The only feasible solution is to have high-level players compete in physical tournaments or at verified centers, where the authenticity of the player is replaced with some authority. At a high enough level, there is no way to distinguish a really good player from a cheater.
But it's not really feasible to argue since you need to be on such high level in the first place to honestly engage in 'is this player chesting' conversation. And it's on case-by-case basis
I've watched professional games in SC, CS and DOTA for decades and I definitely agree that pros are indistinguishable from a good cheater (not a rage hacker).
One of the issues around this is cheating within pros too. People that are actually good at the game, but use cheats to get even further ahead. These players are already statistical anomalies and even from an experienced player's perspective, you can't tell if they have an amazing game sense (many really do) or he's wall hacking, as an example.
Competitive games are unlikely to reach the market share necessary for a competitive gaming tournament if their casual scene is inundated with cheaters. Only a tiny handful of games even have a viable competitive scene.
But are cheaters even an issue in unpopular games that don't give out real money for tournaments ?
I have never seen cheaters being an issue (even the few times people set up tournaments with prizes), which makes me think that this might be limited to very few games (in very specific genres) ?
> But are cheaters even an issue in unpopular games
Yes. Every game has cheats. The cheat packages are pretty easy to adapt to new games and people pay money for them.
Why do people cheat? Because it’s fun! If you’ve never cheated it’s honestly worth trying. It’s hilarious. It also utterly ruins the game for everyone else in the lobby.
If games had reliable anti-cheat you’d be shocked at the percentage of lobbies that have a cheater. It’s wildly rampant.
I'm not talking about developer tools - cheats that come with the game, available in single player (and multiplayer if the host allows it).
But a lot of games do also have accessible to everyone replays that show every order given by every player, so catching a cheater that acted on information not available to them (because for instance they had buddies in other team(s)) isn't particularly hard, especially in tournaments with a lot of eyeballs on those replays.
At scale it’s incredibly hard. Impossibly hard even. So hard no one has successfully solved it! Ever!
But what you’re describing is Valve’s Overwatch system for Counter-Strike. It’s a key component of the anti-cheat ecosystem. But cheating is still rampant in CS and one of the biggest complaints.
"at scale" assumes a popular game - and you end up by giving as an example one of the most popular FPSes ever ! Please give an example of a game with, say, less than a million of copies sold / given away ? (And ideally, not an FPS, we all know these have specific extra challenges involved.)
And "at scale" pretty much means that matches are not competitive, because the sums required for entering a tournament game and given for winning it are going to be too small, won't they ?
P.S.: And for non-competitive games, I would expect that this cheating issue (among others) would be aggravated if you insist on playing with total strangers you will never see again (also part of the scale issue) - maybe just avoid that ?
But popular games are the ones people want to play, and are the ones you’re claiming are immune to this. Look at this comments section - it’s people talking about the top 3-5 games on Pc right now, not the 30th entry in the trending FPS section.
Part of the appeal for cheating is doing it where it has impact - in popular games.
Also, I want to insist on one thing : some of the popular games listed are those that are online-only and/or removed the ability to host your own servers (and/or even worse, have microtransactions).
I have zero sympathy for the kind of asshole that gave money to companies engaging in the despicable behaviour cited above. You were warned. You made your own bed, now lie in it !
