Better anti-cheat needed and new player issues

[zenstrata 1]

***First Issue***

So I have been listening to my friends playing this mod for the last few days. It sounded like they were having fun. I asked them about the game and decided to purchase arma ii specifically so I could play with them and help them out.

So we foraged around, found some tents, finally got our base established way out in the mountains. And when I say out, I mean Waaaay out! It takes nearly 20 minutes of running through complete wilderness (absolutely nothing there, on the edge of the map), from the nearest town. So we travel out there, pitch our tents (we found two tents luckily over 4 days and many many untold hours of play). And we are gathered around getting things together, sorting inventory etc.

Then suddenly a bandit player appears literally right next to us. There is literally no way he could have snuck up on us, and he kills us all from 2 feet away with his high powered semi automatic scoped sniper rifle with a huge box clip of ammo. It kills us all in one shot.

I die, I respawn, I complain that there is a guy teleporting around killing people in general chat, I see a huge list of people die in quick succession while I am typing. And just when I get my complaint out, the SAME GUY! with the same equipment, teleports next to me again and kills me again!

I'm sorry but this is complete crap. I can understand that there may be crazies in the world. People who just go around playing this like unreal tournament and killing others randomly for literally no reason other than just plain killing. But cheating to do it is what makes it unacceptable. This needs to be stopped or you will bleed players at a massive rate. No one will want to play a game where people break the rules and teleport around killing people with their hacked weapons and equipment.

***Second issue***

This game plays fairly well. But at the moment there is no mechanic in the game to stop people from playing this like they are playing any other first person shooter. This is a game about a zombie apocalypse, most people would not just run around willy-nilly shooting each other when there are massive numbers of zombies and an incredibly few number of people still alive to work with. Sure there would be the occasional psycho, but most people are not just going to start shooting everyone they meet, not if they wanted to survive very long. I don't care who someone is, in order to survive over the long-term you need friends.

This would be reflected in that with 'real life' - you only get one. If the game could be set up so if a person died once, they would lose the ability to play the game ever again, that would appropriately reflect the harsh realities of a zombie apocalypse. However because a player has infinite respawns, killing others is turned into a quick and easy way to advance your own standing. This destroys any possibility of larger conflicts between groups because most people will be avoiding others because there is a good chance that person will simply kill you and take your equipment. This leads to people who mostly only want to play for a quick-fix, and destroys the environment for those long term players who take the game seriously.

When there are many people just running around and kiling people without any penalty creates an environment where new players are also going to be easily discouraged, they have no reason to try building up their equipment if they lose it all every hour or two. New players are not likely to try working in any sort of groups which destroys the possibilities of any sort of large scale conflicts from ever taking place.

I suggest some sort of mechanic which allows a player at some point to choose a faction or a side. Give each side various bonuses to encourage people to join. Perhaps a base of operations where they can store items and build up their available equipment. Have there be some sort of penalty for attacking players in the same faction. Or perhaps give players an option to 'opt-out' of pvp entirely. The world can be dangerous enough with AI enemies to fight.

Put some lasting character bonuses into effect, so even after dying - a player can earn things which can never be taken away from his/her character. This could be in the form of skills, such as running slightly faster, carrying slightly more, gaining more endurance to resist the effects of thirst, hunger, or bleeding. Perhaps give them something which increases their stealth skill such as the ability to move without creating so much noise. The meta-game, where players earn bonuses to their characters which do not vanish on every death - is going to be what draws people back to this game. Otherwise it is simply a larger version of most every other FPS out there, and we may as well be playing those instead.

[rossums 2190]

No, they won't 'bleed players at a massive rate' - it's an Alpha, problems like this have happened since the incarnation of DayZ and they will continue whilst DayZ is still a mod.

DayZ is a mod, they have no control over the BattlEye anti-hack - it's the normal one used in Arma II.

If you want a hack-free experience you should play on a whitelisted private hive server or wait for the DayZ Standalone.

As for number 2, DayZ is a sanbdox - there shouldn't be any factions or penalties for killing anyone or any 'stats' that carry over - DayZ is about survival, giving penalties or allowing people to opt-out of PvP is just a ridiculous idea that will only cause imbalance.

[gimmie gear 1]

DayZ is a mod, they have no control over the BattlEye anti-hack - it's the normal one used in Arma II.

If you want a hack-free experience you should play on a whitelisted private hive server or wait for the DayZ Standalone.

how do you know if DayZ standalone wont be filled with the same hacks DayZ mod has... its still gunna be running BattlEye.. in which my opinion is utter useless and should be removed with something stronger.. the only thing i read on standalone is that its gunna be cleaned up and more shit added to the game..

and every game ever made isn't perfect... so there is always gonna be imbalance no matter were you go..

Edited December 24, 2012 by gimmie gear

[zenstrata 1]

Well I am a new player - and this experience has caused the game to bleed 'me'.

There is a good chance I will not be playing the game very much - if at all in the future because of this issue. It just is not worth my time. There are plenty of other games out there which do not have these problems. I will simply go play them instead.

I simply felt that it might be helpful if the people in charge of this game knew what was going on.

And while i'm at it, there is a good chance if anyone asks me about my experience with this game, I will suggest they avoid it because of these issues. And turn them to other games instead.

Edited December 24, 2012 by zenstrata

[SmashT 10907]

how do you know if DayZ standalone wont be filled with the same hacks DayZ mod has... its still gunna be running BattlEye.

The standalone is using VAC and has been completely locked down so most of the types of cheats we see in the mod simply will not be possible. That's half the reason for going standalone.

Edited December 24, 2012 by smasht_AU

[rossums 2190]

DayZ is a mod, they have no control over the BattlEye anti-hack - it's the normal one used in Arma II.

If you want a hack-free experience you should play on a whitelisted private hive server or wait for the DayZ Standalone.

how do you know if DayZ standalone wont be filled with the same hacks DayZ mod has... its still gunna be running BattlEye.. in which my opinion is utter useless and should be removed with something stronger.. the only thing i read on standalone is that its gunna be cleaned up and more shit added to the game..

and every game ever made isn't perfect... so there is always gonna be imbalance no matter were you go..

The reason Arma II is bad for it is that the Arma II engine relies heavily on scripts.

This means that if a player can inject and run their own scripts they can do what they want.

The DayZ standalone is being run with the same setup as an MMORPG like WoW - all the details are held on the main server (Controlled by the DayZ team) and our machines hold very few variables and are only really there to do all the heavy lifting.

The whole design choice behind the standalone is stopping hackers and scripters - something that is a very big problem with Arma II.

This means that players just can't run their own scripts, the DayZ server just won't allow it.

zenstrata, I feel that you came expecting a full, polished game rather than an Alpha mod for another game. Alphas and Betas just aren't for everyone - there is obviously going to be problems, that's the point.

The developers are wel aware of the problems but all the development time is bring put towards the DayZ standalone.

[zenstrata 1]

Oh i am used to alpha type products. Its the rampant and blatant cheating which really turned me off to the game here. If that can be resolved at some point, I will probably try it out again. Of course the alpha's I have been involved in previously were closed alphas. A small group of trusted testers striving to make a better product. Not open with many thousands of people like this is.

I am able to cope with bugs, glitches, clunky controls, and broken items. But massive numbers of players cheating is beyond what I am willing to endure in a game.

Edited December 24, 2012 by zenstrata

[colekern 1364]

DayZ is a mod, they have no control over the BattlEye anti-hack - it's the normal one used in Arma II.

If you want a hack-free experience you should play on a whitelisted private hive server or wait for the DayZ Standalone.

how do you know if DayZ standalone wont be filled with the same hacks DayZ mod has... its still gunna be running BattlEye.. in which my opinion is utter useless and should be removed with something stronger.. the only thing i read on standalone is that its gunna be cleaned up and more shit added to the game..

and every game ever made isn't perfect... so there is always gonna be imbalance no matter were you go..

Do your research. Its not battleyes fault, its the Arma engine. It was designed with user friendliness in mind, and it was never expected that Arma would have such a large community. Arma just allows scripts to pass through, without doing that, the game wouldn't work. Battleye is basically having to block hacks without messing up Arma. Its like swimming up a waterfall.We won't find a better antihack for Arma because Battleye was made for it. If we change antihacks, hacking will get worse, not better.

[p4nnus 42]

No, they won't 'bleed players at a massive rate' - it's an Alpha, problems like this have happened since the incarnation of DayZ and they will continue whilst DayZ is still a mod.

DayZ is a mod, they have no control over the BattlEye anti-hack - it's the normal one used in Arma II.

If you want a hack-free experience you should play on a whitelisted private hive server or wait for the DayZ Standalone.

As for number 2, DayZ is a sanbdox - there shouldn't be any factions or penalties for killing anyone or any 'stats' that carry over - DayZ is about survival, giving penalties or allowing people to opt-out of PvP is just a ridiculous idea that will only cause imbalance.

I agree with this.

Zensrata, you could have read the forum rules and search if theres a topic of this. We all (atleast whom have played for merely a while) have had our conflicts with hackers and have lost camps and gear so you should realize its something thats widely acknowledged.

At some point the hacker problem was so bad that I felt like these forums were full of threads considering that topic and that topic only. Many of them also claimed that the mod was losing its playerbase rapidly..well look where we are now? While the devs etc. didnt quite get the problem under control (I guess they had to rely on the guys at BattlEye) as fast as the community grew angry, I believe they did and do their best.

And yeah I also agree with the points about factions, limiting pvp and getting bonuses. Again if you would have searched the forums youd know that these things are not going to happen, just like the 3rd person only suggestion. The whole point of this game is human relations and the open-endedness of them. I think that the current bandit-humanity system sucks, as it was even more exciting and scary to meet other players as you had no idea who they are and what have they done. As SA will have character customization, this will hopefully be repaired.