Page 4 of 4 FirstFirst 1234
Results 31 to 37 of 37

Thread: Thoughts on server global highscore

  1. #31

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer View Post
    Can we not put always online DRM on ADOM? The idea that people are seriously considering this to prevent savescumming is hurting my head.
    The idea of online DRM in ADOM is ridiculous. Locks and DRM only work to keep honest people honest, if someone REALLY wants to cheat they will find a way. I was just suggesting a way to make it so savescumming is hard enough to stop casual cheating.

  2. #32
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Germany, Witten
    Posts
    994

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous View Post
    Save scumming is the least of your problems.
    Take cheat engine program for example.
    You can make your character immortal by locking health counter on a fixed number.
    You can change quantity of items in your inventory.
    Change those 3 potions of holy water to 300 potions.
    Get two rings of djinni summoning and change the amount to 200.
    Change the amount of potions of booze from 4 to 4000, give them all to Yggaz and get 4000 other random potions in exchange, around 50-60 of them PoGA.
    Give me one hour, I will build you a lvl 50 PC of any r/c combination, with all stats at 99, all spells at 30000 and all skills at 100, with infinite wishes and ready to close the gate on the very same day that you started the game.
    There's no end to what can be done. The only way to prevent that is to take control over save files entirely away from players, by storing them online.
    There is no other workaround to this. Anything that is done client-side is bound to leave room for cheating and abusing stuff.
    You can generate any unique number you wish. If I really want to, I will find it and change it so that the server doesn't recognize it as "already died" or some such stuff.
    I've been cheating in online games for years, purely for my own amusement, not against other players.
    I know what can be done with simple packet analyzer programs like wireshark or WPE pro, and that is in relation to online games.
    As for offline games like adom, without any protection, infinitely easier to process, disassemble, decompile, inject dlls, scan memory... like I said, there is no limit to what can be done, literally speaking.
    IMHO the most effective means to stop cheaters is to

    - open the server files only to registered users (may I say "ADOM Deluxe"),
    - provide a means to report attempts of cheating
    - ban registered users for doing so.

    I'm not sure if we want to go that far, though.

    Maybe a hall of shame is sufficient.
    Thomas Biskup
    ADOM & Ultimate ADOM Maintainer
    https://www.adom.de - https://www.ultimate-adom.com

  3. #33
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Cape town, South Africa
    Posts
    1,709

    Default

    In my opinion a Hall of Shame is actually better than a ban. Removal of scores from the Highscores list should maybe also happen?

  4. #34
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    San Francisco, CA
    Posts
    675

    Default

    Other small, inde game folks have had highscore board cheaters: http://knucklecracker.com/creeperwor...t&groupfilter= has the very first item be from 'Cheat Engine'. That board only accepts scores from registered users, but folks have found ways to inject bad data.

    Detecting, reporting, banning for cheating will also take somebody's time. And it's a thankless job.

    I wish you luck though! It may help to look at the Steam apis, and how they avoid cheating. see
    "Valve Anti-Cheat" at https://partner.steamgames.com/documentation/api and the wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Anti-Cheat

  5. #35

    Default

    Even if there's no anti-cheat protection (I'm ambivalent... it's not really a big deal to me) we do need an option for whether to put characters on the high score or not. For example, I kept a few save files from different stages of my recent win, so that I could do research on the mechanics of chaos knight alignment. If those guys die or win (and I've already got three wins on my own high score list from experimenting with the endings), then they'll mess up the high score list. We need to have the option to keep them off the table.

  6. #36
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Cape town, South Africa
    Posts
    1,709

    Default

    Those highscores going to the list is a good way to spot dumb save-scummers though.

  7. #37

    Default

    I don't think any high score list is ever going to be free of cheaters. The score itself is easy enough to inflate. And most of us don't really go for a high score, anyway. We go for a win.

    Then there's the trouble with crashes: I keep a backup file to restore from in case of a crash. This looks like savescumming, but isn't, and it's necessary because the game still has crash bugs and a save system that deletes the file on load.

    I would really prefer more of a database of winners--all those YAVPs--tagged with things like whether you completed an additional challenge, or did an ultra. People could write about their strategies, or not, as they chose. I'm thinking something like the ADOM hall of fame, but in the form of an automatic upload rather than something that would have to be manually added to a hall of fame by a team of mods.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •