Radars in Frontlines and Hunts - Any word from SE?

[Hybris-Maenad]

It would be nice to hear that something will be done to counter the effect of the rampant cheating taking place in their latest update.

[Yukonjack]

Yes, this has to be fixed immediately.

[Adol]

There is nothing they can do besides banning people who have evidence against them, to suggest they have been using such tools, by the community.

[Jacost]

I don't see what they can do. I'm not privy to the inner workings of the system, but from what I've heard the radar only reads data from the game client. If it were accessing the server then SE would be able to detect it, but as is they can't tell who's doing it.

Of course, ignoring chatlogs of people bragging about using it isn't making us very confident that they're even trying. Nor is deleting every thread that mentions them. It's like they're going out of their way to ignore the issue.

[Hulan]

I'm not familiar with the 3rd party programs involved, but based on what I have read about them on here, one thing they could do is reduce the enemy position update range. This would actually help reduce overall traffic as well. Though strictly speaking, I'm not sure how far away these radars supposedly work, so it's possible they have already done that. If the server only updated the clients on the position of monsters within a 50 yalm range (about the range that monsters start loading on the screen anyway), that would drastically impact 3rd party apps' abilities to track monster movement at long range.

Again, I'm basing this entirely on conjecture, it's possible they already do something like this and the 3rd party programs function in a completely different way, but I doubt it.

[Ninix]

If the server only updated the clients on the position of monsters within a 50 yalm range (about the range that monsters start loading on the screen anyway), that would drastically impact 3rd party apps' abilities to track monster movement at long range.

This is exactly how it works now. The server only tells your client about entities in your area of interest, which is a bubble centered on your character with a radius of about 50-60 yalms. Radar apps cannot detect marks outside of this bubble because the client simply does not know about them.

As a few others have mentioned, there is basically nothing they can do to stop the radar apps from a technical standpoint. Something will need to change in the way the Hunt system is designed if they want to mitigate the impact of these kinds of programs.

[Hulan]

This is exactly how it works now. The server only tells your client about entities in your area of interest, which is a bubble centered on your character with a radius of about 50-60 yalms. Radar apps cannot detect marks outside of this bubble because the client simply does not know about them.

Hmmm, I had considered the possibility. But in that case, I'm not entirely sure I see the problem - other than the obvious fact that it is a blatant violation of the ToS. Fifty Yalms is barely enough for a competitive advantage, and certainly isn't enough to allow them to just lazily stand around town. You could accomplish the exact same thing by being more observant. Don't get me wrong, against ToS is against ToS. On the other hand, I find myself wondering what the huge fuss is all about.

They could use application layer AES - or some other encryption - on the position data, but that would only last as long as it took some clever user to find the private key. If they're already limiting data to a medium range, there's not much they can do beyond what they have already done. Act on abuse reports.

[Kallera]

This is exactly how it works now. The server only tells your client about entities in your area of interest, which is a bubble centered on your character with a radius of about 50-60 yalms. Radar apps cannot detect marks outside of this bubble because the client simply does not know about them.

As a few others have mentioned, there is basically nothing they can do to stop the radar apps from a technical standpoint. Something will need to change in the way the Hunt system is designed if they want to mitigate the impact of these kinds of programs.

If radar apps also "reads" player locations in frontlines pvp, then it is providing tactical information that normal play never intended to give on the map.

Knowing where your opponents are massed or hidden is a huge strategic advantage.

Feasible or not, this cannot stand. As it is already impacting the experience and fair play of users.

[Ninix]

Feasible or not, this cannot stand. As it is already impacting the experience and fair play of users.

That's nice and all, but it doesn't really matter. This is an issue literally all games are vulnerable to, and there is no way to really stop it short of adding some cheat detection to the client, which is just going to start a neverending arms race between SE and people who create the cheats. It's expensive, time consuming, and not really worth the effort if the game is designed properly. While the radar app definitely gives you an advantage, it's certainly not one I would call a "huge strategic advantage", since the range is very limited and anything the radar shows is also visible in the game world.

It's a slightly larger advantage in Hunts, since it lets people just run around a zone semi-AFK and not really paying any attention until they see a red blip on the radar, but it does not remove the need to actually run around the whole zone.

This is why I feel that, even though the Radar app is certainly cheating, it's really not that big of a deal. The *design* of the hunt system itself is the bigger issue. The rewards are far too great, which causes huge numbers of people to participate. This in turn causes zone servers to lag and marks to die in 30 seconds. This in turn causes the community to demand that people wait for 5 minutes before pulling a mark to allow their whole linkshell to show up and tag the mob. This in turn causes anyone who pulls early to be verbally abused and blacklisted by half the server. This in turn causes the community to go to shit in general.

None of this is being caused by the Radar, and it will not go away if the Radar is (somehow) eliminated. It's being caused by a poorly designed game system, and can only be fixed with modifications to the game design.

[Hybris-Maenad]

snip

Hence why I created a thread that doesn't have any recommendations. I would just like to hear something from SE as to whether they plan to do anything to disrupt this.