Let's talk about ... cheatengine

[CantGetNoSleep]

As many people are probably aware, there is a program called "cheatengine" (you can google it - I certainly won't post the link to it). This program allows players to cheat in the game - even in ironman mode. Now, that's up to them and I don't really care if they want to get achievements by cheating. What I do care about is the impact on multiplayer games:
- They can crash the lobbies, autostart games, etc
- They can use cheat codes in game (this will often desynch the game, alerting the host they're a cheater, but it does means wasted hours in lobby for everyone else)
- They can tag switch and observe what others are doing, or delete their factories/production/etc - or just turn off the fog of war

I know the MP community is relatively small, but we are probably your biggest fans Paradox. And I know there's been a few attempts at fixing the issues, but they have been largely ineffective / rapidly fixed. And I know a lot of people will say just play with people you know - which is what we mostly do, but it is also nice to bring new people to the game...

Therefore:

Is there any hope for any update that will fix the cheat engine headache? Pretty please? And does anyone else find this a major curse on their game play? (I'm hoping they do so this can up up the list of priorities, obviously).

 

[SIRSTUPID]

It doesnt work with mac because of security

 

[Arheo]

As many people are probably aware, there is a program called "cheatengine" (you can google it - I certainly won't post the link to it). This program allows players to cheat in the game - even in ironman mode. Now, that's up to them and I don't really care if they want to get achievements by cheating. What I do care about is the impact on multiplayer games:
- They can crash the lobbies, autostart games, etc
- They can use cheat codes in game (this will often desynch the game, alerting the host they're a cheater, but it does means wasted hours in lobby for everyone else)
- They can tag switch and observe what others are doing, or delete their factories/production/etc - or just turn off the fog of war

I know the MP community is relatively small, but we are probably your biggest fans Paradox. And I know there's been a few attempts at fixing the issues, but they have been largely ineffective / rapidly fixed. And I know a lot of people will say just play with people you know - which is what we mostly do, but it is also nice to bring new people to the game...

Therefore:

Is there any hope for any update that will fix the cheat engine headache? Pretty please? And does anyone else find this a major curse on their game play? (I'm hoping they do so this can up up the list of priorities, obviously).

It's something we're aware of. There are a few things we've done to make it more difficult to use these programs, but it's a moving target which, outside of entirely rebuilding the game from the ground up, cannot be realistically met. We have a few more irons in the fire, but don't expect a silver bullet.

You'll find most multiplayer games have problems with cheat software - the higher the profile, the more attention they get - and the ones that can most effectively combat it are those with serverside game hosting - something which HOI does not have.

 

[blahmaster6k]

It's something we're aware of. There are a few things we've done to make it more difficult to use these programs, but it's a moving target which, outside of entirely rebuilding the game from the ground up, cannot be realistically met. We have a few more irons in the fire, but don't expect a silver bullet.

You'll find most multiplayer games have problems with cheat software - the higher the profile, the more attention they get - and the ones that can most effectively combat it are those with serverside game hosting - something which HOI does not have.

Agreed - even in games like League of Legends, which as far as I know is the most popular PC game out there, and it has some form of built-in anti-cheat, people using scripts are still a problem. They aren't very common to see because of the utterly massive playerbase and the relatively small portion using cheats, but you occasionally see someone talking about running into them on social media.

That being said, would it be in any way possible to have a report system capable of resulting in account bans or change the ability to customize your user name in a MP lobby? At least that way people couldn't dodge community blacklists by simply changing their name - if it was tied to either their Steam name or PDX account it would be much easier to avoid those players once encountered.

 

[IlPopa]

It's something we're aware of. There are a few things we've done to make it more difficult to use these programs, but it's a moving target which, outside of entirely rebuilding the game from the ground up, cannot be realistically met. We have a few more irons in the fire, but don't expect a silver bullet.

You'll find most multiplayer games have problems with cheat software - the higher the profile, the more attention they get - and the ones that can most effectively combat it are those with serverside game hosting - something which HOI does not have.

We know nothing can be done about cheat engine and we don't want serverside hosting.

We can deal with cheaters/crashes/bugs/memory issues. Players regularly spend 1 to 2 hours of a 4 to 5 hour game in lobby/resyncing/unbugging/rehosting by using Discord to put everyone on voice chat to actively troubleshoot these things.

All we want is the tools to do these things ourselves without third party software. Instead everything is made as difficult as possible.

Right now a pub game that crashes due to cheat or desync is over. Everyone either crashes to desktop or to the hoi4 main menu. There is no in game persistent chat to coordinate. All you have is game names. You can't even see who the host is.

Lag is another issue. The entire burden is on the host. They can't see player's ping in lobby so have no idea if they're gonna lag or not. Once in game the speed automatically reduces whenever someone lags without going back up. Only the host can do this and it has to be done constantly.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

It's something we're aware of. There are a few things we've done to make it more difficult to use these programs, but it's a moving target which, outside of entirely rebuilding the game from the ground up, cannot be realistically met. We have a few more irons in the fire, but don't expect a silver bullet.

You'll find most multiplayer games have problems with cheat software - the higher the profile, the more attention they get - and the ones that can most effectively combat it are those with serverside game hosting - something which HOI does not have.

Thanks for the reply - much appreciated. And apologies for not replying early, I don't check the forum that often. Is there any plans/thought about doing PDX servers? E.g. subscription service gets you all DLCs and access to PDX servers - could be a nice earner and make the MP games more reliable...?