Concerns about multiplayer cheating

Wicked Feedback
42

All this talk about wipes while I stare at 400hrs and have no interest in PvP. Co-op for sure.

But…here’s an easy solution for both. No wipe + PvP balance without cheaters capable of ruining it.

Now bear with me, I’m no PvP expert but I think this would sound okay for me too.

-No Enchanted Armor/Weapons for PvP. It should be about the player and the weapon/rune choices. Not the fight against RNG systems. This way Devs need only focus on the Weapons and Runes.
-Choose a mainhand, an offhand and the runes to fit into them. Armor choice plays no role and the “weight limit” is decided at the start of the match for both players. Both players receive the same weights and defense regardless of armor chosen. FIGHT!

1 Like
43

Thank you for your time and expressing your concerns. This is a great topic for discussion!

We need a fair multiplayer game, on that I agree with you completely. What i do not agree with, is on what level the games fairness is supposed to be enforced.

I agree, that active cheating through mechanics, GodModes, OneHitK.O.s, AimAssists, you name it, shouldn’t have a place in serious Multiplayer Action. Those are also somewhat easy to manage (as people can usually feel the effect directly).

The enforcment of cheatproof multiplayer economy on the other hand, directly correlates with time investment and thus does not respect the time of the players. It promotes player retention through busywork over player retention through - imo much preferable - replayability (e.g. through roguelike elements like the crucible or seasonal characters/activities), fun new content or Meta shakeups, through interesting balancing.

Imo economy should NOT conflict with Multiplayer balance and it really does not have to. Correct me if I’m wrong, but from the top of my head, I can’t think of a Soulslike within which it does.

Here are two viable, somewhat simple solutions from my pov:

Accessibility of “optimal” Tools

One solution is, to make optimal tools somewhat readily accessable in the Endgame.

Take Elden Ring - Its somewhat easy (or rather straightforward :upside_down_face:) to have “the best” build, this way PvP economy is balanced. Play through the game two times and you can powerstance anything you want.

This can optionally be applied to upgrade materials or levels of gear at any level not just the endgame. What tools are available at any given point and how can they be used?

Take the Economy out of PvP

Another solution (albeit a less fun one), is to streamline PvP in a way, that takes economy out of the equation - One simple solution would be to disable all Item Enchantments, when engaging with PvP and limit the amount of consumables you can carry (if any).

My preferred Mix

  • Minorly restrict, what people can bring to designated PvP zones.
  • Exclude people that use GodModes, OneHit K.O.s and other cheat mechanics from PvP or separate them from the others. I think they already plan on doing exactly that.
  • Make PvP tools and optimal gear somewhat accessible in the Endgame. I am not talking about instant access to everything, but the ability to get to a single endgame build ready quickly enough, that it can be expected for Multiplayer balance purposes.
    / Optionally do this at different breakpoints in the game, if you want to ensure fairness throughout the games progression

Fair, respectful of the players time. no wipes necessary.

Edit: Also relatively easy to maintain in comparison.

Thank you for your time :pray:

44

the problem are not people using cheat engines (wall hacks, god mode etc.) the problem are people who use exploits to get better gear without actually putting in the time and effort. then they use more exploits to duplicate their items.

and imo it does not work to create multiplayer where only item XY is allowed. take invasions like in dark souls for example. this would then not be possible, or the invader would land in the others realm naked.
i rarely do pvp in souls likes, but when i do, i want to use my fully upgraded gear. i do not want to fight with a wooden stick against a wooden stick. thats boring as shit.

and dark souls pvp does have issues with items that got duplicated or obtained by cheats, but they use some sort o0f anti cheat, which just bans you once you get online with a item you obtained by cheating.
their cheat protection somehow recognizes by the item number/code, that it has been given by cheat engine.

But that also does not apply here, since these exploits are currently just abused game mechanics. no actual “cheats”.

I think there is no way to distinguish between items that have been legally farmed and items that have ben bought from finley by re-setting your PC time over and over. get what i mean?

and this also makes it impossible to “take the economy out of multiplayer balancing”. you can not separate those two when for example farming for silver is the only way to upgrade your weapon. again, i do not want to do pvp with a wooden stick on lvl 1.

the dark souls games have always been nerfed and buffed around multiplayer and invasions. and some bugs they fixed with bosses etc, they mostly fixed, so people had the same chances to get gear/areas/levels etc. with pvp in mind.

and souls pvp is working still even now is because it is balanced around areas and levels. when you have a lvl 99 character but you invade in the 2nd area of the game where a lvl 15 player is, your level and your weapon upgrade lvl will be reduced. something like that…
that is imo the only way to balance things in a game with different builts and random gear. as soon as u join pvp you are all virtually leveled down to the lowest player.

but even then, the weapon obtained by exploits is still not paid for with as much sweat and tears as the other players weapon. and the only way to mitigate that might just be fixing all exploits and wiping everything.

45

Well, I for one do not want people to be invading my realm like in souls games… that has always been a factor of the game I did not care for at all. I hope to not see that in this game. If there is PVP it would make sense to have it be in some kind of PVP arena in which they could control how pvp operates from the rest of the game. This would help make it possible to not have wipes. I will say again, and I am sure I am definitely not alone, if they hard wipe us that will make a lot of people who paid a fair price for this game very angry after putting in all the time we have. That will cause a review bomb for certain as well.

46

Although I’m sure they exist, I can’t recall an early access title that hasn’t wiped characters at some point, or at least required players to start a new game to experience content added later in the development process. Wipes, even repeated wipes, should always be expected during an early access period, and if it doesn’t happen then be pleasantly surprised. Treating it like a finished game prior to 1.0 is just begging for disappointment, though.

1 Like
47

I disagree. None of my early access titles wiped data, not a single one. There are definitely ways to address this and respect player’s time. I definitely hope they do not hard reset as that would make me not want to restart from scratch after all the hours I put into the game.

48

Like I said, I’m sure examples exist (you’ve obviously played some), but Early Access games like V Rising, Baldur’s Gate 3, Divinity Original Sin and DOS2, PaxDei, Astroneer, My Time at Portia, Raft.. I can’t remember them all.. have all had wipes during Early Access.

And, to be clear, I am talking about Steam Early Access, and not games that give you a few days headstart on launch as part of a pre-order bonus. That is an entirely different kind of early access (and those don’t wipe obviously).

Sometimes it’s just a case of older save files not being compatible with changes made, changes to the map that can’t be experienced without starting a new game, etc. It’s not always a case of trying to make things “fair”, it’s just sometimes a necessity.

1 Like
49

Well, I sincerely hope that does not happen. I definitely won’t start fresh and I do honestly believe it will piss a lot of people off if they do that.

50

The time it takes to get what you need in this game, especially due to all the RNG within the RNG is insane and it would be devastating to have all that wiped. Not to mention all the time mechanics gating everything into taking longer to complete as well.

51

I’m pretty sure one of the devs already said about when they relased 2 months ago they are going to wipe at some point on twitter, this is only a very small part of the game we have to play right now so you have to be prepared for that in the future updates.

53

How are obtained items more important than hacks that oneshot you?

And how do you control, if time and effort was actually put in to acquire those items?
RMT is a thing. RNG is a thing. Bots are a thing. Exploits are and will be a thing. OP Builds only there to farm are a thing.
By focusing on economy, all you are doing is reward people who get around systems even more.

Agree that this would be the more unfun solution, but still, if you allow all items and simply normalize the base stats, normalize the weight and remove enchants even in the current form of the game we would be left with plenty of play styles.

If you take the economy out of the PvP, none of these are issues. And you basically seem to agree here with my first reply. Even one more level that is tough to control and imo unnecessary.

Maybe farming for ridiculous amounts of silver being necessary is part of the actual issue here, if you think about it. If economy is a necessary factor to be able to progress to a strong PvP state, of course those two are inseperable. If it aint, they aren’t.

These are great approaches and do in no way shape or form conflict with any of my suggestions. Isn’t that a similar workaround than removing affixes? One could argue if items and specific affixes remain gated behind RNG as is, number crunching alone wouldn’t be enough to guarantee fairness though.

You could certainly try, but this approach holds the game back in more ways than it helps, but that is just my pov.

54

We are completely in disagreement here. If you pay 30 something dollars for a game to play and give feedback as you go for devs to further improve and have better marketing from the input and feedback, it would be very disrespectful of players time and energy put into that game and giving of the feedback just to have a wipe. I could see if this was a 5 dollar purchase, maybe then. But, not really, we are paying for something and should not lose all the time investment into the product, which a wipe would do just that, unnecessarily.

55

Yeah I was gonna say quite a few games, as long as they aren’t indie roguelikes or something lacking permanent RPG mechanics, I remember wiping at some point in its life cycle

57

If wipes are necessary, partial conversion methods are still possible.

It shouldn‘t be so tough to give players a way to boost a character to a specific level, or grant them the recipes that they collected and city upgrades or even story progressions based on what they had before. These should behave like checkboxes.

Wouldn‘t that be good compromise?

Alternatively, a somewhat extreme option: If you wipe the game completely, give players the option for a refund, perhaps in a magnitude based on their time played.

Siderant

I don‘t know why many developers don‘t respect the players time in that regard more. Not only when progressing, but also when investing into a specific playstyle. As i recall for example in Hearthstone, if something gets nerfed/changed you simply can opt for a full refund of the card at full price and buy something else. It drastically decreased my time playing Wicked for a while now, after two of my three main characters where gimped as a result of nerfs, without clean options to change their playstyles.

58

It should be kept in mind that multiplayer is a huge system that will impact vast swaths of this game, and it needs a lot of time in players hands to be thoroughly tested. The sooner players have access to multiplayer the sooner they can provide feedback on what is and isn’t working. The later multiplayer is implemented the less effective that testing will be, and potentially more development time will be wasted on revisiting areas of the game that have already been introduced to ensure they work for both multi and single player.

That’s a big part of why I’m disappointed that the Crucible is being prioritized instead. Adding in ways for players to kill time in end-game content like the Crucible (despite the fact that, regardless of desire, they may potentially need to wipe before launch) is nice and all, but it isn’t going to help get Wicked to a finished state faster and it’s prioritizing something that is currently meaningless over major systems that are core to the game’s design.

2 Likes
59

Agree 100% with this. Multiplayer can‘t come soon enough, precisely because of this reasoning.

Also how can you accurately assess the impact of perceived issues, without testing them?

60

i wonder what people expected, when they opened what feels like 69 threads about the crucible needing rework/checkpoints/nerfed boss etc.
Apparently the community yelled so loud, it is now been prioritized. congrats guys, u did it!

but all sarcasm aside. i think with the current state of the game, multiplayer would not work. the game is too easy in single player, what would happen if you just rush through it with a 4 people party in like 30 mins? there is not enough content to really test multiplayer. and it might also be strategic to postpone MP since i would bet the yelling would get loud again very soon, because there is not enough to do in MP.

so adding some content first, before you add MP seems logical to me tbh.

1 Like
61

That seems like a wild exaggeration.

Since when do people rush in coop multiplayer? My multiplayer playthroughs take roughly three times as long as singleplayer ones.. Be it only for the reason to arrange playdates.

Also, we want to test multiplayer and will play accordingly - Bet we are not the only ones.

62

According to Thomas, when playing Wicked as co-op the opponent stats are scaled up to increase the difficulty, and the encounters themselves have been altered. Obviously that setup needs its own testing; the differences make any data from a single-player run irrelevant to multiplayer (and vice versa).

Suggesting we need more content first before we add multiplayer is like suggesting we need more content first before we add singleplayer. The game needs more content no matter what angle you look at it from, but that will come over time as we get closer to launch. I would also point out that multiplayer is, in itself, additional content; it is an alternate way to play the game, is bringing with it more support-type builds (e.g. healers), and also includes PvP and (being its own beast) everything that side of multiplayer brings with it.

If there were 69 people creating threads complaining about the state of the Crucible that simply means 69 players don’t understand Early Access and are trying to play Wicked as if it’s a finished game. But it’s not a finished game, this is game that is still in development and very incomplete.

Thomas made it clear early on that the version of the Crucible they entered early access with was just a placeholder, meaning all the threads critiquing it were pointless. The only real impact those criticisms had were in convincing the developers to prioritize a currently meaningless activity over implementing core systems like Multiplayer. I say “currently meaningless” because (despite their desire not to) if they end up needing to wipe at some point before launch then all the time players are spending on grinding drops in the Crucible will have been for naught.

63

Lol. People pay for their game. They do whatever they want with that. You may ask for a separation between modded and vanilla servers, but even if the console command is removed, people will find a way to put it back again. Cheating can’t really be stopped, but then again, this is mainly a single-player-focused game as of now.