Tree of Savior Forum

[!] Open letter to imc: Why does ToS appear to not be using any anti-cheat/anti-botting program?

General Discussion
#1

#DISCLAIMER: Before reading this post, please put yourself into a calm state of mind (or as calm as you can be) and promise to wait for an official imc response before taking the pitchforks out…

#Update (4/14/2016) didn’t get a response on this forum but I happened to be browsing the store page and lo and behold:

#So I’m glad that’s resolved… still curious that we still have so many bots though…

So with all the reports of bots running around, I got to thinking: “Why is the Valve VAC so ineffective and how is it letting so many bots run rampant in this game? It seems to be doing a good job in numerous other games…”

So like any good Prinny, I opted to do a bit more digging…

As stated in a previous post by the staff in a different context:

This post seems to unambiguously denote (at least to me!) that imc would be using VAC (at least as of 20 days ago) for iToS.

However when I was browsing through the Valve website on VAC, I saw this:

Curious, I realized that I didn’t recall seeing this symbol in the imc iToS store page tags:

For context, here is the panel of tags for CS GO:

Additionally, using steam search with “VAC enabled” games does not return tree of savior.

See: HERE

Querying Valve Anti-Cheat enabled games works just fine though: HERE

So at this point, I just have to wonder what the heck is going on???

Is this just a miscommunication where Valve forgot to apply that particular attribute to the iToS store page?

What anti-cheat/bot detection are we actually using?

If it’s VAC, shouldn’t we be contacting Valve for more detailed help regarding botting issues?

A brisk and thorough response would be very much appreciated.

EDIT: It’s been 4+ days. You’d think a simple, “Oh, it’s just a labeling mistake” would be an easy response to type out… Is anyone else quite annoyed that they paid money to play a game where cheating and bot detection may not have even been turned on?

@Staff_Julie @STAFF_Ethan @STAFF_Shawn @STAFF_Ines @STAFF_John @STAFF_J

17 Likes
A B2W game? The future of ToS
#2

Most MMOs come out without anti-cheat. Check D3 took almost 3-4 months before the first bot was banned.

When talking to developers eye to eye this is the priority list for most games during development until launch:

  1. Game critical bugs (game doesn’t launch, blocks progression)
  2. Game bugs that affect game-play
  3. Visual glitches
    …
    …
    …
    …
    …
  4. Anti-Cheat
  5. Balancing

Just to emphasize that they aren’t working a lot on anti-cheat and balancing beforehand. The number of games that put anti-cheat higher is very small.

#3

I believe this is the lowest priority (doesn’t mean IMC thinks that way)

Anyway, If IMC wants VAC in this game, they need to work with Steam on the integration. Let just say they didn’t work through it yet (originally they planned a release on June so we might see it at that time)

#4

i’d agree if it wasn’t for the huge ammount of steps they’re taking to get rid of gold seller ( who are the ones running the bots)… limit trade so much that the game basically feels like a single player game with some mmo content thrown in.

So if they’re going to such extreme lenghts, why not do something simple in comprison, as say, implement something thatll help get rid of said bots and help controll the gold sellign situation( if there indeed is one)

– off topic, but all these restrictions that make it harder to make silver almost make one WANT to buy from 3rd parties.since players aren’t able to work the market and do personal trades with other players for silver, and the 2d wait time? making money in this game is largely based on who has the better luck and gets rare drops ( and ofc then you have the 2d wait time if you sell in market :smiley:) they should bring back personal stalls.–

In the end it seems like IMC has had silver selling/anti cheat at the top of their list, but are going about it in all the wrong ways…

#5

Well… sadly it might just be they are not prioritizing iToS so much?

This is the latest patch in kToS…

Could also be that they have a different portion of the team working on iToS stuff (hopefully?)

EDIT: We’ll wait I guess on a response from imc but if what you’re suggesting also happened for iToS and it’s not running with VAC yet, that would explain A LOT with regards to our current botting woes…

#6

For me that is pretty sure on future, i don’t see they claiming that VAC is in place right now hence the reason on Steam Store not having the confirmation of VAC being used on ToS.

Just a reminder i haven’t see any other announcement about this so i am guessing that was the first and last one regarding it.

#7

It still reflects super badly on imc, if we’re actually without VAC right now…

They could have EASILY gotten their 3 extra months of founders time if they had just dropped “Oh hey, by the way we need that time to implement and integrate the anti-cheat”. Did the player base ever hear anything like that?

But anyways this thread is just what I’ve observed. Could be that we do have VAC and it’s just not working very well for whatever reason… so just sit tight and buckle up. We’ll find out soon if we’re on the Ferris wheel or the Pukeatron 3000 rollercoaster.

#8

They wouldn’t say something like this, it’s like a cheat invitation.

#9

Then they should have just delayed the launch period. Because then they are asking you the customer to play an online mmo without any form of bot protection. If I paid and found out, I would be pissed. Like if you found out your trojans were actually just made out of cheese cloth >_>

EDIT: Anyways, we’re talking about pointless hypotheticals at this point. Just sit tight and wait for now. No point getting into debates about imaginary things that may or may not have happened over issues that may or may not exist.

2 Likes
#10

Yeah well i am sure there are a lot of procedures for them to apply VAC on the game, and in the end, if it fails, i am sure they will add something like Xing or HackShield.

If we are already under VAC then it may be something that is not fully implemented on the VAC DB like the bots and what not, there are lots of ways out there hackers use on a non intrusive method that make some anti-hack systems not detect it.

Gonna have to wait for a staff response on that matter.

1 Like
#11

I forgot, do staff even work on Sundays? I recall a server issue last week on Sunday that took quite a while for a response…

#12

In KR they have some heavy penalties for off hour workload, so they aren’t at their office by that time, at noon today or a bit later they might since it will be monday morning in KR.

1 Like
#13

No response today :frowning:
That’s okay… imc has a lot of explaining to do on Monday lol

EDIT: Looks like it got answered! We’ll see if this one gets answered too lol

#14

I have a theory on why VAC isn’t enabled yet.
I heard somewhere, before game opened for exclusive access, that they were going to use VAC but I don’t remember where. My first though, which I brought up with another friend, was “don’t they need data for that to work first?”. After the game opened for exclusive access my friend agreed with me that they are likely gathering data especially with the strange restrictions for trading and auction house in place. It wasn’t long after that talk with my friend that an announcement was made about the trade restrictions. I really do think they might be gathering data on gold spammers, bots, and hacking probably for VAC. I can’t say this for sure though…

#15

If they knew they were going to need to collect a lot of data before getting VAC up and running… then they should’ve hired a lot more GMs so that the data collection period would still be relatively bot free…

Anyways… it’s better to hear back from imc and see what they have to say…

#16

How can you observe data if you ban all bots right away? That and the news post suggest they are observing auction house sales. The data needs to be active for them to see it. But its just a theory anyways…

#17

To answer your specific question, you implement a quarantine system where bots can no longer interact with the main game. This could be via a separate quarantine channel which offers the illusion of multiple channels (all of which connect to just the single quarantine server channel). This would be a cost effective way of containing bots from the main game while still allowing observation.

Anyways, it’s fairly pointless to discuss hypothetical musings, but I guess it’s a way to pass the time while we wait for a response from imc…

#18

There is nothing wrong with hypothetical musings. :slight_smile:
There might be a problem with the quarantine system though. If a bot is written to sense when it has been moved/ transported or “quarantined”, as some have in other games I know of, it might be possible to script it to log off. (Which also proves a problem to a “how to get rid of bots” idea I had earlier.) This would prevent further data from being acquired. (Its better for them to not know they are being watched.)

#19

I mean… most quarantine systems use an account level flag. How would a bot detect if it has been moved to quarantine if you just make it so that the bot is only ever moved to quarantine when the bot itself initiates a channel change?

You could allow shout messages from the main game to still be piped to the quarantine channel, you just would not allow any shout messages to leave the quarantine channel (but you would display those messages on the quarantine channel). Additionally, the same could be applied to the market. You could spoof a snapshot of the market and allow “false” transactions to occur which would have no effect on the main game.

#20

Funny thing is that most of these bots are not just bots, they’re superhero (or rather super villain) bots who can run with the speed of lightning, warp around, destroy all monsters on the map in 1 blow (and then warp around to collect loot), etc.

No, it doesn’t seem to me like ToS got ANY kind of security going on for it, not to mention VAC.

1 Like