Detection

FoxRecoon

Hello i want to request an idea.
These days i see more and more people using macros in Snd but also in other modes. Recoil, QS, Bhop, Passos or AntAFK there are a lot things you can use macro for.
Personally i do not care if that happens in public games, but the times when we want to go for some more competitive games it feels bad to play with them. Also i do not want to compare myself with some lines of code, even when i can beat them still, i play rather more versus people with real skill.

So i would like to see an improvement in the replay files or at least in the spectator mode so that its easier to detect and report macro users.
I will describe now one idea that i had. I am not sure if this is against privacy rules maybe someone can enlighten me here but feel free to suggest something too if you think you have a good or better idea then my one.

Idea
I would like to implement an overlay for key commands, that you can activate additional if you want, in the replay files or as spectator.
For example you press F6 in the replay and then it would display, like the player names after pressing Q.


Those are the commands for crossfire.

The overlay would actually display these commands and every time one command get triggered you will see that through a blink. Similar to the programs that some game streamers using for example on twitch to display their keyboard. (* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IshwKB4bTN8). Its important that the ingame commands will get used here like "forward" and not "w" because they are not changeable.

I am not sure if and how good its possible to save all those commands of each player in a replay file. Thats why i also want to suggest it to the spectator mode. There you have the actual commands of a player and dont have to save them. Same thing here, if you overwatch a player you can press a key to see his commands.

Well that is it about that. I think that could help to make the game more fun and competitive again.

AlwaysSnipin

This... this is pretty smart.

+1

winnnetou

Would be nice, for me most annoying is the guys that use bhop macros in ghost mode and they pretend to be pros and the guys that use bot for farming.

macarona008

That's will be a good idea.

Mastermann

+1 but only if:
1. It only records keystrokes when the CrossFire window is the active window and NOT when chat is open - I don't want my passwords/conversations being recorded in replays when I'm alt-tabbed or chatting.
2. It records something like "Jump Key" instead of "Spacebar" so we don't see sneaky people rebinding their controls to something like # to jump to try and trick the system, so it can be shown as whatever jump is bound to to whomever is watching the replay.

Either that, or it records ONLY keys that do something in-game.

So if you're typing:

Hello, how are you?

it only shows:

(shift)e are (shift)

rambojeff007

+1111111111111111111

FoxRecoon

@master_mann
Yeah good to say that point once more.

The recording of the 19 commands
(Forward, Backward, Left, ... crouch, .. C4.)
will only happen when your crossfire window is active.
If your tabing out of crossfire and chatting on social for example it wont get recorded.
Therefore your ingame chat will get recorded most likely unless they program to bypass that.
But it will only record the executed command like "forward", you wont be able to see if its bounded to "w".
Also even if he knows the binding, he just see the few letters which are bounded and not your whole text.

Example:
Hello mate,
i won ares today!
55555
Im so happy


Shown commands in the overlay:
Shift, Defuse Bomb, Jump, Left, Defuse Bomb
Jump, Forward, Jump, Left, Reload, Defuse Bomb, Backward, Jump, Right, Left, Shift
C4, C4, C4, C4, C4
Shift, Jump, Backward, Jump, Left
Switch to Melee

Also you would have to guess the timing of the commands, so you just can guess if Ares in line 2 really means that. It could also stand for harvest to give an example, which have a whole different meaning already.

So to program a chat filter into this detection is not 100 percent needable but it would be a bit better with it to close out complains around that theme.

NattNatt

But you do realise a macro key just does a pre-defined set of actions, and so would still come up as "right click, left click, switch weapon, switch back" and not "macro key 1" for example? That's the whole way macro keys work...the software just outputs the normal keystrokes to the PC.

So this wouldn't really work. The only way you can do it is by videoing the keyboard//mouse.

aboreda88

pretty good idea +1

FoxRecoon

[MOD]NattNatt wrote: »

But you do realise a macro key just does a pre-defined set of actions, and so would still come up as "right click, left click, switch weapon, switch back" and not "macro key 1" for example? That's the whole way macro keys work...the software just outputs the normal keystrokes to the PC.

So this wouldn't really work. The only way you can do it is by videoing the keyboard//mouse.

Well i made up this idea especially when i thought about bhop macros to be honest.
For a working bhop without stucks, you need a constant jump command each 10ms atleast. Through the visualization of the blink you would be able to see that.

So it would work, atleast against this kind of macro already. For the other macros (maybe even allover) we could do it like that.


This is an output of a Moss Log File.

It shows that a keystroke of space was executed with a distance of 80 milliseconds to each command.
We could make a window that refreshes itselfs every 30 seconds. With a timeline of 140 milliseconds on it.
If there appear a keystroke in those 30 seconds of the commands it will get written on the timeline on the specific place.

Every Keystroke below 60 milliseconds is macro for sure and is not reproducible manually. Other keystrokes are discussable.


Legit Keystrokes, Headless Spamming the Space bar as fast as possible. Maximal reached 80ms. (To give a bit more space in decision making, we go down to 60ms which is really not possible to execute manually.)

If someone is smart enough to stay away from those fast executed keystrokes then this technique wont bust him, true. But since it would for sure bust already one kind of macro *(the bhop macro) its still reasonable to get this implemented.

NattNatt

that's a valid response, and yeah, it'd catch some of them to be sure that's what I like to see!!

iAnarchy

FoxRecoon wrote: »

Well i made up this idea especially when i thought about bhop macros to be honest.
For a working bhop without stucks, you need a constant jump command each 10ms atleast. Through the visualization of the blink you would be able to see that.

So it would work, atleast against this kind of macro already. For the other macros (maybe even allover) we could do it like that.


This is an output of a Moss Log File.

It shows that a keystroke of space was executed with a distance of 80 milliseconds to each command.
We could make a window that refreshes itselfs every 30 seconds. With a timeline of 140 milliseconds on it.
If there appear a keystroke in those 30 seconds of the commands it will get written on the timeline on the specific place.

Every Keystroke below 60 milliseconds is macro for sure and is not reproducible manually. Other keystrokes are discussable.


Legit Keystrokes, Headless Spamming the Space bar as fast as possible. Maximal reached 80ms. (To give a bit more space in decision making, we go down to 60ms which is really not possible to execute manually.)

If someone is smart enough to stay away from those fast executed keystrokes then this technique wont bust him, true. But since it would for sure bust already one kind of macro *(the bhop macro) its still reasonable to get this implemented.

This was well thought out and it would certainly help in ghost mode where there are tons of people using macro-hops.

Revo1333

Good Job Mate. I hope they take this idea in consideration

Pooyan

[MOD]NattNatt wrote: »

But you do realise a macro key just does a pre-defined set of actions, and so would still come up as "right click, left click, switch weapon, switch back" and not "macro key 1" for example? That's the whole way macro keys work...the software just outputs the normal keystrokes to the PC.

So this wouldn't really work. The only way you can do it is by videoing the keyboard//mouse.

Okay, I think it's safe to assume that you have no idea of what you're talking about. Every configurable mouse has an onboard memory chip that stores all the actions and sequences that are to be performed when the trigger key is pressed. So yes, they'll be detected as right click, left click, scroll up, scroll down. But that's what we want to detect, don't we? We want to detect perfectly timed key presses everytime an action is performed, which is impossible no matter how long YOU'VE stayed in mommy's basement playing WOW and stuff like that.

The only way to detect if a player's using macros or not is to be able to see and save the time delays between key presses. Otherwise, having just an overlay of key presses, like the one in your YouTube video, won't be useful.

I hadn't posted my opinion on this thread earlier because I'm 100% certain that this will never be added to game. The replay system is already as crappy as it is, add something like this and it'll break the game for good. Good idea, nonetheless.

FoxRecoon

Pooyan wrote: »

Okay, I think it's safe to assume that you have no idea of what you're talking about. Every configurable mouse has an onboard memory chip that stores all the actions and sequences that are to be performed when the trigger key is pressed. So yes, they'll be detected as right click, left click, scroll up, scroll down. But that's what we want to detect, don't we? We want to detect perfectly timed key presses everytime an action is performed, which is impossible no matter how long YOU'VE stayed in mommy's basement playing WOW and stuff like that.

The only way to detect if a player's using macros or not is to be able to see and save the time delays between key presses. Otherwise, having just an overlay of key presses, like the one in your YouTube video, won't be useful.

I hadn't posted my opinion on this thread earlier because I'm 100% certain that this will never be added to game. The replay system is already as crappy as it is, add something like this and it'll break the game for good. Good idea, nonetheless.

The overlay was my first idea, especially against bhop macros it would have worked since you would be able to see if someone is doing a jump around every second or if the jump command get rapped constantly all the time, because noone is playing like that.
To get something overall the 2nd idea with the Moss Log File example is better i think.

I have concerns about getting this implemented in the replay files since the beginning, because im not sure if they ever changed something in that. Even the nade bug if you go back with the left key is still there.
I have actually more hope to get this implemented when you oversee a player in the spectator mode. The commands of the player you want to oversee are active and dont have to be saved. Its less work to program a window like described above. We will see.

NattNatt

Pooyan wrote: »

Okay, I think it's safe to assume that you have no idea of what you're talking about. Every configurable mouse has an onboard memory chip that stores all the actions and sequences that are to be performed when the trigger key is pressed. So yes, they'll be detected as right click, left click, scroll up, scroll down. But that's what we want to detect, don't we? We want to detect perfectly timed key presses everytime an action is performed.

1. Assuming is never a good thing to do.
2. I know far more than you think you know. You literally proved me right after saying I don't know what I'm talking about....#logic?
3. You can record macros with live timings, ergo making them look identical as a fast "normal" user

And that's ignoring the rest of your message.

AliceInHell

Sounds like a good idea in general, though i don't think it will be ever implemented. I've read so many posts in this thread from guys that don't really know how macros work in crossfire. Example: To make a perfect bunnyhop macro you don't need to measure any milliseconds at all. The macro is simple but because that's a public forum i won't give you the answer to it here.

To sum up instead of this idea maybe the company should think of a way to insta-ban, or give an error when someone is using macros. This could be done possibly with a limiter on keystrokes inputted in the game. What i mean is inside the anti-cheat program a way that it can realize if "space" for example for bunnyhop is being pressed more than "20" times per second which is far beyond the human power limit.

FoxRecoon

AliceInHell wrote: »

Sounds like a good idea in general, though i don't think it will be ever implemented. I've read so many posts in this thread from guys that don't really know how macros work in crossfire. Example: To make a perfect bunnyhop macro you don't need to measure any milliseconds at all. The macro is simple but because that's a public forum i won't give you the answer to it here.

To sum up instead of this idea maybe the company should think of a way to insta-ban, or give an error when someone is using macros. This could be done possibly with a limiter on keystrokes inputted in the game. What i mean is inside the anti-cheat program a way that it can realize if "space" for example for bunnyhop is being pressed more than "20" times per second which is far beyond the human power limit.

Yes to execute a bunny hop macro you dont need to have any knowledge about how many milliseconds you need to not stuck in your jump. You just do it like that and your fine.


Bunny Hop Macro

I have to say that i dont trust the anti cheat system of crossfire since i just meet enough hackers every day. To include the macro shield to it wouldnt help i guess, people could bypass that like they bypass it usually.
The idea behind this is to give the community the option to regulate at least the competitive games like scrims for example on their own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmi6eeXahTU&feature=youtu.be
The First Idea.

The first bhop on the ramp was executed manually, the second was with macro. Easily to see on the blinks of the space bar.
The first idea would help to oversee the commands. You could maybe hack that it doesnt show any commands at all but how do you want to replace your macro commands to legit commands which just show when you hit the ground.
I think that would be a good help for the community.

The 2nd Idea is based on the knowledge how a macro works. Here we start to talk about milliseconds. This one i would like to implement as a window similar to this output of moss. (Idea described in details above)


Macro with 60ms

https://youtu.be/wBd-lw3yCFs
Bhop with 60ms macro.


Whats possible with legit headless spamming.

Out of these 3 examples i assume.
A macro bhop with 60 milliseconds and above will have stucks and wont get used. I tested that, it has to be atleast 10ms and below.
Its only possible to execute a keystroke with 80ms to give this a bit more space 60ms manually. Every Keystroke with 60 milliseconds and below is macro for sure. It stands for 16 commands per second.


Out of these points i would like to see one of those ideas implemented in the replay file or in the spectator mode.
If the only option to implement an improvement will be to add this to the anti - cheat then its better then nothing i guess.

I would like to hear the mistake i made about this. If you dont want to share it on this post you can sent me a private message of course.

FameStarZ

+11 thats cool

_BeDo

good idea +1

FoxRecoon

[video=youtube_share;AcsFtyo_eb8]https://youtu.be/AcsFtyo_eb8[/video]
Situation in ghostmode

Well so the situation is bad and in this thread we had alot of agreement that any form of improvement should come.
Normally this should be the job of the GMs to make sure that noone use a 3rd party program/Macro in this game but actually everyone can simple activate a macro without any issues and they dont have to fear to get banned for that. I tried it sometimes with tickets but nothing happend.

I said my 2 ideas and if there are concerns about that, they could maybe try to solve this problem on another way.
Nevertheless i will try to invite a GM now to this thread, so we get a final statement if this will get forwarded or declined.

CamelSoldier

FoxRecoon wrote: »

[video edited]

Well so the situation is bad and in this thread we had alot of agreement that any form of improvement should come.
Normally this should be the job of the GMs to make sure that noone use a 3rd party program/Macro in this game but actually everyone can simple activate a macro without any issues and they dont have to fear to get banned for that. I tried it sometimes with tickets but nothing happend.

I said my 2 ideas and if there are concerns about that, they could maybe try to solve this problem on another way.
Nevertheless i will try to invite a GM now to this thread, so we get a final statement if this will get forwarded or declined.

Your thread started out good with some ideas that could detect macro using on screen system that shows the speed of the key pressed. If they add such a system it would be good. However your video could get the thread closed as it targets players [accused] I do agree there are some macros going on in that video but it's against forum rules [Display IGN].

You should blur out the names of those players if you wish to make a point rather than have it closed or the video will be removed by GM or MOD. Also you could submit a ticket with the real footage violation per user and clear description in the comment section.

I support the idea of in game or replay system that shows the keys pressed and speed rate. This would help GMs to ban players and helps players detect macros in their clans etc.