Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

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Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by tar »

I have said it before: regularly there are cheaters on the server, esp. a person called "madam" under different nicks (like "KIK", "XANGTSUNG" or whatever) who ruins the game for me. She/he uses wallhack with ping around 230 ms and is there nearly every evening in middle european time. Either you manage that issue by observing the server regularly or give the players the right to kickvote.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by tar »

Furthermore, there should be an option enabled that kicks persons who are away for more than 20 secs and please check if you can change the respawn settings as there nearly always _ALL_ players are respawned near the same location, which forces zerging tactics.

Thanks.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by adminless »

yeah and the next day a bunch of random guys kick you just because they don't feel like playing with you and then you'll come complaining about the kick voting instead in the best scenery if you don't start a vote war at worst, that's not the way to go, if you want somebody banned you're better stop making meaningless statements and start proving and backing them up instead as I'm not going to ban a player based on a opinion of another player and btw I don't do anything of use at the servers other than regularly first hand ensure their proper functioning and/or check a specific issue where I'm useful is here, coding and maintaining the things to ensure a reasonable quality standard, there's where I have business to do not at the servers.

well as we speak in one of the things that I'm working on is on what you suggested some spectators moderation, however bear in mind that this is just something for the future at the moment I believe that the spec usage at the server is mostly fair, most people who go spec is to later resume the game and there's no use to be more than a couple of them at most, keeping in mind that there's actually two servers and there's still enough room seems a reasonable usage so far however yes it's good to have such a option already prepared for the future in case it's needed but something I can tell you for sure right now is that there's not going to be a option to kick anyone go spec for more than 20 seconds.

sure of course I've just recently patched the spawn system and maps these days to accommodate the freeze gameplay so yes now rather than just spawning randomly anywhere (i.e. near the enemy and get raped) people should generally spawn at some random distant place from the enemy whenever possible which seems a much more fair thing and that yes will also lead to somehow teams spawning in near locations which should also be a good thing, this is a team game after all and team play is a part, what's wrong with that?
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by adminless »

ah btw I think that I didn't really get your point about inactivity because the server actually already does remove from the active game afk players, the thing is that the actual value for this option is a minute which seemed like a comfortable value when I first set this (i.e. smaller games), ok, now I sorted it to half a minute instead which yes I believe it should adequate better to the current situation.

PS: note that this inactive time only applies to spawned time (i.e. if you kill him before half a minute he will spawn again)
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by adminless »

ok, attached you have a decent recent demo of this guy playing at the server (something btw it was you who had to do it, not me, get it?) so please guys check it and judge by yourself. my impression after specting him for a couple of matches was inconclusive, definitively there's some really suspicious shots there, absolutely, but at the same time the guy is playing very defensively and seems to know most maps very good (always picking angles, hiding, etc) and then "guess" most situations and is also noticeable that many times he himself gets caught off guard by people randomly coming.

so in short, it wouldn't surprise me if he would be using some kind of hack at some point but at the same time so far I can not assure it 100% sure and therefor I can not take a action against player based in something that is not 100% clear, that's just not serious.

anyways that's just what I saw not trying to outsmart anyone after all mine is just another point of view like any other one else will have theirs so like I said check the demo and leave your thoughts.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by tar »

Check around minute 14: rail hit 1 ms after he walks around the door with 200 ms - the rocket afterwards could be lucky waiting spam. That rail and waiting rocket thing happened more than often in DM6 while permanent fleeing and waiting around walls - here with the nick "KIK", same ping and much more distance to the enemy (implausible hearing). Typical wallhacking imho. I don't blame cause of a "feeling" (I got already blamed by several players for my good rail) but it was obvious on DM6. Whatever, perhaps it was another player or he only uses it sometimes. I will try to make some demos when this occurs again.

To the respawn issue: aye, it is team deathmatch but since your change it almost converted into a zerg spam fest, esp. on DM14.

There seem to be more bugs:

Today there was a player "Amdoro" on DM14 who could not be hit by rockets while moving/jumping due to an update bug (as told by chatters) although they hit him directly. I have a demo attached where you can see that from 5:00 to 5:45. This player is apart from that not known for hacking/cheating as far as I can tell.

You can be instantly unfreezed when your body is located between a door and that door closes as well as when "killed" through a portal. These "bugs" are used by several players and is an unfair advantage imho. As well as when killing oneself by the "kill"-command when you are low on health and a round is about to end or while several team members are around to unfreeze you instantly (which forces zerging). To the latter there is no doing around I guess (it belongs to the game style) but it would be more interesting if there would be 3 seconds no-fire-time when a new round begins in order to flee when a zerg respawns or if you are respawned within a zerg as well as to prevent get shot by enemies who just spam on respawn locations when a new round begins (that 1 second god mode is not enough). Therefore it could also be tested if a fresh restart (with refreshed health/armor/ammo) leads to a more balanced game. But that is another discussion.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by adminless »

oh man that was bad I had heard some things about some damage problems but damages (themself) were fine (and default vq3 btw not as people were saying there) the problem is that the thing in the video (that I didn't know about) is not a damage problem is a game/engine physics bug, anyways I've just applied a small patch for that, I hope that fixes that bizarre problem for now, I just tested it before and rockets explosions seemed much more consistent now, but well not 100% sure yet may be I missed some other thing so still waiting for your feedback.

regarding the rest, well as you said those aren't bug those are "bug" (i.e. exploits). yes I knew about them but I just didn't seriously expect that people would be lame enough as to resort for them as a regular tactic (and btw not that I have real knowledge of them being seriously abused) but well anyways since you wrote me about them and for a better piece of mind in case they would really end up being abused I just addressed them, not big deal so I just removed the kill command since as far as I know is not of use in this mode (afaik only kill usages are in deathmatch pits to spawn faster or in bogus maps beside kamikaze mods), teleporters will no longer interact with frozen bodies (this will case the opposite exploit btw since now people can move bodies to places were they can not unfrozen which was in part the reason of that behavior, anyways, seems lesser than the current one) and doors will no longer close when frozen bodies.

and as a bonus to make the game more fair now frozen players can't spec players of the enemy team. about last suggestion well yes that or I could just install Rocket Arena 1.76 directly xD well just like you said, yes this is greatly inspired by Rocket Arena 3 but is not meant to be just Rocket Arena 3, they are different mods (not talking about maps etc), this is intended to be more of a fusion of various things and overall the game aims at being both more dynamic and challenging while keep being well balanced and in general terms I believe it does it.

ok, that's it for now thanks for report

PS: that crazy shot you talked about didn't appear on your demo and I also believe that he may be turning it on/off but nevertheless I just don't take actions against a player based in a crazy milliseconds shot without seeing the whole background, I think that that's lame also.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by tar »

And another one bites the dust...
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by adminless »

lol yes another flagrant case it's a pitty cause that was a frequent player and afaik most times he wasn't cheating (or so I hope).

thanks for report

PS: btw forgot to mention in previous post that that damage bug had actually nothing to do with amdoro cheating, it was just out random that happened to him and it was (I hope in past) a server bug, just saying.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by fernandinho1337 »

thanks for information.

As far as I can tell, Amdoro is not cheating and has never been. There are not basically any regular players that look strange to me.

best regards
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by adminless »

well as for the mentioned xangtsung player leading this post I finally decided to take action against him, it was no longer only that he was highly suspected of cheating each time more and more (yeah some shots can be luck but when lucky shots become the norm they stop being luck to be something else) and reported in addition overall he was just being a jerk and messing around with everybody so if we put everything up more as a sum of factors rather than just the most than probable cheating I finally decided to take a action against him.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by tar »

well, it was more than annoying, when someone has no forward key binded and you have to run after him EVERY FUCKING TIME, yes. so thanks!

and another one - see attachment.

PS: i just noticed from your answer here that you mentioned in your "PS" that you have not seen the strange shot on minute 14 in my demo. the reason is that this shot can be seen in your demo from the post before ;)
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by adminless »

ok, np, thanks for report, just added now.

about the PS ok I haven't understand you then but anyways I believe that it does no longer matters anymore (since that's already handled) but if you meant about my demo I think that the most notable part is by the last part of the demo when on top of the map he aims and shots perfectly while rocket jumping and in the middle of a fight at someone coming from the jump pad bellow which hit could not even be seen, I believe that you're not gonna find anything clearer than that.
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

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adminless wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 15:34 oh man that was bad I had heard some things about some damage problems but damages (themself) were fine (and default vq3 btw not as people were saying there) the problem is that the thing in the video (that I didn't know about) is not a damage problem is a game/engine physics bug, anyways I've just applied a small patch for that, I hope that fixes that bizarre problem for now, I just tested it before and rockets explosions seemed much more consistent now, but well not 100% sure yet may be I missed some other thing so still waiting for your feedback.

regarding the rest, well as you said those aren't bug those are "bug" (i.e. exploits). yes I knew about them but I just didn't seriously expect that people would be lame enough as to resort for them as a regular tactic (and btw not that I have real knowledge of them being seriously abused) but well anyways since you wrote me about them and for a better piece of mind in case they would really end up being abused I just addressed them, not big deal so I just removed the kill command since as far as I know is not of use in this mode (afaik only kill usages are in deathmatch pits to spawn faster or in bogus maps beside kamikaze mods), teleporters will no longer interact with frozen bodies (this will case the opposite exploit btw since now people can move bodies to places were they can not unfrozen which was in part the reason of that behavior, anyways, seems lesser than the current one) and doors will no longer close when frozen bodies.

and as a bonus to make the game more fair now frozen players can't spec players of the enemy team.
ok as a update about this I think that after some weeks it's fair to say that that patch did its job (at least to its extend) and that did no fail more however recently another "somehow" related problem was revealed to me and after spend the last couple of days testing this in local 32 bots rockets only settings in q3dm3 I think that I can say that I finally tracked that down so I double patched that. regarding this I remember being monitoring this and read about people complaining (each time less to be honest), well of course as always, I can not claim 100% that every single rocket launched at the server hit every single time but I can say that for the very biggest part (if not 100%) they do, just know that is very hard to judge the game by "how" you (rather than the server) are seeing it, know that the characters you see on your screen are compensated and on different frame times so it's not a "trivial" observation. as a random control of this I attach you here a sample of a complained target at the server, of course with this I'm not denying the claims that may be five minutes before some rockets may have failed, they could indeed there were still some things left, but for the most part as you can see even if something may fail at some point it was very very rarely. nevertheless, I hope that this now fixes this for good, let me know in case of further problems.

and also again as a bonus I improved the spectator functionally of the server, now you can follow next/back player in the cycle with the buttons "attack" (by default MOUSE1 and default behavior) and "use item" (default "enter"/"new line") respectively and you can go into "free fly" spec mode at any time of the follow cycle with the "walk" button (by default "shift") and patched the last game exploit I have knowledge of (and that was being seriously abused), now teleporters won't telefrag any more, instead they will place you at a random spawn point (if normal teleport destination would telefrag of course, if it doesn't they will take you to the usual place).

ok, that's it, I believe that that now should finish off with all those game problems (at least so far).

have fun and happy fragging :D

PS: also as usual very latest patch won't be running in UnFreeZe1 until tomorrow when the server can restart, this is actually running in UnFreeZe2 at the moment (central european night of the 22 of October 2017).
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Re: Quake 3 Server Unfreeze: Ban Cheaters

Post by fernandinho1337 »

hi,

since i have got a newer and faster pc now i tested the following:

the 333fps bug works on unfreeze2 so i guess it would work on unfreeze1, too. i dont think it is a cheat and it doesnt give u any advantages but have u considered limiting max fps to below 333 to get rid of that? (if ur pc is fast enough for constant 333 fps and u set com_maxfps to 333 u r able to jump higher and wider).

best regards,
Last edited by fernandinho1337 on Tue Jan 23, 2024 20:12, edited 1 time in total.
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