Life is Feudal Official Forum

[NeoMetric]

(This thread will be updated as new video's/Information is brought to my attention)
C.A.T.S. = Cheaters Against the Server.

Cats are known bullies to the community so it's time we take a stand!
What does this mean?
There was a Guild Leader meeting brought together by Regnar of Aberon to go over a very sensitive topic, you guessed it, Cheating. Through combined efforts and mutual understanding all major guilds (will be listed down below) in attendance have come to this universal understanding! Cheating is bad and will no longer be tolerated.

Going Forward
From this point forward all guilds that have attended and given support to this new stand will be on the look out for those who violate what has been agreed upon as cheating. If you are found guilty of such things you will be blackballed from all guilds (exiled essentially) and shame be brought upon you and your family!
What is Cheating? And how can I stay safe?
Fear not, loyal denizen of Life is Feudal! Learning to recognize the dangers of C.A.T.S. is half the battle! There are only two methods currently recognized as cheating and they are the following:
File Editing/Game Changing
Third Party Software
Now you may be asking, what exactly do those mean? And what can someone do under those two categories? Well here's a list of what has been currently identified!:
(If Caught doing these black listing/blackballed will be a consequence)
-Lag Switching
-Daytime when it should be nighttime

There are a few other minor ones that are considered unfair play and are at individual guild discretion, those include:
-Logging out
-Arrow Trails (Making them last longer)
-Bright Nights (GPU editing)


What to do if you feel you're in danger from C.A.T.S.?
The current approved method is to simply gather data (Recordings/Screenshots[If applicable]) and submit them to the respective guild leader. We want to single out C.A.T.S., not the guilds. Being a bigger guild means that they can't quality control every single person and keep them under 100% scrutiny at all times. It isn't humanly possible. Also submit the same evidence as proof of concept to the Dev's on their bug tracker thread(s) to better illuminate this issue, and also any other Bugs/Cheats/Exploits you may discover in the process! But what everyone can do as a community is work together to weed out those darn C.A.T.S. so we can all bring them to light!

What we as a community would like to see from the DevsSimply put: Disable Client Side Console(Non GM) and Encrypt/Disable client side file editing.

Guilds that attended and support this cause
Aberon
Wessex
SSR
Vanirs
ESG
Forged
GB
KoB
Prosperity
Dagfinn/KoV?
(This list will be updated if I forgot any guilds that weren't tagged at the time.)

[WaldoTheBichon]

Nice post, I agree something needs to be done about cheaters.

[Gastenns]

Thanks so much Luis great job starting the thread! The major take away from the meeting was that all guilds want to clean up and remove cheaters from the community. If you feel someone is cheating contact the guild/kingdom leader to get resolution. They seem to all be receptive.

[Barlor]

Aberon gives unanimous support to this cause as stated above. Torque is a really moddable engine - It's very easy to overlook things which allow exploits.

[Saar]

Traduction française disponible sur von Culm

[Negan]

The CDT guild supports this initiative.

[Grimmblut]

So the idea is that a group of individuals (guild leaders), who don't have any access to logfiles or anti-cheat tools to prove their claims, decide if someone (from another guild of course) should be considered a cheater. If even under these arbitrary conditions no reasonable claim can be justified, then the accusation of "unfair play" will do.

Well, does anyone know a factory for pitchforks and torches? I'd like to buy some stocks.

The examples for "unfair play" makes me laugh out loud when I check the list of guilds that allegedly support this cause. The forum rules forbid to call names, but I have seen the following with my own two eyes performed by several individuals from several of the mentioned guilds: A single lancer rides without illumination in the dark of night, spots a farming character at considerable distance and rides towards him in a straight line to attack him. When resistance is met, especially in the form of other riders, they bag their horse and log out of combat.

So yeah, thanks for the laugh. If you witness something suspicious then take a screenshot or a video and report it to the devs. You neither have the means nor the competence to prove cheats on your own. If I might add, in my personal opinion several of the guilds you mentioned also lack the morality to be anywhere near a board that decides about such accusations. Although...on second thought scratch that. They should be near the board, but only in front of it as a defendant.

PS:
You might want to notify your supporting guilds that it's illegal to create "buggy holes" around their settlement (holes that put your character in a continous falling state so he can't move or take actions). It's considered cheating and people have already been banned for using that exploit. At least one of your supporting guilds uses those buggy holes.

[Nothing_Personal]

Oh this post was serious? I thought it was a joke

[Mybrainisanut]

There are only two methods currently recognized as cheating and they are the following:
File Editing/Game Changing

...[...]...

There are a few other minor ones that are considered unfair play and are at individual guild discretion, those include:
-Logging out
-Arrow Trails (Making them last longer)
-Bright Nights (GPU editing)

(This list will be updated if I forgot any guilds that weren't tagged at the time.)

This is practically the same, why having a diffrence made there? Because it's more complicated in the MMO client than it's in YO you can't go much further there. Im not going all into detail , still trail marking is the least of the problems modified gamefiles cause. As far as I could see in the files, especially YO is in trouble because the singleplayer version is made up with a clientside server and so everything needs to be stored in there.
With the insurance of less problems, most textures and animations are still stored within the client. Also modding the majority of non-encrypted files does not trigger a loading problem if the file names still match.
I'm still looking into the meshes and hitboxes for charatcers but it should be possible, at least in YO, to mod character sizes into oblivion, make horses extremly small, arrows extremly big and having the requests on on-hit targeting work around the current system, like implementing securred pike hits on horse riders or hits through shields, godly bow aim even with the wrong weapon stats...
I could go on, let's just say the client for YO is a mess and sadly not everything that should be encrypted is encrypted. I've not been into the MMo files but if they have smilarities this could be a lot worse.
So far the game is still marked as Beta, even tho I think of it more than an Alpha.

One problem is, that the TourgeEngine is open source and working around it seems pretty easy even for beginners.
On the other hand the community is aware of it and we can give the Devs our information, I'm up for it any day but have no idea where to start at because it's simply a shitload - at least for me, someone who did look in the files without a proper organisation.

All I can tell so far is that to this point encrypted files are nearly impossible to be decrypted, as the one program I could find was outdated with the latest TourgeEngine version.

Some directories that are pretty much only affecting cosmetics:

Code: Select all

\gui
\art
\core\art
\data

There are pretty much no files that give an advantage to edit in those directories, just cosmetics.

Regards the \art and \data files, I like cosmetic styled invisible walls to spy on enemies. I also like having small tree stumps or endless arrow trails. That's within those things dude....
Having anything but the GUI modified can be a huge advantage.
Whatever is possible in YO isn't something that should be available in the MMO by default.

Sorry for not attending, we had no spare time or someone to send out. It's nice to have a lot of groups just accept the fact that any kind of abusive gameplay is not what the majority of players signed up for neither expect from their opponents.
We're going to follow those suggestions.
Let's just hope a lot more are joining.

[Scratchit]

wait .. this wasn't a joke / troll post?

you guy are actually serious?

[Nothing_Personal]

There are only two methods currently recognized as cheating and they are the following:
File Editing/Game Changing

...[...]...

There are a few other minor ones that are considered unfair play and are at individual guild discretion, those include:
-Logging out
-Arrow Trails (Making them last longer)
-Bright Nights (GPU editing)

(This list will be updated if I forgot any guilds that weren't tagged at the time.)

This is practically the same, why having a diffrence made there? Because it's more complicated in the MMO client than it's in YO you can't go much further there. Im not going all into detail , still trail marking is the least of the problems modified gamefiles cause. As far as I could see in the files, especially YO is in trouble because the singleplayer version is made up with a clientside server and so everything needs to be stored in there.
With the insurance of less problems, most textures and animations are still stored within the client. Also modding the majority of non-encrypted files does not trigger a loading problem if the file names still match.
I'm still looking into the meshes and hitboxes for charatcers but it should be possible, at least in YO, to mod character sizes into oblivion, make horses extremly small, arrows extremly big and having the requests on on-hit targeting work around the current system, like implementing securred pike hits on horse riders or hits through shields, godly bow aim even with the wrong weapon stats...
I could go on, let's just say the client for YO is a mess and sadly not everything that should be encrypted is encrypted. I've not been into the MMo files but if they have smilarities this could be a lot worse.
So far the game is still marked as Beta, even tho I think of it more than an Alpha.

One problem is, that the TourgeEngine is open source and working around it seems pretty easy even for beginners.
On the other hand the community is aware of it and we can give the Devs our information, I'm up for it any day but have no idea where to start at because it's simply a shitload - at least for me, someone who did look in the files without a proper organisation.

All I can tell so far is that to this point encrypted files are nearly impossible to be decrypted, as the one program I could find was outdated with the latest TourgeEngine version.

Some directories that are pretty much only affecting cosmetics:

Code: Select all

\gui
\art
\core\art
\data

There are pretty much no files that give an advantage to edit in those directories, just cosmetics.

Regards the \art and \data files, I like cosmetic styled invisible walls to spy on enemies. I also like having small tree stumps or endless arrow trails. That's within those things dude....
Having anything but the GUI modified can be a huge advantage.
Whatever is possible in YO isn't something that should be available in the MMO by default.

Sorry for not attending, we had no spare time or someone to send out. It's nice to have a lot of groups just accept the fact that any kind of abusive gameplay is not what the majority of players signed up for neither expect from their opponents.
We're going to follow those suggestions.
Let's just hope a lot more are joining.

Yes a lot of that stuff is stored client side, but the client isn't the final source of trust for decisions. You could make an entire body read as the head hit box for damage, the server doesn't care what your client says. It checks to make sure the info is correct before updating the database and the objects in the game. What you do to ghost objects displayed on your client is irrelevant to the server, the server keeps tracks of objects not your client. Read up on how the engine works before making claims like you can hack the client to change hit boxes etc.

The simple fact is this is a skill based combat game, there are winners and losers, and just like every other loser in every other game, it's never the losers' fault, someone is cheating/aimbotting/wallhacking/p2w'ing their way to be a winner. It's the only possible explanation.

[Mybrainisanut]

Yes a lot of that stuff is stored client side, but the client isn't the final source of trust for decisions. You could make an entire body read as the head hit box for damage, the server doesn't care what your client says. It checks to make sure the info is correct before updating the database and the objects in the game. What you do to ghost objects displayed on your client is irrelevant to the server, the server keeps tracks of objects not your client. Read up on how the engine works before making claims like you can hack the client to change hit boxes etc.

You may be right about running directly into the meshes and hitboxes itself but the game has proven it's bad in it's current state in those "checks". The fact you can change whole files and it doesn't even matter is enough.
The "tracking" of objects is also not done properly. Having guys using a delayed connection between server and client to avoid damage or for vanishing is also prove enough the server does not "track" down every object as intended and in case of doubt favors client over server information in the short run. That's how games in the 90's worked when the hardware for hosting wasn't good enough for a lot clients to support, it's not up to date!
Not to speak about the lag spikes you had on 30/31 or 25 in the beginning, where practically noone could play as intended and teleporting players around the map were pretty common.
So most of the "hacking" there is done in sending false information to the server. You wouldn't need to crack the files if you know what the server requests in those matters.
And with the lot of still decrypted files, reverse engeneering is at a chance it should not be.

[Azzerhoden]

Thank you for attending Neo, and for the write-up. All of Hyperion strongly supports this effort.

[Campion]

Consider The Iron Coalition in agreeance with and supporting this cause. As a community, we do not tolerate unfair play. If any individuals under our banner are caught doing so, please contact me through my Steam account on my profile or through website messages. Thank you!

[Excel]

I speak on behalf of my clan, IMPERIO ERRANTE and we support this initiative but I recognize that I think very much like you ... it will be a chaos.

(Text translated
I speak on behalf of my clan, ERRANT EMPIRE and we support this initiative but I recognize that I think very much like you ... it will be a chaos.
If any of the people under our flag are caught doing so, please contact me through my Steam Profile account or through messages from websites. Thank you!
(Text translated by goolge, I do not speak english I'm sorry if it is not well understood;)) goolge, I do not speak English I'm sorry if it is not well understood;))

[Nothing_Personal]

Yes a lot of that stuff is stored client side, but the client isn't the final source of trust for decisions. You could make an entire body read as the head hit box for damage, the server doesn't care what your client says. It checks to make sure the info is correct before updating the database and the objects in the game. What you do to ghost objects displayed on your client is irrelevant to the server, the server keeps tracks of objects not your client. Read up on how the engine works before making claims like you can hack the client to change hit boxes etc.

You may be right about running directly into the meshes and hitboxes itself but the game has proven it's bad in it's current state in those "checks". The fact you can change whole files and it doesn't even matter is enough.
The "tracking" of objects is also not done properly. Having guys using a delayed connection between server and client to avoid damage or for vanishing is also prove enough the server does not "track" down every object as intended and in case of doubt favors client over server information in the short run. That's how games in the 90's worked when the hardware for hosting wasn't good enough for a lot clients to support, it's not up to date!
Not to speak about the lag spikes you had on 30/31 or 25 in the beginning, where practically noone could play as intended and teleporting players around the map were pretty common.
So most of the "hacking" there is done in sending false information to the server. You wouldn't need to crack the files if you know what the server requests in those matters.
And with the lot of still decrypted files, reverse engeneering is at a chance it should not be.

Not sure what you mean because none of the files I see on the client are encrypted.

I agree with you on the lag though, not sure what the devs can do about it as it has to do with the amount of player objects in an area, the ghosts represented on all of those clients, and the stream of updates about each and every ghost to each and every client. Seems to be a limitation of the engine more than their coding ability.

I'm still surprised at the choice of engine for the game when Unreal, Unity, etc are surprising cheap for the level of product they are capable of producing. Just take a look at the games made with those two engines and compare them to this- https://www.garagegames.com/best-of-torque/torque-3d

If you were developing a game from scratch today would you use Torque?

[Scratchit]

wow

role players role playing the war against cheaters

[Azzerhoden]

I'm still surprised at the choice of engine for the game when Unreal, Unity, etc are surprising cheap for the level of product they are capable of producing. Just take a look at the games made with those two engines and compare them to this- https://www.garagegames.com/best-of-torque/torque-3d

If you were developing a game from scratch today would you use Torque?

Don't really know about Torque, but LIF has been in development for almost 10 years, and changing to a new engine would cause massive problems at this point.

I'm a big fan of Unity3D, but as of a couple years ago my understanding was that they lacked the ability to support an MMO of this game style.