"auto-sniping" thoughts and tests

[Stan`]

@hyperion Sure.

IMHO mod.io's goal should be to ensure general mod safety. Not to ensure anything else.

Commercial games have little ways of preventing cheating opensource ones even less so.

[Atrik]

On 22/12/2023 at 4:02 PM, hyperion said:

Why not simply add a vanilla badge to user in lobby that don't use any mods and make the only form of cheating recognized by WFG modifications to show said badge when not appropriate.

A vanilla badge seems very very arbitrary as some mods don't even change anything/much* in game. Also the badge will dumb down the approach to mods, that will in turn just result in people going for defeating this badging system by hiding mods.

*Language packs, shiny, local rating....

Idk know about this badge idea but having all players mods displayed in game room could be nice to have still. This will allow people that use mods and don't host to be transparent with mod usage. + This is a better approach for map mods, instead using the compatibility check.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Also, being able to block players. So, if you're a sniper cheat mod user, I can block you and not see you in the lobby ever again.  You host a game with your sniper cheat mod enabled? Too bad; don't care; doesn't show. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

5 hours ago, Stan` said:

IMHO mod.io's goal should be to ensure general mod safety. Not to ensure anything else.

 

I kinda don't understand this. So, according to your opinion, WFG should sign any mod as long as it's not directly malicious? Even if it gives multiplayer players macros and other things? What if it's a "no fog of war" mod? As long as it's not a virus, then WFG should sign that and add it to the official downloads? 

[Atrik]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Also, being able to block players. So, if you're a sniper cheat mod user, I can block you and not see you in the lobby ever again.  You host a game with your sniper cheat mod enabled? Too bad; don't care; doesn't show. 

"Cheats" are more likely invisible modifications. If you don't hide a mod, probably you don't consider it a cheat. And auto-sniping still don't have a mod. Most likely if ""auto-sniping"" was found into a mod one day, it would be an incompatible mod that would introduce larger panel of options to control unitAI. I was thinking about doing such a mod with a better variety and smarter stances for fun and because it's not too hard.

""auto-sniping mod"" is a legend used by players losing games and in need of an excuse to not face their mistakes or true level in the game.

 

10 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

On 12/12/2023 at 1:17 PM, 0 calories said:

gaming mouse 4 times faster click... such cheating.. just 100 euro

We could limit click inputs.

Not sure if you are being serious. There are a tone of ways more or less fair to improve click rates.

Solution 1: Limit click inputs and create even more frustrating experiences for the players. What happen when you just click fast? Order are ignored? They are executed with a delay? Maybe even with more checks and limitations one could imagine something great.

Solution 2: get ride of the mechanic of "sniping" by simplifying how it can be done. Ofc this will definitively kill 0ad and therefore is a rly dangerous approach. So let's be smart go for solution 1.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Atrik

[hyperion]

3 hours ago, Atrik said:

A vanilla badge seems very very arbitrary as some mods don't even change anything/much* in game

I simply can't be bothered to discuss what means not much. I will play with mods and I don't care what mods you use. If I play you and had fun I'll play you again otherwise I'll doge you in future, simple as that.

 

4 hours ago, Atrik said:

Idk know about this badge idea but having all players mods displayed in game room could be nice to have still.

Many mods I don't know what they do and then we have the "user mod" which by design isn't a "mod".

 

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I kinda don't understand this. So, according to your opinion, WFG should sign any mod as long as it's not directly malicious? Even if it gives multiplayer players macros and other things? What if it's a "no fog of war" mod? As long as it's not a virus, then WFG should sign that and add it to the official downloads? 

If my signature means anything but checked for nasty bugs and malicious code I simply couldn't be bothered to sign anything at all. For me to dip my fingers into this it have to be part of a payed job description.

[Atrik]

32 minutes ago, hyperion said:

I simply can't be bothered to discuss what means not much. I will play with mods and I don't care what mods you use. If I play you and had fun I'll play you again otherwise I'll doge you in future, simple as that.

Sure but then it's not a good feature to have, if people can't use ANY mods if they want a prized "vanilla" badge. Sounds better to display details on what mods a player have rather then a binary validation mark. Just an informative useful tool-tip in game room to avoid problems like missing maps, would do the job already.

[Stan`]

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I kinda don't understand this. So, according to your opinion, WFG should sign any mod as long as it's not directly malicious? Even if it gives multiplayer players macros and other things? What if it's a "no fog of war" mod? As long as it's not a virus, then WFG should sign that and add it to the official downloads? 

That is where the ignoreincompatibility check comes in play (i wonder if a small countermeasure would be to make that flag work only with signed mods).

It's written in the signing mod rules that any mod touchig simulation cannot be signed with ignore compatibility checks to true. The rule is not perfect but it's the rule.

The idea is just to say well you might run into sync troubles but also this mod changes thing in a way you might not want to play without it.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

4 hours ago, Stan` said:

That is where the ignoreincompatibility check comes in play (i wonder if a small countermeasure would be to make that flag work only with signed mods).

That seems like a pretty good solution.

[rossenburg]

18 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Also, being able to block players. So, if you're a sniper cheat mod user, I can block you and not see you in the lobby ever again.  You host a game with your sniper cheat mod enabled? Too bad; don't care; doesn't show. 

lmao and someone else hosts and he joins, doesnt show for u? 

[rossenburg]

it's a long journey, but taking the initial steps now will help equip us to combat cheating in the future.

[hyperion]

On 24/12/2023 at 12:45 PM, Stan` said:

That is where the ignoreincompatibility check comes in play (i wonder if a small countermeasure would be to make that flag work only with signed mods).

Let's assume it's desirable that people can play together without being required to run with the exact same mods in the exact same order so you can find players to play against even if you play with a couple mods. There is fundamentally no issue with this as long as those mods don't affect the result of the simulation. This was done through code in the mod and later a metadata key was introduced to simplify this.

So a player using a mod outside of mod.io doesn't deserve to find players to play against or has to convince everyone else to also load that mod in the exact same order as everyone else. I'm thinking about my mute sound on pause patch I carry for a few years (1), which would make me a cheater if I read the intent of your suggestion correctly.

What we need is a formal definition of cheating, not some trick in the code that as we have established above is trivial to sidestep for anyone wanting to cheat. Worse impacts conceivably legitimate uses left and right.

We could define it as everything goes and there is no cheating. Or what I suggested, everything in vanilla was reviewed by our formal process and as such by definition corresponds to our vision of the game, you can mod the game and as long as you don't hide it it's fine for rated games in the official lobby, we won't get involved into discussions of what modifications are appropriate and which not as every individual has a different take anyway (2).

For me it currently looks like there is the imaginary evil of cheating and a group with a mission to fight it. Let's call that group The Committee. Then I at least expect The Committee to publish, let's say on the wiki, a list of modifications that they deem harmful and don't wish to be seen used on ladder in the official lobby. The Committee shall not come up with anything that needs recurring involvement of devs and shall not hinder what is considered a legitimate use case for the last decade and one of the aspects that makes this game charming.

 

(1) Very simple, just download my patch, fetch the sources, apply the patch and build the game, then I'm allowed to play with you again .

(2) It would be a good thing in my book if we had pure AI player competing on the ladder as long as they don't lag and are visible as AI players.

[ChronA]

If you guys really want to go down this road, at some point it is going to be less work to institute a formalized reputation system for ranked players instead of attempting this futile anti-cheat arms race.

As has been demonstrated, there is no complete consensus for what is or isn't fair play. The distinction between simulation, UI, and hardware is fuzzy. And even if you have two people with the exact same code and devices you will still have to deal with antisocial behavior that most people would understand as cheating: smurfing and unsportsmanlike conduct. If you ask to play a no-rush-20 and your opponent rushes you, isn't that cheating? If you are playing a team game and one of your team mates deletes a shared wall and defects to the other team 40 minutes in, isn't that cheating?

I think the best way to handle this is to make tools that encourage players to build personalized trust graphs for matchmaking. Let them mark people who they have good relationships with, and those who they do not trust, and then preferentially match with players within their cluster of extended positive connects. It could even go beyond matchmaking to auto-muting anyone in lobby chat who is is not on sufficiently positive terms with your trusted group, and all of it adjustable according to individual preferences.

[Stan`]

20 hours ago, hyperion said:

So a player using a mod outside of mod.io doesn't deserve to find players to play against or has to convince everyone else to also load that mod in the exact same order as everyone else. I'm thinking about my mute sound on pause patch I carry for a few years (1), which would make me a cheater if I read the intent of your suggestion correctly.

I'm not sure deserve is the right term here. But point taken.

20 hours ago, hyperion said:

Or what I suggested, everything in vanilla was reviewed by our formal process and as such by definition corresponds to our vision of the game, you can mod the game and as long as you don't hide it it's fine for rated games in the official lobby, we won't get involved into discussions of what modifications are appropriate and which not as every individual has a different take anyway (2).

Define Vanilla ? How do you review it? What prevents you from dumping 5 mods in the public mod? Cause to me it's assuming people play fair and that' apparently not the case

20 hours ago, hyperion said:

 

For me it currently looks like there is the imaginary evil of cheating and a group with a mission to fight it. Let's call that group The Committee. Then I at least expect The Committee to publish, let's say on the wiki, a list of modifications that they deem harmful and don't wish to be seen used on ladder in the official lobby. The Committee shall not come up with anything that needs recurring involvement of devs and shall not hinder what is considered a legitimate use case for the last decade and one of the aspects that makes this game charming.

So far all the discussions ended in disagreement with regards to what is cheating But I suppose that's normal considering everyone has their opinion

13 hours ago, ChronA said:

I think the best way to handle this is to make tools that encourage players to build personalized trust graphs for matchmaking. Let them mark people who they have good relationships with, and those who they do not trust, and then preferentially match with players within their cluster of extended positive connects. It could even go beyond matchmaking to auto-muting anyone in lobby chat who is is not on sufficiently positive terms with your trusted group, and all of it adjustable according to individual preferences.

Reputation points are generally nice, however If my understanding of the current lobby is not too outdated the problem is that there is a small group that always play with each other and never with new players and due to the sheer lack of players that just makes them quit the game

[hyperion]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Define Vanilla ? How do you review it? What prevents you from dumping 5 mods in the public mod? Cause to me it's assuming people play fair and that' apparently not the case

Guess you know what vanilla refers to code wise, so in this context I define it as the shared vision of the game while modifications as approximation of an individuals vision of the game. By review I mean a patch reviewed by the formal process on phab and finally committed to svn.

Generally I'd say it's not a big deal but lets assume I host a tournament with a prize pool significantly larger than a bar of chocolate for the winner, then in the spirit of e-sport some measures need be taken to ensure the rules I set. Ofc a lan tournament would be ideal but often unrealistic. So next best is to require a screen recording of the game and optionally a face cam to be analyzed. You can also run heuristics on the replay (network commands). The latter is possible for random ladder games as well. Still you can only assume no one is cheating if you don't catch anyone.

I can't stress enough that any and all attempts to prevent users from cheating by code on the users machine I deem utterly futile. So the question of what prevents people dumping stuff into public I can only answer with nothing and nothing ever will.

We still haven't established what fair even means, more to that further down. But if there are no downsides to be honest about your modifications why would you hide it. So the environment needs to be pretty bad already for this to be a concern.

 

10 hours ago, Stan` said:

So far all the discussions ended in disagreement with regards to what is cheating But I suppose that's normal considering everyone has their opinion

Perfectly normal, that's why I called imaginary evil. We know there is cheating but don't know what it is. We only know It's something out there that threatens us, which could jump us any moment and has the potential to utterly threaten our existence. So it's imperative that we start gear up with stage props and ostracize people we suspect have fallen to the dark side of force. I guess you can smell some cynicism here.

If you want to entitle a group of people to define what cheating is then their first task would be to write it down, not in terms of named mods but what type of modification they don't want to see on the ladder, then we can see if we can develop heuristic to scan game data transmitted during the game for suspicious activity. But before we have such an approved list cheating simply doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.

[guerringuerrin]

On 27/12/2023 at 3:17 PM, hyperion said:

If you want to entitle a group of people to define what cheating is then their first task would be to write it down, not in terms of named mods but what type of modification they don't want to see on the ladder

I would write the following: no mods that modify aspects of the game such as: moving units automatically; or modify the attacking behavior of units to auto-snipe or similar techniques that grant an advantage in battle; or automatically produce units, technology or phases according to available resources; or automate other aspects of the economy, for example, automatically building houses in a given space; or modify the graphics in such a way as to allow units to be seen under trees or mountains; or that allows the player to see the number of units garrisoned in buildings or ships; or modify unit graphics to highlight certain units so you can attack them and take advantage of it; or that allows automatic sharing of resources; or reveal the map; or notifying about other team events such as obtaining technology, changing phase, population and resources should be allowed in a competitive game unless all parties agree to allow them

----

Some sort of reasonable criteria needs to be established to define when a mod confers an obvious advantage. Otherwise, this dilemma becomes endless and it is clear that everyone is going to define cheating in the way they see fit or that suits them best. And given this situation, I think it is necessary to take charge, make decisions and then evaluate the results. Otherwise we will be debating until the end of time.

And in this sense, I would start by applying these criteria to the mods that are signed on mod.io. It is evident that the reduced competitive scenario has suffered a lot of wear and tear as a result of endless discussions in relation to mods that use macros to self-manage aspects of the economy such as the production of units according to available resources, automatic technology production, phase change, automatic resource sharing to allies. Even macros that automatically move units to the selected resource as soon as the game starts...

And I don't think it's a matter of majorities either. Since, in a competitive environment, it is very common for players to appeal to any type of external help available to improve their performance.

In my personal opinion, a mod that allows you to dedicate yourself to the battle while orders in your base are executed automatically according to the available resources gives you an obvious competitive advantage over those who do not use it. As you well know, this debate occurred in another thread. And then come the arguments: autociv's hotkeys and autoqueue, boonGUI's resource information panel. And instead of establishing criteria we relativize everything according to our convenience.
And if that, in addition, is legitimized by the game itself, then there is no valid accusation of "cheat"/

I've discussed this with Atrik in a good way several times on the forum and in-game. Raising several arguments. I have also discussed it in a bad way and, of course, I am not proud of that. I don't think it's the right way. But the truth is that his mod is there and has divided an important group of the community.

Unfortunately I didn't get any results. Because there is nothing that can stop the development of this type of tools.
I was out of the game for several months and I can't say it's still that way, maybe no one cares anymore or maybe, as a friend of the game told me, everyone cheats and there's nothing we can do about it other than accept it and have fun anyway.

At least it would be nice if hosts had tools to detect the mods that others are using in the same way that the host's mods are seen in the lobby.

Perhaps, like in Age of Empires 2, there could be a list of mods allowed for "ranked mode" and as many for a non-ranked mode. I know there is no such thing as ranked teamplay but perhaps it is a good thing to implement even if statistics are not incorporated.
Perhaps the host may have the option to allow or prohibit subscribed mods. I don't know, they are ideas that I think and share with you.

I thought I had witnessed the use of the auto-snipe and apparently it turned out to be nothing and I felt like an idiot. In any case, it seems evident that several players make use of certain features dishonestly...
Smaller and much simpler things that can be started to do to contribute to the development of a fair competitive environment.
It would be nice if hosts had tools to detect the mods that others are using in the same way that the host's mods are seen in the lobby. Then they could at least ask the player to disable that mod or otherwise not let them play. And although I don't find it entirely desirable given the small player base. At least it's healthier than playing detective to see who uses this or that mod.

Smaller and much simpler things that can be done to contribute to the development of a competitive environment before starting to develop much more complex things such as detecting cheats hidden in Public or another allowed mod.
After all, most players are not super software developers and, even if they are devs, not everyone will have enough incentive to study the code and develop a cheat. But, if the game itself offers the possibility of using available mods with the features I am naming, then it becomes much easier for anyone to access those resources.

Edited January 3 by guerringuerrin

[hyperion]

13 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

I would write the following: no mods that modify aspects of the game such as: moving units automatically; or modify the attacking behavior of units to auto-snipe or similar techniques that grant an advantage in battle; or automatically produce units, technology or phases according to available resources; or automate other aspects of the economy, for example, automatically building houses in a given space; or modify the graphics in such a way as to allow units to be seen under trees or mountains; or that allows the player to see the number of units garrisoned in buildings or ships; or modify unit graphics to highlight certain units so you can attack them and take advantage of it; or that allows automatic sharing of resources; or reveal the map; or notifying about other team events such as obtaining technology, changing phase, population and resources should be allowed in a competitive game unless all parties agree to allow them

Overall reasonable but would need quite some polishing. What I don't get are units visible behind trees, the base game has unit silhouettes except maybe for the ARB shaders. Also number garrisoned can usually be inferred from arrow count.

 

13 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

And in this sense, I would start by applying these criteria to the mods that are signed on mod.io

To what end?

 

13 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

And if that, in addition, is legitimized by the game itself, then there is no valid accusation of "cheat"/

Legitimization only comes from writing the supposed rules down black on white, publishing a CoC for ladder games on the wiki or even better in-game. Some users making up rules on the go definitely lack legitimization.

 

13 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

At least it would be nice if hosts had tools to detect the mods that others are using in the same way that the host's mods are seen in the lobby.

Well, you can't detect it ever, technically outright impossible. It's entirely voluntary to share what mods you use. Atrik earlier in this tread also stated it would be nice to see others mods in the UI and as we are all curious creature I see why people would want it, but bare in mind this can be faked at will with no means of enforcing.

 

13 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Perhaps, like in Age of Empires 2, there could be a list of mods allowed for "ranked mode" and as many for a non-ranked mode.

In AoE it mostly works because there is a healthy e-sport scene and no one will want to train with mods that can't be used in tournaments, 0ad is far from there.

 

13 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

After all, most players are not super software developers and, even if they are devs, not everyone will have enough incentive to study the code and develop a cheat. But, if the game itself offers the possibility of using available mods with the features I am naming, then it becomes much easier for anyone to access those resources.

The barrier isn't that high but I concur it exists. But a tutorial is written fast and we have seen quite a few proof of concept mods for such. I think I remember a mod that allows you to read enemy chat was posted not long ago

Maybe ChatGPT can also tell you how to

[guerringuerrin]

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

Overall reasonable but would need quite some polishing.

Of course. I just followed your proposal and wrote down open to any modification

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

What I don't get are units visible behind trees, the base game has unit silhouettes except maybe for the ARB shaders. Also number garrisoned can usually be inferred from arrow count.

I mean things like this. The photo is not of good quality and perhaps cannot be appreciated, but by modifying the trees in this way the visibility of enemy units is greatly facilitated.

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

To what end?

I have been confusing on this point. I always mean in relation to the competitive environment. I didn't mean that they shouldn't be in mod.io, but I did mean that the base game should have some mechanism to detect mods in use or some type of filter. With the aim of creating a fair competitive environment.

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

Well, you can't detect it ever, technically outright impossible. It's entirely voluntary to share what mods you use. Atrik earlier in this tread also stated it would be nice to see others mods in the UI and as we are all curious creature I see why people would want it, but bare in mind this can be faked at will with no means of enforcing.

Of course, we can hide everything and there are people who will inevitably cheat, hide mods inside others, etc. But anyway, I think it would be nice if at least the host could have some tool to see the mods that others have enabled. I don't see why this couldn't be done, considering it's possible to see the enabled mods someone has when hosting a match.

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

In AoE it mostly works because there is a healthy e-sport scene and no one will want to train with mods that can't be used in tournaments, 0ad is far from there.

There is no need to participate in tournaments. Even in ranked matches, certain mods cannot be used in AoE. But, in any case, I think it doesn't matter whether or not there is a healthy 0ad competitive scene to define criteria and incorporate certain features into the base game that allow having some kind of restriction to be able to play something like "ranked team games" (which also should be incorporated into ranked 1v1).

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

The barrier isn't that high but I concur it exists. But a tutorial is written fast and we have seen quite a few proof of concept mods for such. I think I remember a mod that allows you to read enemy chat was posted not long ago

Maybe ChatGPT can also tell you how to

Yes I know. But I feel that this argument should not be used to avoid trying to do something about it, even to discourage or hinder certain dishonest practices.

[Bazaar]

Raffut1969 left without resigning. where to appeal ratings ?

@guerringuerrin@hyperion@Stan`@rossenburg@wowgetoffyourcellphone@Atrik

Raffut1969.zip

[hyperion]

On 03/01/2024 at 9:41 PM, guerringuerrin said:

Of course. I just followed your proposal and wrote down open to any modification

And I suggest to go trough with the polishing if you are serious about creating a CoC for ladder games. Get others interested in such involved where possible.

 

On 03/01/2024 at 9:41 PM, guerringuerrin said:

I mean things like this. The photo is not of good quality and perhaps cannot be appreciated, but by modifying the trees in this way the visibility of enemy units is greatly facilitated.

I see. Well, I'd say this isn't that straight forward. First of all there is an option in the base game to not render decorative actors but isn't exposed in the UI (set renderactors=false if memory serves me right). Small trees mod is standard in the AoE competitive scene. Lastly there might be made an argument that color blind people need texture tweaking.

 

 

[guerringuerrin]

Hi, @Bazaar. You can report this here

 

14 hours ago, Bazaar said:

Raffut1969 left without resigning. where to appeal ratings ?

@guerringuerrin@hyperion@Stan`@rossenburg@wowgetoffyourcellphone@Atrik

Raffut1969.zip 170.86 kB · 1 download

Edited January 5 by guerringuerrin

[guerringuerrin]

3 hours ago, hyperion said:

And I suggest to go trough with the polishing if you are serious about creating a CoC for ladder games. Get others interested in such involved where possible.

Sounds fair.

Then I guess that we agree that without some criteria and mechanisms that limit the use of some types of mod in a competitive environment it's really difficult to create a sense of fairness. Are we?

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

Small trees mod is standard in the AoE competitive scene.

Exactly. It is a standard and is an allowed mod, but not using macros that move units automatically or auto-produce units according to available resources or auto-share resources. And the base game has mechanisms to prevent that.
Here, I can't do anything to prevent an opponent from using that kind of mods, which generates an obvious competitive advantage. 
And since it is possible to see the mods that a host uses, allowing a host to see the mods that players who connect to their game use is a feature that could contribute in this sense compared to something more complex like detecting code injected in Public or some allowed mod.

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

First of all there is an option in the base game to not render decorative actors but isn't exposed in the UI (set renderactors=false if memory serves me right)

And thank goodness it is not exposed, since it clearly provides a visual advantage.
 

2 hours ago, hyperion said:

Lastly there might be made an argument that color blind people need texture tweaking.

I agree that it is something to keep in mind. At least in the games I've played, colorblind modes usually change the colors of textures or remove certain details from them, but they don't eliminate or modify them completely. Maybe I'm wrong.

[hyperion]

4 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

Then I guess that we agree that without some criteria and mechanisms that limit the use of some types of mod in a competitive environment it's really difficult to create a sense of fairness. Are we?

Wild west is also fair but I don't mind either way. I see why people would want such a CoC and think it won't hurt at all. I'm fine with rules as long as they are written rules well thought out.

 

4 hours ago, guerringuerrin said:

And thank goodness it is not exposed, since it clearly provides a visual advantage.

It's exposed in the config file which I consider perfectly legitimate to edit. Beside a possible advantage it might also help with performance. There are quite a few config options that people tweak that are not exposed in the UI. "gui.scale" for example only got exposed in the UI in svn but anyone with a 4k monitor probably wants to tweak it already.

[Atrik]

On 03/01/2024 at 9:41 PM, guerringuerrin said:

I mean things like this. The photo is not of good quality and perhaps cannot be appreciated, but by modifying the trees in this way the visibility of enemy units is greatly facilitated.
 

Spoiler

The real reason Star GUI or simplifying the tree models is great is that in helps you build better woodlines.
I like to play with good realistic graphics so I don't use it. Yet, I never doubted it was a cool feature.

If someone worked on a patch or mod to make tree leafs disappear when they are close to the camera, would probably be a great feature. (Some other RTS have this feature but seems I can't remember witch ones to provide a screenshot, in short it just display trees far in field of view as leafed trees, and leafless trees when they are close in the field of view of the camera.)

Enforcement features:

On 05/01/2024 at 2:25 PM, guerringuerrin said:

Here, I can't do anything to prevent an opponent from using that kind of mods, which generates an obvious competitive advantage. 

You can already refuse to play with players you'll deem "cheaters" by your standards. All enforcement / whitelisting of mods doesn't sound reasonable to me. Smurfing, map, stats and chat hacks are probably much more nefarious then using some controversial gui mods. And as discussed multiple times above, theses cheats, are already mods players hide. So once again: a mod-banning feature would just decrease UX, and do nothing against real cheaters.

 

Normalization of everything vs stronger mechanics:

On 05/01/2024 at 2:25 PM, guerringuerrin said:

On 05/01/2024 at 10:48 AM, hyperion said:

First of all there is an option in the base game to not render decorative actors but isn't exposed in the UI (set renderactors=false if memory serves me right)

And thank goodness it is not exposed, since it clearly provides a visual advantage.

This helps reveal the two different approaches people want to take to make the game "more fair".
=> @guerringuerrin you always want to prevent access to some features to players that could want to use.
=> I would prefer the game to have better/resilient mechanics and better features.
Hence putting a feature in vanilla game to get rid of sniping. If the game has such mechanics requiring to spam clicks just to make something very simple, it will advantage the players using a particular mouse model or driver too much. And this dumb mechanic isn't worth developing an anti-cheat system like throttling cps or something silly like this.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

7 minutes ago, Atrik said:

much more nefarious then using some controversial gui mods

There are no controversial gui mods, particularly if you define "gui mod" as mods that change appearances and do not affect gameplay.

8 minutes ago, Atrik said:

it will advantage the players using a particular mouse model or driver too much

my mouse is 3 USD and works just fine for sniping. I agree sniping is a pretty unfavorable gameplay result, but its being worked on from a unit roles/balance standpoint.

I also don't think banning mods is a good idea because people will get carried away, in addition I'm pretty sure its uncharted territory for the 0ad leadership; The last major case of useing scripts for cheating was in a23 and flew under the radar. I think its better for now to find a way to allow total visibility of mods for every player in-game and for hosts to decide what they will/won't allow.