So, I'm not really into online multiplayer, but from a distance I keep wondering if this could be more easily mitigated by altering the incentive structure?
What if online games track how well people do and sort them into tiers based on skill level? And then put people who are roughly evenly matched together. I am guessing that cheaters will naturally end up clumping together with each other, and maybe a smattering of elite players who are good enough that they can hold their own, and maybe even benefit from the added challenge. And also, casual and less-skilled players can play together and not get dominated so much.
I don't think it would end cheating. But perhaps it would mitigate it by reducing a lot of the potential upside. Assuming the upside for many cheaters is that they enjoy feeling like they can dominate a server full of non-cheaters.
As someone who plays a lot of online multiplayer, there's a few issues. A lot of games do have skill based matchmaking systems (aka SBMM) in place.
Ideally, this would lead to people having a 50% win rate which is just unacceptable to some. Those people resort to smurfing or cheating to get their fix--they don't really want a fair and equal match. Just look to the Call of Duty community crying about SBMM. Those people want to farm clips and play with those worse than them--not people at or above their skill level.
Additionally, many multiplayer games at all but the highest skill levels have most matches determined by the side that plays the fewest number of mistakes. This is especially true of team based games. At most skill levels, both teams will be making many obvious (and less obvious) mistakes. This can frustrate some who believe that they're held back by their team and just need to play with higher ranked teammates. So people will boost or buy accounts or resort to cheating.
Are the skilled players plugged into communities enough that they can just make their own servers? It would be some extra work, but I assume time spent getting to know each other wouldn't feel like a total waste, and might be greatly preferable to dealing with all these rootkits.
This is called "Skill based matchmaking" and it is absolutely something that many games already do. Studies have shown that it increases player retention significantly. But also, there's a chunk of people who absolutely hate on it at every opportunity.
Pay-to-win isn't really the issue so much as microtransactions in general. Most of these games have an in-game currency to buy stuff (some is pay-to-win, most are cosmetics) and protecting that currency (and the virtual goods traded on the market it drives) is paramount. These games also tend to have moved away from 'community hosted' servers, since these give an opportunity for hosters to hack in features that might be detrimental to sanctioned behavior.
In short, we typically see KLA on games with in-game currencies whose servers are controlled by the vendors.
Inasmuch as KLA is actually used as anti-cheat software, it's usually a proxy for actual moderation (i.e. labor). Community-hosted servers generally develop their own processes and customs for handling bad actors, but vendors generally don't want to hand that kind of power to internet strangers.
What if online games track how well people do and sort them into tiers based on skill level? And then put people who are roughly evenly matched together. I am guessing that cheaters will naturally end up clumping together with each other, and maybe a smattering of elite players who are good enough that they can hold their own, and maybe even benefit from the added challenge. And also, casual and less-skilled players can play together and not get dominated so much.
I don't think it would end cheating. But perhaps it would mitigate it by reducing a lot of the potential upside. Assuming the upside for many cheaters is that they enjoy feeling like they can dominate a server full of non-cheaters.