Anti-Cheat Issues

[MattScott 15242]

Now let's head into the most universally agreed on topic at a staggering 95% which is Anti-Cheat. The Live game is severely suffering in this regard and players are at a point where it feels like no one half decent at the game can be trusted anymore. It is seriously worrying and the issue is getting worse every day. Matt has already said that EAC will be returning with 64Bit but that felt like a very disappointing reply to arguably the biggest issue the game is facing right now because 64Bit could be in a few months, a year or possibly never. As far as I understand it EAC is not an option anymore as they have dropped support for 32Bit but sticking with BattlEye will further drive legit players from all skill levels away. Why should I play a game where someone can pay a few euros a month and pretend they’re good at the game and go on cheating rather blatantly for a closet for months, if not years? I can log into a district today and within an hour of playing face multiple cheaters some of which get to R100 and beyond while running shawcopter-like settings. Just the other day I saw a R90 speedhacker min-TTK’ing everyone, something that would’ve been detected and flagged within a few missions by FairFight and banned shortly after.

 

APB desperately needs a server side anti cheat seeing as BattlEye is far too slow at detecting a cheat if they’re able to detect it at all. If cheat providers brag about having 150+ active users when your game peaks at around 300-400 players you have a serious issue and it has gone neglected for way too long. APB is the only game I have ever played in which players brag about cheating, play with cheaters like it's normal or even have clans advertising to sell cheats or painting themselves as cheaters.

 

Furthermore, support needs to be trained to detect forms of cheating such as signs of macros and blatant trigger botting or even aimlocks and silent aim, it is beyond sad that there has been multiple known zero second delay trigger botters playing on the daily for the past 4+ years without being banned when any decent player would be able to tell you without a doubt that they are cheating but ideally it shouldn’t be up to the players or support to ban cheaters.

 

Please look into other solutions even if it is only till 64Bit releases. Sticking with BE is a quick way to make sure that you continue to haemorrhage players and as faithful and loyal many of us APB players are, there’s a certain line in which even we lose hope in the way the game is managed – and the current Anti-cheat solution is one of the biggest reasons for many players as to why that line was crossed for them.

 

“This is a big one, I would even argue it's THE BIGGEST ONE. Out of all the problems APB has ever had in its life cycle (of which there are countless) the biggest one remains the cheater problem. The only time we were actually doing well in that regard was during EAC, that's when the game was most playable. BE has been in the game twice now, we know it doesn't cut it, especially not on its own without a server side anti-cheat monitoring every player. The moment a cheater breaches BE pretty much everything is fair game until someone reports them and even when you report them with undeniable evidence it seems like LO's support team are being paid to be lenient about cheating instead of being paid to do their job. It seems like none of them have ever played a shooter game in their life and they can just not tell a blatant aimlock caught on video apart from normal footage to save their lives. No one wants to play a game where not only is there no new content to login for but you're also getting rolled by max rank rage hackers on veteran accounts on a daily basis who also love trash talking. Overall, makes the entire APB experience a billion times more miserable than it needs to be.”  -Community Member

[MACKxBOLAN 431]

It's all true. The only I can add to this is,

 When support/staff fail to ban, anticheat removed, no communication from staff about cheaters.

You start thinking they don't care at all or dont exist anymore.

Then after all that U have the gall to desegregate n Let the mostly gold hackers into Bronze.

Well then people start thinking, Gee LO really is on the hackers side. That was 2 years ago.

   I want to add that not all golds are hax and lately I've seen silvers and low baby rank bronzes hacking.

[R3ACT3M 489]

I'm still just waiting for EasyAntiCheat to do the same amount of work as battleeye. I think most cheating comes down to the game design of APB.

Hitscans could be mitigated by removing the crosshair turning red and reworking how to tell if someone is an enemy.
I will say it over and over again but APB NEEDS a killcam feature. It would be a great way of teaching players how they died or if incase there is a cheater it can easily be captured and sent into the support team for proper investigation.

I'm not someone who goes around and calls everyone a cheater, I only once seen a speed hacker. 

[gremlen 18]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:06 PM, R3ACT3M said:

I'm still just waiting for EasyAntiCheat to do the same amount of work as battleeye. I think most cheating comes down to the game design of APB.

Hitscans could be mitigated by removing the crosshair turning red and reworking how to tell if someone is an enemy.
I will say it over and over again but APB NEEDS a killcam feature. It would be a great way of teaching players how they died or if incase there is a cheater it can easily be captured and sent into the support team for proper investigation.

I'm not someone who goes around and calls everyone a cheater, I only once seen a speed hacker. 

While a triggerbot is a big problem of apb because how easy it is to make your own and was even a big problem when EAC existed in the game, removing a crosshair color will kill a balance in the game. APB's pvp contest was made with the vision of letting players getting a lot of information about their enemies, it includes the possibility of shooting under a vehicle and catching enemy's hitboxes at the corner when their character model is not visible but they're able to shoot you. The game needs a dynamic crosshair color

[R3ACT3M 489]

On 12/17/2022 at 10:49 AM, gremlen said:

APB's pvp contest was made with the vision of letting players getting a lot of information about their enemies, it includes the possibility of shooting under a vehicle and catching enemy's hitboxes at the corner when their character model is not visible but they're able to shoot you

I think one of the things i don't like about apb is that you can shoot under cars. Since you have some areas where there is just no cover for players to use besides their car. And if you get someone who is like you said trigger botting landing those shots will be super easy. I think fixing this issue does have to be a core fix to the game. More recoil would at least put more skill to moving a player's mouse but would still give snipers an advantage. A good balance for snipers would be a projectile, but im aware that syncing that projectile in a server would be near impossible (i assume)

[gremlen 18]

4 hours ago, R3ACT3M said:

I think one of the things i don't like about apb is that you can shoot under cars. Since you have some areas where there is just no cover for players to use besides their car. And if you get someone who is like you said trigger botting landing those shots will be super easy. I think fixing this issue does have to be a core fix to the game. More recoil would at least put more skill to moving a player's mouse but would still give snipers an advantage. A good balance for snipers would be a projectile, but im aware that syncing that projectile in a server would be near impossible (i assume)

Projectile can be synced because we already have opgl, nades and osmaw that uses it but the game should stay a hitscan. Removing the ability to shoot under a car will exponentially make car gameplay much stronger. I don't know why you need more recoil the game is already pretty hard for most players because it requires a good tracking skill unless you're playing against silvers who only manages to move on +W.

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

12 hours ago, R3ACT3M said:

I think one of the things i don't like about apb is that you can shoot under cars. Since you have some areas where there is just no cover for players to use besides their car.

I think that is one of my favorite parts of APB. That cars are this interesting dynamic cover that almost no other games have. They are not this generic cover everything below the chest and shoot back and forth cover. But have a two dimensionality between the person in the cover and the one shooting in to the cover.

[R3ACT3M 489]

14 hours ago, gremlen said:

Projectile can be synced because we already have opgl, nades and osmaw that uses it but the game should stay a hitscan. Removing the ability to shoot under a car will exponentially make car gameplay much stronger. I don't know why you need more recoil the game is already pretty hard for most players because it requires a good tracking skill unless you're playing against silvers who only manages to move on +W.

well my first worry is that a sniper projectile is much faster than an opgl rocket so I just imagine there is room for something like a sniper projectile to desync and/or be impossible to land in a game like this.

Regarding the recoil thing, I personally would prefer if APB had more recoil and less bloom for it's weapons. This would make landing shots feel a lot more like a skill than your luck. I think LO just made too many guns bloom just too much. That's just my opinion though.

Lmao poor silvers, it is surprising how many players don't understand that movement is key.
 

6 hours ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

I think that is one of my favorite parts of APB. That cars are this interesting dynamic cover that almost no other games have. They are not this generic cover everything below the chest and shoot back and forth cover. But have a two dimensionality between the person in the cover and the one shooting in to the cover.

Yea I suppose. I guess the core issue is the maps having some big gaps that leave you completely vulnerable. Matt did acknowledge that the maps needed tweaking (coughs and says waterfront) . I know financial has quite a few spots as well where it's a sort of king of the hill situation. Ladders are just not super fair when it comes to trying to flank enemies as they can make quite a bit of noise. (not saying to nerf the sound they make XD) But maybe add in some more spots where stairs are then have ladders in spots that give quicker access. A sort of Risk and reward thing. Ladders get you up there faster but can leave you vulnerable to attacks but if you do make it can put you in a good spot. While stairs are a safer and quieter choice for a possible flank attack. idk just spit balling.

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

On 12/19/2022 at 4:39 PM, R3ACT3M said:

Lmao poor silvers, it is surprising how many players don't understand that movement is key.
 

Yea I suppose. I guess the core issue is the maps having some big gaps that leave you completely vulnerable. Matt did acknowledge that the maps needed tweaking (coughs and says waterfront) . I know financial has quite a few spots as well where it's a sort of king of the hill situation. Ladders are just not super fair when it comes to trying to flank enemies as they can make quite a bit of noise. (not saying to nerf the sound they make XD) But maybe add in some more spots where stairs are then have ladders in spots that give quicker access. A sort of Risk and reward thing. Ladders get you up there faster but can leave you vulnerable to attacks but if you do make it can put you in a good spot. While stairs are a safer and quieter choice for a possible flank attack. idk just spit balling.

There needs to be some more jumping options too. Not just ladders and stairs. Stairs are always safe and slow. Ladders are fast and risky. But additional jumping routes are a nice middle ground that also give a huge degree of skill expression. It really shows how big movement is in APB and there needs to be more of it.

 

Merged.

 

On 12/19/2022 at 4:39 PM, R3ACT3M said:

well my first worry is that a sniper projectile is much faster than an opgl rocket so I just imagine there is room for something like a sniper projectile to desync and/or be impossible to land in a game like this.

Regarding the recoil thing, I personally would prefer if APB had more recoil and less bloom for it's weapons. This would make landing shots feel a lot more like a skill than your luck. I think LO just made too many guns bloom just too much. That's just my opinion though.

I always wish APB took the more dirty bomb route with their aiming style. Longer ttk, low bloom, medium recoil. Go even harder in to the tracking/dueling side of the gameplay and aiming style. Even just lowering bloom but increasing recoil would be a nice direction to go in (though i'd like to see them fix visual recoil per resolution first).

[gremlen 18]

1 hour ago, R3ACT3M said:

Regarding the recoil thing, I personally would prefer if APB had more recoil and less bloom for it's weapons. This would make landing shots feel a lot more like a skill than your luck. I think LO just made too many guns bloom just too much. That's just my opinion though.

Recoil thing won't work in apb because it requires a lot of tracking. Competitive shooters are either based on flicks and controlling recoil patterns like in csgo or valorant because the character movement is very slow or mostly based on tracking like warzone, apex, apb etc. because it has a fast character movement

[R3ACT3M 489]

On 12/19/2022 at 5:28 PM, NotZombieBiscuit said:

There needs to be some more jumping options too. Not just ladders and stairs. Stairs are always safe and slow. Ladders are fast and risky. But additional jumping routes are a nice middle ground that also give a huge degree of skill expression. It really shows how big movement is in APB and there needs to be more of it.

Very true, can you come up with some examples?

 

Merged.

 

On 12/19/2022 at 6:06 PM, gremlen said:

Recoil thing won't work in apb because it requires a lot of tracking. Competitive shooters are either based on flicks and controlling recoil patterns like in csgo or valorant because the character movement is very slow or mostly based on tracking like warzone, apex, apb etc. because it has a fast character movement

I mean overwatch does the recoil thing pretty well and that game is anything but slow movement. It does have to be recognized though that making guns really inaccurate does make them less deadly but it also really hurts the feel of them. 

 

On 12/19/2022 at 5:30 PM, NotZombieBiscuit said:

I always wish APB took the more dirty bomb route with their aiming style. Longer ttk, low bloom, medium recoil. Go even harder in to the tracking/dueling side of the gameplay and aiming style. Even just lowering bloom but increasing recoil would be a nice direction to go in (though i'd like to see them fix visual recoil per resolution first).

Yea after a while of playing this game I'm tired of running 100m (at least) just to get killed in less than a second. It makes the game feel like a slog fest especially when playing against veterans who know all the spots and counters. For this type of game letting gun fights happen for a bit could really be a fun thing. But also, you run into the issue where it will suddenly feel like guns don't do damage. So you really can't win with APB (XD)

[gremlen 18]

2 hours ago, R3ACT3M said:

I mean overwatch does the recoil thing pretty well and that game is anything but slow movement. It does have to be recognized though that making guns really inaccurate does make them less deadly but it also really hurts the feel of them. 

I have never played overwatch so I don't really know what it is but on streams if feels like a it doesn't have a high recoil

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

7 hours ago, R3ACT3M said:

Very true, can you come up with some examples?

 

Merged.

 

 

The easiest would be destructible that can just be simply jumped up on then jump off to get to higher ground. With the counter play being you can shoot the items or shoot the player during the jump. A more interesting variations is a series or 2-4 jumps that need to be completed to get somewhere. A mixture of long and high jumps preferable. The issue is they need to be NOT THE ONLY way to get up like some places. Another interesting addition is using a car to then jump on the car then to a spot then up. Which I think APB only really has two of those that are used? Both of which I'm pretty sure are unintentional. The main one being the camera on those stairs in waterfront that you use to get on to the back of the roofs rather than the single ladder and running around the entire rooftop while getting shot.

 

In fact that's a great example of how badly it was done. The camera jump is so far ahead better than the trash ladder route and is the ONLY other accessible way up that destroying/using that camera becomes far more a priority than the intended ladder route. Though a lot of APB rooftops and 'holds' in general just need either more ways up or a better mix of ways up.

 

APB has the ability to provide so many options of movement in play spaces that a lot of games don't get access to. Your basic stairs and ladders are a great foundation. But you can go so far with jumps, vehicle, spawning objects, destructible/moveable objects, etc. Should even let us headboost like you used to be able to sort of do, let me stand on allies properly like CS.

Edited December 21, 2022 by NotZombieBiscuit

[R3ACT3M 489]

22 hours ago, gremlen said:

I have never played overwatch so I don't really know what it is but on streams if feels like a it doesn't have a high recoil

You're right but weapons are extremely accurate which makes staying on target more skill based and not up to the weapon bloom gods

I WILL NOTE that not every weapon in over watch is hitscan and most are fast projectiles. But movement is very key in overwatch as it is in apb.

 

17 hours ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

The easiest would be destructible that can just be simply jumped up on then jump off to get to higher ground. With the counter play being you can shoot the items or shoot the player during the jump. A more interesting variations is a series or 2-4 jumps that need to be completed to get somewhere. A mixture of long and high jumps preferable. The issue is they need to be NOT THE ONLY way to get up like some places. Another interesting addition is using a car to then jump on the car then to a spot then up. Which I think APB only really has two of those that are used? Both of which I'm pretty sure are unintentional. The main one being the camera on those stairs in waterfront that you use to get on to the back of the roofs rather than the single ladder and running around the entire rooftop while getting shot.

 

In fact that's a great example of how badly it was done. The camera jump is so far ahead better than the trash ladder route and is the ONLY other accessible way up that destroying/using that camera becomes far more a priority than the intended ladder route. Though a lot of APB rooftops and 'holds' in general just need either more ways up or a better mix of ways up.

 

APB has the ability to provide so many options of movement in play spaces that a lot of games don't get access to. Your basic stairs and ladders are a great foundation. But you can go so far with jumps, vehicle, spawning objects, destructible/moveable objects, etc. Should even let us headboost like you used to be able to sort of do, let me stand on allies properly like CS.

So I do agree with the car one. As every player has a car available to them.

The jumps though can't be TOOO hard to pull off. I know there are some jumps in apb already but they feel more like glitches/exploits. So that one needs some thought.

I think the worst roof hold is that one area in financial where the bridge overwatches 2 ladders to get to a hack/spray. Something like that needs to be fixed/have some kind of counter besides taking your car to a bridge with no cover.

Headboosts would definitely increase team play, and im not against just chilling on my team8s head while waiting for a match

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

11 minutes ago, R3ACT3M said:

I think the worst roof hold is that one area in financial where the bridge overwatches 2 ladders to get to a hack/spray. Something like that needs to be fixed/have some kind of counter besides taking your car to a bridge with no cover.

That place seriously needs a set of stairs at the front of it. Easy peasy fix  and actually moves attention to the entire rooftop, not just the little overwatch corner.

[Hakura 8]

 

Is there a cheat for APB?  

 

 

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

2 hours ago, Hakura said:

 

Is there a cheat for APB?  

 

 

Nope. None at all.

[Bruhd101 25]

On 12/19/2022 at 11:28 AM, NotZombieBiscuit said:

There needs to be some more jumping options too. Not just ladders and stairs. Stairs are always safe and slow. Ladders are fast and risky. But additional jumping routes are a nice middle ground that also give a huge degree of skill expression. It really shows how big movement is in APB and there needs to be more of it.

 

Am not sure if this would work but being able to climb to the ledge of any small building if we have a decent support like a car or object to climb something similar to some games like True crime, GTA, Saints Row, Marc Ecko's Getting up, Watchdogs could be a great idea, but am not sure how we can make it seem moderately risky and moderately fast 

[BlatMan 711]

On 12/19/2022 at 11:28 AM, NotZombieBiscuit said:

I always wish APB took the more dirty bomb route with their aiming style. Longer ttk, low bloom, medium recoil. Go even harder in to the tracking/dueling side of the gameplay and aiming style. Even just lowering bloom but increasing recoil would be a nice direction to go in (though i'd like to see them fix visual recoil per resolution first).

The visual recoil per resolution is due to the slight field of view change. I think this was to prevent 16:10 and 16:9 from having a wider viewing angle than 4:3, but that doesn't make sense when you can adjust your camera distance. They should tweak it so 16:9 gives you the most FOV, since it's the most popular aspect ratio, and have it scale so that wider looses a little vertical for some horizontal gain, and narrower looses horizontal. There should also be a field of view adjustment in game, but only 5 or 10 degrees of adjustment, just enough to correct for your aspect ratio.

 

The actual recoil, as in how much your camera rotates and how much you need to compensate with your mouse, is exactly the same. I do notice a trend in cheaters pretending stretched removes recoil. Anyone except maybe Mack knows your camera will turn to the sky while hip firing a DMR-AV. These players claim they have 400 DPI with 5 or less in game sense. You're not dragging your mouse 1ft in one frame, and you'll run out of desk without readjusting.

[rewnd1 0]

It needs to be updated, and sewn into the game, so that it is also installed during installation. And remake it, as it were, so that it checks your computer like a kaspersky

[Bellicc 0]

EAC can now be implemented again as the game is now 64bit?

[CookiePuss 5378]

2 minutes ago, Bellicc said:

EAC can now be implemented again as the game is now 64bit?

That’s the plan. 

[Thial 176]

Would love to see something happen. I quit in 2019 strictly because of me putting in crazy effort to hone my skills to be able to take on the best players but the game was riddled with so many blatantly cheating 4 man groups cheating for weeks/months that I just lost the motivation since anyone with skill.exe could be better than me with just a few clicks and yes sure sometimes you can outplay cheaters but I can't do anything against wallhacks with triggerbots who beat me simply because their bot's reaction was faster and they are using a low ttk gun. APB is an amazing game but it got absolutely ruined by cheating. Would love to see LO tackle that problem once and for all as that would be the first step to reviving the game.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Thial

[BlatMan 711]

On 2/21/2023 at 5:57 PM, Bellicc said:

EAC can now be implemented again as the game is now 64bit?

tldr: YES

 

EAC technically is compatible with 32 bit, but only the client sided part. The server sided part required 64 bit. EAC was more money than Battleye, but it's not much better than Battleye without the server part, so LO went with Battleye to save money for the time being.

 

EAC's server part functions similar to FairFight. In theory it should be better than Battleye.

[Frosi 722]

8 hours ago, BlatMan said:

EAC technically is compatible with 32 bit

I'm not quite sure this is correct, I believe Epic dropped 32Bit support ENTIRELY when they moved to their new "Free to use" format for EAC cause this format now REQUIRES Epic Online Services (EOS) integration which is what Epic is currently working on.