Looks like it’s easy after all. All these engine developers must be idiots, not thinking of such easy solutions

I've been doing game development for over a decade. Game development isn't easy, but doing server side control of the game isn't any more hard than any other part of game development. If you have the skills to make a game, you have the skills to make cheating a non-issue.

And that especially applies for the AAA game studies putting out the majority of the FPS games which are most hard to do server side authority.

You can’t just raytrace your way into a reliable visibility check.

You can't just expect that a visibility check/complicated visibility check is needed in every game. Not every game is an FPS.

Almost all RTS and 2D fighter games for instance would not need complicated visibility checks, as they tend to be played on a 2D plane, which makes it easy to figure out if something is in sight of another thing, if they need to do that at all.

I've played Speed Runners quite a bit. Zero visibility checking is needed for that game despite it being highly competitive. All the server needs is your inputs, and it handles all the movement, hits, speed ups, etc all on it's own. Or at leas they could if they programmed it right.

Another example, Zomboid, an indie game, already has visibility built into the core of the game. It does everything I am talking about doing. They have zero need for any kind of anticheat.

Rocket league: No need for any visibility checks. Everyone already can see everyone.

League of legends: All visibility logic is already built into the core of the game.

Super Smash Brothers: No visibility mechanics at all

/u/Mika is talking about Elden Ring, and I'd guess that visibility is not a big part of that game if at all, given it's all medieval combat. The server can consume player input and tell the clients what's going on, no need for any complicated logic.

Not all games are FPS

Meanwhile on GTAOnline, cheaters can summon explosions on your position, teleport you around, spawn busses over your head, lock you in a prison cage, summon literal money bags, all because the server is for some stupid reason at a AAA production, not the authority.

Its less so that it is or isn't simple.

A lot of this stuff actually is fairly straightforward.

It is moreso that a lot of people are sophomoric idiots, wise fools, people who don't realize that they are just around the peak of Mt Dunning Kruger, people who do not realize the extent of what they do not know, what can go wrong.

Either that, or their boss/manager is there.

A lot of these things are obvious and well known to people with moderate levels of actual technical experience... where they actually pop up and become relevant.

Buuuuttttt... not everybody actually experiences, in significant detail, that kind of problem actually popping up, depending on exactly what that prior experience is. Also, the nature of many many game studios is that those people with moderate or more experience are basically treated as contractors and shuffled around, and as a result of this, they just do malicious compliance, they do exactly what they are told.

Because either the managers are egomaniacs, unwilling or unable to actually listen to good advice... and/or the entire team generally develops a toxic positive hugbox culture, that hand waves away valid and legit problems, and calls you an asshole for being persistent about bringing them up.

You can infact raytrace your way into reliable and robust and efficient visibility culling that even works with servers/multiplayer environment. Many succesful games and engines do exactly that.

Its just that you have to be quite clever and nail this down pretty early on in the dev cycle, otherwise, technical debt and timeline problems compound geometrically.

And, what make line on stock market go up != what make line fly around smart and clever in video game.