Issue with Brawl+ In Tournaments

[illinialex24]

I've just been thinking, there's an obvious flaw in using Brawl+ in tournaments and it is the following:

A person bringing the Wii in question if he has any skill with Brawl codes could improve almost unnoticeable but substantially his moves and only his moves for a fairly rare character, making him essentially the sole beneficiary. It would be hard to notice because its hard to discover a +1% increase for a certain move and a slightly faster frame data with slightly slower ending times, but it should be fairly easy for anyone to edit that, so we need a way to make sure that we have a fairer competition for all.

Obviously, only a cheating ******* would do this, but considering how Wii's have been stolen and the like, it wouldn't be that difficult for someone to do this.

My thoughts are the following:

We have the tournament host bring all the SD cards with everything needed to run Brawl+ on them. Obviously, you just need a cheap SD card that is fairly small so it wouldn't be that big a deal, and he could reuse them, and he could just increase the venue fee by 1 dollar to easily recover anything he would have lost. If anything weird is discovered, it would play against the host and that would have obvious ramifications, and so it would be much more unlikely for it to happen. People could still bring in their modded Wii's with an official Brawl disc in them and it would prevent any form of cheating by the person who owns the Wii.

Another option is to essentially make it so official builds aren't exactly "open source", where people can compile their own .gct's and so it would be pre-compiled and try to have a code that would verify certain areas of it (if thats possible). Obviously, someone could still find ways around it but hopefully it would be more obvious if he did.

Or, we could have someone with a laptop there who downloads an official build at the venue, and has it put on every SD card so it essentially stops cheating. I'm kinda using the same logic that made it an unofficial SBR rule that modded consoles aren't allowed, because there are too many ways you can make almost unnoticeable changes that are very useful.

What are your thoughts just to make sure if Brawl+ does become widespread that no one tries to use it to their advantage?

 

[n88]

This had not occurred to me until now..

Thank You for the idea.

Really, though, I don't think this will end up being a big problem. Most people are too lazy or wpuld give themselves outrageous bonuses that are easily noticeable. Plus, there's a good chance they'll mess up the coding. People are bad at this, believe me.

 

[weinzey]

u could use one "official" sd card (meaning the to provides it) and start the game from it on every console, since all except the file replacement codes (which are rather distracting in tournament play anyway) are fully loaded at startup afaik .
that way u have maximum scurity, no extra costs and u dont have to obscure the builds in any way. plus, its probably still faster than putting the content on multiple sds.

 

[illinialex24]

Yeah the one thing is that they will use official textures (they have before) and so those are needed with the File Replacement codes, and you can also edit a texture to affect the character soon, with model hacking if it becomes possible and more. It could be too easy to use the textures, and not the codes, to edit the character to give a decent advantage.

 

[CloneHat]

Don't SDs have a "lock" function? If only it was electronically password-protected or something.

Still, the TO could simply put the build they're using on every SD, close the Wii's slot, and seal it with a sticker. If the sticker is broken, you know someone's tampered with it.

 

[illinialex24]

Don't SDs have a "lock" function? If only it was electronically password-protected or something.

Still, the TO could simply put the build they're using on every SD, close the Wii's slot, and seal it with a sticker. If the sticker is broken, you know someone's tampered with it.

Exactly, but you'd have to distribute the SD cards yourself, which does require money..... I like this and an increase in the venue fee idea.

 

[CloneHat]

Or you could make people bring SDs, rename the pf folder to pfx, and replace the gct in codes. No textures, but it works.

 

[illinialex24]

Or you could make people bring SDs, rename the pf folder to pfx, and replace the gct in codes. No textures, but it works.

Its possible something could affect that. Some SD cards don't work remember, they aren't recognized, and others might have problems. A 1 dollar or less venue increase won't matter much, but it should be pretty good.

 

[CloneHat]

Yah, I guess it's the better idea. Someone should tell this to some Brawl+ tourney hosts.

 

[Mattnumbers]

What if we had a way to be able to know the last time the gct was changed? It would be time specific so that only the official one would have the correct time.

 

[Plum]

Actually, everything would be even easier then you have it right now.
Once the codeset is loaded up from Gecko you can take out the SD card without any problems.

Just go from Wii to Wii with one SD card, load up the codes, take it out and move on to the next Wii. As long as the TO is the only person going around loading up codes, no issue with other codesets being used.
I'm sure it's a little time consuming, but then again so would taking everyone's SD cards and ensuring the same .gct is on each.
Then it would just be a bit of an honor system that nobody swaps codesets between matches when nobody is looking, but that kind of issue would be there no matter what.

Also makes sure only the TO's textures are there (which would be the fixes to costumes like Sonic for teams) which would stop any distracting costumes/stages/music from making there way into sets.

 

[Mattnumbers]

Textures are the only things that load once you are actually playing the game, so you could just bring your own SD just for your textures.

 

[illinialex24]

Actually, everything would be even easier then you have it right now.
Once the codeset is loaded up from Gecko you can take out the SD card without any problems.

Just go from Wii to Wii with one SD card, load up the codes, take it out and move on to the next Wii. As long as the TO is the only person going around loading up codes, no issue with other codesets being used.
I'm sure it's a little time consuming, but then again so would taking everyone's SD cards and ensuring the same .gct is on each.
Then it would just be a bit of an honor system that nobody swaps codesets between matches when nobody is looking, but that kind of issue would be there no matter what.

Also makes sure only the TO's textures are there (which would be the fixes to costumes like Sonic for teams) which would stop any distracting costumes/stages/music from making there way into sets.

Not really at all because you forget textures aren't loaded on the game startup, they are loaded on selecting the character. Meaning you'd have to have a separate SD card for each Wii.

 

[CloneHat]

What if we had a way to be able to know the last time the gct was changed? It would be time specific so that only the official one would have the correct time.

There is! *cough*lastmodified*cough*

Good stuff

Yes. Just have multiple TOs to speed up the process. Keep the game running between matches. The only problem would be if the game crashed! :embarrass

 

[Mattnumbers]

I meant without looking at the file on a computer CloneHat.

 

[illinialex24]

I meant without looking at the file on a computer CloneHat.

I believe with a fix of SD Explorer you could actually DO that, it'd be nice. However, there is still the File Replacement issue.

 

[Plum]

Not really at all because you forget textures aren't loaded on the game startup, they are loaded on selecting the character. Meaning you'd have to have a separate SD card for each Wii.

Well then I suppose you would have to go with as many SD cards as there are Wii's devoted for teams. :\

 

[illinialex24]

Yeah, but I mean, you can get an SD card for like 10 bucks or less, with like 5 TV's, your looking at under 50 bucks, which isn't that bad. Then, just consider the fact that if you have a $1 increase in venue fee, 2 tournaments in and your more than even for sure unless its a tiny tournament, but for most sizes, it should work out.

 

[pkakira88]

I really think that having people bring sd cards with their wiis and having the TO upload the build from their laptop and taping the slot shut is the most logical option.

I mean if you think about it the people that are gonna bring their wii's have already modded and played brawl+ on their machines assuming that they practiced before hand (and who wouldnt, playing in a tournament without having at least some experience with the game would be assanine), so whatever sd card they bring should work assuming its the same one they used to play brawl+ on their own.

Also as a side note, loading code into your own build to help your odds seems rather irrelevent considering that there's no guarantee that you would be able to use your console during the tournament any way unless you have a very limited amount of wii's.

 

[n88]

Isn't there a Brawl+ updater? Why not just use that before booting Brawl+, guaranteeing that you're using the latest version?

 

[Sukai]

We have the tournament host bring all the SD cards with everything needed to run Brawl+ on them.

I thought they already did something like this.

 

[Revven]

People won't be doing this... like, the Hitbox property mod isn't something MOST people understand and once we switch to the new engine Almas is writing up, it's gonna be even HARDER to do. I guess you could say that the new engine pretty much breaks this theory. =\

This theory has been tossed around before and basically people said that the TO would just bring his/her SD Card and load it up on the Wiis, thereafter if the person has textures they want on their Wii just stick the Wii owner's SD Card in and the textures will work.

 

[loyx]

Simple solution: create a program for the wii that checks the md5 of their brawl GCT file against the MD5 of the official, most recent version the brawl+ gct. This program can be installed as a channel so it won't need to be copied to the SD card to be used. If it fails, obviously, the gct they are using is somehow different from the official version. It's useful not just for detecting cheaters, but also checking for people accidentally bringing in an old version or a nightly build.

 

[illinialex24]

People won't be doing this... like, the Hitbox property mod isn't something MOST people understand and once we switch to the new engine Almas is writing up, it's gonna be even HARDER to do. I guess you could say that the new engine pretty much breaks this theory. =\

This theory has been tossed around before and basically people said that the TO would just bring his/her SD Card and load it up on the Wiis, thereafter if the person has textures they want on their Wii just stick the Wii owner's SD Card in and the textures will work.

Yeah but I mean, at some point, textures won't exactly be safe either....

 

[Unknownlight]

Simple solution: create a program for the wii that checks the md5 of their brawl GCT file against the MD5 of the official, most recent version the brawl+ gct. This program can be installed as a channel so it won't need to be copied to the SD card to be used. If it fails, obviously, the gct they are using is somehow different from the official version. It's useful not just for detecting cheaters, but also checking for people accidentally bringing in an old version or a nightly build.

...You know, that's actually the best idea I heard so far. If it's possible (and quick and painless) then that would be great!

 

[Dantarion]

Slippery slope.
People could create a fake version of the channel, using a hex editor to replace whatever MD5 sum is supposed to be there with the MD5 of their modified Brawl+.

Theres no need to do anything at all except for maybe having the TO's put brawl+ on the sd cards themselves.

 

[Nybb]

Yeah but I mean, at some point, textures won't exactly be safe either....

How? As I understand it, all modifactions to the RAM made by codes are made when the game first boots. Textures are the only thing that gets dynamically loaded. Any code that "activates" upon switching to a certain texture would have to have already been loaded into the memory at boot time. I really don't think there is any issue here. TO pops in their personal SD card at boot up for each Wii, then if people really want they can put their own cards back in afterwards for the textures.

 

[Almas]

"Model Hack" codes are just a combination of a texture hack and Phantom Wings' Partial Size Modifier, from what I have seen. They are not as innovative as they are made out to be. If true model hacking becomes possible through the SD Loader, we could just use a version of the code with it disabled.

Using one SD card to load all the setups is easy enough.

 

[loyx]

Slippery slope.
People could create a fake version of the channel, using a hex editor to replace whatever MD5 sum is supposed to be there with the MD5 of their modified Brawl+.

Theres no need to do anything at all except for maybe having the TO's put brawl+ on the sd cards themselves.

You wouldn't check the SD card on a wii that was brought by a player. You'd install the channel on a wii that the TO had access to before the tournament started, and check the player's SD card(s) on only that wii.

If this procedure is done correctly, the only other way I could imagine a player cheating is by modifying the gecko os on their wii to load a hidden gct file, but this is very convoluted, and can be easily be defeated by having the MD5 checking program copy a correct version of gecko os onto their wii.

 

[timothyung]

You wouldn't check the SD card on a wii that was brought by a player. You'd install the channel on a wii that the TO had access to before the tournament started, and check the player's SD card(s) on only that wii.

If this procedure is done correctly, the only other way I could imagine a player cheating is by modifying the gecko os on their wii to load a hidden gct file, but this is very convoluted, and can be easily be defeated by having the MD5 checking program copy a correct version of gecko os onto their wii.

Gecko OS is not open source now, so this can't happen

 

[illinialex24]

Gecko OS is not open source now, so this can't happen

1.07 is and that is good enough to load Brawl+

 

[Roxas215]

I really dont think its that big of a deal. Besides the tournament host could you his sd card and just load every game from that.

 

[illinialex24]

But there is still a few issues:

A) Never really thought about this but an expert hacker could patch an IOS to edit how the game loads in some way. Just saying......

B) Textures, someone uses unofficial textures with custom model data and it affects the character enough to give them an advantage. Could be almost undetectable.

C) Still makes it so you can't use custom textures and you still have to make sure they use an official disc.

 

[Sails]

But there is still a few issues:

A) Never really thought about this but an expert hacker could patch an IOS to edit how the game loads in some way. Just saying......

B) Textures, someone uses unofficial textures with custom model data and it affects the character enough to give them an advantage. Could be almost undetectable.

C) Still makes it so you can't use custom textures and you still have to make sure they use an official disc.

The problem with A and B is, then you couldn't trust ANY tournament holder, because you could do this and hide the fact that your Wii is modified. It's honor system, Brawl+ or not.

 

[illinialex24]

The problem with A and B is, then you couldn't trust ANY tournament holder, because you could do this and hide the fact that your Wii is modified. It's honor system, Brawl+ or not.

Most unmodded Wii's would be safe, which is why they have a no modded Wii system.

B wouldn't matter, because an official disc without textures is gonna be regular Brawl, so that won't matter, it only applies to Brawl+.

But yeah, lets hope no one finds an IOS thing. I wonder if we can create a check program on the IOS's up to 36 to see that they are not modded, in short, they are identical to the regular IOS or the cIOS for backup disc loading (many people will have that). It shouldn't be impossible to create a Wii app to do that, and it could have good benefits.

 

[Sails]

Most unmodded Wii's would be safe, which is why they have a no modded Wii system.

B wouldn't matter, because an official disc without textures is gonna be regular Brawl, so that won't matter, it only applies to Brawl+.

But yeah, lets hope no one finds an IOS thing. I wonder if we can create a check program on the IOS's up to 36 to see that they are not modded, in short, they are identical to the regular IOS or the cIOS for backup disc loading (many people will have that). It shouldn't be impossible to create a Wii app to do that, and it could have good benefits.

My point was banking on the custom IOS thing.

 

[Dantarion]

You guys are getting too far into it.
Hacked Wii's have been in tournaments for a long time in vBrawl, and I have a channel on my wii with the Brawl disc banner that stealth launches gecko os 1.07 and autoboots brawl. From my hard drive. I also have a identical channel that loads "BRAWLP.gct" instead of "RSBE01.gct". I could also change that to a hardcoded GCT embedded into the channel with hax.
I could swap my disc channel for one of these channels.

Just have the TO launch Brawl+ on each Wii with his own SD card if youre that worried about it.
All these other things you guys are talking about are so farfetched that if someone tries to do them, you have bigger problems.

 

[illinialex24]

Its kinda true but model hacking might become mainstream soon... Plus, some textures are VERY visually distracting.

 

[codfish92]

Its kinda true but model hacking might become mainstream soon... Plus, some textures are VERY visually distracting.

yeah, some textures will actually blend in with the stage and make it very difficult for the players to see the characters. i think the sd card should only have the codes, no textures.

 

[Nybb]

Its kinda true but model hacking might become mainstream soon... Plus, some textures are VERY visually distracting.

yeah, some textures will actually blend in with the stage and make it very difficult for the players to see the characters. i think the sd card should only have the codes, no textures.

This is still just remedied by TOs using their single personal SD card to boot everything up, and then just not letting anybody put in their personal SD cards to load textures from.

And this whole thing is really quite silly because how even if somebody went to the extreme lengths of secretly modifying an old version of Gecko or something, they still can't guarantee ever playing on their Wii, shutting down the whole plan. Not to mention that character or player swap mods could easily be used inadvertently by others, maybe even against the original hacker.