State is Useless – Let’s discuss EAC not working

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
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Hello everyone,

I am well aware that there are some threads talking about cheaters, but the discussion never really turned to the overbearing issue. The game currently has a cheater problem and EAC does nothing.
Is it even a good idea to keep EAC running and can something be done to fix it? I’ll go into detail.

A few days ago I joined a run of “Hunger in the Dark” via Quickplay. There already was a Waystalker, a Pyromancer and a Bounty Hunter running around. When the next wave of rats spawned, Kerillian and Sienna unleashed their F ability as fast as the animation allowed it again and again, no cool down whatsoever. Even when the Bounty Hunter died due to a packmaster, he was still able to continue playing. The excuse when I asked what was going on, simply stated “It’s just glitched.” After that I simply left the run.

Following my simple disbelieve I tried to look it up online. I won’t link it, but a short search easily leads to the expected results.
And yes, there is seemingly a working cheat tool that completely circumvents EAC and allows the cheaters to have unlimited health, unlimited ammo, no overheat and unlimited F.
If the cheater is simply someone joining the lobby he can be invincible and have all the above listed advantages. Due to the host client not realizing there is a cheat, he will appear dead if the client estimated health pool is lost. This gets worse if the cheater is host. Bots gain every advantage the cheater activates and other random players at least turn invincible.
This cheat seemingly existed since one week after the launch of the closed beta. Therefore it is actually highly possible that quite a few of those “he could not die and had unlimited F” glitch reports were actually cheater.

While questionable in a private session, I do not really care that much what everybody does. It’s on you to speed through every level and possibly destroy every difficulty and enjoyment that could come with it.
But it actually is a problem in the public runs. And the creators of the tool actually found a way to completely dance around EAC. An older version seemingly needed the cheats to be activated after a mission started and deactivated before you enter the bridge of shadows (it looks like the EAC checks are only done at the start and end of the run, as well as during crafting and box opening). The newer versions can be used all the time without problems.

So the question stands: Is there any way to fix this inside of the EAC detection? And if not, what is the use of still running it? Considering the threads on how to make sure EAC is installed correctly and solutions as to how non-cheater can play the game without hiccups, it looks more like the warnings and copyright protections for movies. It can annoy those who play cheat-free or even lead to problems consuming the content, but for the cheaters, those it is made for, it is easily circumvented.

Furthermore, what might happen if Fatshark finds a solution by blocking all those .lua injections? Will it make it harder or impossible for people like IamLupo or Grimalackt to create good mods? How does the upgrade from a possible Vermintide 2 QoL Mod or the Mod Framework from v1 to v2 work in this situation? Will every modder need to send the mod files to Fatshark for a week long review process? And if somehow one injection was not properly white listed, will it simply turn the state of those users to “Not trusted” for simply using an essential mod?

Is it maybe a better solution to implement the good cheat protection of the QoL Mod/Vermintide Mod Framework from Vermintide 1? With this you were at least able to put someone on a Blacklist, if he/she somehow was able to cheat anyway.

Thank you for reading my rambling this far and hopefully this could lead to a good discussion.
Have a nice day everyone.

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Grimalackt didn’t create anything but the admittedly vital bot mod. He stole the mod framework from Lupo and the others who worked on it and rebranded it a cheat-free QoL version on reddit. Just thought I’d make that clear to anyone reading this.

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Thank you for that information.
I actually never really followed the conflict between these two but will add and edit my post accordingly to credit Lupo and the Vermintide Mod Framework as well.
But are you certain that he did not create or was at least partially responsible for the anti-cheat part of the QoL?

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Grimalackt started it but Lupo cleaned and added more to it after a series of dramatic incidents. In Lupo’s own words, it was a joint project. There are more personal details you could get from Lupo on that.

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On a more serious note to actually respond now that I’m not in the middle of a game with a friend, the mod state is likely going to be set between Trusted/Untrusted states due to Fatshark needing to approve mods. They’ll approve anything that is not cheaty and anything that is will be left unapproved and in a place where you can’t gain progression on your character if you’re using it, for example. Lupo is also in contact with Fatshark and helps with the mod support upcoming and EAC will be getting some additions according to Hedge.

Digressing, it’s not something I agree with because if Fatshark is going to approve mods then it comes off like they are going to use other people to do their work for them but this is not a thread about that so.

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My question is, why do you care so much? You left the game, job done. What else do you want? BattlEye? A FatShark employee standing over the shoulder of each player? It’s CO-OP, not ESL battling it out for 3 million euros.

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I’m also kind of worried about the new mod system. I have a feeling Fatshark won’t approve a black list type mod becuase it might offend some people.

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Dont underestimate how badly the game bugs out sometimes.

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Probably just personality type. Some people get really bothered when they think someone else is getting unfairly rewarded. Busybody types. Usually don’t like others doing drugs or being happy in general if they didn’t work as hard as they thinks they should have. They call for nerfs of anyone who outperforms them when they think they shouldn’t.

“It works and sometimes destroys the game for those legitimate players and the cheaters do not care.”

I haven’t come across a cheater in 300+ hours. If I did it wouldn’t really bother me, and if it did bother me I would just leave. If it were a pvp game ya it would bother me because it directly affects me. But in a coop game it doesn’t matter, you cheated and didn’t care to enjoy the challenge, your loss. If you get a bunch of reds faster than me, fine with me, it just means you’ll quit that much sooner with nothing to do.

Probably their real reason for caring so much about this cheating is that they are tempted to use the cheats themselves and want an authority to take that temptation away from them. They took the time to find the cheat on the internet themselves (which I didn’t do after reading this) and will probably soon install it and use it and rationalize it with “Well Fatshark won’t fix this so I have to use it to stay competitive” or something like that.

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I am not supprised considering the loot system now. Most players are casuals and didn’t yet discover how absurdly low are drop rates. Once everyone will understand how low their chances are to ever see 1-2 reds, not even talking about fully gearing their character I expect more people to look for cheats or mods.

Mark my words. If FS thought super that hard grind is what will make most players (not hardcore ones) stick around more- they will be dissapointed. It’s not 2004 anymore, and those are not Korean MMO players.

Still I don’t care what someone does in private games. As long he does not do it in public matches. I also don’t care if someone spawned himself 1k lootboxes. It doesn’t change my gameplay.

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First of all, thank you for the responses, I was sleeping and at work, so I could only respond now.
I find it quite strange that the only thing you got out of my whole text is that I want to cheat as well.
And “taking the time to find the cheat” means simply googling “Vermintide 2 cheat” and look at the first two pages. This would not take any time at all.

But if the point was missed this hard, here a TLDR: EAC not working, why is it still used? I fear it might break Mod support, how will this work? Lunethex gave a good answer in this regard and philippe.david shared my concern.

I even stated that I do not care what somebody does in his/her private session, it is only problematic in public sessions. Maybe it is highly dependant on region, but some friends of mine as well as myself (same country/area) had quite a few problems with cheats in public sessions.

This might be a stretch, but has anyone played Sanctum 1/2? They were able to integrate a working anticheat system that did not need signed root access only to do nothing.

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Because it discourages even easier cheating methods that would allow griefers to join your game and do silly things that would really ruin your day, not just benefit themselves as players.

The one thing I’ve learned about hackers after watching the scene is that they’re really, really crafty, but not as crafty as they think. They’re always begging for anti-cheat methods to be removed, for one reason or the other, often saying things just you like yourself are saying. “Oh this one cheat is possible, so lets just remove the entire anti-cheat system.”

And when you say stuff like “And “taking the time to find the cheat” means simply googling “Vermintide 2 cheat” and look at the first two pages. This would not take any time at all.” after already being called out on it, it sure starts to seem like you might be one of those dudes responsible for making cheats, and you are actually just advertising for more people to look up your cheat, and maybe you even have some sort of virus or malware in the program or on the website as well.

For this reason I am flagging your thread for removal.

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This is actually an (uncommon) bug, likely due to some very special desync.

http://forums.fatsharkgames.com/t/die-and-get-a-ghost-at-a-spectator-mode/20180

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Thank you for showing me that it is not possible to dicuss something constructively with some people in this forum.

I intentionally left out how to even find any cheats to prevent more people from easily looking it up, never linked it or something similar. You insinuated that finding any information about this is hard and accused me of beeing a cheater. When I made clear how easy it is to find these tool while still not linking it, now I am advertising it?

Furthermore I never said “Remove ALL the Anticheat because something is not working”. Nice of you for ignoring a big part of my initial post and even the response to cherrypick one phrase, just to make your convoluted point. Any Trump campaigner would be proud.

My statement was true. It is not properly working now, I asked if it can be fixed, gave suggestions as to maybe implement the Anticheat and Block system of the Vermintide Mod Framework/QoL Mod and in my last response to you even brought up a diffent game that somehow has a working anticheat system without EAC.

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Thank you for this info.
But his situation was different compared to the bug report in that he could still attack and kill rats/northlanders while his icon showed him as dead. I first thought it might have been the old bug with health discrepancy if someone had the grim trinket and a new player joined, but beeing hit by a part of the horde for nearly a minute while hooked and then walking away as undead terminator looked really fishy.

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Hah, so true. I am at 146 hours +23 from BETA, no cheaters yet. Even if I meet cheaters in PvP I either straight up leave, depending on how hardcore they are like wiping the server there is no point in staying, otherwise I just don’t mind it. It’s a game, you can usually do side objectives and what not depending on the game and mode being played. And like you said, a cheater will play a game for a week or three, then never return. While others can sit in a game for a year plus if it has that right stuff.