[Operyl]

When a good significant portion of your website is dedicated to “will I get banned?” .. I don’t know, man, it’s probably not going to go over well with these game companies. Also, is AWS, NVIDIA, etc really a “partner?” Just because I use their products, or get credits, that doesn’t mean they endorse or have partnered with me?

This just feels like cheating to me in Valorant: https://vimeo.com/534438994

[riversflow]

Getting audio queues for what is happening on the screen is cheating, pure and simple. "Game awareness" is one of the most difficult aspects to master in fps. I've been playing fps for a very long time, and I would point at the the death cues in particular as being absolutely unfair, you either have to defocus your perception to take in the kill feed(a very difficult thing to do during an intense fight), or move your eyes away from the reticle to read the feed. It would be trivial for the game devs to add this, or put a mini kill feed under the reticle(some games have this, like PUBG) but they don't, and that makes it "assistive software" aka cheating. Further, if you are working with teammates, they can't use a subtle queue like a beep, they likely have to speak, "1 down" or such, which is much more disruptive to your ability to hear footsteps. What further makes this egregious in the case of Valorant is that there isn't even hit markers, so if you are, say, shooting into smoke, this give you a significant advantage to know what's going on in a fight.

Likewise, counting bullets is a very difficult skill to master, and this, like the death notifier is a straight up replacement for that skill (with the caveat being you can't go pro gamer, lol, like it matters for the average cheater) the same way an aimbot is a replacement for the mechanical skill of mousing. Sorry, but training isn't an in-game assist.

If I saw a twitch streamer using this I'd be livid. This gross, and fuels the need for invasive 0-ring anti-cheat malware.

Not to say everything about this software is cheating, I think providing detailed character/map/mechanics analysis is fine, and a great business idea, but this real-time in-game feedback is gross, at least in the fps genre that I'm familiar with.

[danielvinson]

This is 100% cheating based on Riot's rules, only because of the Spike Timer. The rest is mostly ok. The reason for that is that there is no visual indicator in-game for the spike timer, it has to be memorized.

I'm not a LoL player but to my knowledge Riot just doesn't really enforce their own rules outside of tournaments where tools like this are not allowed. For Valorant, I have played in many tournaments, and every single one has explicitly stated that tools like this are not allowed.

There is no way this product is ethical or legal, and even if it /currently/ doesn't break any rules, Riot could just add one sentence to destroy the entire app. Seems really questionable to me.

[Olcy07]

Thanks for sharing your feedback. There is an audio guide that helps you to understand how much time left, similar to what we do.

We closely follow the guideline of the game publisher. SenpAI doesn't aim the tournament's, we would like to make coaching accessable and affordable for the all gamers who would like to improve. Similar to getting a coaching session from a good player.

[danielvinson]

Have you actually spoken to any tournament-level players about your product? Have you actually spoken to anyone at Riot about your product?

It just seems incredibly bizarre to me that you made something which so blatantly breaks both ToS and tournament rulesets. Anything that is considered "outside assistance" is not allowed during the round of gameplay. Any time coaches are allowed to talk, your app can be allowed to talk. That includes pre-game, post-game, and during tactical timeouts.

As somebody who both has played in hundreds of tournaments at various games and has run large tournaments, software like this just makes my life way harder because the TO has to require not just video recording, but also audio recording now of every person's POV just to verify that they are not cheating.

There is ABSOLUTELY a market for coaching and statistical analysis in esports, and many esports teams (at least C9, Immortals, and TSM to my knowledge) hire/contract engineers to build out data analysis systems to gain advantages. You need to focus on the outside of the game learning process - maybe even something to analyze your recordings (which already exists for CS:GO, and is way more useful than what this does).

[cwkoss]

Does the timer thing actually make the player better at estimating time remaining?

I have never played this game, but I would assume the opposite: players would get a small advantage while using it, but it would prevent their timing skills from being developed.

This is like saying "Using GPS driving directions make you a better navigator" - it's true while you're using it, but if you always use it your navigation skills will atrophy.

Do you have statistics to back up the claimed value of your program? Would be interesting to implement a 'performance evaluation' mode that would measure baseline and periodically test users without hinting so you could have stats to back up claimed benefits.

[Olcy07]

Thanks for your feedback, appreciated! We are not developing GPS in your analogy, in our opinion, the game already provides GPS via auditory information. We just help you to learn and use this information.

[tapland]

No. The game provides the map in that analogy and you provide the GPS.

The question was: Are you not actively preventing learning? Seems from your answers you are aware of that but pretend to not notice?

[bobobob420]

The spike timer is beyond cheating lmao. All comp rounds go down to the timer timing

[staunch]

It's clearly cheating. As you point out, the numerous disclaimers and reassurances should be all anyone needs to see to know that they know they're doing wrong. They're seem to think they're merely near to the edge of cheating but actually they're well over the line.

In private matches, with friends, these cheats would be acceptable. But any time unsuspecting players are on the other end, using these should be a bannable offense. A level playing field is the entire point of games like Valorant. Preventing cheating is one of the major promises of Valorant. One should not claim to love games and then work to destroy them.

Riot should absolutely ban players for using these cheats.

YC should seriously consider whether these violate the Founder Ethics rules, because they very plainly seem to. Selling game cheats should be on the list of things YC never funds. Cheats are highly toxic and bad for the world.

> Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics.

> Generally behaving in a professional and upstanding way.

https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/

Lots of startups make mistakes early on. Hopefully this startup will pivot away from selling cheats and into other areas quickly. I wish them sincere good luck with those endeavors.

[berkozer]

Thanks for sharing your opinions and we truly share your concerns about ethics. In our opinion, we're providing analytical support and assistance. We don't lead unfair advantage among gamers.

[Operyl]

If you’re providing something in game, regardless of what it is, and not all players have equal access without external software too .. it’s an unfair advantage.

[throwaway675309]

Just to play devil's advocate here what about somebody who has a superior DPI laser mouse versus somebody who has a standard rollerball mouse. What about people who use monitors with higher refresh rates like 144 Hertz, what about keyboards that have no ghosting and unlimited key rollover.

Do players who can afford these premium gaming and hardware devices have an unfair advantage?

Just to be clear I don't really have any skin in the game I don't play competitive multiplayer video games at all.

[staunch]

Cheating can be one of those "I know it when I see it" things that can require judgement from experts in difficult cases. Competitive chess players are the best ones to judge what constitutes cheating in chess, for example.

But what this startup is doing is the Wikipedia definition of cheating, with no reasonable room for debate:

Cheating in online games is the subversion of the rules or mechanics of online video games to gain an advantage over other players, generally with the use of third-party software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_online_games

And it seems pretty obvious that they know what they're doing is wrong. They just seem to be very determined to try to push forward, and seem to think they have cleverly concealed their bad behavior, hence the cover story bs about "coaching" when they clearly know what anyone would actually use their software for.

I'd guess that they also rationalize selling cheats because others do it, which is obviously no ethical defense at all.

YC probably needs to be the ones to set them straight, since they are in a position to do so, and have explicitly made it a goal to avoid funding unethical startups.

[NathanielK]

Amusingly, both those examples used to be common.

Old CRT monitors ran at up to 160-170Hz. Even at lower refresh rates motion was still clear. Key rollover really became a big issue with early USB keyboards and janky membrane setups. Many old keyboards didn't have the issue.

In my opinion, games are at least designed around the lowest common denominator. Very few twitch-shooters are popular now. Most shooters have other characters/classes that let players with disadvantageous equipment still join in on the fun. If everything is a blur playing "Scout" in TF2, you can play "Engineer" instead and let the automated turrets do the work for you.

I think there's a certain Director's Vision gaming setup. Ideally, everyone could play on a big screen, where everything is clear, not muddied by the physical realities of technology.

[meheleventyone]

That comparison is like comparing someone in average tennis shoes and a cheap racket with someone using pro-level gear. It’s generally accepted that the better stuff does give you an advantage but that it is within the rules of the game to be able to use it. Particularly as the advantage is generally pretty small and mostly open to people playing at higher levels anyway. Some sports do bracket people by the equipment they use.

Whereas most software cheats like these audio cues deliberate subvert the rules to give a significant advantage even to the clueless. And aids like aimbots even more so.

But fundamentally the rules of any one game and therefore what is considered to be cheating are pretty arbitrary. However there is a strong cultural component to the rule sets that will actually be appealing for people to play.

[akerl_]

In your opinion, what would constitute unfair advantage?

[stale2002]

> Selling game cheats

Unless riot itself has commented on this and said that it is cheating, your moral outrage is unwarranted.

It is very much possible that riot does not consider this against the rules.

[void_mint]

> When a good significant portion of your website is dedicated to “will I get banned?”

It means that you will, and their app will get blacklisted, and they know it. They're trying to extract cash from users before it all gets banned/closed.

These types of apps get created for every new competitive game, and after a while they get shut down and the companies usually just quietly shut down without refunding anything.