Ideas for ASA

[blue_h3x]

Change character after selecting a song is a +1 from me.

[ViRUS]

+1 to song first, character later.

[S.]

'twould be nice if one could first select the SONG and only then the character he wants to ride it with.

Change character after selecting a song is a +1 from me.

+1 to song first, character later.

+1 to song first, character later.

[Passerby]

ya +1 to that, and maybe on the scoreboard screen after playing a song of a options to replay as a different charcter, with out having to back out of it and fine the song again

[ReMaXeD]

Nothing groundbreaking, but i did have a pretty cool idea. Unsure whether it has been brought up before so I apologize if its a repeat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_l3ryDMy4c

Just going to copy paste the youtube description I wrote while it uploaded..

"A bug actually gave me an idea lol

Other rhythm games like osu and stepmania have similar functions in that they have an option to make the player play from memory as the notes disappear early.
Ex: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0baEJ9rEFwE
 
The idea is hardly perfected in this video as I came across it by a fluke(it's more blinding than anything in the current state).. but the concept makes for a very interesting ride.. Although, it would tough work with any of the puzzle characters. I think it would be a cool addition if the tag mods return.

Not sure if all custom textures have the same effect or just the ones i'm using.
Nor do i know which texture specifically plays a role in it.


I haven't had a vanilla game in a long time and i'm going to feel silly if it's the same effect with the default textures "

dunno how to embed D:
edit: also if you don't watch in HD it looks completely dumb(HD looks slightly less so)

[EclipseCookie]

My ideas:

- For any f2p player: Mono is always available, including 3 other character of your choice, but 2 must be puzzle.
- No high required Graphics and stuff, it would really unfair for people with crappy computers. (like me)
- Replays for your best scores.
- Online multiplayer with DV.
- Eraser and Pusher casual. Maybe more characters. BUT NO VEGAS ELITE, inb4 luck on elite.
- Multipliers on casual and longer chain on all.
- No character bonuses for eraser. Eraser itself is already OP.

For Website if it comes:

- Support for cyrillic, greek, polish, turkish, japanese, whatever characters.
- More stuff to do on a profile instead of only seeing song lists, friends and comments.

[Cadiuro]

My ideas:

- For any f2p player: Mono is always available, including 3 other character of your choice, but 2 must be puzzle.
- No high required Graphics and stuff, it would really unfair for people with crappy computers. (like me)
- Replays for your best scores.
- Online multiplayer with DV.
- Eraser and Pusher casual. Maybe more characters. BUT NO VEGAS ELITE, inb4 luck on elite.
- Multipliers on casual and longer chain on all.
- No character bonuses for eraser. Eraser itself is already OP.

For Website if it comes:

- Support for cyrillic, greek, polish, turkish, japanese, whatever characters.
- More stuff to do on a profile instead of only seeing song lists, friends and comments.

Elite doesn't need a longer chain, but casual definitly does. I sometimes play Casual for fun, but am so damned annoyed by the chaintimer there.

[Uupis]

Elite really doesn't need a longer chain.

I was thinking that maybe Casual and Pro could get a longer chain (that is − longer than Elite) since they are supposed to be easier.

[Lebon14]

Don't know if somebody thought about this... so, I'll kind of post it anyway.

- Offline score saving.
- Compare score to older runs of the same song... (i.e. Not only one score is retained) [Still an offline feature]
- ...but still keep only one online : don't want to the database to become stupid huge because it stores multiple attempts on a single song by one player.
- If we decide to play offline, I mean Steam is offline or we are not connected to the Internet but we would still want to send the score but at later moment since we cannot send them because of lack of internet or because Stam is offline so ASA should "hold" a queue offline so when the game starts and Internet is available, ASA prompts the user if she wants to send the scores of the song he/she played during being offline. If yes, the scores are sent and there's a summary.  If we want, we can see each leaderboards.
- Legacy AS by updating the game so the scores can be stored offline if the server ever goes down.

[NovaTerran]

Don't know if somebody thought about this... so, I'll kind of post it anyway.

- Offline score saving.

That really could not work, because that would mean scores would be kept client side and easily manipulated for cheating scores.

[Passerby]

it is just as easy to manipulate it with the current system, can just packet sniff it out, messing with it than send

[Cadiuro]

Don't know if somebody thought about this... so, I'll kind of post it anyway.

- Offline score saving.

That really could not work, because that would mean scores would be kept client side and easily manipulated for cheating scores.

It could if, at the moment your song is finished, the score gets send to the database and a copy is saved offline - only the immediatly sent score counts.

[Lebon14]

I didn't think about that but let's see if there would be a way for that to work; for the offline score saving I mean.
One could create an encryption protocol that only Dylan knows how to decrypt (i.e. do not use an existing protocol). This create an encrypted offline file with the necessary information.  Then, that file is sent securely to the server, decrypted then logged into the database. Then, it creates a "final" information file that isn't encrypted back to the player. This file shows the result screen and then is saved on the hard drive. That file is only displayed if playing offline. So, even if it is edited, it cannot be sent to the server because the file needs to be encrypted in a way only Dylan knows about.

However, if someone plays offline but wants, later on, to send his/her score to the server, then it create the same encrypted local file but zipped in a passworded archive that only Audiosurf can extract. One would think "why not use brute force?!". Well, if the password is extremely long contains A LOT of special caracthers an etc, it's pretty much impossible in a lifetime with a normal desktop to decrypt.

This is the way I see things. I know I make it seem easier than it sounds. I know that it's hard to come up with an encryption scheme that is actually unknown and that has no security breach that could make it easy to crack. This is just an idea.

[Mincus]

--snip--

If I change the score in RAM before it's encrypted then none of this helps. That's the way the majority of cheaters seem to work atm anyway.

Additionally it's relying on Security through Obscurity which is largely seen as something that shouldn't be done as you don't know what the weaknesses of the security system are until they're found by people trying to break in (among others, read through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity).

It would make more sense to use one of the current open encryption routines with both a public key for encrypting and a private key for decrypting. It still suffers from the RAM problem but bypasses any additional chance of Dylan including his own security issues into the mix.
This does mean that someone can't decrypt and edit the scores files, however they could create their own score file instead if they manage to pull the private key and file structure out of Audiosurf Air. (As a note, they could do the same with the hypothetical 'Dylan-specific' encryption routine as well.)

This again all goes back to whether it's worth including all these things. The amount of work required to put in a solid, anti-cheat system would probably double the workload for Audiosurf Air. Do we really want to wait that long when the benefits aren't that large? And it will still be broken anyway at which point someone releases a cheat app and you're back to square one with it.

I would suggest the only reliable way to make an anti-cheat system would be to have the entire track structure (block positions, not the music itself) uploaded with the score as well as a replay of where the character moved and have the track structure compared with some form of fuzz to detect how close it is to other tracks on the scoreboard (which would be hard to implement without kicking valid scores). This would be hard (but not impossible) to fake but would again require a lot of work from the dev for what is mostly a minor issue with a reasonable solution already in place (reporting, although we do need some more trusted individuals monitoring those reports ).


Sooo, can we stop trying to fix the impossible now?

[Lebon14]

If it's impossible to fix from the get-go, why not take in consideration what I brought to this thread before this exploded?
For reference :

Don't know if somebody thought about this... so, I'll kind of post it anyway.

- Offline score saving.
- Compare score to older runs of the same song... (i.e. Not only one score is retained) [Still an offline feature]
- ...but still keep only one online : don't want to the database to become stupid huge because it stores multiple attempts on a single song by one player.
- If we decide to play offline, I mean Steam is offline or we are not connected to the Internet but we would still want to send the score but at later moment since we cannot send them because of lack of internet or because Stam is offline so ASA should "hold" a queue offline so when the game starts and Internet is available, ASA prompts the user if she wants to send the scores of the song he/she played during being offline. If yes, the scores are sent and there's a summary.  If we want, we can see each leaderboards.
- Legacy AS by updating the game so the scores can be stored offline if the server ever goes down.