safe than sorry.

Edited June 3, 2020 by Mitne

[Ketog 1031]

6 hours ago, MattScott said:

we do have a problem right now with scripted triggerbots and aimbots. These are an entirely different category of cheat, because they are typically built with the hot key/mouse scripting systems. They are easy to spot, but they are easy to false positive. There are many legitimate uses for scripting systems, and players don't often realize they are enabled by default when they enter the game. 

 

 

Aren't you scared of having a lot of false positives with those, some mouses like A4Tech mouses , and Logitech mouses support full scripting languages such as LUA with the included software , this is going to be a very tricky thing to detect without getting normal players with it

 

Also some legit and very dedicated players can pull off moves that are better than a casual players using those triggerbots/aiming aids , as APB's skill gap between players is sometimes incredibly big

Edited June 1, 2020 by Ketog

[VanilleKeks 737]

23 minutes ago, Sayori said:

Nice but you shouldn't have posted a notice on the forums. Just go for it and  catch the people who don't pay attention to the updates.

 

P.S. Can mods damn stop giving me warnings for name and shame when I've not mentioned a name?  But funny to see how that streamer quickly recognized himself and reported me :^)

That is a horrible idea. There are many people that have macro capable mice and don't use it for anything malicious.

 

I specifically got a mouse with 8 buttons on the side to set up hotkey macros for my workplaces software, as well as Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects. I also did custom keybinds for Final Fantasy XIV Online, since I just started that too. 

 

Should I now lose my 8 year old account that hasn't even had so much as a warning? Because of something that has nothing to do with APB? Can you try thinking outside of yourself?

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by VanilleKeks

[TheSxW 47]

@MattScott i would like to inform you to start using FairFight and kick players out of the game if FF will trigger something and ofc. report that to GM's to further investegate
also i was thinking if that EAC was even working ... good you point that out Thanks. also i will make like counter 2-5 kickout's with message you are using automated scripts software b4 banning such indyvidual - that will help some non tech ppl figuring out whats up.

i could assume that EAC is not prepared for old games like APB and BE was doing better job just because it wasnt server side ... and also there need to be some server side checks.

  

40 minutes ago, Ketog said:

 

Aren't you scared of having a lot of false positives with those, some mouses like A4Tech mouses , and Logitech mouses support full scripting languages such as LUA with the included software , this is going to be a very tricky thing to detect without getting normal players with it

 

Also some legit and very dedicated players can pull off moves that are better than a casual players using those triggerbots/aiming aids , as APB's skill gap between players is sometimes incredibly big

just detect mouse_events and ahk and autoit that should be enough

Edited June 1, 2020 by TheSxW

[Lign 361]

1 hour ago, Flaws said:

Whatever it takes to clean out the little remaining trash that manages to circumvent EAC and closet cheat, I'm on board.

I'm not sure is it EAC or just the game is shLt so anyone left but I see much less closets nowadays than during BE, especially when some players from known edgy crim clan got banned in one month together when Citadel had a vacation on NA. Tbh, triggerbots or any script written in autoit or ahk are the only problem for me at the moment. Players who's using it tell me that EAC doesn't detect autoit and ahk in apb for some reason

Edited June 1, 2020 by Lign

[N66 97]

1 hour ago, 404 said:

i guess it depends on how strict they are on macros/software - someone earlier mentioned rebinding keys, and if that’s something that won’t be allowed i can’t say i’ll be playing much apb

Rebinding keys? like mapping a mouse button for an action that is not allowed in the options menu? is there such limitation? or rebinding as in changing "profiles" of mapping presets?

[iRawwwN 282]

1 hour ago, Ketog said:

 

Aren't you scared of having a lot of false positives with those, some mouses like A4Tech mouses , and Logitech mouses support full scripting languages such as LUA with the included software , this is going to be a very tricky thing to detect without getting normal players with it

Rust banned A4Tech/Bloody mice, so if you have one plugged in you can't play the game. I'm pretty sure you don't need the Logitech software either to use the mouse, so closing down the software before launching the game shouldn't be difficult.

 

Not too excited about the change back to BE, gonna see a lot more sus players from a certain country I bet.

Edited June 1, 2020 by iRawwwN

[Flaws 1033]

45 minutes ago, Lign said:

I'm not sure is it EAC or just the game is shLt so anyone left but I see much less closets nowadays than during BE, especially when some players from known edgy crim clan got banned in one month together when Citadel had a vacation on NA. Tbh, triggerbots or any script written in autoit or ahk are the only problem for me at the moment. Players who's using it tell me that EAC doesn't detect autoit and ahk in apb for some reason

I wouldn't say it is exactly EAC's fault but there are some cheat coders out there who really know their stuff and they manage to inject even through EAC/BE without much issue. Not only in APB but also in other games such as Fortnite which uses EAC as well. I do not know whether this info is correct or not but as far as I know some of the people that sometimes code for APB (in their spare time) also make working cheats for Valorant which has the most intrusive anti-cheat on the market with its kernel access. If they can make that work then whats EAC/BE going to do to stop them in an old  game such as APB on such an old and well explored engine? I fear that even going to Unreal 3.5 or even 4 isn't going to make a significant difference on those who really want to cheat at all costs.

 

Let's just hope that this isn't going to be a downgrade in anti-cheats because it would be detrimental.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Flaws

[MrChan 337]

1 hour ago, N66 said:

Does the current EAC use any degree of server side measures? if not, EAC client side only is not a choice? I'm saying this since I find a lot less cheaters since EAC was used and it'd be a shame to lose that.

Matt's post says they couldn't agree a price for client only.

 

This is a shame because I thought EAC was working well. There were probably the fewest cheaters I've ever seen in APB. Although snubnose macros went through the roof in the last couple of weeks, which would lead you to speculate as to who's using stuff like fire rate macros. Hopefully improved BattlEye will work as well.

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

1 hour ago, Sayori said:

Nice but you shouldn't have posted a notice on the forums. Just go for it and  catch the people who don't pay attention to the updates.

 

P.S. Can mods damn stop giving me warnings for name and shame when I've not mentioned a name?  But funny to see how that streamer quickly recognized himself and reported me :^)

 

1 hour ago, Mitne said:

Agreed. But being silent about it would had repercussions. Someone would find out that we back to BattlEye, make thread and then it would be community shitstorm...

Better safe than sorry.

Everyone finds out we are back on BattleEye the second that update hits. You only miss it if you play with Audio only.

[Grabbe 4]

Don't complain about anti cheats if you don't have any idea how they work. Both anti cheats have their pros and cons, even tho, both anti cheats are kernel based which means for an average user, loading up cheats isn't possible. Battleye / EAC killed most of the pay cheat providers because of their fight against cheaters. There will be always private cheaters who get cheats to work because of their own methods of bypassing protection checks. EAC / Battleye are the top tier anti cheats of the current time, there is no other anti cheat which is provided by the most multiplayer games, detecting so much cheats and script abuses.

 

For me personally, Battleye is a stronger anti cheat because of their agressive methods to ban cheaters. While EAC is analysing behaviour of their users and monitoring a lot of variables before they ban, Battleye is constantly and permanently banning if a cheat is detected.

 

Snipped non-forum appropriate content ~@mayii

 

I'm developing a own kernel-based anti cheat system for my own project to prevent people from accessing game memory through user-mode and logging attempts to bypass / load cheats / use scripts.

 

Fact is, there cannot be any anti cheat on earth which is bullet proof against cheat coders and people who know what they to. The change to Battleeye is a good step back and a good step for the players. I'll hope that BE will get implemented as soon as possible and the new engine is also coming as soon as possible.

 

Thanks for reading! Good job @MattScott

[Mitne 724]

1 minute ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

 

Everyone finds out we are back on BattleEye the second that update hits. You only miss it if you play with Audio only.

Which is why it's better to inform beforehand.

Do you imagine how many threads would pop up if this was sudden change without info?

[Lign 361]

3 minutes ago, Flaws said:

I wouldn't say it is exactly EAC's fault but there are some cheat coders out there who really know their stuff and they manage to inject even through EAC/BE without much issue. Not only in APB but also in other games such as Fortnite which uses EAC as well. I do not know whether this info is correct or not but as far as I know some of the people that sometimes code for APB (in their spare time) also make working cheats for Valorant which has the most intrusive anti-cheat on the market with its kernel access. If they can make that work then whats EAC/BE going to do to stop them in an old  game such as APB on such an old and well explored engine? I fear that even going to Unreal 3.5 or even 4 isn't going to make a significant difference on those who really want to cheat at all costs.

New engine won't fix cheating problem. It's not a big deal to dump the game and find offsets. The only problem is an anti-cheat. Btw, Valorant anti-cheat got bypassed in the first day of cbt. 

[Grabbe 4]

1 minute ago, Lign said:

New engine won't fix cheating problem. It's not a big deal to dump the game and find offsets. The only problem is an anti-cheat. Btw, Valorant anti-cheat got bypassed in the first day of cbt. 

A new engine is surely stopping cheats for the first weeks / days since a new engine means that a lot of data-structures will change. Since the game is EAC/BE protected it shouldnt be possible to dump offsets that easily.

 

You've to mention that Valorant AC is still in developing and is currently in "Sleep"-mode. They're collecting data and will release a full-tier anti cheat on game release. (closed beta end)

 

[Ketog 1031]

54 minutes ago, TheSxW said:

@MattScott i would like to inform you to start using FairFight and kick players out of the game if FF will trigger something and ofc. report that to GM's to further investegate
also i was thinking if that EAC was even working ... good you point that out Thanks. also i will make like counter 2-5 kickout's with message you are using automated scripts software b4 banning such indyvidual - that will help some non tech ppl figuring out whats up.

i could assume that EAC is not prepared for old games like APB and BE was doing better job just because it wasnt server side ... and also there need to be some server side checks.

  

just detect mouse_events and ahk and autoit that should be enough

Just 

 

As if mouse event was the only thing people are gonna use 

 

17 minutes ago, iRawwwN said:

Rust banned A4Tech/Bloody mice, so if you have one plugged in you can't play the game. I'm pretty sure you don't need the Logitech software either to use the mouse, so closing down the software before launching the game shouldn't be difficult.

 

Not too excited about the change back to BE, gonna see a lot more sus players from a certain country I bet.

 

I guess that works, that's kind of extreme though.

[Lign 361]

1 hour ago, Ketog said:

 

Aren't you scared of having a lot of false positives with those, some mouses like A4Tech mouses , and Logitech mouses support full scripting languages such as LUA with the included software , this is going to be a very tricky thing to detect without getting normal players with it

 

Also some legit and very dedicated players can pull off moves that are better than a casual players using those triggerbots/aiming aids , as APB's skill gap between players is sometimes incredibly big

I'm not quite sure how they're going to detect mouse scripting. What prevents you from configure your macro, install it in mouse and turn off the software. My old deathadder that I'm not using can play any macro on any pc that I installed on the pc with razer software.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Lign

[Flaws 1033]

Just now, Lign said:

Btw, Valorant anti-cheat got bypassed in the first day of cbt. 

Yes, precisely and thats a huge concern regarding every other game which has a less-intrusive anti-cheat. Client side anti-cheat alone simply doesn't cut it in shooters in present day, you need a high quality server side anti-cheat which scans how players play the game in real time as well and also dedicated human personnel that monitor players on a daily basis, even on weekends because thats when some of the cheaters play most actively. Cheats such as silent aim, no recoil scripts/macros, speedhack, 0ms delay triggerbot should all be detected within an hour (or a day at best) due to how unnatural they are in comparison to any legitimate player's gameplay. Smooth aim and wallhack would likely take longer to detect which is understandable as they can be set up and used in a way where its "mostly" legit-looking.

[TheMessiah 430]

If you cant continue with EAC ok but back to BE..i doubt they improve much just look theyr website-almost all games are old and last tweet is from mid 2019.Not to mention all the crashes this anticheat makes for many players..but we will see i guess

btw what about FACEIT?(both client and server side from what ive seen)

https://www.faceit.com/en/anti-cheat#!

Edited June 1, 2020 by TheMessiah

[iRawwwN 282]

1 minute ago, Ketog said:

I guess that works, that's kind of extreme though.

It's extreme yeah, but there's not very many other paths to take for APB in it's current state. It's to level the playing field for everyone... except when all the Silvers realise that not every Gold is macro'ing and they resort to complaining about whatever else.

[Guest Zilsux]

As someone who uses adobe programs on the daily, My keyboard is set with tons of macros, non that would change anything in-game, yet at least once in a while I do accidental press one while playing which at most just opens my inventory, messes with my movement or something like that.

 

Does these changes mean I will have to manually turn off all my macros I use for work before each APB section?

 

Will these changes detect other macros that open apps such as Discord, Spotify etc?

[Cutey 29]

So macro might be bannable?

How about encrypt all config files?

[SmilyFace 300]

6 hours ago, Dezire said:

This seems like a good step in the right direction. I am however wondering how detecting mouse-specific program macros will work. As far as i know most major mouse brands these days have a program which usually contains a macro feature. Will it be detecting inputs or will we have to make sure that such programs (e.g. Logitech G HUB) are closed before we open the game to not get falsely flagged

I hope not closed, there are program that runs RGB lights, overclock and other stuff.

Let's just not make another game situation once again when Vanguard anti-cheat closed off liquid/air coolers making the pc to burn itself from inside.

Just now, Cutey said:

So macro might be bannable?

How about encrypt all config files?

They going to.

Files will be encrypted after the Engine Upgrade (APB 2.1)

[vsb 6171]

39 minutes ago, N66 said:

Rebinding keys? like mapping a mouse button for an action that is not allowed in the options menu? is there such limitation? or rebinding as in changing "profiles" of mapping presets?

to use my example in particular, i have a mouse with thumb buttons that are not recognized by apb unless i rebind them to function as a keyboard key press using the built-in mouse software

 

its technically a macro, which is why i'm wondering how strict orbit is going to be 

[Ketog 1031]

6 minutes ago, Cutey said:

How about encrypt all config files?

That's already planned, and im glad it is

Edited June 1, 2020 by Ketog