About Game Security, Cheating & Third App

ted1st

Recently I heard an issue about Top no.2 Global Squad "M&T" and some of their members caught cheating.

And some players asked to punish and ban them.

But I think it's not the solution. Why? Even though they got banned, it didn't stop cheating. You can stop them but cheat is still existed. They can create new account and attempt to use cheat again and again. So it's useless.

So I wanna share my opinion. But first of all especially for mods, I will give some example from another game. So don't censor that.

I watched some videos about cheating on Mobile Legends. This game obviously does not immune to third app. For example: Game Guardian, Game Killer, and GameCIH. Those apps still can through the system of this game. For VPN tricks to boosting MMR, I thought it doesn't count as cheating. I mean yea it's not fair, but for me it's not cheat.

Fyi: Those apps are an application same like Cheat Engine that can allow you to modify float, integer, binary digit number in game. So you can modify your HP number, dmg, and even money/diamonds in game.

I'm not clean gamer, I've tried cheat before but in another games. For example I will share my experiences try using Game Guardian. I used Game Guardian in MKX mobile (Mortal Kombat X), I used cheat to get items, souls, and unlock the characters. You know what happened then? My account got suspended. MKX mobile is belong to Warner Bros & Netherrealm Studios, they're wellknown developer, but their system still can be through by cheat. Although I can abuse their system, but I can't avoid their security. In days count, their server successfully caught me cheating and I got suspended.

Ok, we go to another games. I will give examples from Netmarble & Nexon. Yep those are also legit game developer. We can say Netmarble games such as Marvel Future Fight, Seven Knights, Evilbane. And from Nexon, there are Dynasty Warrior Unleashed and Heroes of Incredible Tales (HIT).

I played some of those games and I have impression from both developers, they weaponized their game with XIGNCODE3. I don't know exactly what is this. But it's something like game security that can immune from cheats. The system will automatically detect illegal program (third app) that we used. Even some of their games didn't allow root acces on your phone. If you had root phones, the game won't run, even though you used modul xposed like rootcloack to hide your rooted or whatever it is. It's useless

Why don't we also learn from that to more secure our game?

So, punishing & banning players aren't solution, MOONTON you should also give more protection to your game. If too many cheaters, it will make other players feel uncomfortable to play this game.

Sooner or later.. people will leave this game. So think about it!

Ryu~

The game is server sided.
So using Game Hacker and other hex/binary editors, you can hack but those codes will be only on your device.
If you try to hack in non bot matches, you'll get kicked out of the match with "Unknown Error"
Earlier matches of new accounts are usually bot matches, so you can use that cheat and win. But later in real human matches, you won't be able to use those.
You can still cheat and kill anything you want, the kills will be shown on your screen, but in replay, you're just shooting at walls and stuffs, in cheat you may get 10 kills but in replay you won't have that much kills, you'll have deaths. So the hex/binary editors cheat is technically impossible unless the player modify server sided codes, which i doubt won't happen cuz most of ML players might not have that much skill. That skill is already high, which that skill(changing server sided stuffs) you'll even be able to hack an ATM if I'm not wrong.

ted1st

KoHaku replied at 2017-12-29 12:03 PM
Third party apps should be auto detected by game system. Most of the popular online games have that  ...

It's supposed to be like that. But I'm not pretty sure MLBB had good security feature like mostly game out there.

Some games that I mention above are proof. Back then I also tried to use third party app on those game and their system can automatically detect any illegal program, they even didn't allow game running on jailbreak/rooted phone.

For some people, strictly game security like that is annoying, but it's good to prevent the game is broken from the inside and keep the game clean.

Let's ignore ban, punishment, toxic players or bad gameplay for a while. Because it's not the main factor.

Moonton should fix the SYSTEM first, security, and then the game itself (like bugs, balancing heroes, etc).

KoHaku

Third party apps should be auto detected by game system. Most of the popular online games have that feature that makes Cheating "hard-to-do".

YukisD

I’ve heard that HE make things easier. They just make the match making missing punishment way more severe than MLBB. People in MLBB can get away easily with the punishments, one match making missing and one point lost, they can do it 10 times in a row then play a few matches of AI... let’s say 5 minutes each in less than a hour they can recover these points and play ranked again.

They should increase the waiting time or temporal banning for missing too much match making.

arcmagi

The Dev is able to create a great game for us which is ML.
They also able to maintain their game greatly by regular update with new heroes or balancing.
To bad they unable to maintain the healty environment for us.
So i would like to remind the dev. Great game is good but no matter how good it is, if it have bad environment it will turn into a bad game.
So deal with this cheat, AFK, Troll thing to makes the environment healty. Its not perfect & we understand but at least u giv efforth  to it like to any other DEV.

troy01

Ryu~ replied at 2017-12-29 08:14 PM
The game is server sided.
So using Game Hacker and other hex/binary editors, you can hack but those  ...

You are actually right...

MKX just stores data cache on the device and just link profiles so that you will be able to use it to other devices but their data script are mainly device reliant that is why you can modify those details... they were able to track and suspend your account by the activity on your account... they filter it by the purchases you have made and verify it with the actual real money purchases that is link to that account...

so lets just say that you have bought skins and such and the devs will filter it to the number of items bought within a day in the account... they saw your account like purchased 5 skins and other features that can only be bought by real money but when they verify with your Google purchases, it didn't match, that is why they can ban and suspend your account for that...

THat is one thing ML is using also to catch those people who use the refund trick... and as for the recent hacking issue, since we got several reports of these people, the devs come up with another program to filter matches with the least minutes completed within a day...

just another note... those security filter programs like XIGNCODE3 is a modified gaming system and from another 3rd party company... that is a script dependent and lots of adjustments needed to be made for it to be applied to the game as well as for payments... as of now... most mobile games are dependent on server side filtering since application with game securities may affect other types of customer/gamers like who has rooted devices...

another thing... its not like that the devs are just letting these hackers roam free... as you can see, they take action on these issues... just like those previous ones for those who abuses the refund trick...  

regarding with bugs also, there are multiple devices and device types as well as different device versions... lets just say if they are able to fix the issue on Android 6 issues with an updated script but that script affects the data script of the lower versions to which it creates more issues... that is not easy since the devs dont cover all types of devices... they cant just generalize each data because of different specs... if you think thats easy, try to think how many devices that could run ML... try to analyze how you would differentiate what device causes this error and look at its device specs to make it work without affecting the rest... the devs are working 24/7... there are lots of consideration needed to be done to fix that...