Ban request: Nerien'eth

[The Migrating Coconut]

Name: Nerien'eth

Steam I.D: STEAM_0:0:155906486

Reasons for the Ban: Cheating

Recommended duration of ban: Permanent

Demo Provided?: N

 

More details:

 

What happened on 28 Jan 2018:
I watched Nerien'eth play from 09:03:26 until his ban, issued by me at 09:14:12 (1stMRB gameME times), a little more than 10 minutes. While watching him using the console command <spec_player nerien> after each of his deaths for efficiency, I soon noticed that he was clearly cheating, and when the map changed from Colmar to Palermo at 09:07:53, he stood afk until 09:11:06, some 3 minutes. When I noticed that he wasn't joining a team, I proceeded to check both his 1stMRB gameME page and the 1st MRB and the 6th RB SourceBans pages. On the 6th RB I found out that he was automatically banned there for cheating, as SourceMod Anti-Cheat (SMAC) issued his permanent ban on Feb 10, 2016 (this ban still stands and wasn't contested by Nerien'eth so far, almost 2 years after it was issued). The stated reason of this ban is the automatically generated string "SMAC 0.8.6.0: Eye Test Violation".

More info about the "Eye Angle Test" made by SMAC can be found here: https://bitbucket.org/anticheat/smac/wiki/EyeAngleTest
By checking Nerien'eth's 1stMRB gameME stats page, I soon noticed the impossibly high headshots/kill ratios that he got over all but one of his sessions, with many weapons, and in a few different maps. The stats alone clearly show a cheating player. More on the stats further below.

 

With all this information to absolutely remove any possible doubt that Nerien'eth was indeed using cheating software, I issued him a permanent ban:
http://www.1stmarineraiderbattalion.clanservers.com/index.php?p=banlist&searchText=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&Submit=

 

And proceeded to write the report:
http://www.1stmarineraiders.com/forums/topic/36986-ban-report-nerieneth/

 

The stated reasons for the ban were "Wallhack and autoaim". I also wrote "Player was using wallhack and autoaim, very noticeable. Also his statistics clearly show the use of autoaiming.", pointing out that his 1stMRB gameME statistics very clearly support the ban.

 

A few days later, an unban request was written on the 1stMRB forums, asking for the unbanning of Nerien'eth:
http://www.1stmarineraiders.com/forums/topic/37033-unban-request-nerieneth/

 

The unban request reads, at some point, "I cannot recall my stats, but they were most likely far below my usual K/D ratio. My preference is to be very good with one role/weapon. If this server has a maximum K/D limit, please state so, but accusing people of hacking based on their K/D is disrespectful.". This is a disrespect towards the 1stMRB server's admins and policies, as it implies that he was banned because of having a high kills/death ratio, which is not true. Nerien'eth wasn't, as far as I know no one ever was, and I think that no one will ever be, banned here at the 1stMRB for having a high kills/death ratio. I've seen players (who I'm pretty sure do not cheat) making K/D ratios above 20/1, sometimes with 100+ kills in a single 25 minutes map. Nerien'eth was at first suspected of cheating for having odd and weird kills and an unusually high amount of headshots, which warranted further inquiries. After checking in spectator I found out that he was indeed clearly cheating and his statistics (disregarding kills/death) all support that, as do the other bans that he has on other servers, which are all supporting evidence (more info further below).

 

The unban request also reads "I wasn't headshotting people all over the place through walls and required a quick ban to restore server stability.". Regarding this, Nerien'eth was indeed disturbing the server enough so as to cause further inquiry about his suspicious gameplay. And after confirming that he was indeed cheating, a "quick ban" was absolutely needed in his case, because any confirmed cheater is a very serious problem in any game server, ruining the experience for legitimate players and surely breaking the server stability, gameplaying wise.

 

The unban request once again distances itself from the truth when it reads "I am a passionate DoD player who really likes your community and server atmosphere.". The fact is that Nerien'eth has played, since his first day here at the 1st MRB on Jan 14, 2016, for only 07h00m12s total, less than some of our regulars play in a single day. And those 7 hours of gameplay are scattered through 7 sessions in the 2 years since his first time here. All his session's dates with playing time are listed below:

 

2018-Jan-28 - 01h01m
2018-Jan-04 - 00h12m
2018-Jan-03 - 01h06m
2017-Dec-30 - 02h25m
2017-Jan-15 - 00h33m
2016-Dec-26 - 01h01m
2016-Jan-14 - 00h42m

 

I also checked the 15 higher-ranked DoD:S servers in the world (according to GameTracker) as well as the 15 higher-ranked DoD:S servers in Nerien'eth's country, Germany, and his gameplay times and number of connections are as follow (only from servers with available gameME pages):

 

eGO (last played Oct 1, 2017)
07h09m10s total, 15 connections
https://edgegamers.gameme.com/playerinfo/3594221

 

6th Rangers Battalion (last connection attempt: Jan 15, 2017)
(permabanned Feb 10, 2016)
9 connections
http://sixthrb.gameme.com/playerinfo/88343

 

GamersZone CEPBEP (last played Jan 1, 2018)
01h37m47s total
http://gz-server.myarena.ru/hlstatsx/hlstats.php?mode=playerinfo&player=61875

 

Homeguard (last played Jan 16, 2018)
5 connections
http://thehomeguard.gameme.com/playerinfo/948668

 

Blitzkrieg Whores
(permabanned on his 1st connection, Dec 30, 2017)
00h05m58s total, 1 connection
http://blitzkrieg.gameme.com/playerinfo/261938

 

[D.T.B] Dominated Brasil (last played Jan 16, 2017)
No info about time played or number of connections
http://200.98.171.78/rank/hlstats.php?mode=playerinfo&player=11336

 

CP - Crazy Platoon
Has never connected (no gameME page found)
http://stats.crazy-platoon.de/hlstats/cp/hlstats.php?mode=search&q=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&st=uniqueid&game=dods

 

Deutsches Vaterland
Has never connected (no gameME page found)
http://176.57.141.118/hlxstats/hlstats.php?mode=search&q=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&st=uniqueid&game=

 

Kaizen (last played Dec 25, 2016)
00h00m42s total
http://stats.team-kzn.com/hlstats.php?mode=playerinfo&player=888999

 

DoDS 9 May
Has never connected (no gameME page found)
http://217.19.212.4/hlstatsx/hlstats.php?mode=search&q=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&st=uniqueid&game=dods

 

3te PGD - 3te Panzer Grenadier Division (last played Dec 31, 2017)
00h00m40s total
https://stats01.gamerzhost.de/hl156/hlstats.php?mode=playerinfo&player=153194

 

Ruhm und Ehre
Has never connected (no gameME page found)
https://stats02.gamerzhost.de/hl739/hlstats.php?mode=search&q=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&st=uniqueid&game=dods

 

Strandläufer
Has never connected (no gameME page found)
https://stats.gamerzhost.de/hl278/hlstats.php?mode=search&q=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&st=uniqueid&game=dods

 

Baller Bude (last played Jan 21, 2018)
01h13m06s total
http://hlstats.baller-bude.com/hlstats.php?mode=playerinfo&player=38925

 

SOTN - Soldiers of the Night
Has never connected (no gameME page found)
https://stats.gamerzhost.de/hl413/hlstats.php?mode=search&q=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&st=uniqueid&game=dods

 

DKT e.V.
Has never connected (no gameME page found)
https://stats02.gamerzhost.de/hl791/hlstats.php?mode=search&q=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&st=uniqueid&game=dods

 

Thus, by the very short times played and small number of connections, it is clear that Nerien'eth is not "a passionate DoD player", as was written in the unban request. He did not even try to connect to the 1stMRB server after Jan 28, the day he was banned, even after he was unbanned. The above information also show that Nerien'eth was automatically banned by SourceMod Anti-Cheat from all servers on which he connected that are running SMAC with auto ban enabled. These servers are only 2:

 

1) 6th Rangers Battalion:
Permanent ban issued on Feb 10, 2016, with reason "SMAC 0.8.6.0: Eye Test Violation":
http://sixth.site.nfoservers.com/SourceBans/index.php?p=banlist&searchText=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&Submit=

 

2) Blitzkrieg Whores:
Permanent ban issued on Dec 30, 2017, with reason "SMAC 0.8.5.0: Eye Test Violation":
http://bkw.site.nfoservers.com/sourcebans/index.php?p=banlist&searchText=STEAM_0%3A0%3A155906486&Submit=

 

The chances that he was caught in 2 false positive events which are almost 2 years apart, in 2 different servers running 2 slightly different versions of SMAC are really very tiny. So these 2 bans certainly fall on the immense majority of true positive SMAC cheating detections. Also, the fact that these were software generated bans does not allow the possibility of any admins' errors on them.

 

About his statistics:

Nerien'eth's 1stMRB gameME profile, the source for all his statistics:
http://1stmarineraiders.gameme.com/playerinfo/195359

 

He has an overall headshots/kill (Hpk) ratio of 53% (411/770). That is impossible without cheating.

 

The image below shows his Hpk ratios by map:

Some Hpk ratios are unrealistic and many are impossible without cheating, like repeatedly getting 50% of more of Hpk while doing 20 or more kills in each map.

The image below shows his Hpk ratios by weapon:

Some Hpk ratios may be dismissed because of the low number of kills (less than 20). But that still leaves impossibly high Hpk ratios, like 76% with the k98 sniper, 65% with the Garand (47/72), 57% with the BAR, 54% with the Thompson (231/428), 47% with the MP40 and 47% with the Springfield.

 

The image below shows his Hpk ratios by session:

This shows that he cheated in all his sessions except his first, on Jan 14, 2016. He did a normal 10% Hpk in that one. All others have a Hpk ratio of 49% or more, reaching 65% on Jan 04, 2018, all impossible ratios with a significant number of kills. On this image we can also see that his kills/death (K/D) ratios are in fact not that impressive, being maybe the one thing that was correctly written on Nerien'eth's unban request.

 

The image below shows his hits' locations:

We can see many impossible (without cheating) numbers here. Like, for instance, summing his hits with the Springfield (36) plus hits with k98 sniper (22) plus hits with Colt (11) plus hits with MG42 (9) plus hits with k98 (3), he has 81 hits with these weapons without hitting even once on the left side (all hits on middle or right). He also did 93.6% of Garand hits on middle (out of 110 hits), 91.7% of Springfield hits on middle (out of 36 hits), and 95.5% k98 sniper hits on middle (out of 22 hits), all impossible feats.

 

While checking gameME stats, one must always bear in mind that in some days, by any number of causes, the gameME stats may have issues and be unreliable. But as Nerien'eth's data come from 7 different sessions scattered through 2 years, it is highly unlikely that all these very anomalous numbers are wrong.

 

Taking together my witnessing, the 2 automatically issued bans in 2 different servers, and the plenty of statistical data, it is very clear that Nerien'eth cheats. Any single one of these things could be marked as insufficient proof if alone, but all put together certainly makes a strong case. There is no experience, trick, 'hiding and ambush' spot or muscle memory capable of doing any of this, as was alleged on the unban request.

 

No DoD:S demo was recorded because of the 2013 demo crashing issue:
http://www.1stmarineraiders.com/forums/topic/23528-closed-demo-playback-crash/
Taking many short demos seldom work, in my experience, as demos I've recorded many times crashed only 4-5 seconds into playback, making them totally useless.

 

No video recording of Nerien'eth's gameplay was made because my laptop lacks enough available hard drive space for the Plays.tv software to run. I gotta find an alternative software to do that.

 

I put a simplified version of all this on Nerien'eth's ban report so as to keep things simple and to avoid disclosing some information contained in this (re)ban request.

 

For the next time, a 2nd/3rd witness will be called and/or video evidence will be provided to ease the defense of any cheating ban against unban requests.

[S. Larson 1st MRB]

Locked pending review by the Command Staff.

[S. Larson 1st MRB]

After reviewing all of the evidence given, we have decided to permanently ban this player. Thank you for bringing all of this to our attention.