One of the worst possible things that can occur to a player, especially in a shooting game, is to get killed by a hacker. Regardless of the hours invested or skill level attained, hackers use third-party applications to bend the game’s rules in their favor and “win” firefights. KRAFTON, the developers of the highly-popular PUBG Battlegrounds, are taking what some would consider extreme counter-measures to combat the issue in their game.
PUBG Hacking Problem
According to a recent Steam post, the developers outline two main sources of hackers in the game, including:
1. Hijacked accounts.
2. Accounts that exploit the Survival Mastery Level system.
The devs state,
approximately 85% of the accounts permanently banned within the ranked player base were created prior to PUBG’s transition to a free-to-play model in January 2022.
They go on to state,
(it) implies that it is highly probable that cheaters obtained other players’ accounts and started using illegal software on those acquired accounts.
They go on to explain that certain players use third-party software to exploit the Survival Mastery Level system by using a combination of the workshop and macros.
PUBG A.I. Solution
According to KRAFTON, the team there was able to build a machine-learning model that is capable of detecting both hackers and exploiters more easily, increasing the detection rate of both instances. Machine learning is a type of AI that uses mathematical models and algorithms to detect patterns in behavior. In this case, KRAFTON trained the model to detect cheating and exploiting.
The implications of such a system being developed internally for a specific game may spell doom for third-party vendors profiting off exploits and hacks if other developers are able to implement a similar system in their games.
Hacking and cheating have been a major problem for some game developers. Notoriously, Titanfall 2 was almost completely ruined by continuous DDoS attacks in 2021, with other developers spending large portions of their budget combating hacking efforts.
Learn more from the official Steam PUBG Battlegrounds post.
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