Drop Hack continues

i do believe you can get sync-errored naturally/unintentionally but most times its intentional.

when you are losing, you alt-tab and delete one of coh2's file in your computer. then all the players in that game gets "sync error". i have experienced this so many times as i like to play 3v3+ a lot. anyway, then everybody gets a loss. so basically, the user of this exploit is saying "fuck you, I ain't going down alone".

its really absurd and it has been there for like forever.

as Inverse said this is a much bigger problem and if it is that hard to detect it.... we'll just have to shine the light of justice on these mothe*fucke*s ourselves.... i'll start.

ONE of this exploit's prominent users is HOI clan (at least Paul.A.D. or Zarkcloud)

proof: sync error moarrrrrrrrr

Wow. Was wondering wtf was happening with all the sync errors.

Sync hacking is just corrupting the game data so that it becomes out of sync with everyone else. For example, I go into the game's memory and alter some data so that instead of having 200 manpower I have 250 manpower. When my updated data gets send to my opponent, his client detects the discrepancy and terminates the game with a sync error.

The thing with sync hacking is it's possible that a bad or corrupted packet from Relic's server could cause a sync error, so it's not as simple as detecting the source of the sync hack error message and flagging that player as a hacker. Furthermore, it's likely difficult to reliably detect the source of the errors since a sync error simply means two sides disagree, so you don't necessarily know which side's data is actually corrupted and which side's data is perfectly fine. Like in the example I gave above, it would be my opponent's machine that gives the sync error even though I was the one that caused it, since it wasn't detected until my opponent received my updated information. Because of this, you can't use the source of the error as a means of determining a winner and a loser. There's just too much uncertainty, so the game has to resort to the trust system. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Relic is keeping a record of players involved in games that end in sync hack error messages in order to look for trends and take action against those who are involved in a disproportionate number of the errors.

Sync hacking is just like maphacking in that it's impossible to prevent without adopting a pure client-server model, which is impractical for an RTS. This is because each player's game state is stored on their own computers, and Relic has no control over what happens on a user's machine. Sure, they can implement memory restrictions and add integrity checks and stuff like that, but at the end of the day they really can't stop a user with physical access to a machine running their game from accessing elements of it held in memory. Detection, rather than prevention, is the key here. Relic has shown they can detect maphacking through battle servers; here's hoping they can do the same with sync hacking.

I think it's a fairly obvious afair, if the game is running smoothly up to the point when you make a decisisve move and boom, game over.

The new patch dont fix this looser thing...

Back!
Drophack replay

The hacker scums are among us. Beware .

Yes, it's annoying and drophack and maphack and other hacks exists. I'm sure about it. Just google it and you'll see: THERE ARE CHEATERS IN COH 2. Reveal them and ban them, Relic!

there are sync-hackers. I hope they get banned and get reported to valve

Sync hacking is just like maphacking in that it's impossible to prevent without adopting a pure client-server model, which is impractical for an RTS. This is because each player's game state is stored on their own computers, and Relic has no control over what happens on a user's machine. Sure, they can implement memory restrictions and add integrity checks and stuff like that, but at the end of the day they really can't stop a user with physical access to a machine running their game from accessing elements of it held in memory. Detection, rather than prevention, is the key here. Relic has shown they can detect maphacking through battle servers; here's hoping they can do the same with sync hacking.

Thank you for your in-detail replies, very enlightening. But why do you say it's not possible for a RTS game to calculate everything server side, Like MoBA games. Someone told me it's impossible because the huge amounts of calculations like destruction and dynamic cover, but the same thing happens in games like Battlefield.

RTS games have to keep track of exponentially more entities than an FPS. Destructive and dynamic cover in a game like Battlefield actually isn't all that demanding for a server because it's structured. You can't just destroy anything, and everything you can destroy is set up to be destroyed in certain ways. All the server needs to do is keep track of the destructible entities and their current states, then refer to those states when making hitbox calculations.

In an FPS, you rarely have more than 128 players in a single server (competitive games usually only have 10-20, depending on the title). That means the server only has to keep track of the locations of 128 entities, and calculate hitboxes on those entities. It also only has to send very limited player data, such as location and player action (firing, reloading, changing weapon, etc.). Even though FPS games usually run at a significantly higher tickrate than RTS games (CoH's simulation engine runs at around 8 ticks per second, compared to between 64 and 128 ticks per second for CS:GO games), it still uses significantly less bandwidth than an RTS that has to transmit location, health, entity, and action data for potentially hundreds of different units.

This is a big problem in a game like Starcraft where players often control over 100 units late in games. If both players had 100 units to command and the game was running at 8 ticks per second, the game would have to transmit and receive 1600 (100 units * 2 players * 8 ticks/second) units of information per second. Compare that to a 1v1 in CS:GO, where at 64 ticks/second the game would only have to transmit/receive 256 units of information (note for games like Battlefield, where the tickrate is far lower than that of Counter-Strike, the difference would be even greater).

That's 6.25x the bandwidth being used in the RTS compared to the FPS in order to accomodate the same number of players. Now if we look at things from the CoH perspective and use 15 or so units per player instead of the large numbers typical of traditional RTS games, we can get the bandwidth down to something approaching that of an FPS. However, we still have to consider the cost angle.

Dota 2 is structured very similar to an RTS, which makes sense considering it was originally an RTS mod. It was designed from the start to use client-server because it was designed first and foremost as a competitive game, and a competitive game that cannot gracefully handle disconnects makes running serious competitions an administrative nightmare. However, such architecture comes at a pretty steep monetary cost. Servers have to be globally located in order to accommodate people around the world, have to be maintained, and most importantly, have to be able to handle the immense bandwidth that a client-server game with large unit counts is going to produce. That last point is the most expensive, and one of the main reasons (along with having to recode most of their engine) why Relic will never adopt such a structure for CoH2. Maybe for CoH3, but even then it's unlikely.

Valve was willing to spend that money because they were trying to build a competitive game and a competitive community and knew they needed consistency if they were going to be taken seriously. Hell, they committed $1.6 million to a tournament prize pool before the game was even released to the public. Relic has neither the money nor the inclination to invest in something like that when it's seen as a luxury and not a necessity.

So no, building an RTS with a client-server model isn't impossible, especially if you have low unit counts like CoH does. But it's expensive, and in the case of CoH2 it would require a major rewrite of most of their codebase. In other words, it's completely impractical to hope for such a system to be implemented in CoH2.

If you're interested in reading more, I'd highly recommend this Gamasutra article by a Supreme Commander developer. Very enlightening on the challenges surrounding synchronization, message passing, and bug fixing in RTS games: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/126022/Opinion_Synchronous_RTS_Engines_And_A_Tale_of_Desyncs.php

And another interesting article, this an academic piece on SC2's pseudo-client-server architecture: http://choongsoo.info/docs/starcraft2.netgames12.pdf

So I understand that there is no practical prevention for sync hackers(not even hackers but w/e)?

@inverse
Thank you very much for explaining all that in detail. I have never thought about packets per second and their differences between different game genres. Thanks for the links, I will take a look at them.
It's very sad that a game like this and a great company like Relic can not afford to do such things because of small player base. I hope someday they can actually create a CoHO like game with a lot of players so money won't be a problem.

If there was a practical way to prevent sync hacking it would've been done already. Battle servers offer the potential for detection of the client that generated the sync error, but it's unlikely that a reliable detection mechanism is possible.

Battle servers are just glorified relays. They take commands from clients and transmit them to all connected players and observers. The server itself doesn't do any meaningful calculations, so the sync errors do not occur until the clients get the instructions from the server, check its hash against what they expect, and notice a discrepancy. At this point there's really no way of knowing which instruction is the out-of-sync one, only that the two don't match up. Therefore it goes down as a dispute, and trust rating determines the winner.

So it's just about money and resources. To put it simply, Relic doesn't have the resources and interest to keep the game clean. That's one thing we all knew I guess, but you explained it in detail (thank you for this).
This is most discouraging - I have to admit, to know that as a honest player you are at cheater's disposal in such an RTS. In vCoh was even worst!! Almost 50% in player base were at least maphacking. Exasperated by these scums I tried a maphack for a month or two, but I was so disgusted of what game became and of the fact that it was no pleasure in playing that I simply quit.
I really hope COh2 won't take the same path though, I have to admit, I see more and more suspicious happenings: Accurate bombardements with no recon, enemy attacking in a game with tanks allways on the opposite side where you have your at cannons though he couldn't possibly know where you put them, going round planted mines,and so on.

Question:
I am not a programmer or coder so I'm just asking: Is there any advantage in updating the game once a month? I mean a patch come with changes. Does this affect the way in which a hack works? To put it simply: If I was a hacker, my hack does still work after a patch or it requires an update too? Because this would be a solution. To build "ghost" patches monthly that will change different files every time (changes that won't affect the game). This way, a hacker should probably work hard every time a patch is issued and it will take some time untill he updates his hack. Just in time for another change, with another "ghost" patch.

so i guess we are screwed then..... let's all sync-hack

Question:
I am not a programmer or coder so I'm just asking: Is there any advantage in updating the game once a month? I mean a patch come with changes. Does this affect the way in which a hack works? To put it simply: If I was a hacker, my hack does still work after a patch or it requires an update too? Because this would be a solution. To build "ghost" patches monthly that will change different files every time (changes that won't affect the game). This way, a hacker should probably work hard every time a patch is issued and it will take some time untill he updates his hack. Just in time for another change, with another "ghost" patch.

I'm not a programmer either (well I used to mess around with C a few years back but not in a pro way) but what you say works in theory but it's not practical. In almost every game, most addresses change after a patch, even in single player, that's the reason you have to change the hex address if you use CHEAT ENGINE for single player games, or you have to update your TRAINER after every patch. So in theory there is a big chance that after every patch, cheats become no good, but that means loss of your replays, extra effort for staff, and besides after a few days the cheat can be updated again so it's not practical. I guess we have to pray for CoH3 or take to matter to our hands and report the players.

The only way to reliably detect sync hacking in an RTS is with intrusive client-side anti-cheat, which just isn't a viable solution. It has nothing to do with money or laziness, it's just a technical problem that really can't be reliably solved.

IF the problem can't be reliably solved, why do other online RTS games not suffer from it? I don't remember seeing anything like it in AoE or Starcraft/SC2.

I guess even in my old age I am really naive... But I am really surprised by two things... how easy it was to find hacks online and how many people were so happy to use them.

I mean it's A GAME! What are you getting by winning through cheating? You aren't getting anything except some pixels forming a higher number on one side vs. another than you could have managed on your own. There are no $'s involved, no prizes, no DLC, no buffs, etc.

There isn't even a sense of accomplishment. You won because you CHEATED!

I guess even in my old age I am really naive... But I am really surprised by two things... how easy it was to find hacks online and how many people were so happy to use them.

I mean it's A GAME! What are you getting by winning through cheating? You aren't getting anything except some pixels forming a higher number on one side vs. another than you could have managed on your own. There are no $'s involved, no prizes, no DLC, no buffs, etc.

There isn't even a sense of accomplishment. You won because you CHEATED!

people want to keep their leaderboard position

There isn't even a sense of accomplishment. You won because you CHEATED!

The answer to that question is kinda deep my friend. I have seen a lot of cheater in many games, even in lan parties. The acceptance of others, being virtually good at something and many other thing make people cheat. Why do Olympic athletes cheat?
They are immature.

Thanks Inverse.

I'm not too keen on this trust rating tbh. After already being the victim of more than 100 drop hacks, I guess that explains why every new one always results in a loss. The future is not looking particularly fun.