Rubber Banding / Speed Hacking - A Special (Unplanned) DevChat - 10/14/09 2am EST

[atticus13]

So where can we turn in an obvious speed hacker if we run into one? These scum are ruining the game for those who play it the right way...

[MarlonB]

Instead of actively blocking speedhackers, why not take the WoW approach.
Detect suspicious players ( you can detect them as you use it for the rubber banding), flag them and when necessary bag them?

Right now the emu is not in a playable/testable state.

[Hal]

Although it is annoying, it is certainly not to the point of unplayable; and yes, it can cause the occasionally unintentional death, which is aggravating to say the least, but so long as this does not carry over to Sun Crusher, I can live with it until the devs get a handle of the problem.

If it were as easy as capturing packets with a packet sniffer and identifying a speed hacker, I am sure, or at least hope, that they would use that method of identifying the abusers. Otherwise, the only method left is for players and/or staff to visually determine that someone is speed hacking, and that can lead to false accusations. The method that the system currently uses that causes rubberbanding obviously is not accurate enough to only catch speed hackers as it is affecting all of us.

I think, if it is at all possible, that speed limits should be set. Let's say that normal walking lets us move .25 m/s and burst-running lets us move .5 m/s and force-running allows movement of 1 m/s (all made of values as I do not know the actually numbers), then when each of those commands are executed, it cannot be falsified by sending incorrect data to the server from a speed-hacked client.

Until the devs get a handle on the issue I believe that we should just make due. I see a lot of complaining and again, I too get aggravated, but in the long run, if the devs can come up with a workable solution, then give them time.

[Gelasius]

problem is what prevents a player on a free game to just make another account and start another character if permanantly banned?


Gelasius

[Kayliaah]

Originally Posted by Gelasius

problem is what prevents a player on a free game to just make another account and start another character if permanantly banned?


Gelasius

Looks like banned people can still browse the forums anyway.
I see black names coming back all the times, hax.

[Ravashack]

Personally, while the rubber banding is aggravating to say the least... I want to express my appreciation to the SWGEmu staff. Thank you for all the hard work you are doing, thank you for bringing back something I loved playing, and testing is partially on hold for me (as someone who LOVED crafting) until the OR is released. Until then, I wait with bated breath. Thank you.

[Yyss'a]

I say we give Jedi to everyone and speed hack to all. Problem solved.

[Chayn]

Originally Posted by Gelasius

problem is what prevents a player on a free game to just make another account and start another character if permanantly banned?


Gelasius

This is why they are not giving up on prevention and the rubberbanding persists. As I believe Max said, "It is easier to fix the car than the driver". Policing thousands of players individually is impossible and not an option... new IP, new account.... to many work-arounds to be viable..

[LdyCharmne]

With the lack of vehicles, I can see how people are tempted to speed-hack. I know I've been running around planets just hunting banthas or fambaa at my leisure and thought "I wish I could have a bike to make this go faster"... for people who are trying to collect all of the POIs I can see how that run to Adi's Rest or other such places can be a real pain. I know it's annoying to be surveying for resources- chasing something down and get killed over 2k from a city and have to run back out there with no combat skills.

I really think once mounts or vehicles (or both) are re-introduced there will be a much lesser need to speed-hack, since the tools to move faster will be in place. Some people of course will still do it, but hopefully they are already gone.

[CapnSwifty]

An idea ive been thinking of ...

The people that are actually speed hacking vs the people that the server assumes are speed hacking due to server, client, internet lag.

Couldn't the last known packet receive time from the particular client be taken into account to easily see the difference between lag and speed hacking.

ex. I have a speed of 15. I get up and run 100m at that set speed. The server doesn't get my packets for a few seconds and doesn't realize I moved until I'm already standing 100m away. Packet Time of last known packet - Packet Time of current packet = N. N x 15 = 100m == no speed hax.

I typically have a ping rate around 65-70 which I believe to be pretty good.
I also have decent I-net bandwidth 3Mbps up and 16 Mbps down.
Unfortunately I believe most of my banding is due to loading mobs and not because of me crossing x distance in y amount of server time. Assuming this the speed hax prevention system is banding for a lot more than covering X distance in Y server time where Y is greater than expected.

I know that the current method is being tweaked ... just wanted to throw in my 2 creds.

[Supa]

Originally Posted by LdyCharmne

With the lack of vehicles, I can see how people are tempted to speed-hack. I know I've been running around planets just hunting banthas or fambaa at my leisure and thought "I wish I could have a bike to make this go faster"... for people who are trying to collect all of the POIs I can see how that run to Adi's Rest or other such places can be a real pain. I know it's annoying to be surveying for resources- chasing something down and get killed over 2k from a city and have to run back out there with no combat skills.

I really think once mounts or vehicles (or both) are re-introduced there will be a much lesser need to speed-hack, since the tools to move faster will be in place. Some people of course will still do it, but hopefully they are already gone.

Heh, running everywhere isn't that horrible. To get the Krayt Skeleton POI, I had to catch up to the group and ran from Mos Eisley all the way there. Roughly 8500 m. :P

There really is no excuse to speed hack. You know what you're playing (MMO for those that don't...), so you should have expected that you would be spending quite a long time playing to get what you want.

[Plotiko]

Can't we just let the people speed hack and hope they get caught? Why punish the majority for a select few?

I would rather someone cheat and get caught (eventually) than not be able to play due to rubberbanding.

[Strikor]

Rubber banding non-hackers is NOT the fix. It's a lag issue with the server that hasn't been fully resolved yet. The idea is to make it so that non-hackers never rubber band but speed hackers do. It's a lot more effective than simply banning them when they get caught. Changing an IP address and making a new account isn't exactly difficult and server administrators, both here and in the future, would rather spend the time dealing with other issues. "omg jonnyb is totally speed hacking" takes a lot more time and resources to investigate than most people realize.

[Clock]

I played swg at day 1. I remember the rubber banding being terrible especially after vehicles were implemented months later. I dont remember anything being said about it being caused to prevent speed hacking. Rubber banding existed for people even with system far beyond the requirements. If there is speed hacking prevention stuff implemented into the game over the original rubber banding problem I could only imagine how bad it could be. I never remember having it bad enough to not be able to escape mobs though. That would be seriously tough.

[Sixotoo]

Would it be possible for the SWGEmu devs to make a server side run or movement command that we could use via a macro? We hit the macro button for run and the server makes our toon run until we send the command to stop. Then the client just kinda tags along. At least travel would be possible. and getting away from angry lairs