Titan criticized Valve for punishing the players with disregard for their team involvement.Titan also criticized Valve for not working directly with teams to remedy the situation. After KQLY's ban was revealed, Titan says it contacted Valve but was eventually "met with dead silence" after their initial email exchange. "Valve opted for a unilateral decision, handing out collective punishment with complete disregard for team involvement in the problem solving process." I contacted Valve earlier today for comment but have not received a response.
Titan mostly wanted to know when the hack was detected and to what extent it was used. They asked KQLY and he said that he just tried the hack out online and not at any major events. They cant fully trust KQLY's side of the story and everyone wants to know if there tournament wins were completely legit. Valve probably has their players privacy in mind, but it would be nice to know if Titan's $10,000 victory at DreamHack Stockholm was a fair win. If you read Titan's full statement then you can see that they're not excusing his actions.Dirty Hipsters said:The following quote really pissed me off:
Titan criticized Valve for punishing the players with disregard for their team involvement.Titan also criticized Valve for not working directly with teams to remedy the situation. After KQLY's ban was revealed, Titan says it contacted Valve but was eventually "met with dead silence" after their initial email exchange. "Valve opted for a unilateral decision, handing out collective punishment with complete disregard for team involvement in the problem solving process." I contacted Valve earlier today for comment but have not received a response.
FUCK YOU TITAN. It shouldn't matter that they're pro players, and it shouldn't matter what it does to their team. They cheated and they got banned and that's that. Normal players don't get a chance to appeal their VAC ban and neither should these "pros." They aren't special and fuck them for wanting special treatment for their team.
I'm really curious what exactly this cheat is, besides a toned-down aim assist, or aimbot. It sounds to me like a triggerbot or a subtle aim assist."It's a cheat that doesn't even have an extreme effect-unless you really abuse it-it has layers to it where it can just give you a slight advantage in aiming," says Shields in the video. "So if you're already one of the best players in the world, it'll make it so you just look like you're having your best game. It won't even seem like you're hacking and that was an impossible movement." He continues, "This is a cheat that doesn't have anything visible on the screen. The only way you'd know if someone did it is if you caught them at the point they installed it on that machine and activated it."
That's pretty much it, which is why it's borderline impossible to detect even with thousands watching.TheYellowCellPhone said:I'm really curious what exactly this cheat is, besides a toned-down aim assist, or aimbot. It sounds to me like a triggerbot or a subtle aim assist."It's a cheat that doesn't even have an extreme effect-unless you really abuse it-it has layers to it where it can just give you a slight advantage in aiming," says Shields in the video. "So if you're already one of the best players in the world, it'll make it so you just look like you're having your best game. It won't even seem like you're hacking and that was an impossible movement." He continues, "This is a cheat that doesn't have anything visible on the screen. The only way you'd know if someone did it is if you caught them at the point they installed it on that machine and activated it."
Does anyone know what this really is, or did they say what it does already? Is it mentioned in the PC Gamer video (which I did not watch)?
Sadly enough almost all professional sports have some doping misuse, so using hacks doesn't make them less of professional competitors in my mind, just unfair ones who should get banned, just like you exclude doping athletes from competitions, they're still called athletes.Reed Spacer said:Being as they had to resort to hacking, it begs the question as to just how 'pro' these gamers are.
The problem with making blanket absolute statements is that it only requires one plausible situation to disprove its universality.President Bagel said:Yup. Zero tolerance for hackers. Valve's one strike policy is completely fair. There's never any valid excuse to be using cheat programs under any circumstance.
Irick said:1) Valve developer could easily create circumstances under which ban wouldn't be an issue.President Bagel said:The problem with making blanket absolute statements is that it only requires one plausible situation to disprove its universality.
Here is a simple one: You are a Valve developer and you need to test VAC's ability to recognize cheat programs.
Here is an equivalent one: You are an academic who is studying VAC's method of detecting cheat programs.
Here is a less obvious one: You are a game design student who wishes to gain a better understanding of how skill affects game balance in an intuitively familiar game.
These are all entirely valid reasons.
2) Do you really need to enter the game so many times that for example even creating extra accounts and buying some cheap games for them with VAC protection would be a problem? Or simply finding a way to study VAC without actually involving yourself in the ban process.
3) Is it that hard to find a game with some servers without any anti-cheat protection?
If you know there is a danger connected to your work with anti-cheat systems there shouldn't be any problems with avoiding circumstances under which you will get unintentionally banned - and because of that there aren't really any problems with keeping zero tolerance policy.
I know a guy who got a VAC ban for using a mod to increase the field of view in a game that was causing him headaches. It was a crappy console port that didn't offer an option to change the FoV within the game. The kicker? According to him they ended up patching a FoV option into the game a few months later and yet he still has the VAC ban on his profile.President Bagel said:Yup. Zero tolerance for hackers. Valve's one strike policy is completely fair. There's never any valid excuse to be using cheat programs under any circumstance.
This wasn't any of these things, and there are ways to cope if you are. Fuck all cheaters, period.Irick said:The problem with making blanket absolute statements is that it only requires one plausible situation to disprove its universality.President Bagel said:Yup. Zero tolerance for hackers. Valve's one strike policy is completely fair. There's never any valid excuse to be using cheat programs under any circumstance.
Here is a simple one: You are a Valve developer and you need to test VAC's ability to recognize cheat programs.
Here is an equivalent one: You are an academic who is studying VAC's method of detecting cheat programs.
Here is a less obvious one: You are a game design student who wishes to gain a better understanding of how skill affects game balance in an intuitively familiar game.
These are all entirely valid reasons.
Not really, valve dev's have their own closed off sandbox to test stuff like that.Irick said:The problem with making blanket absolute statements is that it only requires one plausible situation to disprove its universality.President Bagel said:Yup. Zero tolerance for hackers. Valve's one strike policy is completely fair. There's never any valid excuse to be using cheat programs under any circumstance.
Here is a simple one: You are a Valve developer and you need to test VAC's ability to recognize cheat programs.
Here is an equivalent one: You are an academic who is studying VAC's method of detecting cheat programs.
Here is a less obvious one: You are a game design student who wishes to gain a better understanding of how skill affects game balance in an intuitively familiar game.
These are all entirely valid reasons.
Your complaint would hold more weight if VAC wasn't an opt-in feature for official or non-official servers.Irick said:snip
Tuesday Night Fever said:I know a guy who got a VAC ban for using a mod to increase the field of view in a game that was causing him headaches. It was a crappy console port that didn't offer an option to change the FoV within the game. The kicker? According to him they ended up patching a FoV option into the game a few months later and yet he still has the VAC ban on his profile.
I'm generally in agreement that there should be zero tolerance for hackers, but yet, I think there should be at least some sort of appeals process for extreme cases (though an incredibly strict one).
I don't recall exactly which game it was, but I'm pretty sure it was multiplayer. It came up in conversation a while back while I was playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with him. He'd had a couple decent games in a row and someone accused him of hacking, then pointed out that he had a VAC ban on his profile and tried to use that as conclusive proof that s/he wasn't merely outplayed. I've been friends with the guy since elementary school and didn't figure him for a hacker, since he'd always just had a knack for shooters even going back to the Goldeneye and Perfect Dark days, so I asked him about it.Vigormortis said:VAC banning is rarely, if ever, involved with single-player games. So I can only assume this story is related to a multi-player game.
If that be the case, then it's up to the developer of the game to decide what constitutes a hack and what does not. The VAC system doesn't blanket ban people for using mods in multi-player games. And moreover, provided one plays on a non-VAC secured server, they could use all of the mods and hacks they desire with no reprisals from the VAC system.
Out of curiosity, what game was it that he received the VAC ban for? I ask because some devs lock the FOV to a certain ratio to keep things universal for all players. It's a game balancing technique. (one I don't always agree with, but I can understand its implementation) As a result, many devs consider such mods to be a "hack" that is designed to give the player an unfair advantage.
Irick said:The problem with making blanket absolute statements is that it only requires one plausible situation to disprove its universality.
WHich is true, but in no way invalidates the reasonMJpoland said:1) Valve developer could easily create circumstances under which ban wouldn't be an issue.
Define 'really need' and how it invalidates the reason.MJpoland said:2) Do you really need to enter the game so many times that for example even creating extra accounts and buying some cheap games for them with VAC protection would be a problem? Or simply finding a way to study VAC without actually involving yourself in the ban process.
No.MJpoland said:3) Is it that hard to find a game with some servers without any anti-cheat protection?
I have just illustrated that this is not the case and that there really are problems with a controversial topic. It is not a shocking revelation, black and white views on the morality of any given action have time and time again been proven to be both simple and deeply flawed. I invite you to explore the space of ethics to attempt to understand the issue more broadly and refine your argument or to re-examine it.MJpoland said:If you know there is a danger connected to your work with anti-cheat systems there shouldn't be any problems with avoiding circumstances under which you will get unintentionally banned - and because of that there aren't really any problems with keeping zero tolerance policy.
So, a common problem here is that people don't seem to be reading into the context of the situation and instead defend against my critisism of a simplistic black and white morality in a form that conflates it with a technical problem, then ignores the actual point. This is okay, but it means you are not arguing against my argument. Unfortuently your very first two words are entirely false.Worgen said:Not really, valve dev's have their own closed off sandbox to test stuff like that.
Again, you are confusing my point for a technical one. Need? No one needs to test VAC in the same way no one needs to go to the moon. It is simply something to be done, and in doing so, it provides knowledge. I see this argument all of the time in various forms. "No one needs to research XYZ because I can only imagine bad usages." This is of course, ignoring the fact that VAC in and of itself is born of this same research.Worgen said:An academic doesn't need to test vac's anti cheat methods unless they are making a cheat and trying to figure out how to bypass it, anti-cheat software has to be changed once people figure out how it works because it means that the cheat makers can find a way past it.
This is of course, ignoring the possibility of extracurricular study. Don't feel too bad about it though, you're not alone. The hoops that you implicitly suggest are acceptable to jump through to study a game, are simply not acceptable. They inherently discourage the exploration of games systems by their very existence and they do little to nothing to prevent actual cheating at a professional level because of a very simple design flaw: a blacklist can only detect what it knows about and polymorphic code exists.Worgen said:And the last one isn't related. If a student wanted to test that out, they could do it in a noncompetitive environment or in a closed off test environment.
This dismissal of my point would be more understandable if VAC was an actually an opt-in feature rather than opt out.Vigormortis said:Your complaint would hold more weight if VAC wasn't an opt-in feature for official or non-official servers.
As it stands, it isn't.Source Server Documentation said:VAC is enabled by default on all servers and requires the administrator to expressly disable it by adding the -insecure line to the launch options
I'm not willing to enforce 'fair play' with a destructive system. Despite your claims, VAC is demonstrated detrimental on several levels so while you may be willing to overlook the trade off or to rhetorically put it: sacrifice what you will at the altar of fairness, I am not. Thus, I oppose it.Vigormortis said:It's a reasonable system and I'm baffled how anyone interested in fair play for all players could think it a detrimental system.
Except that VAC is default on. So, they also need to explicitly disable it as a start flag which makes it far more likely that they will leave it on. Which of course means that the simple and well meaning logic of: "I would like to test game balance of a game, but I don't want to interfere with others enjoyment so I will spin up my own server." Still results in a ban unless precautionary steps are taken any time it is set up.Vigormortis said:If someone is so concerned with the VAC system banning them for using a mod, all they need do is play on a non-VAC server or on their own dedicated or local server.