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  1. #1
    Fowst2010's Avatar Banned
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    TAS'ing, cheating and the Future of TM (easy fix)

    With the recent cheating news coming out, I consider quitting. I've had enough of cheaters in other games and now that this is a thing in trackmania, there isn't much holding me back. Will take a break and wait what's happening, while enjoying other games with other flaws. I'll try to keep this thread very objective, please do so aswell.

    There should be an offline practice mode, where everyone can change their game speed or inject TAS for practice purposes, but times aren't counted as records aswell as an online solo mode, where you can play maps as long as you want and hunt records, while connected to some anti cheat program (*passive agressive cough*) and in real time only. If people are able to cheat replays offline, don't make them upload offline replays. It's really that simple.

    When I first saw TAS run I was like: "Wait, is this legit?" I'm against the use of TAS and this is why: People are certainly TAS'ing more than they admit. Many people probably made their own program, when donadigo decided not to release his. But if it's done, it should be done in a "safe environment", meaning you can't get any records with this tool.

    Now you migh ask, what about the record times that have been set by those who either admitted or were proved (?) to be cheating?
    I suggest Nadeo should wipe all record times of anyone who cheated, no matter how frequently they cheated. You can't give them the benefit of a doubt, maybe they "only" used 80% game speed on their "legit" runs, therefore it's not detected. That's why I argue all their records should be deleted from trackmania history, if Nadeo indeed conclude that the report is true.

    I think an official statement from nadeo about how to adress cheating in the Future is overdue.

    Should we even be talking about this before anything official comes out?
    I'm just afraid people do stupid things, that's why I try to give good advice. Let me know what you think!
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  2. #2
    Fowst2010's Avatar Banned
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    https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthrea...1#post15416253
    Well naming and shaming is not allowed, boohoo but cheating is fine or what, Ubisoft? You are showing again why you are one of the laziest publishers in Video game history.
    We need a wall of shame, not HANDHOLDING CHEATERS. Omg.

  3. #3
    Montetatil's Avatar Member
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    It would be interesting to understand if, during these entire 10 years, any of the top players who used to use this TAS tool had the idea to alert the main staff like:
    "beware nadeo, when I'm using this TAS, I'm more efficient to get good times and can still depose my replay discreetly on TMX without anybody noticing that. if you, nadeo, don't do something, I, and everybody will continue to use it."

    I can't believe nobody thought to do that.
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  4. #4
    Fowst2010's Avatar Banned
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    So there's only one other person who cares about cheating in the Trackmania Forums?... Or people visit the forum every 3 years? Is that how it works? Are Y'all on some fancy Discord server?

  5. #5
    Fowst2010's Avatar Banned
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    I think many players would actually enjoy a TAS leaderboard for solo OFFLINE, aswell as a regular leaderboard for solo ONLINE records.
    Sad bump after 1 week...

  6. #6
    Yes, the topic had been discussed at length in the discord ( https://discord.gg/trackmania ) and on reddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/TrackMania/ ). Nadeo is currently investigating the issue with their own tools. But with the recent update, you can imagine that there had been other short-term priorities (like hitting a crucial deadline). Hylis also talked a bit about their engagement in improving their cheat detection on his call with Spammiej: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1051191785 .
     1 people found this helpful

  7. #7
    Fowst2010's Avatar Banned
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    Thanks for the links, I fell into the reddit hole the other day but there were more opinions than I could or wanted to read. I get that royal mode was close to its release, so they paid more attention to delivering that. Now would be a good time to focus on anti cheat in my opinion.

    I just noticed there's no disclaimer when starting the game, that injecting third party software violates terms of service. Maybe that would be a good Idea to add so you could at least ban cheaters on a legal basis?
    Right now (if I'm not mistaken) you could be sued by anyone you banned, because it doesn't say anywhere that cheating is not allowed.

    In another thread I suggested EAC for trackmania. (eac is easy anti cheat, they made anti cheat systems for several games)

    The easiest solution would be to have solo online mode and solo offline, let people TAS or slowmo in offline and make it a TAS ladder.
    You could add the slowmo option to the game, so nobody would have to use cheats and everyone got the same methods of practice.

    In Solo online, there should be a process monitoring the client if he injects anything, be it AHK, Cheat engine, TAS or whatever and as a logical conclusion, ban the people who try to cheat online records.

  8. #8
    Fowst2010's Avatar Banned
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    I was drunk when I wrote this. Pls delete this one post #8 here^^