AntiCheat versus NoCheatPlus

Discussion in 'Bukkit Discussion' started by np98765, Sep 3, 2012.

?

Which plugin are you currently using?

  1. AntiCheat

    43.5%
  2. NoCheatPlus

    56.5%
  3. Neither

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
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  1. Offline

    np98765

    Hello,

    I've been trying to decide if I should switch to AntiCheat. I've been reading over the features and the comments, and it really is quite hard to decide.

    I've been getting spammed with false positives from NoCheatPlus. It seems like every user is eating food too fast, every user is falsely knocking back.


    I've started comparing the features -- Strictly the features -- And so far, this is what I've come up with (features that the other one does not have):

    AntiCheat:
    - X-ray statisics
    - Autobuild (is this included in Insta-place?)

    NoCheatPlus:
    - Cheating the server time
    - Safe-respawn exploit (not entirely sure what this is)
    - Projectile throwing
    - AutoSign
    - Login throttler
    - Filter colors from chat messages (not too important for many of us, as other plugins do this)
    - Attacking too many times per second
    - Food saturation
    - Fake critical hits
    - Hitting while guarding
    - Rei's Minimap, Minecraft Automap, and Smart Moving
    - Only running /op from the console

    This surprises me -- I'd have thought that they would cover about the same range of hacks.

    I noticed that the title for the AntiCheat features list is "Features include are but not limited to" (switch the 'and' and 'but'?). My guess is that the list of AntiCheat hasn't been updated recently; maybe some of these are covered, but aren't described in the feature list.


    I'd like to hear some opinions. Do you use AntiCheat or NoCheatPlus? Why? How has your experience been? Lots of false positives? (Yes, I understand that everyone's opinions are going to be different, but I'm still curious)

    Maybe h31ix could shed some light about the range of features covered above. I'm not asking which one is better (I did read the FAQ), I'm asking about the cheats that it covers. There might be something in the NCP list that AntiCheat covers, it just wasn't mentioned.

    ~NP98765
     
    hawkfalcon likes this.
  2. Offline

    Omnitv

    I prefer none. :3
     
  3. Offline

    np98765

    -_- ​
     
    kahlilnc and hawkfalcon like this.
  4. Offline

    hawkfalcon

    NC+, havent used it, but NC was perfect for me:3
     
    PapiDimmi and np98765 like this.
  5. Offline

    Gravity

    Well, here's the deal.

    First off, clearly I think AntiCheat is a better solution, or I wouldn't be making it.

    Now that's out of the way, here's my revised list, including opinion and sarcasm of course:

    AntiCheat:
    - X-ray statisics
    - Spy/Vanish system.
    - Easy-to view reports and alerts (SANE, without use of magic numbers or other silly stuff)
    - Auto-updating to keep everything working at all times.
    - Little to no configuration necessary.
    - A much, much easier API for developers to use.
    - Autobuild

    NoCheatPlus:
    - Cheating the server time (we have a timer check)
    - Safe-respawn exploit ??? (also not sure what this is, what the hell is this)
    - Projectile throwing
    - AutoSign
    - Login throttler (we have a login throttler)
    - Filter colors from chat messages (can't really classify this as a cheat... "oh god, not colors, anything but colors")
    - Attacking too many times per second
    - Food saturation
    - Fake critical hits (we block this too)
    - Hitting while guarding
    - Rei's Minimap, Minecraft Automap, and Smart Moving (blocked with AntiCheat)
    - Only running /op from the console (also can't classify this as a cheat. If your mods are idiots, your mods are idiots, this ain't a server security system)

    Anyway, you are dealing with two different development styles from two different developers. I don't classify AntiCheat as a server "security" plugin, because it's not, and therefor things like Op only from console which has been suggested hundreds of times is not implemented because opping someone is something you can protect against: just don't op idiots. Cheating and hacking on the other hand, you cannot fight against without an anti-cheat plugin, and that's what this is for.

    My whooleeee point of making AntiCheat was to make server security simple, very, very simple, and yet powerful at the same time. Even when Evenprime was developing NoCheat I constantly got annoyed at all the random numbers popping up everywhere and reports that were about as concise as the configuration. But, of course, it was the only plugin of it's kind at that point, and Evenprime was doing fantastic, amazing work on it, I had a lot of respect for what he was doing. It was only at the point where that stopped that I decided to step in and do a little something :p

    In any case, I wanted simple, and I wanted a new system. Not to fork code where I had no idea what half of it did, because I knew that would cause issues. Of course, I did take the harder route; I expected NoCheatPlus to always be ahead of me, but I knew what I wanted, and I knew other people wanted it too, so that's what I did. At this point, AntiCheat has a grand total of 90,125 downloads, and an average of 24,250 downloads per month, according to Curse. By the same statistics, NoCheatPlus has a grand total of 87,514 downloads, and an average of 9,603 downloads per month. By statistics on MCStats.org, AntiCheat has been started on 78,599 unique servers, and has 12,756 unique servers reporting per week. NoCheatPlus has been started on 5,788 unique servers, and has 4,911 unique servers reporting in per week.

    Now, I'm sure you didn't come here to listen to me read off statistics to you because that doesn't make the plugin any better, but what I find personally incredible is that AntiCheat has overcome this immense barrier between old and new, and has managed to make it's way into more servers than something that started with a very concrete, well-known base. I have nothing against NoCheatPlus' developers, but with something that has had as much drama as NoCheatPlus has had, which seems to have subsided but resulted in the plugin being discontinued, recontinued, and then the development team grow to bigger than that of the Bukkit team itself, which I have said before simply cannot be a good idea.

    ANYWAY! That's about all I've got, tl;dr is I love simplicity and power, and that's what I'm trying to do with AntiCheat. This may have seemed like a rant or like the two of us have some bad blood between us, but that's really not true, the fact is I love what I'm doing right now, I really really enjoy interacting with the community and seeing this thing be built up. I'm dedicated to this like nothing else, and I really am ready to make it better; we're not done by any stretch of the imagination, there's still catching up and improvement to be done. Since you asked me to shed some light on the situation, there's my opinion, and I'll let others have their turn.
     
  6. Offline

    np98765

    Ah, good! Nice to hear some facts. :)

    Also, remember that I was just listing off from what I saw -- I don't necessarily need some of that stuff, like color filtering or console-only op. I literally took the two lists, crossed off the similar ones, and typed the unique ones. :3

    Wow, I didn't know that you had surpassed NCP in terms of all those statistics you rattled off. :)

    I'll definitely be trying out AntiCheat when I get a free moment. Hopefully not as many false positives as NCP...

    I'm about to head out, so I guess I have to cut this short. One last thing:

    [Feature Request]
    After this big food bug that I've been reading so much about, could you maybe block AutoSign? I underlined it for a reason. :p
     
    PapiDimmi and hawkfalcon like this.
  7. Offline

    Gravity

    Yes sir, I'll do that.
     
    np98765 likes this.
  8. Offline

    Sayshal

    I like NC+ because I have a lot of respect of EvenPrime.. :3

    Also, I've never had issues that made me have to switch to something else.
     
  9. Offline

    Gravity

    I actually just edited my post to make that a bit more clear. I think my original made it look like I disliked NoCheat and Evenprime, which is absolutely untrue. My server was among the hundreds of thousands that loved and used the work he did on a daily basis, and I can only hope that AntiCheat will rise to the level of "perfection" that NoCheat had.
     
    hawkfalcon likes this.
  10. Offline

    Sayshal

    I didn't read your post. I respect all developers and their products. I just have the ones I've always used.
     
  11. Offline

    Gravity

    That correction to my original post actually was not directed at you at all, just reading yours made me realize something about mine :) - I'm not challenging your choice of plugins, just correcting myself on a good point you made
     
    diannetea likes this.
  12. Offline

    Zmolahah

    Uh seems like I'm endlessly switching plugins lol, I used no cheat for so long.. then no cheat +.. Then I lost it so I used anti cheat then I found it so I Used no cheat+ now I read this and I want to use anti cheat, Not that I notice any difference.. No cheat + used to spam me to death until I turned it off in the config
     
  13. Offline

    Gunnerrrrr

    h31ix I cannot stress this enough, can you PRETTY PLEASE add setting checks for anticheat?
    And blocking /op would be nice :3 In case another exploit like session stealer is found >.<
     
  14. Offline

    Gravity

    That's already been on my list for the new re-write or update or whatever, but I can't just leave what I have now and go start working on that, I need to get the current version into a stable state and then work on that. So, it's coming, but not right now.
    I have plugins that I've made to block anything like that happening, specifically IPSecurity. However, I do not believe it's something that belongs in AntiCheat.
     
  15. Offline

    Gunnerrrrr

    Alright good to know :D
     
  16. Offline

    EliteCreeper

    I go with NoCheatPlus, works better. I used to get tons of glitches with it, but then I updated it then I rarely has some issues.
     
  17. Offline

    MyPictures


    NoCheatPlus is the better solution for be because its based on the design idea of Evenprime, its basicly better to you if you already have experience with NoCheat.

    Here I made some tests with Craftbukkit 2366:

    AntiCheat (1.3.6):
    - X-ray statisics (Working on that)
    - Spy/Vanish system. (Better to use a other plugin for this like Essentials or VanishNoPacket)
    - Easy-to view reports and alerts. (Each report style has is + and - sites.)
    - Auto-updating to keep everything working at all times. (We had that also but too much traffic ;P)
    - ACs nofall check is a bit better (blocks better/detects more) then the nofall check from NC+.
    - Little to no configuration necessary. (Thats true but a simple config does also have negative sites)
    - A much, much easier API for developers to use. (We have that also now in 3.7)
    - Autobuild (NC+ 3.7 blocks that also)
    - And more...

    NoCheatPlus (3.7.2):
    - Huge configuration file that lets you config nearly everything, you can even fix small issues that way (Taken over from Evenprime)
    - WrongBlock check to improve blocking of FastBreak/Instantmine (Try survival nuker 1 time with AntiCheat and an other with NoCheat+, you will see a big difference)
    - Waterwalk (NoCheat+ blocks better for me then AC)
    - Eating (Also a big difference how NC+ and AC detect that)
    - Advance reports and alerts
    - Per world configs (each world can have there own configs)
    - Can block some mods by sending special motd to the clients (Zombes modspack, Rei's Minimap, ...)
    - Possibility to disable metrics in config if not wanted ;P
    - Does also work without a permissions plugin (OP perms)
    - And more..


    Op from console: NeatMonster added that to protect a bit from the session stealer bug, the current NC+ still has it but its disabled by default. Its actually no longer needed since the Auth servers of Minecraft got fixed and the session stealer hack is no longer possible now.

    Downloads: Yea the main reason why AntiCheat got more downloads on dev.bukkit is that NoCheatPlus was inactive for quite a while. Last NC+ RC was on May 14, 2012 and NeatMonster had also some issues IRL which caused the project to get discontinued. In that "inactive" time asofold made DeadNoCheatPlus which was just a hotfix to make NC+ work with 1.3, later on Neat came back on again and the rest was done by the time... Now asofold has taken lead for the project, NeatMonster will be inactive for quite a long time now.
    We had many download clicks on Jenkins but that doesn't count for bukkit... also NC+ got metrics in a late development state (Neat gave up his website idea and added metrics). So thats the main reasons why we have less download clicks on dev.bukkit then AntiCheat.
    If you make statistics on dev.bukkit download then NoCheat still beats us 2 together with 488,094 Downloads :D

    Team: Only NeatMonster and asofold are developing NC+ the other peoples are just Maintainer, Testers, Helpers, Ticket Managers, ... Maybe you should add some helpers also H31ix? Then your don't have to disable commentary feature on the AntiCheat dev page ;P. And for now only asofold is going to develop NC+ until NeatMonster comes back, so we actually are also developing on the "EGO" way.

    Drama: NC+ had a lot of drama yea. You need a quiet place to code with java, if you miss that then drama will brake out (like it happened for NC+). I and asofold tried everything to help NeatMonster with his project.


    Back to world: As h31ix said, there is no bad blood between AntiCheat and NoCheatPlus. Each group develops with a different style and you have to choose what you like more. Best solution is to get both plugins and test out witch one suites you more. Both developer sites have done a AWESOME job with those projects and every server admin should be thankful to use them for free!

    So and that's basically the story of NC+ for this comparation versus :) Just to be sure: NO THERE IS NO FIGHT BETWEEN ANTICHEAT and NOCHEATPLUS!

    I actually already saw that coming, each site will make his plugin look better which is human of course :). But its still interesting to compare both plugins about there up and down sites.
     
    kahlilnc likes this.
  18. Offline

    FurmigaHumana

    In my opnion, neither of them are really stable to 1.3.2 yet, I think NoCheatPlus uses a litle bit more of ram, because my server crashes by out of memory with him [I made a simple modification to clear the player data when he left, not good but helps], I already seen a lot of servers that use BOTH, idk why, but they do.
     
  19. Offline

    Gravity

    I think the original intent of the comparison lists was to compare features; you seem cross things off my list just because there is some negative aspect of it in your opinion, and then include similar things in your list because it's "different". Notice that when I edited the original list posted I only did it for things that we had as well, not we had better or we had different. For instance, why'd you cross the alerts bullet off mine because "Each report style has its + and -" if you were only going to add it on yours? I mean, we could sit here all day and cross things off eachothers list and add it to ours citing that our way of doing it is better, but I don't really think that's a great course of action. Anyway, here's a few of points for you..
    • Personally, I wouldn't consider an API that looks like this very simple. Whereas in AntiCheat I'm all about simplicity (even for the developers) and it's literally just AntiCheatAPI.exemptPlayer(player, CheckType.FLY);
    • AntiCheat also sends MOTDs to the client to disable them.
    • There's also per-world toggles in the AC config.
    • Metrics has a global toggle to turn it off, so that's irrelevant; all plugins using it have that system.
    • AntiCheat also works without a permissions plugin, it's only if you want fine-grained permissions per-person that you would want to have it. Why anyone would want to configure that stuff without permissions (in a config or something) I'm not really sure.
    • I wouldn't even bother including 'Hidden secerets' if you're not going to explain what that is. Why an Anti-Cheating plugin would have hidden features I'm also not really sure, unless you meant to say something like 'And more', in which case you should probably add those to the list itself.
    As far as the rest goes, you're right on most of it, however...

    Concerning downloads: we've also had clicks on Jenkins but those weren't included in the count, so there would be no reason for you to count them. Also, you mentioned that Metrics were added later into development of NC+ than it was in AC, which is true, but then used that as an explanation for why there are less BukkitDev downloads. Of course, NC+ is lower on the metrics list due to the fact that it was implemented later, but it's still been there for over a week, and so when I say AntiCheat has 12,756 weekly servers reporting and NC+ has 4,911, that's not affected by longevity. NoCheat (original), of course, beats us both on BukkitDev, but that's neither here nor there.

    I had indeed noticed that recently more people were removed from the NC+ development team (for reasons I don't know), but there were... what, 5-6 or more people added in a single day or a couple of days sporadically as maintainers, and they stayed that way until being removed recently. If they were ticket managers or helpers I don't know why they wouldn't have had that rank or would have been recently removed from the team. I've continuously had people help with development in the past, and they continue to do so through pull requests and other various tasks.

    And lastly the fact that I closed the comments section does not have anything to do with me not having 'help', it was because people didn't read the fact that they were supposed to report bugs on the bugtracker (like any sane developer would request), and probably never will. I've neither silenced people's opinions nor ignored their issues, I've only directed them to better outlets in which they can properly let me know about it, namely the forum thread and the bugtracker respectively.
     
    diannetea, tanveergt5 and MyPictures like this.
  20. Offline

    MyPictures

    Well first I took your list do check everything over and then it ended like being a to do list, however dont take it serious I anyways fail at such blunders and lose the target. At least we have a small todo list, thank you.

    And yea we can actually play that game forever. AntiCheat and NC+ actually do the same thing but they are sooo diffrent on there build style so you actually cant really compare them.


    • Yea I saw that on your page but I actually meant if you can also have different configs for each world and not disable. But actually that makes not really big scene for the current config style of AntiCheat, that may will be needed if you finish your idea of the new config backend? idk
    • Everyone's own opinion. However its a very small thing so we shouldn't care actually.
    • When I tested AntiCheat for some reason it also blocked me when I was I OP, that's actually a really strange thing. Permissions hover worked as they should work just if you run without any permissions plugin it also checks OPs. Thats why I added this point.
    • Yea I actually meant: and more...
    About the Downloads: Yea I agree with that and as you said, downloads does not mean that a plugin actually is "better", it just means that its more popular. However you have the lead on metrics and dev.bukkit on place 13 and we have 15, lets see how it develops over time :eek:.
    About the team: Yea that's right, NeatMonster asked for help on his live stream and then he randomly added peoples do his project. I didn't agree on his project leading style so I had a talk with him and then he doped like emm? 1, 2 peoples from the project. I actually just wanted to have peoples there who did something for the project and those guys actually didn't do really much at all.

    About comments: Totally agree on that one. Peoples just never read the project thread or whatsoever, they find it more simple if they just use the comment box and paste all there error logs in to spam everything. The bad thing is that you also "punish" the good ones in the comment section there, however its not good to have it enabled neither have it disabled.

    However we can play that "game" forever and it would always be like this. Its just human if you make your things better then other ones.

    Lets just end with: Both plugins do a great job in blocking cheats by listening to events.


    I edit my post now like you did ;P
     
  21. I think arguing about list entries would indeed be pointless here, for both projects are in development and also the differences can't really be estimated from "officially covered hacks" only. One might probably have to pick ones biggest concerns and match them on the plugins and also decide for the aspect of configuration needs/usability what one would pick.

    Concerning API we have both the simple exemption API and after-failure hooks. Actually exempting a player can be much less simple than the APIs looks might suggest, like if used with events like BlockDamageEvent+instaBreak as triggers.

    NoCheatPlus is following the actions paradigm set by Evenprime, allowing for custom actions on players failing a check, and it puts emphasis on configurability, especially because hack detection does depend on multiple factors such as lag, and server owners will have different ideas about what shall happen for what kind of violation and what not and how much time they want to invest in configuration.

    Of course the concern of every anti cheat plugin developer is also to have a basic out-of-the-box coverage and fitness - we had a good amount of set backs by discontinued developement and uncertain situations but as it is set things are evolving and we are progressing on a stable build right now.
     
    h31ix likes this.
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