I want my, I want my, I want my stealth hack-free

[mikkyT]

It was mentioned in another post with regard to stealthing and issues that arise if the at-rest stealthed avatar was to be rendered invisible at the clientside, as opposed to server side.

Go here if you want your hack-free stealthing questions answered and bump the post:

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/planetside/Forum3/HTML/001684.html

stupid PSU UBB code gave the URL a ..... in teh middle of it!??!Now fixed

[Synergy]

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[mikkyT]

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/planetside/Forum3/HTML/001684.html

Try that one, it works now...

[mr_luc]

Yeah, that was me that mentioned it in an earlier post.

I really believe the devs should look at this.

As we have seen from the various 3DMark2001 driver hacks, it can be very dificult to prevent people from creating and distributing hacked drivers that have the capability to disable alpha blending.

As I mentioned in the earlier thread, I think the PS devs should SERIOUSLY consider taking the better safe than sorry approach: when the server knows that a player is completely stealthed from other players (ie, standing still and stealthed), he should not even be drawn. Not with even the slightest amount of alpha. If possible, they should stop sending information about a stealthed player's location. (this isn't really necessary if they're using packet compression, I don't know because I DON'T HAVE BETA *SOB*) As we have seen in other games, it is possible to hack uncompressed streams to reveal the exact location of all players that the server sends to our client.

The current method appears to send the location of the stealthed player, and to even draw him -- just instructing the client to draw him at a greatly reduced level of visibility. This method is very vulnerable to client-side driver (graphics) hacks, and it may also be susceptable to packet hacks (packets from server intercepted and player locations extracted before sending them to the game; this information could be displayed either in a separate app, maybe on a second monitor, as an overlay -- compass-style, or even on top of the included minimap -- or even as an elaborate minimap hack).

But, either way. I like the idea of stealthers being weak -- they should be extremely weak, I don't want many of them! But when they're standing perfectly still, they should be COMPLETELY invisible (maybe unless hit). Every effort should be taken to ensure that the 2% or so of players that play the game the most, and take it seriously enough to download any cheats they hear about, will not ruin the game for an entire class of players. Remember, it only takes one person with hacked drivers to catch that stealther -- it will doubtless be hard enough to do anything worthwhile as a stealther, and once your cover is blown you're likely dead -- let's try to keep it as fair as possible.

[mikkyT]

mr_luc can you post that in my thread on the official forum plz :D

http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/planetside/Forum3/HTML/001684.html

[mr_luc]

:P Seriously, they know all about that stuff. You just have to mention the possibility of hacks that let people locate stealthed players and they get a much better picture in their heads of what might happen than you or I could paint . . . so just let them know you're concerned, and move on. They may not consider the risk significant enough -- but this is something that you can't really prove someone wrong on, other than to say that I think any cheats that worked for PS would very quickly be spread -- the game needs to have a design that minimizes what such cheats can accomplish. It already does; as far as I know, the majority of the weapons aren't hitscan, which gets rid of huge number of aimbot-style cheats (which are notoriously hard to create, and would be even harder to create since we don't have any mod tools for PS).

Really, packet hacking (just for reading what the server's sending you, not for trying to fool it) and driver hacks are just about the only two things that I see being possible (and if packet compression is used, again, a packet hack will be MUCH MUCH harder to write, and nearly impossible depending on what type of compression is used).

[mikkyT]

Really, packet hacking (just for reading what the server's sending you, not for trying to fool it) and driver hacks are just about the only two things that I see being possible (and if packet compression is used, again, a packet hack will be MUCH MUCH harder to write, and nearly impossible depending on what type of compression is used).

Thats why I want packet encryption.

There was an application called showEQ which was a packet sniffer for EverQuest. It read the data in packets, displayed it in a nice readable form. They even had zone maps graphically displaying locations of every spawned item in that zone.!!! That was purely because the packets of data being sent to the EQ client contained that data.

Planetside gets around this by only sending what it needs to send, eg if your behind a hill etc etc. It only sends what you can see. So this should work for cloaking too, when your totally invis, you should not even be sent the data regarding the invis stationary object.

Therefore IF someone did sniff the packets, there would be nothing useful in them!!!

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Just because it is client side doesn't mean it is still hackable.... there are still plenty of other ways to secure the game with stuff client side, and PS has some I am sure. :)

[mikkyT]

Fair comment Kiwi, but it makes it hackable more easily than if its handled server side.

[OmnipotentKiwi]

Originally posted by mikkyT
Fair comment Kiwi, but it makes it hackable more easily than if its handled server side.
Some stuff has to be handled client-side though to minimize the size of the packets sent back and forth. Huge netcode is a very bad thing.

Since PS has complete control, they can easily build in a full file check at start-up and monitoring to make sure you are running an identical copy of the game. Hacking isn't very predominate in any MMORPG for that reason. It is really easy to prevent the majority of hacks in an MMO, unlike in a standard FPS :)

[mikkyT]

It is really easy to prevent the majority of hacks in an MMO, unlike in a standard FPS

Except the very hacks that make what I describe possible. :(

[RageMaster]

The easiest solution to this problem...

Stick a huge polygon at 0% transparency infront of the camera for every player. If they hack the alpha on their graphics card the infiltrators become visible but it doesnt matter as they cant see dick past this wall of black texture they just placed infront of their visor.

Sorted.

[quiet]

I read in one of the previews that your crosshairs would change color (redlock) when passed over a fully cloaked stealther.

Edit: I just saw a screenshot that contradicts that info :P.

[tmax]

your crosshairs would change ...but the chances of you just moving around and having the crosshairs chage colors is slim to none

[Flameseeker]

I think someone using that would eventually be reported. Also, if your base is being hacked, and a stealth is doing it, well, it doesn't take a genius to kill him. Spray the air around the console, goodbye stealth!

[mr_luc]

Well, a driver hack would be pretty darn hard to detect, but it would be possible. However, a properly written packet hack would be impossible to detect; the only way to prevent THAT would be to make the packets difficult to crack. Packet encryption is fairly commonplace -- Torque uses it. In fact, packet compression often has the same effect, since in both cases you need to know the method used to restore the information to its original form (Wolfram discusses the similarities between compression and encryption a bit in A New Kind of Science).

Knowing that I can stand perfectly still and NOT BE SEEN, no matter what, as long as I'm not uncovered by fire et al (I would even accept a 5 second wait period after stealthing before total invisibility) would be the only thing that would make playing a Stealth class enjoyable -- without that knowledge, it would suck. You would never know if the MAX that walked half way across the compound to the place where you were stealthed and methodically blasted the shit out of you actually SAW you before, noted your position, let you lower your guard and then made you his woman -- or if he just had hacked drivers. Hell, even aside from serious hacks, there are just weird vid card settings that screw with the appearance of transparent objects -- someone might use the way certain video cards have trouble with antialiasing transparency to spot a Stealth.

The reason this is so important is, you have no idea how quickly this stuff gets around. I mean, within 5 hours of a game being pirated, it gets uploaded to all the best hubs and I can download it. Cheats, although often carefully guarded by clan/teams to protect their advantage, are available to any warez monkey out there. You just have to know where to go -- or, more likely, connect to a hub where you know people that know where to go, or know someone that knows someone that knows someone who knows where to get the cheats. This stuff makes its rounds to the knowledgable in very short order, and you will have hardcore players using them within the next couple of hours. One Max using cheats could deny stealthers any access to a base.

Just another 'please address it' post; I don't even think of myself as a predominantly stealth-oriented player, and I would definitely still buy the game even if cloaking was entirely removed ('stealth' is, after all, just a measure of how 'seen' you are -- if you're good enough you could be stealthy in a MAX). But it would be nice, you know?

[Destroyeron]

BEWARE OF THE NERDS!!!!

[tmax]

dude mr luc your post is freaking longer then the last english paper i turned in....gives me a headache reading that much

[Warborn]

Originally posted by tmax
dude mr luc your post is freaking longer then the last english paper i turned in....gives me a headache reading that much

Then don't friggin' read it.

[XeeN]

Remember this - and this is my hope about the cheating element for Planetside - they've learned some lessons from EverQuest.

They know how to track cheaters, and track programs running in the background, and tracking packet-sniffers, and lots of other cool stuff.

I'm not going to worry about cheating.. it's too stressful, and if you're fighting cheaters, then you are just going to get better, until you are better than the cheaters, which is cool.

[mr_luc]

I type fast, dude. :) PS has been on my mind a bit lately. I weened myself off of DAoC even though I was deadly addicted to that, haven't had a relapse -- but I'm looking for something to scratch that itch now. Hell, I might play PS if it had only one armor and one weapon and it was free-for-all, just so long as it was persistant first-person combat.

DAoC, Everquest, AC -- they all tempt ya, and they scratch an itch, but so does cocaine. And if movies have taught us anything, it is that if you're addicted to crack sooner or later you end up sucking a black man's penis. :shrug: It's just a natural progression. In this case, the black man is DAoC, EQ etc. Eventually you end up disliking the situation you're in, disliking the fact that you're an addict and really disliking the taste of wang, but you're addicted to crack -- what are you going to do?

Ordinary games are like alcohol. I'm looking for a marijuana -- something that, yeah, you're kind of addicted to, and yeah, you might be better off without -- but it feels so goooood, and it's possible to lead a responsible life, and it's easier to quit.

Oops, hope this isn't too long. :lol:

[mikkyT]

They know how to track cheaters, and track programs running in the background, and tracking packet-sniffers,

Thats why you run your packet sniffer on a different box on the same subnet - UNDETECTABLE.... only way around that is to encrypt the packets.

[mr_luc]

Agreed. Packet hacks really are undetectable if written correctly. There's no way for your computer to know that the packets are being looked at before they get to it, so there's no way for Planetside to know.

[mikkyT]

woohoo sporky answered us on the official forum!