ETPro hitboxes, lag or prone?

[alpn]

In European ET community, we've always had a word for 'netlamer' which means other one gets advantage from high ping or net settings. However, I believe this is coming more and more closer. People have started to claim that it is harder to hit one with high ping. Lately, there was a ''exiting'' 3on3 match, where guy who had stable 300 ms ping shot all one of the best team in Europe (old dsky.et). The guy himself is from Mauritius, so 300 ms ping is pretty normal and not tweaked at all (after traceroute).

I would like to ETPro team to view this guy's demos (Mu.Madscientist) and give their opinion what is going on. Demos can be downloaded below, they are from his pov. Is it hitboxes, lag, pure skill or aimbot? It is kinda suspicious that a guy who nobody ever heard gets one of the best teams down. The suspicious part starts when this guy goes to prone.

The match was played on Mu server which has etpro 3.1.9

You may download demos here as ZIP file

Another thing I would like to remember, is about prone.

Here is a demo where you can see prone hitboxes at times. 3th and 5th shots misses somehow, I was worried if it is only spread, but the guy is pretty close and spread cannot be that big.

Thanks for your great support,

[*BiO*Tron]

I've only watched the first half of the first supplydepot demo so far but couldn't see anything suspicious. I guess you are referring to a certain situation. Could you please say which demo and at which time it happens? Btw, Madscientist isnt't completely unknown at least to me. I remember I saw him playing on Efterlyst already a year ago or so.

Concerning the prone demo:
It was done by SoL and me and I must correct alpn: it's "only" the 5th shot which misses. In order to see it, you have to start hitting the "4" key on the numeric keypad as soon as the loading screen is over and you are in-game (even if the screen is still frozen), until you reach 0.1x speed. We'll do another demo which makes it easier to see what happens.

I had planned to do this kind of demo since months because I always felt that there was still something wrong with prone. Many of you probably know that impression when you aim right at the center of a player but don't score a single hit, only to realize an instance later that he just went prone. That's exactly what you can see happen in this demo. However, I don't understand why the 6th shot is a hit again. I already gave it to zinx and he said he'd look into it.

As it looks to me now, those players who constantly go prone in duels are exploiting a bug in the game (which is a somewhat more objective statement than just saying "prone is lame" ). Which makes it necessary to do something about it until it is fixed.

[alpn]

Concerning the prone demo:
It was done by SoL and me and I must correct alpn: it's "only" the 5th shot which misses. In order to see it, you have to start hitting the "4" key on the numeric keypad as soon as the loading screen is over and you are in-game (even if the screen is still frozen), until you reach 0.1x speed. We'll do another demo which makes it easier to see what happens.

You can do also /demo demo; timescale 0.1 . Demo will start automatically with 0.1 timescale =)

[KingJackaL]

Yeah, have watched all the demos. I don't see anything suspicious except 1 of his kills on radar. But that's well within margin of error . He was probably just 'in the zone' and they weren't .

As to the prone1 demo - that's very very interesting. And you really do have to crank the speed down to see what's happening. It appears that while he's standing you hit him. And near the end of the prone anim you hit him (crouch hitbox IIRC?), but that at the moment where he starts the prone anim (and looks like a frog, hehe ), you can't hit him. Doubt it was spread.

[edit] He makes extreme use of prone in duels - quite often hitting prone at the same time as +attack (even when that means he prones out of view of being able to hit them, or when it turns out there isn't an enemy there). It's not a bind though - on rare occasions he doesn't prone . So he's obviously got a Shoot-and-prone habit worked in pretty well, which probably screwed with the other teams' ability to hit him (as proners are more difficult to hit).

[alpn]

Quoting kotkis from divine:

Also in Supplydepot round2 at 8:20 when they are attacking he starts tracking theeta through wall and shoots him without even seeing him. This and the constat prone and 100% accuracy while lying down makes it quite suspicious but I don't think he was cheating.

--

Take a look at it. And seems like zinx replied on irc on prone 'bug'

Code: Select all

17&#58;58 <@zinx> prone bug&#58; D&L
18&#58;04 <@zinx> at least in 3.1.11, which i don't think has fixed it &#58;/
18&#58;07 <+desaster> D&L?
18&#58;07 <@zinx> deception and lies
18&#58;07 <@zinx> the bug doesn't exist
18&#58;08 <+desaster> you mean http&#58;//www.alpn.net/prone1.dm_83 ?
18&#58;08 <@zinx> probably
18&#58;08 <@zinx> i hacked it to draw the antilag bbox between frames at various delays
18&#58;09 <@zinx> stand -> crouch -> prone

[*BiO*Tron]

Yes, I saw his reply, too. I don't claim that I know WHY it happens, but it definitely DOES happen.

Here are a couple more demos which prove it (all to be watched with timescale 0.1).


First of all, a demo which shows that spread can't be the reason:
Demo 1 (12 consecutive shots which all hit)


Next, two demos which show the buggy behaviour:
Demo 2 (in this demo, the 5th and all consecutive shots miss, although with timescale 0.1 you can see absolutely clearly that the crosshair is still fully on the animation for the 5th shot)

Demo 3 (this demo shows the same weird behaviour as the initial demo, i.e. the 4th shot misses but the 5th shot hits again)


However, during our tests we found that it doesn't happen EVERY time. For example, look at this demo:
Demo 4

In the following demo, you can see that the new headbox code seems to be effective: (server uses b_realhead 1)
Demo 5

The share of demos which show the buggy behaviour seems to be about 50%. I got the impression that whether the bug occurs or not depends on the "synching" between the gun and the proner, i.e. when does the gun fire compared to the animation phase.

Thanks to SoL for helping with the demos and for hosting them.

[c0l0n]

after watching those demos, my opinion is that it is a very good, and very smart player who is cleverly hiding the fact that he is hacking. His proning shooting is insane, and the shooting of theeta through a wall is just a little suspect. Very cleverly done, congrats.

[jinx]

You can do also /demo demo; timescale 0.1 . Demo will start automatically with 0.1 timescale =)

Not if you have:

b_autotimescale 1
b_autotimescaleweapons 1

in this case, all that happens is it goes .1 timescale immediately when the demo starts and just as quickly goes back up to 1 :p Basically, pressing 4 on the num_pad is a universal solution.

About the demo...he moved like a nub, he played (other than shooting) like a nub. They owned one of (if not) the best 3v3 teams in the world and they didn't even have voice comm..yeah a little suspicious. His lag behind shooting was incredible

[KingJackaL]

heh, had another look - this time I bothered to do a shownormals.

And yeah, there are a few segments of 'weird' play which initially made no sense that make total sense when you can see where the enemies are. The one mentioned above I didn't notice at first - but yeah, he walks - about the only time he ever does that, then just goes for the kill on somebody he couldn't see (though to be fair, theeta is audible). There was an earlier segment of play after they'd blown the front bunker door, and he was a med pushing up onto the flat plateau just beneath the caves entrance where he did some extremely odd shooting/proning for apparently no reason - the reason becomes apparent with shownormals. (@ around 11:15-11:00)

Still, it's a bit marginal. Hard to tell because he doesn't trace through walls, he isn't using any lock-to-head excessively, and he does have a moderate to high base level of skill (though his strafing could do with some work ;o).

Shame you can't challenge him to a LAN tourney and see for real huh?

[Rivazza]

heh, had another look - this time I bothered to do a shownormals.

And yeah, there are a few segments of 'weird' play which initially made no sense that make total sense when you can see where the enemies are. The one mentioned above I didn't notice at first - but yeah, he walks - about the only time he ever does that, then just goes for the kill on somebody he couldn't see or hear. There was an earlier segment of play after they'd blown the front bunker door, and he was a med pushing up onto the flat plateau just beneath the caves entrance where he did some extremely odd shooting/proning for apparently no reason - the reason becomes apparent with shownormals.

Still, it's a bit marginal. Hard to tell because he doesn't trace through walls, he isn't using any lock-to-head excessively, and he does have a moderate to high base level of skill (though his strafing could do with some work ;o).

Shame you can't challenge him to a LAN tourney and see for real huh?

From the past, we only saw cheaters who were dumb and incohorent. Maybe he is just plain smart and knows how to "trick" other people into believing that he isnt cheating.

Sometimes (I dont want to excuse anyone) when you see the enemy with shownormals 1; madscientist moved his crosshair aside from the place where the enemies are. Like moving something away from the place where the enemies are to really focus on them. Hard to explain but I`m to lazy atm to pull off some screenshots.

[KingJackaL]

From the past, we only saw cheaters who were dumb and incohorent. Maybe he is just plain smart and knows how to "trick" other people into believing that he isnt cheating.

Yeah, it's the cheaters that already have a lot of skill and use the cheats to get that X-factor that are the scarey ones. In all the cases of cheats that I've busted (both in my league seasons and on public servers), the person cheating has had a lower level of skill than myself. Which has made determining whether what they're doing is 'natural' quite easy. They were all blatant though - tracing through walls, looking at things miles away that were hidden, and in the public server cases (which tend to be even more blatant) also getting huge numbers of headshots and having obviously 'snapping' aim.

If somebody as good as me was using a cheat, it'd be difficult (for me) to detect. If somebody significantly better than me was using a cheat, it'd be next to impossible (for me) to detect without the level of constant vigilance required in order to be there to see the moment when they slip up and it becomes more obvious. And that level of vigilance really only picks up in the finals matches of leagues.

[gotenks]

the most obvious sign of a wallhacker, that even some of the better players will do from time to time, is shooting at walls... when i tested a cheat out once i couldn't help but shoot at a couple walls... the people look like they're right infront of you (even though there's a wall there) it's the cheats that show people through walls looking "different" then ones not behind walls that make that harder, as it's easier for the cheater to tell if they're behind a wall
btw i haven't seen the demos yet so i'm not making a judgement call... not on my comp... on a rented laptop

[ouroboro]

/shrug. i didn't see any cheating. i saw a guy who was on par with his opponents, with perhaps a better gun than them. as for the proning, isn't that one of the standard "d00ling stratz" among EU clans these days? seems to be, judging by the demos i've watched.

1) replace mobile MG with Venom = no more need for prone.
2) remove prone.

skillbased d00ling - restored to it's RTCW glory.

[jinx]

I would rather see a prone delay (which would be realistic, you have to lay down and set up) or no firing while proning with anything but the mobile. It isn't a problem to me, I've never had a lot of trouble with proners, but apparently there is a problem. I like to prone to take cover while reloading.

[UNiXPunK]

I would rather see a prone delay (which would be realistic, you have to lay down and set up)

yes, i think something like this would be the best. not being able to shot while going prone or back (like when u r moving when proning). this would be smart if it would be in a new etpro version