Beware of the Battle Analyser

[Sneazy Sneasel]

Pokémon X/Y Online Battle Exploit - "Battle Analyser" - NeoGAF

The "battle analyser" works much the same for battles as the "instacheck" program does for trades. A PC is set up as a wireless hotspot to intercept data from the Pokémon games, and upon the opponent clicking confirm on the battle screen, the program shows the opponent's entire party and movesets and displays what moves the opponent chooses during the battle. This affects all online battle modes.

This program is a tremendous detriment to the competitive nature of Pokémon battles. It is our hope that, in fully exposing this program to the public, Game Freak will quickly take the necessary steps to block the exploit.

First Wonder Trade and now this? The hackers have officially ruined Pokemon X and Y.

 

[bluestarfish]

Please enlighten me as to what "the hackers" have done to wonder trade.

 

[Sneazy Sneasel]

Please enlighten me as to what "the hackers" have done to wonder trade.

Bad Eggs, it's the reason no one uses wonder trade anymore.

 

[bluestarfish]

Please enlighten me as to what "the hackers" have done to wonder trade.

Bad Eggs, it's the reason no one uses wonder trade anymore.

It's been established already that "the hackers" (which don't actually exist) are not responsible for bad eggs, that bad eggs are really rare, and are likely caused by a hardware problem, and people still use wonder trade...

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

Okay, the Wonder Trade thing is nonsense... but this is actually bad. I hope GF takes steps to block this, even if it means locking out some of the actually useful things that can be done with Instacheck (that's the one they use to match people up with eggs that'll be shiny in their game, right?).

 

[Deitylight]

This will destroy the side of competitive pokemon, Nintendo and Gamefreak needs to put an end to this program before the X and Y portion of the VGC takes off.

 

[DestinyOfDeoxys]

Hackers. F***ing up Pokemon X and Y since 1 and a half months ago.

 

[Stratelier]

So it simply means they can sneak a peek at the cards in your hand.... sure it's an unsettling development as it gives them perfect information about what you have at your disposal, but it is not cheating on the same level as edited/hacked Pokemon stats or moves.

 

[The Outrage]

So it simply means they can sneak a peek at the cards in your hand.... sure it's an unsettling development as it gives them perfect information about what you have at your disposal, but it is not cheating on the same level as edited/hacked Pokemon stats or moves.

It's not cheating on the same level as hacked Pokemon? Yeah, they hacked Pokemon to have perfect stats, they didn't make it so they'll know your every single move as you make it. Read the post again:

The "battle analyser" works much the same for battles as the "instacheck" program does for trades. A PC is set up as a wireless hotspot to intercept data from the Pokémon games, and upon the opponent clicking confirm on the battle screen, the program shows the opponent's entire party and movesets and displays what moves the opponent chooses during the battle.

If you think hacking perfect stats destroys the spirit of battling more than a person knowing exactly what move you've made, then something's really wrong here. Unless you wait out the clock and choose your move the second the timer runs out, they're going to know what you chose and then counter it perfectly. Spending 100+ hours breeding isn't reflective of one's skills in battle, but knowing your opponent's every move destroys the point of battling.

This basically destroys the beauty of Rotation battles.

I really don't understand why Game Freak had structured online in such a way that they send all the information to the opposing DS at once, even if they haven't made an move yet and you have.

 

[Stratelier]

If you think hacking perfect stats destroys the spirit of battling more than a person knowing exactly what move you've made, then something's really wrong here.

No, the big question is does this inform them of the opponent's chosen move before or after they've decided on their actions for the turn? I can't rule either out, but I'm not seeing any actual proof of which, only arguments by third parties. I can understand that if it's before, then yes they can counter it (and so much for Rotation battles) but exactly how much it actually affects other battling depends on who's on their team and what moves they brought in with them. Obviously, you can swap out against a Sucker Punch and just plain attack against a Focus Punch, or Protect against a Hi Jump Kick (not to mention the penalty for a missed Jump Kick is deadly in and of itself). But if your opponent is about to Fire Blast or Surf or Psychic or Aura Sphere you, there's not much you can do to avoid it outside of Protect or swapping in a resistant Pokemon, Battle Analyzer or not.

Short version: It's like if in a football game one team knows the exact play the other team is about to perform. Not just their starting formation before the snap, but even down to every last detail like whether the QB is going to decide to rush or pass the ball (and if so, to whom) after the snap.

In any case, this is probably unpatchable since preventing this kind of eavesdropping from affecting battle would require a change in how the games chat during the battle. (Namely, the games would first have to exchange confirmation that their users have selected an action and are 'ready', and once that's confirmed ONLY THEN communicate which actions those were.) Because simply issuing a patch isn't enough - they have to guarantee that all players have the patch, namely by having the server check for it and deny online functions if the player doesn't have it yet. (For comparison, in Mario Kart 7 when you connect to online multiplayer the server checks your game's software version and refuses to let you play online if you don't have the track fixes update. Can't have patched and unpatched players racing together!)

 

[lugia61617]

So it simply means they can sneak a peek at the cards in your hand.... sure it's an unsettling development as it gives them perfect information about what you have at your disposal, but it is not cheating on the same level as edited/hacked Pokemon stats or moves.

It's not cheating on the same level as hacked Pokemon? Yeah, they hacked Pokemon to have perfect stats, they didn't make it so they'll know your every single move as you make it. Read the post again:

The "battle analyser" works much the same for battles as the "instacheck" program does for trades. A PC is set up as a wireless hotspot to intercept data from the Pokémon games, and upon the opponent clicking confirm on the battle screen, the program shows the opponent's entire party and movesets and displays what moves the opponent chooses during the battle.

If you think hacking perfect stats destroys the spirit of battling more than a person knowing exactly what move you've made, then something's really wrong here. Unless you wait out the clock and choose your move the second the timer runs out, they're going to know what you chose and then counter it perfectly. Spending 100+ hours breeding isn't reflective of one's skills in battle, but knowing your opponent's every move destroys the point of battling.

This basically destroys the beauty of Rotation battles.

I really don't understand why Game Freak had structured online in such a way that they send all the information to the opposing DS at once, even if they haven't made an move yet and you have.

Nobody has hacked Perfect Stat pokemon in XY.
And while this program is unsettling, it seems pretty natural that someone unscrupulous would decide to tinker with a good piece of software for shiny hunting and turn it into something "evil". These things happen. I don't play competitively ever so it doesn't matter much, but I get why some people are mad.

At the same time though, I wouldn't say I want to see a patch that prevents Instacheck from working (though I somehow doubt that is possible).

 

[Clash King Dan]

It's all pretty unsettling. The program doesn't work with 100% accuracy yet, but judging by the tests I ran with some friends(all using this program), it is accurate enough to give you an advantage most of the time. If Nintendo or Game Freak wanted to patch this, they would have to move everything to a similar encrypted server that GTS uses now, and they would have to make this patch mandatory, unlike the Lumiose patch(which I still haven't updated).

 

[Amoebo]

It's all pretty unsettling. The program doesn't work with 100% accuracy yet, but judging by the tests I ran with some friends(all using this program), it is accurate enough to give you an advantage most of the time. If Nintendo or Game Freak wanted to patch this, they would have to move everything to a similar encrypted server that GTS uses now, and they would have to make this patch mandatory, unlike the Lumiose patch(which I still haven't updated).

Yes, but they set up a wireless hotspot, which therefore means the signal has to bounce twice, with a different string of code that bounces the move to the computer, turns into text, and sends the same code for activating a attack, wouldn't there be some sort of interference that would show up on the code?

 

[ange]

Nintendo released a mandatory patch for Mario Kart 7 online play to deal with a couple of shortcut exploits, so I hope GF is working on one that too is mandatory for XY.

These kind of things needs to be encrypted.

 

[Faye Scarlet]

Are we really freaking out over this? Augh, I wish people would cut out the high-and-mighty attitude against hackers. ._. How is the game "ruined", just because your opponent can now see what you're doing? There are MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of people playing Pokemon, a majority of which are too young to know how to use a program like this. Just how likely are you to actually run into someone who is using this program? Mother of god, I'm seriously angry at how everyone is like "welp no more online battles for me", nothing could sound sillier.

 

[The Outrage]

@Stratelier;
You don't seem to understand the importance of knowing what your opponent is going to do. Yeah, there's nothing much I can do about a Fire Blast, except getting a free switch in for another Pokemon. The key to getting in counters is predicting what your opponent is about to do, so this basically sets up for perfect counters. It also defeats the purpose of using Sucker Punch, and if you know your opponent used Protect? Free set up.

@PKMN Trainer Faye;
If you don't see how your opponent knowing exactly what you're doing ruins the spirit of battling then I really don't know what to say. Judging by the amount of people who posted their information for Instacheck, I highly doubt this would be an isolated program, especially the higher you go in the ranked battles since it would funnel out people who don't really know what they're doing.

And sure, be annoyed about the high and mighty attitude people have when they're bitching about people taking advantage of an exploit to get shinies (really, the only form of "hacking" anyone has this generation). That doesn't affect anyone else. This program does. This is actually cheating because it gives you information that you aren't supposed to have in battle. If you can't see the distinction, then there's a problem.

 

[Zeb]

Are we really freaking out over this? Augh, I wish people would cut out the high-and-mighty attitude against hackers. ._.

Are you actually being serious... How in the world is it "high-and-mighty" to expect and want people to battle fairly and not cheat? You know, the whole point of the game? Why should people going into battle for fun, expecting a fair game and be cheated against? I have no idea how anyone can seriously defend this.

 

[proserpina]

I don't think there's anything "high and mighty" about disagreeing with this particular hack; if you know exactly what your opponent is going to do or have such information about their team, it defeats the point of having to wait your turn and anticipate or prepare for uncertain possibilities - which is a key element of turn-based combat in games like Pokémon. People play a game with a certain mechanic and they tailor their approach and expectations to that. There is nothing wrong with that and maintaining that type of consistency in online competition is one of the main ways of keeping things fair. While some people may want to utilise this, if I knew someone was planning to I wouldn't even bother battling them because if I turn on my console and decide to play with others, in my case it is to do so knowing that neither of us has an unfair or artificial advantage. People should be able to assume that they are on a level playing field in terms of given information when competing and, if people insist on using such things, I believe they should be noted as such so people can choose not to interact with them if they so wish. For me, even if they can't stop this happening, it's as simple as "if you're going to use external means to get an unfair advantage, I want to know about it so I'm not subject to that cheating".

 

[bluestarfish]

I hope that if there is a way to patch the game against this, that it can be done, and quickly. This will compromise the online ladder, and I while I don't entirely know how the VGA runs things, I do know that online performance somehow translates over to perks and things in physical tournaments for those who make it to the top of at least one of the ladders (or has no ladder that matters been released yet?)


I feel that people who use this program are reprehensible, but I don't think mindlessly going all "omg hackers" is the right action to take either, especially if in the process a lot of misinformation gets spread. (ex bad eggs/wondertrade).

 

[Gligar13]

Are we really freaking out over this? Augh, I wish people would cut out the high-and-mighty attitude against hackers. ._. How is the game "ruined", just because your opponent can now see what you're doing? There are MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of people playing Pokemon, a majority of which are too young to know how to use a program like this. Just how likely are you to actually run into someone who is using this program? Mother of god, I'm seriously angry at how everyone is like "welp no more online battles for me", nothing could sound sillier.

Because when everyone hacks/has an unfair advantage over you on Wi-Fi, people will start quitting. Look at IW CoDs, CoD4 had literally no hack protection, and with mods ported over from the PC, the Xbox version became known for having hackers running wild. Eventually the hackers found a way to keep you from playing online without having Activision reset you to level 1.

Also, Generation IV/V hacking was so rampant, there are literally iPod/Android apps that combine Pokémon editors and fake GTS servers into one, making hacking even easier.