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How Cheaters Cheat at Halo 2 92

Posted by Zonk from the bridge-this dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Built on a network that automatically bans gamers that have modified their Xbox, Xbox Live should be nearly cheat-proof. However, it's not, as anyone playing Halo 2 online already knows. How do cheaters on Xbox Live manage to artificially boost their rankings? What is Bridging? What is Standby? This article takes a look at what exactly is done when a cheater cheats, and what exactly Bungie is doing about it. It includes videos and some very funny letters from 13-year-olds that have been baned from matchmaking on Live and are desperately trying to worm their way back onto the system."
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How Cheaters Cheat at Halo 2 More

How Cheaters Cheat at Halo 2

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  • The same way they do it in every game. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, 2006 @05:32PM (#15412758)
    By being better than me. It's the only possible explanation. The bastards.
  • From reading TFA, it seems like all these problems are caused by people who host games themselves. Like, duh?

    • Re:From tfa... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RalphSleigh ( 899929 )
      So, if one persons connection drops, he is the only person who can carry on playing the game? And they wonder why people cheat so much?

      They run the games peer to peer, and wonder why people cheat so much? Surely even using a server to connect the clients, even if its not hosting the game could prevent alot of this

      Someone give these guys a class on network security 101: NEVER TRUST THE CLIENT, EVER, WHOEVER THEY ARE, NO NOT EVEN YOUR MUM.
      • Really. The number of exploits jumps by orders of magnitude anytime you allow the client to be trusted to do anything. Example: Diablo 2's "Open" online play mode, where characters are stored client-side.
        • Well, that's really your fault for expecting Open Play to be like Closed play.

          Now, myself, I have many fond memories of getting a few friends together, giving ourselves 99 levels, and going forth to annihilate. Good times, good times.

      • I know exactly what you mean and I think exactly the same thing.

        I've seen tons of online games like it, and I've seen one, yes, one game where the protocol was documented and very secure. (Documenting the protocol didn't uncover any vulnerability whatsoever).

        Point being, don't give the client a say in anything you don't want it to have a say in. If you don't want them to suddenly jump over there, don't give them commands which give them the leaway to do so. Give them commands like "Move forward a bit at n

        • That sounds a lot like Quake 3's commands. Movement, buttons, and a time stamp were pretty much all that were sent to the server.

          It didn't work. Aimbotters created network proxies (intercept and modify input), OpenGL hacks (move the mouse for you based on what's drawn on the screen), client hooks (load up the Quake 3 executable and cause all sorts of mischief), etc., etc., etc.

          At some point, you have to trust the client, period. In the case you describe, the server trusts that the input sent to it actually
          • Yes but a PC is infinitely more modifyable than a console that has to compare hardware checksums and doesn't run user-defined code. You could intercept the packets of the XBox but you couldn't use OpenGL hacks. You could run a simulation on a separate system that pieces together the gamestate from the traffic and plays the game for you but even that would still have flaws. Since the console controller has a limit on the turn rate your aimbot wouldn't be nearly as effective as a PC aimbot since it couldn't i
      • NEVER TRUST THE CLIENT, EVER, WHOEVER THEY ARE, NO NOT EVEN YOUR MUM.

        That's not exactly true.

        As a mod author, I've dealt with cheating in Quake 3. The actual truth is that you'll have to trust the client at some point or you can't even have a playable game.

        It's at that point of trust that the cheaters exploit things. For example, you have to trust the controller input (or a function of it), or players couldn't even play. You could never stop some d00d from creating a custom controller / television set that
      • There were 298,647 matches played in the last 24 hours. There are 69,159 people online now. How much would running servers for everyone cost? And what do you mean by using servers to connect the clients? Does anyone know how much cheating there was in Halo 1? Since the network code in that game was designed for LAN play, I believe it is less susceptible to cheating. I do know it ends the game if one person is using a modified map while another is using a regular one. Halo 2 tries to minimize the impact of
        • There was virtually no cheating in Halo 1 not because of robust network code but because it didn't support Internet play- virtually all network games were played with people in the same room/house as you, and if you catch someone cheating in that situation you can go force them to stop. I have no idea how much of a problem cheating was on the tunneling programs that let Halo 1 play over a VPN, but generally all Halo 1 games were among players who knew and trusted each other, or who all consented to using a
        • Most PC games manage it fine, through a mixture of official servers, rented servers and clan-run servers.

          If the server can run on a 733Mhz celeron with 64Mb RAM while it's already running a Halo client, then the hardware requirements for running the server must be minimal.
      • They've already taken that class, but also taken high-performance game design 101 (minimize network traffic with client-side prediction) and economics 101 (the studio is not able to maintain the server farm needed to support the Halo 2 Live population).

        • They've already taken that class, but also taken high-performance game design 101 (minimize network traffic with client-side prediction) and economics 101 (the studio is not able to maintain the server farm needed to support the Halo 2 Live population).

          Unfortunatly, they seem to have missed the one on transactions between multiple machines. The part about rolling back to the point all agree on. If they did that, there might be a 'redo hack', but it wouldn't be as easy as pushing a button to do anything

    • Re:From tfa... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by sheetsda ( 230887 )
      Not only that, they aren't evening using any really nasty networking tricks. The article suggests they basically just drop packets at will. In the world of PC games we have (among other things) these nasty things called "aim proxies". Cheater's game connects to another machine under his control which maintains the actual connection to the server and monitors the game state as the traffic passes through. Every time he fires a shot, it changes the outbound traffic of what he was aiming at to say, the head
      • Encrypted packets? I know that may not be feasible in a game that uses 100% of the system performance but with those multi-core next gen consoles it should be feasible to dedicate enough power to encrypting game traffic. The proxy could not read inbound traffic without knowing the console's key (which would probably require some modding to get at) and, more importantly, wouldn't be able to alter the outgoing packets (the console would definitely have to be modded to send the packets unencrypted and then a m
        • Not a bad sceheme but I don't think its fool proof. As with any public key encryption (I'm assuming this because of the words "console's key") if you could MitM the initial key exchange (not an unreasonable assumption given they're already using bridges) you can just have 2 sets of keys in play. One between the console and the proxy, and one between the proxy and the peers or server.

          I was thinking about this a little further this morning, if they're truely using P2P as was said in some other posts then th
          • I'm thinking more of keys embedded in the hardware or software. You could decrypt the traffic from the server but you could neither tamper with it (probably not much of a problem, though) nor influence the traffic that goes towards the server.

            A peer-to-peer system is impossible, desyncs way too easily. Think of this situation: Player A and B both have very little health left and carry a shotgun. They are close together and aiming at each other so the next shot would kill the other player. Both pull the trig
          • Not a bad sceheme but I don't think its fool proof. As with any public key encryption (I'm assuming this because of the words "console's key") if you could MitM the initial key exchange (not an unreasonable assumption given they're already using bridges) you can just have 2 sets of keys in play. One between the console and the proxy, and one between the proxy and the peers or server.

            MITM would be beaten by using a certificate on the client, as would the second setup. Cheating would then require tampering wi
  • I don't play Halo very much, but wouldn't a true hardware bridge modifying the packets going across the wire be the best way not to get caught? The techniques described in the article seem rather amatuer. I would imagine you could do things like modify bullet trajectory to always kill your opponent. Maybe that'll be a project for me this weekend ;)
    • Here's the thing. They don't even need to modify packets. They just download an auto-aim mod to instantly lock on to your head all the way across the map with a sniper rifle that shoots 1000 rounds a second. As much as the cheaters suck, half the blame goes to Bungie for not validating DLC, like 98% of other Xbox games do. Heck, even KotOR validates it's content, and you can't even play that with other people on Live! Standbying is near unavoidable given halo 2's setup (ie, not dedicated servers at all).
      • Standbying is near unavoidable given halo 2's setup (ie, not dedicated servers at all). This makes me hope they are considering dedicated servers for ranked games for Halo 3.

        This really boggles my mind. If I'm paying $50 per annum for Live, I would expect dedicated servers.

        • Look at WoW. People pay significantly more than $50 a year, but the dedicated servers for it have a great deal of difficulty supporting the load. Xbox Live supports many more games. Running servers for all of them would be vastly more expensive.
          • Um, do you seriously believe this? A single shard of an MMO has thousands of people playing on it. A game on Live has, at most, a few dozen. In MMOs, connections must remain persistent for hours at a time. Games on Live last a few minutes. An MMO has to have servers up and waiting at ALL times. Live servers can queue up a new server thread when demand spikes, and scale back the same way.

            Then take into consideration the fact that most console games don't offer much new content after they are released.

            • Um, do you seriously believe this?

              It's quite obvious, surely, that running servers comes money. People should be grateful that any companies provide servers for free, rather than throwing a tantrum when some don't. Given that Microsoft were losing money on the Xbox hardware, it's quite reasonable to expect that they try to make it back some other way. It's not as if it was an exorbitant fee.

              A single shard of an MMO has thousands of people playing on it. A game on Live has, at most, a few dozen.

              But

              • The problem here is that I figured you were smart enough to deduce what my argument was, so I didn't explicitly state it. This was a mistake. You obviously didn't understand my main point.

                All the examples I gave were reasons why a service like Live costs much less to run than an MMO, and why your use of WoW as a benchmark of comparison is bad. Your claim that more games == more servers needed is flawed, for these reasons. When the flaws are exposed, your argument falls apart.

                The first is that you used

                • The problem here is that I figured you were smart enough to deduce what my argument was, so I didn't explicitly state it. This was a mistake. You obviously didn't understand my main point.

                  1) Ad homenin. Attack the point, not the debater.
                  2) I understood, but found ti full of logical fallacies.

                  All the examples I gave were reasons why a service like Live costs much less to run than an MMO

                  3) Strawman attack. I never compared Live to generic MMOs 4) I never claimed Live costs as much as an MMO or even

                  • I wrote:

                    Your claim that more games == more servers needed is flawed

                    You replied:

                    Where exactly did I make that claim? I said that Live supports more than one game, but I didn't say it needs more servers than a single MMO.

                    Let's look at your original post:

                    Look at WoW. People pay significantly more than $50 a year, but the dedicated servers for it have a great deal of difficulty supporting the load. Xbox Live supports many more games. Running servers for all of them would be vastly more expensive.

                    • more games == more servers

                      That's a very blanket statement with no context and no meaning, which I never made. What I did say was:

                      Xbox Live supports many more games.

                      However my next statement was not 'therefore they need more servers than an MMO,' as you have tried to claim. It was in fact:

                      Running servers for all of them would be vastly more expensive.

                      Hmm, nothing there about needing 'more servers,' 'more servers than an MMO,' or 'more servers than WoW.' In fact all I've said is that running

          • Epic gets $50 ONCE for UT / 2k3 / 2k4 players anc they can manage to run dedicated servers
            • But Xbox Live supports many more games, provides other content and helps Microsoft make money back on hardware sold at a loss.
              • each game XBL supports was paid for, that is no excuse if anything there should be better server support as newer games help subsidize older but popular games which sell below the original release price
                • That would only work if the publishers paid Microsoft a fee for making their games Xbox Live capable. And even then, it's still a one-off payment, and not a very big one at that. Games would either have to be made a bit more expensive for having Live or else the developers and publishers, having spent money on adding support for Live, would have to put up with reduced profit margins and hope that extra volume makes up for it.
                  • live would make the connections and aggregate the scores, the game servers would be run by the game publishers just like with PC games.

                    also allow dedicated and non-dedicated user servers but mark them as user server.

                    • live would make the connections and aggregate the scores, the game servers would be run by the game publishers just like with PC games.

                      Then you'd lose the unified feel of Live, the ability to communicate between games and face the possibility of publishers closing servers after a while. You'd quite possibly be looking at multiple user ids being required, making it harder to ban cheats.

                      also allow dedicated and non-dedicated user servers but mark them as user server.

                      We've got user servers already :^

      • Um, maybe it's just me, but I think I see a simple way to end the use of 'standby'. It seems that if the game looses connect to all the other players it would be able to detect that. Oh certainly not instantly, but with in a short time. If that happens it could freeze that player as well. If the standby-er freezes right along with every one else, then there is no advantage to it and one tool goes away. Certainly it doesn't fix everything, but it does help to make the cheat less useful.
        • It does, there are only a few seconds between pressing standby and the person's own Xbox stoping play, but if they end the standby just before it stops them they can do it over and over agin in sucession leting the other players reconnect inbetween, 3 seconds becomes 6, which becomes 9, which becomes 12... Lag will happen so they have to allow for it. This ends up giving the standbyer 3 seconds of play for every 1 everyone else gets. That means they can run 3 times as fast, fire 3 times as many times. Y
    • This whole situation seems rediculous. You pay for XBox Live to get dedicated servers, so WTF are clients doing talking to each other directly?

      I don't have XBL and haven't played with it much, but it certainly looks like it needs a major overhaul.
      • Xboxlive is a way for M$ to suck more money from people by charging them for downloadable content and stuff. Imagine M$ PassPort for video games and you have an idea of why they're doing it. They don't want 3rd party developers making video games that doesn't fit in their system.
      • You don't pay for dedicated servers. You pay for the ability to play online.
        • Paying for the ability to play online is stupid(and the main reason I don't have XBL). I was under the impression that the reason you had to pay to play online games on the XBox was because MS had to pay for it's server network. If all their servers are doing is matching people up to play games then it's quite a scam.

          Most console games get very little from online play, why do people pay for XBL?

          • Paying for the ability to play online is stupid

            Why? Because you have some sort of constitutional right to play online? Because it's not fair for a company to try and make some money? Because you have some magic way of making bandwidth and servers free? Please enlighten us all.

            and the main reason I don't have XB

            You're too cheap to pay $50a year?

            was under the impression that the reason you had to pay to play online games on the XBox was because MS had to pay for it's server network.

            They have

            • "Because you have some magic way of making bandwidth and servers free? Please enlighten us all."

              MS isn't using up any appreciable bandwidth since users host the games. Microsoft may be "perfectly entitled to try and urn a profit[sic]", but it's still a scam because almost all developers would let you to play online for free if Microsoft would allow them to.

              I don't think I'm entitled to anything from MS, I simply won't pay their online tariff.

              • MS isn't using up any appreciable bandwidth since users host the games.

                Matchmaking requires bandwidth, as does transferring messages and downloading updates and new (free) content. Arcade games and new (non-free) content also requires bandwidth, but people pay for that already. I'm guessing trailers and demos are free as well and they certainly use a fair bit of bandwidth.

                Microsoft may be "perfectly entitled to try and urn a profit[sic]"

                It should have been 'turn,' in case you were wondering, rath

                • Matchmaking and IMs don't use any amount of bandwidth that would justify paying for it and new content isn't generally free.

                  The XBoxs are the only consoles you have to pay to play online for; All EA Sports games, Sims, SOCOM, SC:Pandora Tomorrow, Xmen, rise of the imperfects... There are only a handful of pay to play games outside of the XBox world.

                  • Matchmaking and IMs don't use any amount of bandwidth that would justify paying for it

                    It costs money for bandwidth, servers, maintenance and R&D and the gamin division is making a loss, so Microsoft has to make money from somewhere.

                    and new content isn't generally free

                    Sometimes it is. And things like demos and trailers are, IIRC.

                    The XBoxs are the only consoles you have to pay to play online for

                    Online support on other consoles is very poor compared to Live. None of them offer a comparable

        • Interesting.
          So you pay a monthly fee for what is included in the price of other games. For instance, Valve's games on Steam. As much as I dislike Steam, XBOX Live seems a much greater customer ripoff.

          • So you pay a monthly fee

            Actually, it's a yearly fee, equivalent to the price of one game. But that;s a minor point.

            for what is included in the price of other games.

            But this covers more than one game. And is subsidises the free services availble on Live, as well as helping Microsoft make back money on hardware sold at a loss. How exactly do you expect them to make money i they run Live at a loss as well?

            As much as I dislike Steam, XBOX Live seems a much greater customer ripoff.

            In what way? T

        • So basically, you're paying for the privilege of having your computing/network resources sold to others, and getting nothing in return.. It's like paying to be a prostitute! That's a sweet deal. Well, not for the xbox consumer, obviously.

  • Who cares (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SQLz ( 564901 )
    The real question is, who gives a shit?
  • I was wondering [bungie.net] what all those terms meant!

  • Cheaters make it interesting (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember a few months back me and my friends were playing CTF on Relic. We were up against some cheaters who got a flying warthog (the jeep for, for those who don't play). Well, there's nothing like the thrill of grabbing the flag, turning around and seeing a flying warthog right behind you. We ended up tying that game, and let me tell you, that was better than any win would be against non-cheaters.

    (That of coarse isn't the norm. Getting "stand-by"'ed as they call it really sucks, and some cheaters make i

  • I don't understand it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @06:26PM (#15413103) Journal
    First off what kind of ADSL modem comes with a standbye switch?

    If I cut off my internet or slow it down (I know that is possible) then how the fuck does that affect everyone else in the game?

    This could only work if you happen to host the game. In PC multiplayer game the guy hosting it offcourse always has the least lag but surely anyone hosting a game that routinely drops out would very quickly be ranked down?

    Anyway you pay for x-box live but still got to host your own games? Surely for the money MS should be hosting the games so everyone plays on a level playing field?

    So my question is this. A does this only work for the guy hosting the game, B why does bungie not host the game for you C why doesn't bungie drop people who host games on a connection that drops out?

    • Re:I don't understand it (Score:4, Informative)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @06:39PM (#15413169) Journal
      Motorola Surfboard cable modems, for one. There are several others. It is a "security" measure so your super-vulnerable Windows PC isn't open to evil hackers late at night. You punch the button when you leave for any length of time and it suspends the connection.

      Halo 2 is a peer-2-peer game, where one of the people playing is the "host". It varies as to who gets to be the host, but the point is there is no dedicated server other than the one doing authentication and charging your credit card.
    • B) $$$

      In addition to cheaters, it's fun to have to wait 30 seconds for it to find a new houst every time the guy who's hosting decides to quit.

    • Wow, FPSing on player-run servers?

      Come on. PC FPSers have being using dedicated servers for over a *decade* now.

      And what's up with this "if your connection drops out, you can run around and shoot anyone" crap? Even quake 1 had this right in the mid nineties -- if your connection drops out, you don't get to move.

      All in all, it sounds like they made some of the *worst* design choices *ever* in FPS multiplayer. Mindblowing.
      • Playing an online game, your computer communicates with the host and no other players directly. If your connection to the server is fine (in live's case, while hosting, it always is since the server is at localhost), the game will play fine. Introducing lag simply because the game detects others are lagging would be ludicrous.
      • 'if your connection drops out, you don't get to move.'

        Um thats the point. The moment someone lags out in a Quake match someone can come up behind them and get an easy frag. Its exactly the same thing thats going on here only the host is controlling who lags out and who doesnt. The only time everyone lags in a Quake match is if the host is down. Which also happens in Halo. There is no difference its kind of 'mindblowing' that you didnt realise that.

        The only reason this didnt happen in Quake is because there
    • My cheap, crappy cable modem does. Or rather, the cable company's cheap, crappy cable modem does.
    • The article seems very confusing. Some details seem not to work in mine, and it seems, others head. But from reading the article, one technique seems doable: The host runs the connection through the PC and then temporarily blocks the connection to certain players.
  • "...letters from 13-year-olds that have been baned" Ah, the irony!

  • come on people (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KevMar ( 471257 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @06:32PM (#15413132) Homepage Journal
    What these cheaters done understand is that the ranking is there to place you against players of even skill. by ranking up, they get placed against players of better skill. at that point they have to cheat keep the rank.

    I was a average player. I could school all my real life friends, but they didn't have halo. I reached a rank where the matches were even and it was fun. I got a little better by getting the shotgun and hiding in the corner. It worked every time, until I moved up a rank. It never worked in that bracket, the players were better and knew the trick. I was at the loosing end even when i played like normal and eventualy droped back down to where I belonged.

    They have it all wrong, they should drop rank to clean up on the less skiled players. Atleast they run in a circle and you dont have to risk the banhammer.
    • People already do that. You can spot them easily- they're the ones who spawn, throw a grenade at the wall, and kill themselves over and over again, or who just fuck around and get killed instead of pulling their weight. And if they happen to be on your team, they'll drag you down with them in their quest to throw the game and pwn more noobs. It's annoying as fuck, but there's no feasible way to force a player to play at the best of his ability if he doesn't want to, and no way to determine that a string of

  • Ah, the lure of being #1, even if you cheat (Score:3, Interesting)

    by garylian ( 870843 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:00PM (#15413279)
    The article sums itself up by saying that they don't understand why people would cheat and artificially inflate their rating.

    Duh! To be at the top!

    How many times do you see on gaming forums some clown posting "FIRST!" or "First Page!", like it matters. Just about every Blizzard post on their forums has that stupidity going on, and you even see it happening on non-competition sites like the forums for Order of the Stick [giantitp.com] webcomic.

    It's all about having bragging rights, or as I like to call it, "showing off the size of your e-penis".

    It's almost homo-erotic at this point. (Not that there is anything wrong with being gay, btw.) Before the computer game evolution, guys usually tried to have bragging rights in some sport, and a lot of the hot "cheerleader" type chicks dug the guy with the letterman jacket. The guys tended to get buff, be athletic, and do something worthy of praise. (They also tended to be morons, but that's besides the point.) They competed with each other to gain the attention of women, mostly.

    Now, we have the same behavior going on, but with computer gamers. They have to be the best, be the coolest, etc. Except, there aren't a lot of chicks out there that will drool all over them. What they get is other guys wishing to be like them, instead of chicks wanting to be with them. There isn't a big call from girls to date the guy with a high Halo2 ranking, but the H.S. quarterback still gets a hot chick more often than not.

    I don't know about you, but when I was in H.S. or college, I didn't want the adulation of other guys. I wanted to be noticed by chicks. But hey, that was just me.

  • A more complete list of cheating techniques (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, 2006 @07:03PM (#15413298)
    The linked article only talks about bridging+standby, which is one of the oldest and easiest to execute forms of cheating. It's also rather lacking on the technical side. Here's a quick rundown of what I know:

    === Network manipulation ===
    Bridging
    One player on a team sets up their router/firewall so that their xbox can only communicate with bungie, XboxLive, and a specific other player on the team. This results in that other player being selected as the game server for every match.

    Standby
    The bridged host can interrupt network traffic to some or all players in the game. Because they're the server, their game keeps running for several seconds while everyone else gets the "standby, reconnecting to game" screen.

    Lagging Out
    The bridged host selectively manipulates network traffic to players in the game and observes the on-screen network quality indicator. After isolating the IP address of a player on the other team, they block network traffic to that player, causing them to "lag out" of the game. After reducing the other team to one or two players they're pretty much guaranteed a win.

    Team Lagging
    Same as lagging out, but instead of blocking traffic, just increase network latency to players on the opposing team. Not as effective as other mechanisms but VERY hard for Bungie to spot.
    === Game manipulation ===
    Mods
    The bridged host has map files are modified to give them an advantage. Examples:
    spawnmods: player start points are modified to make the spawning player defenseless or unable to move.
    weapon mods: auto-aim, rapid fire, increased damage, changed projectile type
    other: vehicles where there shouldn't be, running faster than normal, jumping higher than normal

    Superbouncing
    Makes it possible to reach extremely high areas in certain maps. Caused by a bug in the physics engine.
    === Ranking manipulation ===
    Boosting
    a group of dishonest player teams with an otherwise-honest and/or unskilled player. The dishonest players carry the match, but the other player still gets the ranking benefit.

    De-ranking
    A group of skilled players intentionally throws matches to decrease their rank. This results in matching against lesser skilled players, and is often used for boosting.
    • Team Lagging
      Same as lagging out, but instead of blocking traffic, just increase network latency to players on the opposing team. Not as effective as other mechanisms but VERY hard for Bungie to spot.

      Yes, because calculating the average latency for the team the host is playing for (minus the host player, since he is unique) and comparing it with the average latency for the other team is really difficult and couldn't be automated at all. Throw in some correlation calculations and you could get a pretty dar

      • Yes, and there couldn't be any explanation of why the average ping of one team is slightly lower than that of the other team, could there?

        Like say, you are on a team with other guys from your high school and one of you is hosting, and the other team are from further away?

  • Cheating Feedback (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 )
    The article mentions users can report cheating with feedback. Probably some kinds of cheating are difficult to detect, and some are not technological cheats. When someone is reported as being a cheater, that should give them a significant probability (10%? 20%?) of Matchmaking placing them in a game filled only with other cheaters. That keeps them out of the way for a little while and gives them a learning experience. If they come out worse... repeated reports of cheating should increase the probability
    • You know how often really good people are accused of using aimbots? Just reporting someone as cheater should not trigger anything but an investigation, which should have to prove guilt. If cheating cannot be proven, then no penalties (like being forced to play with other "cheaters") should be applied. "In dubio pro reo".
    • "When someone is reported as being a cheater, that should give them a significant probability (10%? 20%?) of Matchmaking placing them in a game filled only with other cheaters. That keeps them out of the way for a little while..."

      So obviously another way to cheat is to spoof your IP/MAC address a few times and report some other innocent schmuck. I suppose this just reminds us of why we and our PCs will never be secure: whatever the human mind can invent, another human mind can circumvent.

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