Anti-Cheat System

Pendragxn

I know this might not sit well with everyone, but I have to say it—I hate cheaters. They ruin the experience for everyone else, turning what should be fun and competitive into something frustrating and unfair.

I also understand that anti-cheat systems like COD Ricochet and Riot Vanguard are intrusive. They operate at the kernel level, which means they have deep access to your system. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and understandably so. But the truth is, it works.

Cheating is a constant arms race, and these anti-cheat systems give game developers the upper hand by blocking cheats before they can even take hold. Whether it’s detecting malicious software, stopping hardware hacks, or catching suspicious input patterns, this kind of protection is essential if we want a level playing field.

It might feel intrusive, but at the end of the day, it’s necessary if we want to keep cheaters out and keep gaming fair.

1. Kernel-Level Protection: Both run at the highest system privilege level (Ring 0), enabling deep system monitoring and detection of low-level cheats that would otherwise bypass user-mode anti-cheat systems.

2. Real-Time Cheat Detection: Constant monitoring of memory, processes, and behavior in real time to catch cheats as they happen.

3. Preventive Measures: Both systems block cheats from interacting with game processes before they can affect gameplay, reducing the chance of malicious software taking hold.

4. Automatic Updates: Continuous updates help stay ahead of cheat developers, adapting to new exploit techniques and cheats.

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Countering Hardware Hacks:

1. Hardware Spoofing Detection: Kernel-level anti-cheats monitor for hardware IDs and anomalies, detecting attempts to spoof hardware signatures, which are often used by hardware-based cheats (like aimbots).

2. Peripheral Monitoring: Vanguard and Ricochet can detect suspicious input patterns from external hardware, like custom input devices (modded controllers or mouse/keyboard setups) that give players unfair advantages.

3. Driver Integrity Checks: They validate loaded drivers to prevent custom hardware drivers from being used to interact with game processes, which hardware cheats sometimes rely on.

By leveraging deep system access and constant monitoring, both systems effectively detect and block hardware and software-based cheats, ensuring a fair gaming environment.

Noaani

So, here's the thing.

Even with kernal level anti-cheat, there are still many ways that players can cheat in a game. One of the most recent kinds of cheating is building a 3d printed robot that plays the game for you. No hardware spoofing or anything, as it just presses the keys. If you own an arduino, a spare android phone, and have access to a 3d printer, you can set one of these up for most popular games in an afternoon (not including print time). You may need to source some servos and actuators, but they aren't hard to get.

However, there are still other, more simple cheats that work with kernal level anti cheat in place. The MSI MEG 321URX comes to mind here.

So really, what this discussion is - whether it is what the OP thought it was or not - is a discussion as to what level of anti-cheat people want.

The most stringent anti-cheat involves kernal level anti-cheat, hardware vetting and a webcam pointed at every players face while they play (probably with some system to ensure it isn't a pre-recorded video, perhaps detecting light refraction from the monitor). Even this will see some people cheating get through.

We can go one step back, drop the webcam and hardware vetting, accept that this will let in a few more people cheating, but is less intrusive.

Or we can go another step back again, and drop kernal level anti cheat - which is in itself very intrusive. This will let in a few more people cheating, but the number of people is more dependent on the game design than anything else.

To me, since even the most stringent level of anti-cheat isn't goint to catch all cheating, my personal preference is for the developer to do what they can without being intrusive - so I prefer to stop before kernal level anti-cheat, as opposed to after it.

The thing to keep in mind with this is that even if there is no kernal level anti-cheat, that doesn't mean cheating will be either rampant or obvious in the game.

The best anti-cheat system is building a game that doesn't really benefit from cheating. An aimbot is an easy cheat to make, and can be made basically impossible to detect. So, build your game in a manner where aiming is significantly less important. People can then run aimbots, but it won't do them a whole lot of good.

In a tab target MMORPG, the bulk of cheats that would give you an advantage (positional cheats) are able to be detected on the games server. In fact, that is the best place to detect them. This is why the bulk of online cheating (not all, just the bulk) come from games that are action combat in nature - specifically the online FPS genre.