Leadwerks Multiplayer Controller Theory

[Genebris]

4 hours ago, Lethal Raptor Games said:

On the file editing side, if your game is with Steam and someone does manage to edit a file and change the way the game plays, I would think Steam will see that the bits no longer match and your game is in need of an update? Which will reset everything.

The multiplier side of is vulnerable.

Steam doesn't check anything unless you want to as far as I know. Even if it did, I'm sure there would be a way to hack in after the check.

[Josh]

You could encrypt the network data if you were worried. If doesn’t seem like a problem people should worry about.

in general it is best for the server to make decisions because that keeps everyone in sync but if you need to I think it is fine to let clients. L4D and other big games work fine with this system.

[Josh]

For a competitive game that is used in E sports then obviously that requires more stringent protection.

[Rick]

Peer to peer encryption doesn't work. The clients has the code for decryption then in that case in order to read it which means anyone can see how to decrypt the packets. There is no way to hide any keys or anything in peer to peer. Many games have been killed (even non e-sport games) by cheating. Gamers don't put up with that at all.

 

"L4D and other big games work fine with this system."

L4D is a co-op game where cheating doesn't really matter as it's players vs AI, although if you were in a game where someone did cheat the AI you'd be pretty annoyed and if it happened most of the time you'd simply stop playing the game.  Any game that is player vs player cheating will kill your game. So peer to peer is useful in very specific game types and in others cheating will run rampant and destroy the game (if enough people care about the game).

I've been thinking about trying a Clash Royale (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supercell.clashroyale&hl=en_US) type of game and even in a game like this that is fairly simple to implement as the player is really just placing pieces and then everything runs on the server from there, a game like this would have a ton of cheating if it was peer to peer as the host gamer would be able to control everything and easily cheat to win. There aren't that many games out there that can survive peer to peer networking.

[gamecreator]

Even in that type of game there are input cheats (just like for shooters) where a bot/cheat engine could automatically, optimally place things for you literally as soon as you have the mana/whatever available.  Cheating for a game that's popular enough is unavoidable.  It's just effort versus effort: how much time do you want to spend to deter and fight it?  As a dev, your goal is to grow a community but if there are enough known cheaters it will make legitimate players leave.

[Rick]

Input cheats like that is one thing and is harder for the other player to really even know is happening. If a game like that was peer to peer then they could be hitting my character and my health isn't going down at all. That's a cheat they would know instantly and get very frustrated about and stop playing. We're really talking about network cheating where input cheating like that is a different topic I think.

[gamecreator]

We've diverged from the original post anyway but I guess I was addressing the wider topic of cheating in multiplayer games (whether through packets, input, lag switches, whatever).

[Josh]

Oh here is an experimental feature that might help you:

• void Entity::SaveAnimationState(Stream* stream)
• bool Entity::LoadAnimationState(Stream* stream)

You should be able to use that to broadcast animation data.