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Apparently the Division on PC has a fatal flaw in it's code that allows easy cheating

sportz103

Member
So with my limited info on networking (just started doing it) it seems like the games servers trust that the clients info is correct and that the ammo count is just stored on clients. This shouldn't be a hard fix though? Couldn't they just make the ammo count stored on the server itself or at least put checks in so that if the ammo count is something overly stupid it will just correct itself?
The latter is more likely. Ammo count can change so quickly that it wouldn't be worth it to keep it in constant sync with a server. The servers might track your total ammo each time you reload though.
 
So with my limited info on networking (just started doing it) it seems like the games servers trust that the clients info is correct and that the ammo count is just stored on clients. This shouldn't be a hard fix though? Couldn't they just make the ammo count stored on the server itself or at least put checks in so that if the ammo count is something overly stupid it will just correct itself?

A game server - especially for something like Division - is a relatively big program, and under the "complete lunacy at Ubisoft" scenario (no one is going to cheat, let's save on servers checking stuff) they have no good place in the server code to put those checks in. Thus, they'd have to make one. And they could have counted on it not being present. BF4 does something like this, it specifically skips some server-side checks so that the servers use less processing power.
 

Orin GA

I wish I could hat you to death
Im gonna subscribe to this thread and in a month later see who doesn't know what the hell they are talking about :p
 
Sucks for people on PC. At least I'm mostly safe for now playing on the PS4.

Do you guys think they might delay the PC version because of this? Maybe cancel current preorders? This looks like it could spawn some shitstorm similar to Batman Arkham Knight PC.
 

HowZatOZ

Banned
Could this possibly be something that they've just disabled during beta to prevent mass data incoming and allow players to test the content? A dev on Twitter mentioned AI was dumbed down and various scenarios were disabled during the beta to focus test the actual content. Who knows I guess.

I've still got my order a tie as it seems beyond dumb just to let this go through with the DZ being such a large part of the game.
 
I'm not concerned. This will be squared away by launch. These are exactly the types of things betas are made to address. So I'm glad all these invisible, super-speed, infinite ammo players are running around. The game needs to work on March 8th. I couldn't care less about Jan 31st.
 
I'm not concerned. This will be squared away by launch.

It will not. Ubisoft is not competent at multiplayer competitive games and fixing this kind of problem can take weeks or months and de-stabilize your entire code base, its not something they can just slap in. For comparison FF14 (an MMO) had the exact same problem at launch and it took around 6 months for them to fix it. GTA5 has the same problem and they haven't even tried to fix it.

R6 Siege for PC has the exact same problem, released less than 2 months ago by Ubisoft, and has tons and tons of players cheating online with no repercussions.

If you like the division you should buy it on console where cheating is currently impossible (can't edit memory/files on ps4/xbone), on PC you are just going to regret paying for it.

The smart fix by Ubisoft would be to pool reported cheaters into their own seperate DZ servers, so cheaters only play with other cheaters. Titanfall did this and it was brilliant.
 

Oublieux

Member
Could this possibly be something that they've just disabled during beta to prevent mass data incoming and allow players to test the content? A dev on Twitter mentioned AI was dumbed down and various scenarios were disabled during the beta to focus test the actual content. Who knows I guess.

I've still got my order a tie as it seems beyond dumb just to let this go through with the DZ being such a large part of the game.

Part of the reason companies do multiplayer betas is to test whether or not the servers can handle the load. By putting some important stats client-side (I.E. your PC), they've effectively not only made hacking easier but also reduced the amount of information their servers have to handle at once. A little backwards, in my opinion.

I am not going to judge since it is technically a beta, but I would find this worrying as the network infrastructure in a video game is such a fundamental part of an online experience.
 
Server side checking is just turned off for the beta to help on server load while they test stuff. This is a proper beta where they are testing their servers on a small scale, lots of stuff has been disabled.

There will surely be exploits found by hackers that will be patched out but something this simple and obvious is intentional. Ubisoft will have their best networking guys on this thing, do you guys really think they are that inept?
 
Part of the reason companies do multiplayer betas is to test whether or not the servers can handle the load. By putting some important stats client-side (I.E. your PC), they've effectively not only made hacking easier but also reduced the amount of information their servers have to handle at once. A little backwards, in my opinion.

I am not going to judge since it is technically a beta, but I would find this worrying as the network infrastructure in a video game is such a fundamental part of an online experience.

Eeeeyup. If this was the thing that used to be called beta (a pre-deadline release candidate) cutting things of for testing would be considered nonsense. They're supposed to test how the whole thing works at launch, so the closer the thing is to, you know, actual conditions at launch (with a possible exception of scale, but even that is debatable), the better.
 

Raging Spaniard

If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
That's the point of betas. They'll fix

Not necessarily, this could be something thats hardcoded or something that, of changed, could break the game for months.

Betas are for balancing purposes and general bugs, not something this fucking egregious and idiotic.
 
It will not. Ubisoft is not competent at multiplayer competitive games and fixing this kind of problem can take weeks or months and de-stabilize your entire code base, its not something they can just slap in. For comparison FF14 (an MMO) had the exact same problem at launch and it took around 6 months for them to fix it. GTA5 has the same problem and they haven't even tried to fix it.

R6 Siege for PC has the exact same problem, released less than 2 months ago by Ubisoft, and has tons and tons of players cheating online with no repercussions.

If you like the division you should buy it on console where cheating is currently impossible (can't edit memory/files on ps4/xbone), on PC you are just going to regret paying for it.

The smart fix by Ubisoft would be to pool reported cheaters into their own seperate DZ servers, so cheaters only play with other cheaters. Titanfall did this and it was brilliant.


I'll worry about the state of the game when it releases. Just my 2 cents. If needed I'll just wait it out or get a refund. I have no interest in playing this game on consoles.
 
It will not. Ubisoft is not competent at multiplayer competitive games and fixing this kind of problem can take weeks or months and de-stabilize your entire code base, its not something they can just slap in. For comparison FF14 (an MMO) had the exact same problem at launch and it took around 6 months for them to fix it. GTA5 has the same problem and they haven't even tried to fix it.

R6 Siege for PC has the exact same problem, released less than 2 months ago by Ubisoft, and has tons and tons of players cheating online with no repercussions.

Ok, that's it. Goodbye to pre-order from me.
 
People burying the game 40 days before it launches. Nobody knows if this issue is going to be in the final game, nor how long it would take to solve this problem. I think you should hold your horses before judging the game, at least until the last Beta test or the final version.

The smart fix by Ubisoft would be to permanent ban cheaters

Fixed it for you. No game developer should do anything else but ban cheaters/hackers.

Edit: Also if you finished reading that reddit post: the mastermind of this exploit states that Ubisoft can easily fix it. So take that into account before you buy into Internet's overreaction.
 
Sorry that PC players might have to deal with this, but I hope they can fix this (or I hope that they left this in the Beta build on purpose).

I'm assuming the consoles will not have this issue but could be open to it as the generation ages.
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
Sorry that PC players might have to deal with this, but I hope they can fix this (or I hope that they left this in the Beta build on purpose).

I'm assuming the consoles will not have this issue but could be open to it as the generation ages.

If I remember correctly this is how a lot of the GTA5 online cheats worked at first. Maybe that had something to do with modded 360s though idk.
 
People burying the game 40 days before it launches. Nobody knows if this issue is going to be in the final game, nor how long it would take to solve this problem. I think you should hold your horses before judging the game, at least until the last Beta test or the final version.

Indeed, but holding your horses excludes pre-ordering. Agree? Disagree?

R6 Siege for PC has the exact same problem, released less than 2 months ago by Ubisoft, and has tons and tons of players cheating online with no repercussions.

Do you have some sort of independent source confirming this? Because that would seal the fixing doubts as being reasonable.
 
R6 Siege for PC has the exact same problem, released less than 2 months ago by Ubisoft, and has tons and tons of players cheating online with no repercussions.
this reads like complete FUD to me. cheating in r6 is nothing like cheating here, its your usual aimbot/wallhack crap found basically anywhere. Rare enough that neither I nor the circle of people I play with have ever encountered cheaters beyond the already-fixed spawn killers. Google searches don't turn up anything close to what would appear to be a cheating epidemic. and anti-cheating measures have become stricter in that game over the last month.
 

Cleve

Member
Wow, that's fucking terrible. I hope they're able to fix it, as I find the game pretty fun, but I'm blown away that UBI would be so dumb in this age.
 
Im really not worried over this. It will get resolved by launch.

They just have to enable server checks which actually are in the game. Seems like they disabled them for performance reasons due to server stress in the beta. Just like they disabled unlimited random side missions and reduced random enemies compared to the alpha.

Alright!
 
They just have to enable server checks which actually are in the game. Seems like they disabled them for performance reasons due to server stress in the beta. Just like they disabled unlimited random side missions and reduced random enemies compared to the alpha.
Great point.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Cheating kinda comes with PC gaming territory when game in question is online game with any kind PvP element. Cheating in PC MP game isn't actually news. Cheating like this where server blindly trusts client data can be harder to tackle, but shouldn't be impossible. Right?

So let's say that they find ways to tackle this among other possible cheats, have decent anti-cheat solutions in place and maintain them properly I don't see this game getting overrun by hordes of cheaters. I don't know what real state of R6 Siege is, I hear everyone and their mother has cheats in it, but even when BF4 was allegedly full of cheaters I saw maybe one in so many months.

Just out of curiosity. Do people feel that alleged state of R6 Siege and cheating is because of Ubisoft doesn't care and is actively interfering with devs or are devs just seen as not up to the task?
 

Portugeezer

Member
They just have to enable server checks which actually are in the game. Seems like they disabled them for performance reasons due to server stress in the beta. Just like they disabled unlimited random side missions and reduced random enemies compared to the alpha.

A beta would be a good time to test the servers. They should enable it during beta.
 
Even as someone who never plays online games, this is hilarious. Allowing players to literally rewrite the rules any way they like is completely ridiculous in a competitive game. This will become a hacker-infested shitshow almost immediately if it launches in this state.
 
With the amount of griefing possible in this game I imagine it is going to be a HUGE target for cheating. The easiest place to cheat is of course PC so if you value an "even field" better get it on console.

Just the way it is.
 
He's urging people not to cancel their pre-orders? Sure it might be fixed in release but why bother waiting to spend $60 to find out?


AFAIK the game doesn't have a significant discount (or even a discount at all) for pre-ordering so why the hell would you even pre-order in the first place let alone keep it after this?

Ugh
 
He's urging people not to cancel their pre-orders? Sure it might be fixed in release but why bother waiting to spend $60 to find out?


AFAIK the game doesn't have a significant discount (or even a discount at all) for pre-ordering so why the hell would you even pre-order in the first place let alone keep it after this?

Ugh

Well, 20% GCU with $10 gift card or 20% off at Amazon is decent.
 

slapnuts

Junior Member
This is why i absolutely always play any kind of multiplayer games on consoles...I gave up on online gaming with my PC rig eons ago....it's simply not worth the trouble with the amount of cheaters with PC gaming. Sucks but at least there are other options. This is why owning at least one console is essential for any gamer.

I never understood the fun of cheating with online gaming, it boggles my mind. I'll never understand it.
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69

webrunner

Member
I think that before people comment they should really understand the implication here.

In games, there's some stuff done client side, some stuff done server-side, and some stuff done server-side that's predicted in the client.

In modern games, when you're in a multiplayer match and you see another player, then aim and shoot, what happens is that your client will "predict" what's supposed to happen: reducing your ammo count by one, causing damage to the opponent (blood splatter, etc) and your client tells the server "i am here, and i hit this guy when he was here"

The server then figures out if that's "valid" by looking at it's version of the game state- as the server it should have the "real" version of said state and then sends updates to everyone as to how that state has changed. Note, that in modern predictive games this doesn't always mean that person A could shoot person B now, just that they could have X amount of time in the past based on that player's lag. There are ways to exploit this in massive lag scenarios but there's ways to fix that.

Note that this all still has the players' 'real' positions and ammo counts and health totals on the server. The client makes guesses as to what they are going to be, but defers to the server when the server updates them in such a way that's inaccurate.

Now, what happens if the *client* gets to decide everything? What if the client tells the server what position you're in, and the server decides that's true without verifying it? It just updates it's local (and everyone else's) gamestate that says you are in position x,y,z. This is how location hacks in World of Warcraft work- it's one of the things that the client has authority on. Note that you can't actually hack your inventory in WoW- you can hack your location to teleport to mining nodes but you can't just give yourself more minerals.

Now what if
a) *everything* was on the client
b) the server isn't even equipped to 'verify' any data.
c) the client can be externally changed and then update the server with that information? This is the part that makes me worried- CONSOLE games tend not to care as much bout this and can even go player-to-player with no server, because the ability to hack a networked modern console usually lower then the ability to do so on PC which is completey open.

Not saying all of this is true, mind you, but if it is, fixing it s a huge, major change in the network backend and rushing it out is only going to result in a buggy, unplayable mess. after all,you're going entirely from a system where game state data is player client based to one that's server based for all players, and the network overhead therein would be a difficult hurdle as well.

Now it's possible this was a testing switch that got left on and the game does support server validation. Hopefully that's the case.
 
So many people in denial. Depending on the source of the actual problem, this may be a fundamental thing that can't possibly be fixed before release. Client-based multiplayer is amateur shit, it's appealing that there are devs that still do it.

The Division is probably gonna be a mess on launch. Ubi gonna Ubi.
 

ViciousDS

Banned
They just have to enable server checks which actually are in the game. Seems like they disabled them for performance reasons due to server stress in the beta. Just like they disabled unlimited random side missions and reduced random enemies compared to the alpha.

Oh so basically they turned them off to not stress the server......but with features turned off aren't actually testing features for large crowds....Therefor not actually test the servers



WAIT.....WHAT! That would be fucking stupid.
 
Lol. From a dev point of view, this isnt something that can be fixed and tested in a month, unless the public beta is months behind master release. It's a serious design flaw. I have no idea why they went with this. It's probably more of a management issue. No sane senior would approve this.
 

Tovarisc

Member
Lol. From a dev point of view, this isnt something that can be fixed and tested in a month, unless the public beta is months behind master release. It's a serious design flaw. I have no idea why they went with this. It's probably more of a management issue. No sane senior would approve this.

Could also be major oversight as they took networking designs from console versions to PC, or just didn't have resources or want to design proper server side system for PC version. After all in console space devs don't need to worry about players tweaking their client side values with Notepad++ :D
 

tuxfool

Banned
Could also be major oversight as they took networking designs from console versions to PC, or just didn't have resources or want to design proper server side system for PC version. After all in console space devs don't need to worry about players tweaking their client side values with Notepad++ :D

Even on consoles you never let the client dictate anything, ever.
 

epmode

Member
I'm glad that I'm not really into multiplayer games or I'd have a much harder time deciding where to play multiplatform games. A bunch of companies are keen to collect that PC port money without putting in the work to account for an open platform.

I thought The Division would be OK, though. Ubi seems to have spent a lot of time on the PC port.
 
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