Permanently ban cafe IP if many cheaters caught

[Karu_Tepes]

OKAY

PH ARE THE ONE WHY THE SERVER STILL ACTIVE

Everyone of you saying "ph are the reason this server is alive", absolutely wrong..
Donations are the reason this server is alive. https://ls-rcr.com/donate, go here, you will see the reason why this server is alive. As long as the server gets enough donations, it will run. PH contributes to the playerbase, contributes in degrading the quality of the playerbase. People know that there is a cheater in their cafe, yet they let him play and then when he gets banned, they make an unban application saying that "we didn't know blabla", which is totally bs.
And I didn't suggest to instant ban your cafes? I have suggested to ban only if we find many cheaters from a single cafe, now why are you all so scared? Because some of you won't be able to make alternative accounts to cheat? If one cheater from your cafe is found, just don't let him play, as simple as that. What is such a big deal in this? You all are acting like you all will be banned within a day, which I think is true if this gets implemented.

We're just scared to people who owns the cafe, IP ban = No customers

Interesting... "were just scared to people who owns the cafe" and "I'd choose Letter C. None of the above why should i report those evaders, when they aren't even playing on my cafe?"

So which is it? You're scared the owners will hurt you for admitting it, or no one is even at your cafe cheating?

Contradicting yourself here, and let's face it, with your recent behavior, you are NOT the Unlucky... I know.

You should be banned on this thread alone. You've admitted to NOT reporting ban evaders, and that's more than enough reason why we should range ban the cafe.

[Rally3]

I'll address player count numbers since it's indirectly being mentioned here.

First, who is complaining? People that have been here before and know that the player count, but most importantly the player base, was different than what it is now. This is expected to happen as with any game, it evolves with time. New players seem to enjoy the type of gameplay (or at least do not voice their concerns in forums) since they are unaware of the past time to form a comparison with.

Second, who is the target playerbase of the server nowadays? As with any service, you go with the majority of the people that support you. Many older players have migrated to different platforms, games, or just left gaming all-together, so I don't think it's entirely reasonable to draw arguments from "well in 2016 things were like X and now they're Y.." because it addresses itself - it was 2016, not now. People that were here in 2010 can say the same thing. Same for before. The target playerbase in 2021, from my interpretation, are people that enjoy cophunting, dueling, arresting/dragging. There is more of a shift into "quicker lives" (via centralization of groups, etc) rather than to try to stay alive for a long time.

TLDR: The complaints are, imo, from player types that the server is no longer targeting. Many factors affected migration from Ls-rcr elsewhere, and the comparisons to older times are not really productive as they're often done at a very shallow surface level and don't take into account all of the factors that are into play.

[HITMAN_CONTRACT]

[r]Dont talk on that because ph is always active on this server and we got more memmories here dont talk on that again pls[/r]

I didn't even specifically talk about your cafe, you edited your reply because you knew that there was a cheater from your cafe, and you probably know who he is, but you won't report him because he is your friend or whatever.... Anyway, I prefer quality over quantity so please I don't mind having 0 players, it's better than having 5 cheaters

I actually caught like 15 guys taking tests of each other and all of them on cafes, not only cheating but they are also account sharing, sadely the proofs I have are only on discord and not valable for a report. And you can just offer temp rights for a guy in a cafe he will tell you all the ban evaders on that cafe, let's take as an example ".Thunder." who is "Mr.Kithi" and admins can't prove that he is Mr.Kithi and he is evading the ban easily.

[SneaX]

Positive, this suggestion is the best I've seen so far, it does make sense. I have also exposed a whole cafe a months ago and half of the players on that cafe got banned, but now, they are back again with another account, still ban evading and aimboting, and we also know that aimbotters and hackers are really annoying especially when there's no admin in-game. Yes, 70-80percent of the players which are from PH ruins our gameplay by cheating aimboting spamming and etc., but I hope that IF this suggestion will get approved, there will be a IP unban appeal too.

[Fierce]

Agreed every day i must do more than 3 report for hack so they back again with new account, idk why they wanted to atrophy the game, so +1

[Karu_Tepes]

Agreed every day i must do more than 3 report for hack so they back again with new account, idk why they wanted to atrophy the game, so +1

I can actually answer that... it's going to be very long, but I think if you trudge through this an actually take the time to read and understand it, the situation will be far more clear, as well as the options we have to fix it.

In the circles of hackers/anti-hackers, we break them down into three simple groups....
-Troll hacking (airbreak, teleport, no-reloads), done purely to fuck around and have a laugh.
-Try hard (Aimbot, keybinders, ITPMs) Players who want to be the best in the game and show off, but don't really have the skills to do it, so they download hacks. Often, young kids
-Revenge hacks, along the same as troll hacking, but done with spam purely out of revenge by Try Hards who have been caught, banned, and denied an appeal.

Troll hackers, despite being very obvious, do the least damage. They don't hide the fact they're hacking. It's so painfully obvious that even a new, inexperienced player can tell they are hacking and basic screenshots is enough to get a ban. Usually they stay active for 30-45 minutes, sometimes shorter if an admin is available. They often won't evade the ban either. They laugh, and move on to the next server. They just come to dick around, and not only is catching them easy, so is avoiding them. If one is ever online at the same time as me, you can message me in-game and I'll gladly take you somewhere they can't get harm you. You can also simply log out and play something else for a bit, they don't stay long.

Try hards are the worst. Usually, they start as regular users. They try to play, try to get good, but they face two issues: Experienced users, and active Try Hards. If you're a new user with 500 score, your chances of winning against someone like Grand are pretty much null. Even I, with over a decade of SA-MP experience, find Grand to be a royal pain to go against. I actually respect him for that, because even though it's annoying, he put in the effort to get that good. The issue isn't so much that the Try Hard can't improve, they can, but they choose to instead take the easy route... aimbot and keybinders. Once a Try Hard goes active, that's it. The cancer has begun, and there is NOTHING that can save them. And they might stay active for a while. Most Try Hards will never admit, even when the evidence is clear as day, that they are hacking. And with SA-MP being now 15 years old, the amount of hacking software available is not only absurd, but each day it gets more and more undetectable. When I started as an admin back in 2008, aimbots were easy to catch. A user would shoot ahead of them, and nail the person behind them. Or their arms would flail comically as their aimbot registered another user. It was laughably easy to find them. But now we have hidden aimbots, conditional aimbots, toggleables, and it's a fucking NIGHTMARE. A user will appear normal to an admin because they press a key and the aimbot turns off, and they play normal. But when the admin leaves, another keypress and they are back to slaughtering players unfairly. The only way to really catch this is to study a user. For days. Weeks. Sometimes... months. Even worse is some aimbots now hide the movements. They can sit in one spot and instead of their arms flailing about, the whole body follows the target. You have to watch how the character moves, how the head turns, how the bullets strike, and many other factors. Proof on an aimbot like that takes between 3-7 clear videos. Keybinds are also nearly impossible to find. Copy/paste is a legitimate strategy, and so is pretyping. The first thing an admin would need is to see them give a plausible bind flag. This would be something like a user who cuffs, searches, and arrests all in the same time count, or sometimes two times counts. Then, the admin would need to pull the logs. Did they pretype it? If not, you need to begin watching, again for hours, days, or weeks, to see if the user is able to consistently do it. You also need to see if this is done when you're using an alt, because most Try Hards know the staff and turn it off when they see admins log in.

Revenge hackers are much like troll hackers. They are banned users who want revenge for getting banned. They are usually very obvious, and also spam the fuck out of mainchat. If you see "Id 4 is Banned User!" being spammed, that's a ban evading revenge hacker, who is usually pissed off at whoever they are outing. It's also never good evidence. They might just dislike a genuinely clean user, so they fake the accusations in a pure attempt to try and get them banned. Revenge hackers can also be active Try Hards. Currently, I have a user who I have a video of using a clear aimbot, but it's only one video, not enough to report on yet. But he found out I am actively investigating him, and so he's now revenge hacking against me. I know he's using an aim, and eventually I'll get enough proof to send in, but in the mean time he's making an active attempt to drive me out of the community. You've probably seen him spouting "shes a he" and other crap in mainchat. He's just pissed off because he knows I'm willing to waste my time catching him, because he's doing a very large amount of damage to the server. The amount of illegitimate kills/arrests that user has is absurd. But he's a clever and sneaky kid, hard to catch. Now, I won't say who it is. I don't want to tip him off, and I don't want ruin his reputation if by some chance he is clean, even though I highly doubt it.

So... what can be done? Well, a few things...

1: GET A SCREEN RECORDER! You already have F8 to screenshot your game, but video software is free, easy, and effective. I use BandiCam. I can record up to 10 minutes, it doesn't drop my FPS, and it can shortened down to the important section video BandiCut. A screen recorder will help you make a far better report, and help get the hackers.

2: Learn how hacking looks and works. I see many people report different hackers, and often it can be easily explained if the reporter just knew how the game works. I've seen people accuse others of teleport hacks, and fully see how they can make that mistake. But they see G-abuse, lag rubberbanding, or other explainable situations and think it's hacking. It takes months, sometimes YEARS, to be an effective anti-hacker

3: Anti-VPN plug-ins: This would be on our owner CXdur to implement, but a basic VPN blocker works pretty well. But it can also be a pain for some users who get a dynamic VPN setup from their ISP.

4: Get more staff with better training and actual drive: I've seen alot of players ask "Karu staff when" and the answer is the same: Never. I know how much being staff sucks. You're little more than a volunteer babysitter watching a bunch of children whine about what equates to yo momma jokes. While dealing with that, you have basic rule breakers like DMers, and on top of that you have to watch hackers. It's extremely time consuming and burn out is a very real possibility. You get to the point where you no longer want to read a 2 page report and review all the evidence presented. You get to the point where you think you know the rules and claim "I'm admin, I know rules, this not a rulebreak" and then everyone around you beats you over the head asking how the hell you failed to see a pretty clear issue. You also have players who hate you, blame you, and want to attack you, because you punished them for their own bullshit. Those with the most power are often the mostly lonely. Staff can only have a few real friends on the server, because deep down the players never truly trust them, and they never truly trust the players. You are alone, and the feeling is awful. You also have to KNOW for a fact what you're doing. When you type the ban command, and you press that enter key, you have to be willing to back that ban. You have to be 110% certain, because if it turns out they aren't, it'll bite you in the ass quickly. You also need to put aside your own time for your job. No one wants to spend hours watching a single user hack just hoping to catch them. It sucks. Your playtime, personal time, ever IRL time is constantly interrupted. So really you need more staff, and ones dedicated to catching hackers to be truly effective.

5: Players dedication: Many users like to call me a report hunter because I file more reports than average. But most of my reports are valid. I don't look for players to report, I don't fake evidence, I don't lie. I know some users are hacking, and if they come at me, believe me there is video of that, but I don't go looking for them either. If anything I'm likely to run from them. But if you know someone is hacking, record it. If you see a cop aimbotting while you cophunt, flip your camera on, save the video, and move on. If on a later date you see them again, get another video. Eventually you'll get 3-7 videos and then just send it to staff. DO NOT STALK users though. Don't follow someone you think is aimbotting for hours with a camera on. only would that be report hunting, but it'll tip them off and they will turn off the hacks.

6: Update the anti-cheat: Ls-rcr is very unique in how it works. I think I know what anti-cheat is used, based on how it behaves and how it issues bans, as well the criteria for a ban, but I've never seen that particular anticheat issue quizes based on conditional deathmatching inputs. The quiz could also be a custom script added in separate from the anticheat. I've never seen how Ls-rcr anti-cheat works, so I can't say exactly, but I know some have a statistical bullet layout. It alerts based on accuracy and hitscan points. It would alert staff if a user has an an above average hitscan detection, or if their hitscans target the same location repeatedly. It's not foolproof, some players are good enough to raise the suspicions of the anticheat so a ban on that alone isn't enough. But it could be used to really assist in pinning down who's cheating. If the anti-cheat is silent when staff is on, but suddenly pours alerts when they use an alt, you've got a user who needs to be checked out. We may have this already, I don't know, but if we don't.... IT NEEDS ADDED

7: range ban: This is the LAST RESORT. The Nuclear Option. The final ending. When a user is banned, their current IP is blocked from entering the server. It's pretty simple. Long as they have that IP, no access. However, Dynamic IP is a pretty shitty work around. if you ban "12.345.678.9101", it can't log in. But on a Dynamic router, just reset it and the IP becomes "12.345.876.1019" and suddenly the hacker can log in under a new name. And this is our current issue... cafe users can change IP on a dynamic range. Because of this, the only true way to stop them is a block the range. Blocking "12.345.0.0" and every IP on that range would prevent ANY log in attempt. No resets, no changes, no unplugs. They would need a whole new ISP, router, and setup. But it prevents anyone on that range... even good users. It then becomes a case of counting lives. How many innocent lives are we willing to sacrifice for the good of many? Do we say fuck it and ban 4 good users and 12 bad to protect the server? Do we let 12 bad players fuck shit up so 4 innocents can play? Neither option is good. Either way players get hurt. This is why range bans are so rare, because it hurts good users.

So, what's my opinion on the best course of action? Well, that depends on current staff. As it sits right now, they do what they can, but I've seen ALOT of burn out from them. I don't blame our current staff, I fully understand it. But I have seen some staff starting to crack. I've seen several leave, and one be outright fired. I do not think Ls-rcr needs a Destroyer Admin like me. Sure I could and would clean the place up, but I would leave a trail of destruction. I hold no bias, no forgiveness, and no third chances. I take out hackers with EXTREME prejudice, and I do the same on non-hacking cases. I can't STAND this culture of 14 warnings and 3 bans and still playing. I'm all for second chances, and working with people, but when you have 5 warnings and 3 bans for Deathmatching, my decision would be "can't play fair, fuck off somewhere else" and perm ban them. That's not what we need either. I don't think that style is what we need. One thing we could do is reformat the report section. Allow keybind and aimbot reports along with allowing multi-user evidence. A report where 4 people all provide prospective evidence on a single user for aimbot is incredibly effective, but it can also be highly abused. It also requires staff to seriously review what often can be an hour long report. I've been thinking on this suggestion since it was posted, and it took me a long time to decide if I should write this post since it's pretty long, but no matter how long I think about it, I still come back to my original opinion: It's time for the nuclear option. Some, not all, but some of the cafes simply need to be nuked. I have no doubts that most, if not all, of the users in those cafes are hacking, have hacked, or are evading bans. I know the big concern is player counts, but I think staff needs to consider our side: What good is having 50 players, if ten of them are all hacking from the same cafe? Is higher player counts worth a game experience trampled by hackers? What good are high numbers when those numbers are significantly illegitimate? It's not an easy choice, I know that. I would hesitate on that button too. But we need to think about the server and the player base in the larger picture. And if that means banning 12 hackers and 4 innocents to protect 40+ and maybe get back some old users, then the cover needs to be lifted and the option needs to be at least considered seriously. Nothing says those innocent players need personal bans either. Banning a cafe means those innocent players could still go to a new cafe, or get a home set up and keep playing.

[BeaTen.]

Been a while since the last post on this topic, so I think it would be good to keep everybody updated with regard to this suggestion. Unfortunately, they are now evolving and now they not only cheat, but make new accounts to insult people and worse, their religion.
Following images are not for the people with a faint heart, open at your own risk.

Spoiler: show

These are the screenshots that I took today, this happens almost everyday, it just happens in a weird timezone where no admins are awake/free. Now you tell me why would anyone report these people? Just so that account get locked because you can't tell who was playing yeah? There are a limited amount of people who play from their cafe, yet we act like anyone walking down the street comes to their cafe and makes new account and starts messing around, insulting people and causing nuisance. Why do we give them such freedom that they are not afraid of being banned or warned? Unbanning their IP everytime something happens, a router restart is all they need? What is even the point in telling these players rules? Just tell them play however you like, the most we can do is lock your account, ban your account and tell your cafe to restart the router so that you can do the same process all over again?
This guy was making different accounts to insult everybody, sure /ignore exist, but then give us the same freedom that these guys are getting. Let me make new accounts just for the sake of breaking rules, annoying/dming people, then ban that account and let me play fairly with my main account, pretending that I didn't do anything.
I don't know if anyone thinks this is serious or not, but it looks pretty serious to me, most of the playerbase is annoyed by the presence of people like these. The most interesting fact is, the cafe this guy was in while doing all this, some players were also present in that cafe at that time, playing lsrcr, but they all pretend like they don't know that who is doing all this. It's not even hard anymore to find people from the same cafe, they have similar ping and they all act as if they all are playing from different planets.

[Karu_Tepes]

Been a while since the last post on this topic, so I think it would be good to keep everybody updated with regard to this suggestion. Unfortunately, they are now evolving and now they not only cheat, but make new accounts to insult people and worse, their religion.
Following images are not for the people with a faint heart, open at your own risk.

Spoiler: show

These are the screenshots that I took today, this happens almost everyday, it just happens in a weird timezone where no admins are awake/free. Now you tell me why would anyone report these people? Just so that account get locked because you can't tell who was playing yeah? There are a limited amount of people who play from their cafe, yet we act like anyone walking down the street comes to their cafe and makes new account and starts messing around, insulting people and causing nuisance. Why do we give them such freedom that they are not afraid of being banned or warned? Unbanning their IP everytime something happens, a router restart is all they need? What is even the point in telling these players rules? Just tell them play however you like, the most we can do is lock your account, ban your account and tell your cafe to restart the router so that you can do the same process all over again?
This guy was making different accounts to insult everybody, sure /ignore exist, but then give us the same freedom that these guys are getting. Let me make new accounts just for the sake of breaking rules, annoying/dming people, then ban that account and let me play fairly with my main account, pretending that I didn't do anything.
I don't know if anyone thinks this is serious or not, but it looks pretty serious to me, most of the playerbase is annoyed by the presence of people like these. The most interesting fact is, the cafe this guy was in while doing all this, some players were also present in that cafe at that time, playing lsrcr, but they all pretend like they don't know that who is doing all this. It's not even hard anymore to find people from the same cafe, they have similar ping and they all act as if they all are playing from different planets.

Oh I fully agree. These players do this every day. And if you say a word to them, they get on their main and report hunt you for saying you c-bugged, or something else ridiculous. As of right now, I know of 5 people who have had their tags removed because of reports done by these cafe kids. Meanwhile, nothing is done to stop them. And I ask myself the question: Why can these kids do all this garbage and abuse people with no repercussion, but when we, tagged members and such, do it back to them we suffer? The cafe users doing this know damn well how to get good players in trouble, and find enjoyment in doing so. And not a single one of them is innocent. Every, single, cafe, user, knows WHO is doing it, WHO is banned, and none of them speak up, gather evidence, or anything. They are just as much at fault for not reporting it, and to me, that itself should be grounds for a ban on every cafe member. That said, range ban the whole cafe since they are all ban evaders, or assisting ban evaders. Myself and many other long time regular players who don't cause problems are being made to look terrible by these kids, and we're sick of it. It's killing Ls-rcr, and soon this server will be all non-english speaking cafe kids and no regular members, which are the ones who donate. God knows the cafe isn't giving money to help fund this place.

Edit: someone pointed out a typing error. I said "claiming you told them c-bug." but what I meant was "for saying you c-bugged". It was due to a case involving Ackmn being reported for switching guns a while back with Q/E, and how ridiculous it was.

[Geri]

Hey,
I would like to start that these players from the cafes are human beings and we are not better or smarter than them. I fully agree on the problems they cause the community, starting from ban evasion, to hacking and to overall quantity over quality gameplay. But I don't see a clear solution on banning these players as some of them do have the lsrcr tag while they play on the cafes and if they make the exception that it would be unfair for the rest. If they also get banned it would be unfair for them.

I would like you guys to provide a solution on auto spotting a cafe player, in short words please, if this update were to happen.
Also I would like you opinion on the things I stated above.

Note: Please, do NOT go off topic.

Thank you!

[Karu_Tepes]

Hey,
I would like to start that these players from the cafes are human beings and we are not better or smarter than them. I fully agree on the problems they cause the community, starting from ban evasion, to hacking and to overall quantity over quality gameplay. But I don't see a clear solution on banning these players as some of them do have the lsrcr tag while they play on the cafes and if they make the exception that it would be unfair for the rest. If they also get banned it would be unfair for them.

I would like you guys to provide a solution on auto spotting a cafe player, in short words please, if this update were to happen.
Also I would like you opinion on the things I stated above.

Note: Please, do NOT go off topic.

Thank you!

The issue there is, what could would autospotting them do? They would still evade and such. A better thing would be lock new accounts of cafe users. Let the confirmed cafe accounts of good players have access, but if anyone from their IP attempts to make a new account, it would be automatically locked. They could even make a forum section to apply for a whitelist. Is that a better idea?