Cheaters!
Added 2018-01-08 17:57:04 +0000 UTCHi guys! One of the biggest problems plaguing RetroAchievements is the occurrence of cheaters. RA is not a closed platform. It's not unthinkable for a hacker to edit and build the entire toolset and award themselves every single achievement. Or they could simply inject their own packets to the server. However the hard-working admin have an squad put together via Discord who are weeding out the most obvious and clear cases of cheating, and have been discussing the best motivations for dealing with the issue. In some cases, the accused have been apologetic and have owned up to their mistakes. In other cases, not so much.
We have therefore implemented what some would describe as shadow-banning. Admin on RA can now set cheater's user accounts to be "untracked". This means that they will see themselves exactly as before, but will become "hidden" to all other users. They won't show up in the overall leaderboards, they won't affect the achievement ratios, they won't have their score shown up in in-game leaderboards.
We've adopted this approach for two reasons. Firstly and primarily, the issue biggest issues caused by cheaters are that they make other users feel "cheated", that other users' scores/achievements are less valuable. It feels unfair. When the cheaters are "untracked", they now become 'invisible' to the rest of the community.
Secondarily, there are some cheaters who are quite happy to continue having their achievements logged. Those who still want to cheat their way through games. They can still continue as they have before, appearing to earn trophies and badges. All their history will be preserved as they would expect. The only change for them is on their user page - they are now "untracked" instead of officially ranked.
So far this appears to be working well and the admin are successfully dealing with the accused very efficiently.
Comments
I am glad this is a thing now Scott. I've been observing a lot of salt regarding cheaters on retro achievements for some time. this is especially the case on the Discord. I hope that this improves the credibility and the reliability of the Achievement System on retroachievements. It's most definitely a step in the right direction to address the issues. Hopefully this can ease the tension between some of the older members about the legitimacy of the platform, instill confidence and create a more positive environment for our users. I've been discussing developer mode for the emulators themselves for a bit as in regards to cheating a lot of folks are using a method called save Ram replacement to circumvent the system but developers use this technique to look for achievements when they're creating them. There have been some comments towards developers about the unfairness of having every achievement in a set because you worked on it. A "developer mode" that is active to the core set but does not push the unlocks so that a developer can test their own work would be optimal to help avoid this kind of commentary from members. Currently the only method a developer has to reset earned achievements during testing is a reset all for this game on their profile, which has to be done manually. Not every developer remembers to reset their unlocks when they are through with a set,resulting in members feeling like being a developer is also an unfair advantage to the rest of the community earning their achievements legitimately. A developer mode feature inside of the emulators that is only visible to a retro achievements developer would be helpful. Making members aware that this feature exists for developers instead of having ill-fated confidence that a developer is going to reset their core unlocks when they are finished coding is set would help to alleviate the concern members have regarding having developer status giving one an unfair advantage. In a similar fashion people are using the memory inspector to find loopholes in the achievements. You can view the achievement editor as a regular user but you cannot commit any changes. You can also view the code notes in the memory inspector as a regular user. This opens the door way for reverse engineering and exploits and is unnecessary information to display to a regular user. So most definitely in a similar fashion hide the memory inspector and the achievement editor if somebody is not a developer. There are many who wish to become Developers and that's done on a trial basis by the moderator team already. Keeping the doorway for achievement development open should be welcome but it should be moderated and the development features hidden from regular user accounts
LupineDream
2018-01-11 09:07:15 +0000 UTCi like this approach very much - well handled!
luchaos
2018-01-08 20:41:17 +0000 UTC
