Serious Tampering Going On

[Polcar]

Hi, I was hosting a 4-player the other night and I was well in control near the end of the game.......Suddenly, in between shots, after a small delay, the whole set-up changed and instead of me being in control, the other guy suddenly had more energy than me.....this is a complete outrage that people can do this, and even more ridiculous to think how pointless it is......it's a game of Worms for goodness sake.
Has anyone else experienced this....I took note of the players name (he had one star for his rep)....I can mention the name if requested.....I also filed a complaint.

[parsley]

Erm... you've been a little bit hasty there.

There's nothing to suggest 'tampering' there. Here's what's happened:

For some reason, the different instances of the game have fallen out of synch and the gameplay has diverged. The divergence has been detected and, rather than abort the game, the network has exchanged sufficient data to bring all instances back to the last agreed state (the delay). The game is then reset to this last agreed state (the whole set-up changing).

You may consider withdrawing your complaint.

[Polcar]

The player in question has been mentioned before as one to be avoided.
When it happened in my game the pause was immediately before this players go and there is no way the program could of went "back" because after the pause I had less energy than before......Surely if it had went back I would have had more energy......to be honest I dont fully understand what you are telling me.......maybe you could tell me this....is it possible for players to change thngs to their advantage, and if so, how can it not be stopped?.....I've always wondered too why the top players in the leaderboards have impossible stats...

[franpa]

so, the opponentgot more health and weapons while you stayed the exact same?

[Polcar]

My opponent increased his energy and I had mine decreased....I had a worm with 100 energy and after the pause he had 41

[robowurmz]

Health crate and weapon usage? Maybe you lagged while he got a health crate (more energy) and attacked your worm (59 damage).

[parsley]

there is no way the program could of went "back" because after the pause I had less energy than before......Surely if it had went back I would have had more energy......
It is going back.

Imagine this: you're at the cinema. At some point, you go to the toilet. This takes you 10 minutes. Half way though your bog break, a scene occurs where the lead character is found dead. When you come back, the projectionist takes pity and rewinds the film so that you can see the important bit.

From your perspective, the lead characters health decreases because the film has been rewound.

This is exactly what you saw during your game. The game state skipped back, but your view of the game state has skipped forward. Also, just like the film, the game's 'plot' is coherent, but not necessarily complete from every perpspective (you've still missed 5 minutes of the film).

[franpa]

But if the game goes back 5 minutes and his goes forward 5 minutes, wouldn't that cause a desync? how can his view skip forward if the game skipped backwards?

[Polcar]

The main thing that worries me is that it happened when a known glitcher was playing, especially since it has never occurred before.....there is no such thing as coincidence in my opinion

[parsley]

But if the game goes back 5 minutes and his goes forward 5 minutes, wouldn't that cause a desync? how can his view skip forward if the game skipped backwards?
If you miss viewing a period of gameplay and the game rewinds anything less than the same period, the game state has gone back in time and that view of the game state has gone forwards.

Player 1's story:
1. I shot his worm and did 25 points of damage.
2. My opponent did nothing
3. Everything changed and my worm was down 25 points and my opponent's worm was back at full health.
4. I disconnected because my opponent is cheating.

Player 2's story:
1. I shot his worm and did 25 points of damage
2. He disconnected on me.

The PSPs' story:
PSP1 : my player's just finished his turn
PSP2 : *my* player's just finished his turn
PSP1 & PSP 2: oops
PSP1 : my player was in play on the previous turn
PSP2 : your player was in play on the previous turn
PSP1 & PSP2 : agreed.
PSP2 : here's the game state at end of my player's turn
PSP1 & PSP2 : it is now the end of player 2's turn

The game is consistent, but player 1's view of the game isn't complete.

The main thing that worries me is that it happened when a known glitcher was playing, especially since it has never occurred before.....there is no such thing as coincidence in my opinion
I'm sure that you recognise that in the above scenario neither player behaved in anything other than a reasonable manner, yet they may both feel justified in reporting each other for bad behaviour: player 2 complains about player 1's disconnect, and player 1 complains about player 2's cheat.

The fact that you've never *seen* it doesn't mean that it hasn't occurred. In the stories above, player 2 doesn't see anything untoward, but the game's still recovered from a serious error.

Generally, though, the game doesn't de-synch and when it does, it's mostly things like a worm being in a slightly different position. So slight, in fact, that you can't see the difference. But sometimes, that tiny, tiny, error cascades until entire maps get changed (a banana bomb bounced off the worm on one machine, but not the other, destroying one half of the landscape on one PSP and the other half on the other). What you've seen is an unfortunately vast error being corrected.

[franpa]

much better explanation =) i realize from your above explanation what you said in the first place, just takes a while to get your head around the idea.

[Melon]

Maybe it's possible, in future games at least, for the game to tell the players when this happens?

As both of the systems can detect that the change has been made, maybe it could come up with a message saying how the game has recovered from a possible error? Or would people then still think the game is bugged?

[franpa]

if it was a generic message just saying "You have recovered from a error." or something would still make the person feel as tho the other player cheated.

[Plasma]

if it was a generic message just saying "You have recovered from a error." or something would still make the person feel as tho the other player cheated.
Well, why would they make it so taht it just says that?

[parsley]

Bringing up a message is not a viable solution.

I have a cookie for the first forumite that can work out why.

[Plasma]

Because a lot of people don't read the messages?

Granted, it's probably not the answer you were looking for, but you'll be suprised at how many times people don't read stuff that they should!

[[UFP]Ghost]

Why not have the console save the amount of health per worm after every turn taken and should any sort of desync happen then both consoles numbers have to match or if they don't, check the turn before. It wouldn't be bad on size since a bunch of 1-3 digit numbers isn't a lot to store.