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Comment by Matheus28 | Hacker News Reader

In this case, it really looks like Activision's Anti-Cheat is broken and banning people unfairly (if we can trust OP, which I have no reason not to).

A related problem though is that game developers have a really hard time trusting anyone who says they've been banned unfairly. Almost everyone who gets banned for valid reasons will claim they did nothing wrong, etc. This is especially true for delayed bans, as the person doesn't even realize that their account got flagged to be banned weeks before the actual ban took place.

Given that problem, when a developer gets reports of users being banned unfairly, it's very easy to ignore them as salty cheaters. Ideally there is a way for them to know exactly what tripped the anti-cheat, but sometimes it's hard as the client has to covertly tell the server to ban itself.

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The console bans should be investigated cause that’s a strong signal that the software is just wrong.

Not as strong As you might think. The Cronus is a very strong cheating device for consoles, and it’s ubiquitous enough to be sold in some big-box retail stores.

I don't think it's reasonable to group Cronus in with software based cheats.

Cronus certainly makes many things easier, but it does not give you magic. You still have to be decent at the game for a Cronus to be of any help.

Cronus gives a strong advantage to the cheater, basically turning recoil off. Sure there are more powerful cheats, but cheating is cheating and if you’re going to ban cheaters then Cronus users should rightfully be included in that.

“This particular cheat only helps people that are already good at the game” is also an ancient trope as far as rationalizing cheating goes, so hope you’re enjoying your Cronus lol.

I don't have a Cronus. Frankly, I don't really need one or care to have one.

Even with a Cronus, you still need to be able to aim and place your shots. It certainly helps you land more shots, but basic tactics easily overcome a Cronus.

Said like someone who uses a Cronus. If cheating at a tournament is defined as using a Cronus, then it's cheating.

I'm really surprised to see these repeated baseless accusations on HN. I can assure you that I've never used or own a Cronus. I have a 0.89 KD in WZ. I'd be much better with a Cronus.

I don't disagree that a Cronus is cheating. I'm simply stating there are different levels of cheating. Since Cronus is hardware it's both hard to detect and limited on its impact. Cronus also don't let you magically wall people or auto-headshot.

Software based cheats are significantly more impactful to the game play. Software cheaters can see you through walls, auto-aim, auto-shoot, auto-move. There's simply no way to counter someone who knows exactly where you are and can hit a perfect shot every time.

Activision should address both, but software cheating is a far larger problem.

In this scenario it sounds like Activision is addressing both by treating them both as a group. Not sure why you're trying to draw a distinction for actual Cronus use. If Cronus is cheating, it doesn't matter which cheat is a larger problem or whether there are different levels of cheating, the treatment for cheaters is the same: ban them.

I think it's reasonable for Activision to treat them as a group. I know I'm arm-chairing, but I think it's worth treating them as distinct.

Hardware based cheats, like recoil control, can be countered with in-game mechanics. For example, enforcing a minimum amount of recoil and using an RNG recoil pattern. My understanding is Cronus rely on grossly predictable recoil patterns.

Software cheating extends well beyond recoil control and requires active detection mechanisms.

Random recoil is less fun, it stops being a skill that rewards mastery and becomes another fudging factor in a skill-based game.

And for what? Because you think Cronus is too hard to detect?

No cheat should be tolerated, let alone compromised with to the point of fudging the game. Should racing games counter Cronus by removing difficult corners that rely on predictable turns? Should games avoid entire categories of mechanics just to work around Cronus? Fuck that, Activision should continue investing in protecting the creative integrity of their product, not conceding. Anti-cheat systems have gotten incredibly sophisticated with incredible gains in cheat detection, and it didn't get there by giving up.

"Should racing games counter Cronus by removing difficult corners that rely on predictable turns?"

Your argument is that games are bad so they should have serious restrictions on them to make them stay bad....

This is nonsense. Games should be, first and foremost, fun. You will build and play better, more interesting games where there are fewer predictable turns (literal or figurative), when there isn't such an unhealthy obsession with protecting terrible mechanics.

For a very few cases where there is e-sport(s) like activity, fine, create your TiVO like experience (in multiplayer, e.g. combat simulators, racing).

"Anti-cheat systems have gotten incredibly sophisticated with incredible gains in cheat detection".

Anti-cheat systems are a large part of why I rarely play any AAA titles - they are slow as all 'F, buggy, and honestly completely trashy games. And if I bought one of these games and was randomly locked out of it, you can bet I would be demanding the blood of the developers be spilled.

> I'm really surprised to see these repeated baseless accusations on HN.

I just made the hackusation because it seemed funny to me. Your insistence on further explaining the difference in severity between the different types of cheating just makes it seem even funnier.

This is the sort of pointless salty flame war that would seem better suited to Reddit or Twitter

The instant I found out that a device like the Cronus existed, it brought me great joy to know someone created it and turned it into a business.

That thing exists to solve a very real problem: the game mechanics the Cronus mediates or exploits are being used by game devs to cover up otherwise-boring gameplay.

Console anti-cheat wouldn't be able to detect the Cronus since it's just modifying controller inputs to help the user.

It isn't software running on the console, which is what anti-cheat generally protects against.

Monitoring input is how modern anti-cheats work. They all still implement the spyware approach, but that’s really the lowest hanging fruit.

What? No.

Practically all anti cheat for a long time has primarily worked by monitoring what is running on the computer/device, and ensuring the integrity of the game and its data.

You don’t need anti-cheat with deep system hooks to monitor input. That can be done from the game itself trivially.

So how would you expect console anti-cheat to work, given that modern consoles are pretty securely locked down and don't require the rootkit approach?

I would be surprised if they aren't using heuristics on input.

Denuvo, one of the primary cross-platform anti-cheat systems, deals with ensuring the integrity of offline progress, obfuscation and encryption to prevent data mining, and emulator prevention. In their own words:

> Protect sensitive game logic to reduce data mining and detect peripherals that give the cheater an unfair gameplay advantage.

https://irdeto.com/denuvo/console-games-protection/

They also have a common list of cheats on the general information page, none of which are really related to Cronus.

No they don't.

A lot of these Cronus-like devices do more than just translate input these days, many of them will attempt to manage weapon recoil for you (by adding downward and/or side to side input to the virtual aiming stick input at the same rate as the weapon recoil is pushing it up and/or to the sides) or generate other input intermixed with the user's input like adding very subtle circular motion of the aiming stick to try to enhance the benefit of the reticle friction aim assist that exists within the games themselves.

These sorts of generated inputs could in theory be detected using heuristics to watch for inputs that appear too patterned to be fully human. Whether any company is bothering with this, I have no idea. The only one I'm aware of that even appears to attempt to detect these types of devices at all is Epic and I have no idea what methods they use.

That's what I mean by "modifying controller inputs". All it can do is change what a controller does. They can't change the video, or affect the game logic in any way.

And it seems like it would be pretty simple to detect this in the game itself; this sort of detection doesn't need any anti-cheat with deep system hooks.

> this sort of detection doesn't need any anti-cheat with deep system hooks.

Correct, it wouldn't need any deep system hooks, nor are the console manufacturers likely to ever give game developers the ability to hook into the system that deeply, nor do they really need to since modern consoles are secure enough in practice that wallhack/aimbot type system level code cheats haven't been a concern for a while now on the major console platforms.

There are various bits of anti-cheat logic that game developers could be putting into their console version like the aforementioned analysis of input devices to look for helper devices, and things like looking for likely "lag switch" attacks by keeping track of the ongoing latency of packets coming in and out, but these are all passive heuristic checks that would exist within the game itself, not driver or kernel level anti-cheat as is common on PC.

Banning based on user input seems the worst idea ever. Say hello to false positive. Also, in near future you'll probably have AI player that will beat most human players. If you ban based on that, you'll defacto put a upper bound to human skill you'll accept in the game, so competition will be restricted to not-so-good players.

I'm a stock Xbox Series X console player in DMZ mode. I also sometimes get the random crashes and "DEV ERROR" messages after being removed from the game. I also have been removed from games several times with the "Player kicked" message. I can share my userId with any Activision employee here who's looking into the matter where you can see my K/D ratio is far too poor to be a "cheater".

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