Denovuo anti cheat trial

MashedBroccoli

how long will this trial take place? I really don’t want their crappy software on my pc at all and need to know when it will be safe again to play dbd without installing that useless anti cheat.

For those that don’t know denovuo is worse than eac in every way fathomable and i can’t believe bhvr is even trialing them.

Last time i had their anti cheat on my pc i had to completely reinstall windows to resolve issues it directly caused and do not wish to go through that again.

Mandy

Given the nature of the trial we are not disclosing the exact length of it.

I'm sorry that you do not think this is a useful test in any way.

MashedBroccoli

@Mandy said:

Given the nature of the trial we are not disclosing the exact length of it.

I'm sorry that you do not think this is a useful test in any way.

to be honest, these tests should’e been done on epic and windows store, that is where 90% of the cheaters come from. I don’t think all the trials are useless just the denovou one.

Dbd needs better anticheat, this is just not a good replacement.

Coffee2Go

@Mandy said:

Given the nature of the trial we are not disclosing the exact length of it.

I'm sorry that you do not think this is a useful test in any way.

I'm sorry but what @MashedBroccoli have said, cheater origin is mainly epic games and windows store, it is common knowledge if you go to the "unnamed" so called "unlocker" tools and bypass discord servers that offer such services and most of the time even for free!

Like i am assuming mandy you will ignore my take here but i am not lying and i wish i was because it is absurd how easy it is to hack in the game, the focus should be other launchers too..

I am very upset with the decision of the anti cheat system heading as it should be an more active and present at all times not just at certain times upon booting the game.

I am also going to remind you that during that unlawful ban wave from a while ago got banned due to being in a family share with my partner who got us banned due to connecting her nintendo switch account via cross progression sync and nintendo given her a full refund due to it happening, there is so much proof about it, we got our accounts ban after a whole month of waiting, radio silence and volume ticket bot replies stating "too many tickets" bla bla bla..

So let me get some things straight, i personally did not input my money in this game i bought ghostface dlc, she is the one who bought everything and keep buying, so the fact HER account banned her due to connecting her own nintendo stuff is wild..

That is a PR nightmare if i ever seen one if she decided to do a lawsuit which i would have helped her make if she asked me to.

OneNineTwoNine

@MashedBroccoli said:

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4112542#Comment_4112542

to be honest, these tests should’e been done on epic and windows store, that is where 90% of the cheaters come from. I don’t think all the trials are useless just the denovou one.

Dbd needs better anticheat, this is just not a good replacement.

Like I wrote in my own thread, Dbd needs server-side anti-cheat. It's the ONLY way to prevent cheaters from using the tools they have. Make the server the authority on most things and make it hide information the client doesn't need and 90% of your problems are gone.

I even made a post about how feasible it is and why it's superior to any client-side "solution":

@OneNineTwoNine said:

The common argument I see against this is "oh, it's too computationally expensive and would make servers slow!" but I really don't think this is the case, and nobody has been able to argue that without excluding games that have already solved most of these problems.

Let me go through each type of cheat and explain what it is and why it's solvable. Let's start with the hardest one, just to prove my point right away.

Wallhacks
A wallhack shows players through walls and is only useful if the server continuously exposes the entire state of the match to a client. If the server doesn't send the position of everyone without any safeguards every tick, that makes a wallhack effectively useless. You'd only be able to see the last sent position.

And this isn't as expensive as people think it is. Is it trivial to implement? No, but it's possible. And the proof is Valorant, which has a fog-of-war system that uses voxels to compute visibility for each player. Dead by Daylight's servers could compute this at the start of each match to account for procedural generation, and it would solve this problem completely. And we're talking a 2% slowdown, if even that.

It would also be an even better fit for this game, because there's less players to compute and this isn't an FPS that requires super low latency 128 tickrate to be playable.

Speedhacks
A speedhack is a cheat that allows you to move faster than you should be able to based on the game's conditions. It can be subtle or blatant, but even the subtle version can be validated.

Instead of the client having authority on where you are, the client lets you move as normal client side (so there's no input lag), but sends the inputs of each player instead of their position. The server can then validate where they should be based on the inputs and perk state, and if it doesn't match up, you get rubber-banded back. You can also compensate for ping. If this happens enough times, the server accumulates data and when it reaches a point where it is statistically improbable to be caused by lag, you get banned.

This also makes teleportation impossible.

And if you're concerned about rubber banding for people with bad internet, well that happens regardless of validation on bad connections. And as much as it sucks, I don't think we should sacrifice everyone else's experience for the sake of giving people with a poor internet connection a better experience.

Item and perk validation
The server validates what items you have based on your cloud save, and if you try to join a match with an item/perk/addon/offering you don't have, or try to use one you don't have in a match enough times, you get banned.

Don't ban immediately, accumulate statistics over time - that way you avoid false positives if the client has a bug that causes items not to match up with the cloud. That can also be solved further by making the client query the server for what items and perks you have before the match, then update your inventory - and then simply remove anything you don't have from your loadout.

As for aura related items and perks, let's use the blood amber as an example. If you're actively using the item, the client tells the server that and the server keeps track of your charges and sends you the killer's position if you're in range until you run out of charges. When you run out, the server stops sending the data based on the fog-of-war system I explained earlier.

And now if a player tries to use a perk or item they shouldn't have in the match, they can't. The server will refuse the action and other players won't see it, and over time this repeated action gets you banned.

These checks are super trivial, I'd wager less than a millisecond if even a few nanoseconds. There's no reason not to do them.

Insta-completions/Remote completions
This is when a cheater instantly heals a survivor, instantly completes a gen, and so on. This is again super trivial, the server keeps track of progress instead of the client. Just like the movement validation, the client still increases progress client side (so you get a smooth progress bar), but the server validates it based on your position, perks/items, and time passed. If it doesn't match up, the server makes a note of that.

If you're on the other side of a map, you obviously shouldn't be able to complete that gen or heal that survivor. If only a second has passed, you can't complete a heal, and you have to stay still to heal them. If you're downed and another survivor is not healing you, you can't get up. If you have unbreakable for example, the server validates the progress of your recovery and once you get up, the server knows that you don't have unbreakable anymore and won't let you use it again.

Bypassing anonymous mode
Often used to target streamers to hold their game hostage or ruin their experience with other cheats. This one is arguably the easiest. Don't send the player's steam info to the client if anonymous mode is on. That's it.

And now we've covered the most common cheats used in this game, and proven they can be solved with server side validation, and that the validation won't meaningfully reduce performance. I think given that it almost completely solves the cheater problem, it's more than worth it.

So what's left? Well, there's still the case of client side cheats such as making trapper's traps more visible by modding the game. That's why we can still have some level of client side anti cheat, but it doesn't need kernel level access and instead just validates the integrity of your game so that if a hash doesn't match up the server doesn't let you join a match. It's still bypassable, but given that we've now solved the most damaging cheats server side, I think people being able to see traps on the ground easier won't ruin your games. Perfection is the enemy of good.

Considerations
I understand that this requires time, money, and effort to implement, but I still don't think trying yet another ineffective client side anti-cheat is going to be worth it or improve the experience.

The expenses of writing the code for all these checks is real, especially considering the thousands of perks this game has. I understand that. But it would solve a problem that has plagued this game for years, and once it's done the cheater problem will be miniscule which will improve the game health tremendously.

Skitten56

@Mandy said:

Given the nature of the trial we are not disclosing the exact length of it.

I'm sorry that you do not think this is a useful test in any way.

Ridiculous.

I deeply appreciate BHVR's effort and desire to try and tackle the cheating problem in this game, but this is not it. Server side checks for things like impossible movement speeds would be much more effective. Forcing players to install an intrusive software like Denuvo just to play dbd for a trial that is only on steam feels wrong. I'm not against anti-cheat software for DBD and it helping remove cheaters but not Denuvo.

Most of the cheaters are on Epic Games and have extra throw away accounts, as such this is where the trial really should be tested. Now myself and many others are going to be left waiting not able to play the game or participate in quests in order to level the rift. If you are willing to disclose when you are going to start the trial, why not tell us when it ends. Even if you don't want to say in advance, please at least drop a message on socials like reddit and stuff when it will be okay for us to update and play the game again.

I refuse to use Denuvo on my computer after everything I've heard about them. So knowing when I will be able to play the game again would be really nice. It is frustrating that cheaters playing on Epic will be just fine, meanwhile I have to avoid the game over this for an unspecified amount of time.

Piruluk

@Skitten56 said:

https://forums.bhvr.com/dead-by-daylight/discussion/comment/4112542#Comment_4112542

Ridiculous.

I deeply appreciate BHVR's effort and desire to try and tackle the cheating problem in this game, but this is not it. Server side checks for things like impossible movement speeds would be much more effective. Forcing players to install an intrusive software like Denuvo just to play dbd for a trial that is only on steam feels wrong. I'm not against anti-cheat software for DBD and it helping remove cheaters but not Denuvo.

Most of the cheaters are on Epic Games and have extra throw away accounts, as such this is where the trial really should be tested. Now myself and many others are going to be left waiting not able to play the game or participate in quests in order to level the rift. If you are willing to disclose when you are going to start the trial, why not tell us when it ends. Even if you don't want to say in advance, please at least drop a message on socials like reddit and stuff when it will be okay for us to update and play the game again.

I refuse to use Denuvo on my computer after everything I've heard about them. So knowing when I will be able to play the game again would be really nice. It is frustrating that cheaters playing on Epic will be just fine, meanwhile I have to avoid the game over this for an unspecified amount of time.

There are cheaters on steam as well.

We need server sided checks, thats the only way to prevent cheating.

Its like open doors currently where anyone can walk in.