Server Side Anti-Cheating Measures | Forums

[QuidProKuo]

Server Side Patch to Address Cheating in Theater of War

In an attempt to curb cheating in the online Theater of War (TOW) mode, the dev team has implemented a number of server-side changes to the TOW rules (changes are for both PS3 and X360 versions of EndWar):

1.Matches that last less than 3 minutes will no longer be counted in the TOW. This is to prevent people from logging into the game and losing on purpose.

2.The Theater of War status will have a 30-minute delay before being displayed at www.endwargame.com/tow and on the in-game TOW browser.

3.The XML TOW feed will now display percentages instead of the exact score in territories. (With 30-minute delay)

4.The victory bar in the in-game TOW browser will no longer be locked at 50/50 and will display accurate percentages on each territory. (Also with a 30-minute delay.)

This sever side patch will also revise victory conditions in TOW and make it so that one faction only needs to secure 2 capitols and 30 territories to win.

*Please note that for now the victory condition changes made in this server side patch will not be visible in–game yet. (The changes on the Xbox 360 version of EndWar will take effect once the first title update is available for download. For the PS3 these changes will take effect on a later date.)

[QuidProKuo]

Server Side Patch to Address Cheating in Theater of War

In an attempt to curb cheating in the online Theater of War (TOW) mode, the dev team has implemented a number of server-side changes to the TOW rules (changes are for both PS3 and X360 versions of EndWar):

1.Matches that last less than 3 minutes will no longer be counted in the TOW. This is to prevent people from logging into the game and losing on purpose.

2.The Theater of War status will have a 30-minute delay before being displayed at www.endwargame.com/tow and on the in-game TOW browser.

3.The XML TOW feed will now display percentages instead of the exact score in territories. (With 30-minute delay)

4.The victory bar in the in-game TOW browser will no longer be locked at 50/50 and will display accurate percentages on each territory. (Also with a 30-minute delay.)

This sever side patch will also revise victory conditions in TOW and make it so that one faction only needs to secure 2 capitols and 30 territories to win.

*Please note that for now the victory condition changes made in this server side patch will not be visible in–game yet. (The changes on the Xbox 360 version of EndWar will take effect once the first title update is available for download. For the PS3 these changes will take effect on a later date.)

[bruce57]

sounds great!

[SB_Style]

Will these victory conditions be permanent or is it just a short fix for the second war? Just curious.

[Raide]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SB_Style:
Will these victory conditions be permanent or is it just a short fix for the second war? Just curious. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, if it works and makes the ToW better, then I am sure it would become permanent. The Dev team wants the ToW mode to be great, so changes will happen.

[AirmanApostle]

I'm hoping this 3 minute rule will not affect unit losses. This will change everything if there is a grace period for a whole 3 minutes. Lets keep this game hardcore. Having a window of strategy experimentation with the option of no consequence makes the cliffhanger of a game experience seem like stepping off a curb.

[SB_Style]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Raide:
Well, if it works and makes the ToW better, then I am sure it would become permanent. The Dev team wants the ToW mode to be great, so changes will happen. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks, I was just wondering if they had anything else in store, but yes, noone knows how well it will work until its tested out.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by AirmanApostle:
I'm hoping this 3 minute rule will not affect unit losses. This will change everything if there is a grace period for a whole 3 minutes. Lets keep this game hardcore. Having a window of strategy experimentation with the option of no consequence makes this cliffhanger of a game experience seem like stepping off a curb. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think the game will work as normal, just that if somebody quits the game or evacs their units before 3 minutes is up, the win won't be counted on ToW.

I think its a very good step, my ony concern is if someone fails on a rush at the beginning of a game and the player who defended against that rush gains an advantage over the rusher, that they quit or evac and therefore avoiding a probable loss. Though I'm not sure if that could all happen within 3 minutes. Perhaps on smaller maps it might be an issue?

[Ymi-here]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by AirmanApostle:
I'm hoping this 3 minute rule will not affect unit losses. This will change everything if there is a grace period for a whole 3 minutes. Lets keep this game hardcore. Having a window of strategy experimentation with the option of no consequence makes the cliffhanger of a game experience seem like stepping off a curb. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I highly doubt this 3 minute thing changes any gameplay. It sounds like it will only change if the faction gets a victory or not.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by SB_Style:
I think its a very good step, my ony concern is if someone fails on a rush at the beginning of a game and the player who defended against that rush gains an advantage over the rusher, that they quit or evac and therefore avoiding a probable loss. Though I'm not sure if that could all happen within 3 minutes. Perhaps on smaller maps it might be an issue? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Unfortunately, I don't think all possible situations can be covered. This might happen but I do think that 3 minutes is a pretty small window for someone to decide they don't want to play a match because they lost units. In fact, maybe people will leave hoping they were still under 3 minutes and they actually weren't.

[moragPS3]

now i do appreciate your attempts to curb cheating but there are a two problems that i see.

problem 1: victory conditions i know that it slowed down the pace of the war but i really like that you need all three capitals, having to take all three as difficult but it made sense and was a goal to strive for. (i stead you should make it easer to be able to attack, the having to surround paris that requires for territores that are attacked every turn from paris is what should have been changed.

problem 2: the delay, now this is less of a problem and more of "i dont understand why" would it be possible to explain the reasoning behind these changes, i mean all it does then is just change the (oh crap we are lossing this place) rush to try and retake the territory occuring 30 min afterward.

[Templar11709]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">This sever side patch will also revise victory conditions in TOW and make it so that one faction only needs to secure 2 capitols and 30 territories to win. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I can understand doing it for the FirstWar but why for the second.

If your going to do this could you at least up the territory requirement to 33.

Using the FirstWar as an example for the EFEC to fulfill the 30 territory they only had to take a third of our territory (4) to win and that doesn't make much sense to me and generally ****es me off.

I could understand if it was half our territory (would prefer 7 but 6 but counts as well) because it means they have had pretty good go at us and we would have had chances at a counter-attack , 4 can be taken quickly if we have bad luck with attacks so it only really requires them succeed in one or two turn.

Something else you could do is give us a DefCon turn. Not like the current ones which are just warnings but a turn after a faction hits the victory conditions where essentially an all out assault takes place.

Every battlefield that can be opened by an attack from the losing factions opening up, losing factions getting access to WMDs 5 minutes into the game and other things like that to make the winning faction really deserves it.

Essentially I'm just asking for a system that doesn't make it so that one faction failing isn't going to make another lose simply because of one bad day.