Anim Cancelling: Too Much of a Good Thing?

[Mr.Mulk]

Oh boy, I saw the mod on the workshop and knew this was a long time coming.

It was only a matter of time before someone abused anim cancel to its extreme and ruined it for everyone else. So thanks to whoever made those mods and to those who used scripts for ruining the best mage in forge.

Anim cancelling was huge to me, it was what made Willow the best mage character. And while not impossible, post patch it appears we're seeing a repeat of history with nerfing Willow. While I understand that people had issues with botted anim cancelling, and some people were spreading scripts that aided it, it legitimately sucks that Klei decided to remove the fun for everyone and just destroy the system entirely.

When used without any scripts, anim cancelling provided an interesting skill ceiling for Willow players in the forge where they could practice to better their manual anim cancels and excel, but now we can't even do that. It added a new level of depth to the combat that was rare in the series, with actual skill playing a major factor over character selection, rng, etc. It's really a shame to see it go, I hope Klei can figure out a way to readd it (maybe character specific) and also not allow for external scripts to abuse it. I mean, simply removing the mod would have cleaned up most of the script abusers but I understand the leaderboards would still be filled with it. If they had an anti-cheat that could recognize it then that'd also possibly work.

I mean at the end of the day I'd take them removing clientside mods entirely if it means we get anim cancelling back. There isn't any that's absolutely essential to the forge anyways, I was surprised they were allowed in the first place.

[Kawasaki]

To be honest as of lately probably cause of the mod in the workshop, many people started using it and 90% of them just dont know when to stop i swear. They keep waking up mobs and punishing other players in a healing circle, they loose track of what they hit and what they didnt in a cluster of mobs, making all the scorpeons or turtles enraged causing our team to fail sometimes. And when you confront them about it they argue how the team was not good, but even if so you shouldnt fk them over by being an elitist fk.So i am against it and anyone using it. I personaly dont care about the leaderboards or anything, i even tried doing it my self successfuly but its just bothersome and make my hand twitch after a while :D.

Thats my opinion !

[Mr.Mulk]

I agree that scripted anim cancelling is wrong, I don't think anyone has any issues with that statement. As someone who practiced manual anim cancelling (for many hours) however I found it added a layer of skill and depth to the game which was fun and pushed me to grow as a player. To completely remove this experience because of a few players who can't control themselves seems silly when there are simply better options to deal with the issue.

[Fidooop]

1: anim canceling is still possible but now it's based on distance from the mob. And if close in range you're getting similar damage that you used to with old anim cancels. Due to how freaking difficult this is manually however, the only ones ever using cancels now are going to be those with scripts (IE the Chinese who will now DOMINATE the leaderboard with a far greater edge over anyone else because nobody can manually multitarget with ease anymore)

 

2: Canceling clientside mods wouldn't do jacksquat at all in the slightest because you can still tamper with your own client's code with little to no trouble at all. No real way to ensure that's untampered unless Klei outright klumped every script file. But EVEN THEN! macros exist so in the end there's no real way to ensure nobody cheats. It's just not possible.

 

3: It's obviously a crappy fix too considering melee multitargets are still possible and still increase melee damage by quite a bit. Not to mention with how fast darts travel it's almost as if nothing has changed for darters except a slightly slower delay between clicks...

 

IMHO Klei should've left it and probably destroyed that mod the second it went public. Because now Rhinobro leaderboard is a bunch of hot stinky cheaty garbage and Swineclops is going to be even worse with Chinese having a 5 minute advantage on literally everyone else unless they script too in order to actually compete. This is just disgusting in every way possible and I'm ashamed that Klei would even put in this poorly done bandaid fix HALF WAY THROUGH the Forge being live. They should've saved the fix for next Forge to be honest. 

[TemporaryMan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've read:

• The "top" players are using some other script, not the Steam Workshop mod.
• The mod author seems to be an accelerationist who published their mod publicly specifically so it would raise public awareness of the issue and maximize the chance something gets done about it (or failing that, at least democratize the exploit).
• Taking the mod off the Workshop would have done nothing about the "top" players who are using a different script, or anyone with the mod already downloaded.  (I've still got Skyrim mods that were taken down, after all).
• The Forge is easier to balance without anim cancelling because Klei can easily calculate characters' DPS at different stages throughout the match.

[Fidooop]

Yes true, the top players are using their own private script... From what I've heard they've got a script designed for each specific character that they just spend time refining. Of course removing the mod from the workshop wouldn't have stopped them but at least people wouldn't be complaining so dang much about it and non-cheaters wouldn't get the burn from this change. The cheaters are going to cheat no matter what you do. So any changes Klei makes will for the most part ONLY hurt the non-cheaters.

[Mr.Mulk]

9 minutes ago, TemporaryMan said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've read:

• The "top" players are using some other script, not the Steam Workshop mod.
• The mod author seems to be an accelerationist who published their mod publicly specifically so it would raise public awareness of the issue and maximize the chance something gets done about it (or failing that, at least democratize the exploit).
• Taking the mod off the Workshop would have done nothing about the "top" players who are using a different script, or anyone with the mod already downloaded.  (I've still got Skyrim mods that were taken down, after all).
• The Forge is easier to balance without anim cancelling because Klei can easily calculate characters' DPS at different stages throughout the match.

You've pretty much ignored the main points that I was trying to put forth that everyone is getting punished for the actions of a few, when better solutions are available. I'm not trying to be rude but all the first 3 points was one of the issues I was already addressing with better solutions, and the last point is a non-argument, as klei can simply set the standard measurement without anim cancelling.

I'm not trying by any means to protect the cheaters who used external scripting to ruin the mechanics of the game, I'm just trying to point out the bandaid patch hurts the average player a lot more than it does them, and as such better solutions could have been put forth.

 

Heck I'd be fine with them removing the leaderboards altogether thus removing most of the incentive to cheat. No one currently takes the leaderboard seriously anyways.

[TemporaryMan]

3 minutes ago, Mr.Mulk said:

You've pretty much ignored the main points that I was trying to put forth that everyone is getting punished for the actions of a few, when better solutions are available. I'm not trying to be rude but all the first 3 points was one of the issues I was already addressing with better solutions, and the last point is a non-argument, as klei can simply set the standard measurement without anim cancelling.

Well, I was ignoring your main points because I was more interested in things that I thought were being overlooked in the rush to vilify the Workshop mod.  I didn't really have an opinion regarding your main points, but now that you bring it up...

What better solutions?  Take away all client-side mods?  That punishes an even wider array of people for the actions of a few (something you said you're against), but as Fidoop pointed out, they could still manually edit their client-side files or use macros.  Your better solution ultimately boils down to Fidoop's better solution, which is do nothing, fix nothing, take down the mod, and paper over the issue and hope the Genie politely goes back in the bottle even though everyone's seen the mod now and knows the top players are using scripts.  It's just shooting the messenger and telling everyone to pretend they never heard just so we can continue to anim-cancel and multi-target, which of course will serve as an endless reminder of what we've been told to forget.  Don't get me wrong, that is an option... a cynical, self-serving, status-quo option that won't sit well for a lot of people.  It also might be the right option for preserving a high skill ceiling for Willow players. 

As for anti-cheat measures, what precisely do you have in mind?  Comparing their game scripts against a server-side cryptographically-secure checksum to verify they aren't modified?  Running scripts to monitor all inputs for suspiciously fast reaction times and precise timing?  How else would you distinguish a human from a script?  All these measures would run the risk of a false positive and have a performance impact on everyone else, and we already have players who use mods to strip the decorations just so they can play on weaker machines.  And what would you do if someone's performing super-humanly, such that they're surely using a script?  Klei doesn't ban anyone.  At best Klei could exclude them from the leaderboards going forward, for what little that's worth.  But you've said you're not really worried about those.  Meanwhile, the script users would just tweak their scripts to perform just well enough to evade detection.  Again, that might be the right option if the performance impact is low, or if the number of people with weak computers who get excluded is smaller than the number who would be driven away by cheaters on the leaderboards or the loss of anim-cancelling.  But it would depend on the efficiency and efficacy of the anti-cheating measures, both of which aren't easy to achieve on short notice.

The only real compromise I see is marking the leaderboards as the fastest script-assisted teams and making script fine-tuning an explicit part of the competition.  Or simply removing leaderboards entirely, I guess; we know what limited collection of people would be affected by that change by name, and they're the real instigators of this mess. 

I'm open to suggestions, if you've got some.

[Fidooop]

Anti-cheat ain't going to happen no matter what way you slice it... Any way you can think of there's going to be SOMETHING taken from non-cheaters and cheaters will most likely be able to continue cheating anyways.

A beautiful comparison for this situation is this... Those top teams probably have a perfect script for midslam baiting as Woodie during Boarrior. What's Klei going to do?? Make midslam baiting not work anymore? Then those teams will just change the script again and everyone else who enjoyed midslam baiting can't do it anymore. Of course midslam baiting isn't an exploit (Or at the very least it's an unintended feature?) but it's a perfect example of what's going on with stopping multitargets here.
Few people can multitarget, those who do it well do it like a bot would anyways (Have you SEEN ToastyStoat multitarget?)
Few people can midslam bait, those who do it well do it like a bot would anyways
Multitargets help IMMENSELY with speedruns
Midslam baits help IMMENSELY with speedruns
Multitarget can be scripted
Midslam baiting can be scripted

Honestly when you look at it... I feel like Klei should just say "Hey, multitargeting is an unintended feature." because no matter what anything can be scripted to be done automatically and would then immediately be seen as "cheating" by the mass public. Both Mulk and I have put in time and practice with manual multitargets and have both been accused of using cheaty bots when doing them manually very well. Just because the mass public can't do it doesn't make it a cheat though. And just because it can be scripted doesn't make it worth attempting to patch out with a crappy bandaid fix either. It's a valid SKILL-REQUIRED strat that people enjoy to use and makes Willow a very fun and powerful character. The sad thing though is that now that we're forced to single target Maxwell's the new MVP mage and HE GOT NERFED TOO! WHEN HE WAS ALREADY SO WEAK! o_o

Please, Klei… Just undo this messy "patch" and don't change anything. You're only punishing non-cheaters with this because the cheaters will ALWAYS find a way around it. Best thing you can do is delete leaderboards because they've just become "Who can make the smartest and fastest scripts?" It's really sad that it's come down to that but what else are we to do? Anti-cheat measures are impossible without punishing the modding community. Only other option really would be to ban teams you can prove are scripting their runs from showing on the leaderboard. (EVEN THEN THOUGH, they can just tweak their bots to look like human failure occurs with inconsistent timings and "mess-ups")

Oh and one more thing, Klei… YOU BETTER NOT HAVE A TOURNAMENT THIS TIME BECAUSE YOU KNOW DARN WELL WHO'S ALREADY GOT TOP SPOT. It just won't be fair at all in the slightest because the winner will be who scripted the best bot >n>

[fimmatek]

After reading through these posts, I'm not sure what exactely changed. So animation cancelling is still possible, but what got patched then?

As we don't have a tournament (and I really hope we won't have either) I didn't care much about the scripts. But the mod that got published and people who started to use it on public servers without the ability to play well was really annoying. Like I met a Webber who damaged every single scorpeon and then blamed our healer when the tank died to acid. 

32 minutes ago, Fidooop said:

The sad thing though is that now that we're forced to single target Maxwell's the new MVP mage and HE GOT NERFED TOO! WHEN HE WAS ALREADY SO WEAK!

How did they nerf him?

[Terra B Welch]

I just hope klei resets the leaderboards so we don't see a list of chinese macroers anymore.

[Atkvin]

3 hours ago, fimmatek said:

After reading through these posts, I'm not sure what exactely changed. So animation cancelling is still possible, but what got patched then?

Seems like you need to be closer to the targets to use it. It's just a bit more risk-reward to do it now, I guess

 

[CarlZalph]

2 minutes ago, Atkvin said:

Seems like you need to be closer to the targets to use it. It's just a bit more risk-reward to do it now, I guess

 

The way the behaviour is now is that the first projectile must have landed before another spawns, otherwise the first one disappears mid flight.

[Mr.Mulk]

8 hours ago, TemporaryMan said:

Well, I was ignoring your main points because I was more interested in things that I thought were being overlooked in the rush to vilify the Workshop mod.  I didn't really have an opinion regarding your main points, but now that you bring it up...

What better solutions?  Take away all client-side mods?  That punishes an even wider array of people for the actions of a few (something you said you're against), but as Fidoop pointed out, they could still manually edit their client-side files or use macros.  Your better solution ultimately boils down to Fidoop's better solution, which is do nothing, fix nothing, take down the mod, and paper over the issue and hope the Genie politely goes back in the bottle even though everyone's seen the mod now and knows the top players are using scripts.  It's just shooting the messenger and telling everyone to pretend they never heard just so we can continue to anim-cancel and multi-target, which of course will serve as an endless reminder of what we've been told to forget.  Don't get me wrong, that is an option... a cynical, self-serving, status-quo option that won't sit well for a lot of people.  It also might be the right option for preserving a high skill ceiling for Willow players. 

As for anti-cheat measures, what precisely do you have in mind?  Comparing their game scripts against a server-side cryptographically-secure checksum to verify they aren't modified?  Running scripts to monitor all inputs for suspiciously fast reaction times and precise timing?  How else would you distinguish a human from a script?  All these measures would run the risk of a false positive and have a performance impact on everyone else, and we already have players who use mods to strip the decorations just so they can play on weaker machines.  And what would you do if someone's performing super-humanly, such that they're surely using a script?  Klei doesn't ban anyone.  At best Klei could exclude them from the leaderboards going forward, for what little that's worth.  But you've said you're not really worried about those.  Meanwhile, the script users would just tweak their scripts to perform just well enough to evade detection.  Again, that might be the right option if the performance impact is low, or if the number of people with weak computers who get excluded is smaller than the number who would be driven away by cheaters on the leaderboards or the loss of anim-cancelling.  But it would depend on the efficiency and efficacy of the anti-cheating measures, both of which aren't easy to achieve on short notice.

The only real compromise I see is marking the leaderboards as the fastest script-assisted teams and making script fine-tuning an explicit part of the competition.  Or simply removing leaderboards entirely, I guess; we know what limited collection of people would be affected by that change by name, and they're the real instigators of this mess. 

I'm open to suggestions, if you've got some.

I've already stated I agree something should be done about the people who use scripts to automate the process, it's what caused this awful mess in the first place. I'm just trying to brainstorm and give better solutions than "leave it in and let the scripters who have already overcome the patch do even better"

As for the mod being done on purpose the guy literally just updated it to get around the patch. So in effect, all this patch has accomplished is hurting people who don't use scripts, and have practiced for ages to try and be good. So uh, I don't think the purpose was to "call atttention to it" most likely based on that.

Don't get me wrong, if it's not obvious I hate the people who ruin my chances of getting on the leaderboard despite my effort to practice. It just isn't a good idea however to punish people like me instead of going after the real cheaters. As for removing clientside mods, that wouldn't "hurt" anyone as all clientside mods are purely cosmetic and shouldn't make any real difference. And is there really no way for the server to check to make sure the person is using an unaltered version of the game? Numerous other companies employ systems like these in order to ensure security and fairness (admittedly to varying degrees of success) but it would definitely cut down on the use overall.

 

 

7 hours ago, Fidooop said:

Honestly when you look at it... I feel like Klei should just say "Hey, multitargeting is an unintended feature." because no matter what anything can be scripted to be done automatically and would then immediately be seen as "cheating" by the mass public. Both Mulk and I have put in time and practice with manual multitargets and have both been accused of using cheaty bots when doing them manually very well. Just because the mass public can't do it doesn't make it a cheat though. And just because it can be scripted doesn't make it worth attempting to patch out with a crappy bandaid fix either. It's a valid SKILL-REQUIRED strat that people enjoy to use and makes Willow a very fun and powerful character. The sad thing though is that now that we're forced to single target Maxwell's the new MVP mage and HE GOT NERFED TOO! WHEN HE WAS ALREADY SO WEAK! o_o

Please, Klei… Just undo this messy "patch" and don't change anything. You're only punishing non-cheaters with this because the cheaters will ALWAYS find a way around it. Best thing you can do is delete leaderboards because they've just become "Who can make the smartest and fastest scripts?" It's really sad that it's come down to that but what else are we to do? Anti-cheat measures are impossible without punishing the modding community. Only other option really would be to ban teams you can prove are scripting their runs from showing on the leaderboard. (EVEN THEN THOUGH, they can just tweak their bots to look like human failure occurs with inconsistent timings and "mess-ups")

Amen Brother!

[Fidooop]

6 hours ago, fimmatek said:

How did they nerf him?

Before you could single target anim cancel and now you can't do that anymore... Not nearly as powerful anyways. So Maxwell does half the damage he'd normally do.

6 hours ago, Terra M Welch said:

I just hope klei resets the leaderboards so we don't see a list of chinese macroers anymore.

You're missing the point...
1: The Chinese aren't using macros they are using coded scripts so that their game does everything by itself.
2: Their scripts STILL WORK! And no non-cheater can attempt to rival them with skill anymore because Klei removed that functionality. THE LEADERBOARDS ARE SCREWED! 

[Terra B Welch]

51 minutes ago, Fidooop said:

Before you could single target anim cancel and now you can't do that anymore... Not nearly as powerful anyways. So Maxwell does half the damage he'd normally do.

You're missing the point...
1: The Chinese aren't using macros they are using coded scripts so that their game does everything by itself.
2: Their scripts STILL WORK! And no non-cheater can attempt to rival them with skill anymore because Klei removed that functionality. THE LEADERBOARDS ARE SCREWED! 

If only klei could make the bosses enrage or something when they detect unhuman attack rates on players.

Just to punish the good for nothing script kiddies who clearly can't play forge legit.

[JohnWatson]

1 minute ago, Terra M Welch said:

Just to punish the good for nothing script kiddies who clearly can't play forge legit.

they need to be sterilised for this unholy behaviour

[Computer-7]

1 hour ago, Terra M Welch said:

If only klei could make the bosses enrage or something when they detect unhuman attack rates on players.

Just to punish the good for nothing script kiddies who clearly can't play forge legit.

if they could do that then why not just make their run invalid for leader board instead of screwing everyone else in the lobby plus what does that do they can just adjust their script to not enrage, and what if someone who isn't using scripts attacks to fast 

[Zeklo]

1 hour ago, Terra M Welch said:

If only klei could make the bosses enrage or something when they detect unhuman attack rates on players.

Just to punish the good for nothing script kiddies who clearly can't play forge legit.

Problem with that is if you had a single script-user in your team then the other five players get punished as well. 

Honestly the issue here seems to be the leaderboards. Most people won't turn their nose away from an easier time. It's the fact that the leaderboards exist that it becomes a moral issue, and a matter of fair or unfair. 

[TemporaryMan]

4 hours ago, Mr.Mulk said:

And is there really no way for the server to check to make sure the person is using an unaltered version of the game? Numerous other companies employ systems like these in order to ensure security and fairness (admittedly to varying degrees of success) but it would definitely cut down on the use overall.

Well, as I said, you could use a cryptographically-secure hash function for a checksum, something that can produce 2^256 possible outputs so it isn't easy to just brute-force guess what number you need your modified file's checksum to work out to to get a false negative.  Should give a reasonable approximation of whether the files match the latest release.  Takes a bit of time to calculate the checksum to compare, though.  Been a while since I had to test a SHA-2 checksum on an open-source project to be sure I wasn't downloading a malicious file masquerading as the application, but I seem to recall it took about five minutes.  Not too bad for a one-time download you start in the background, awfully inconvenient every single time you want to start a game right now.

@JohnWatson Nah, that's a little excessive for someone who cheats at a video game, don't you think?

[Atkvin]

Here's an idea: maybe your entire team cannot be using any mods for the game to have a chance to be included in the leaderboards? Or you need to tick an option to create a special server that disallows any mods for you to have a running in the leads.

Or maybe Klei should just ban mods from the game altogether... Though this would be a terrible last resort since essential stuff for some like Forge Decor Remover or some useful, comparatively harmless stats and timers would be taken away from the casual players..

[Mr.Mulk]

It's not the greatest comparison but the anti-cheat for Rockstar's GTAV comes to mind. It can (usually) tell if the player is running an external script or has modified the game on the fly, without altering load times.

While Klei is not Rockstar and the game is obviously not GTAV, there are most certainly anti-cheat systems which don't impact load times that can tell if external scripts or altered game copies are being run. I don't know if Klei has the budget to employ these systems, I'd imagine they're not cheap but it'd be a worthwhile investment and solve the issue of cheaters not getting punished yet normal players losing depth to the combat. This actually expands beyond just scripted anim cancelling to the realms of idle bots for xp farming and other, sometimes even more obtrusive hacks. If such a system was employed we could bring back anim cancelling as a skill system for mage bringing back its original depth in combat.

[JohnWatson]

fact: anybody that still insists that messing with client mods is anywhere near an actual solution does not know what they're talking about and never bothered reading anybody else's posts

[TealsMyth]

Can someone from Klei please respond, because right now it feels like you genuinely dont care that you've created a worse problem or that you even acknowledge that you've done so.

[GCC.1st]

21 hours ago, Terra M Welch said:

I just hope klei resets the leaderboards so we don't see a list of chinese macroers anymore.

So you think we Chinese can't beat you without scripts? That's so funnnnnnnnnnnny.

Last year, except for Bill's team (Bill, GlassArrow, T Shaw Killer, etc), we got the first place on the leaderboard,  we did not use any scripts/macros but Bill's team used.

14 hours ago, Fidooop said:

Before you could single target anim cancel and now you can't do that anymore... Not nearly as powerful anyways. So Maxwell does half the damage he'd normally do.

You're missing the point...
1: The Chinese aren't using macros they are using coded scripts so that their game does everything by itself.
2: Their scripts STILL WORK! And no non-cheater can attempt to rival them with skill anymore because Klei removed that functionality. THE LEADERBOARDS ARE SCREWED! 

So why you discriminate against Chinese people so much?

Last year, except for Bill's team (Bill, GlassArrow, T Shaw Killer, etc), we got the first place on the leaderboard,  we did not use any scripts/macros but Bill's team used. Why didn't you blame them then? People around the world are using scripts.