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[deleted+75193]

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[Dirty Hipsters]

The following quote really pissed me off:

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 criticized Valve for punishing the players with disregard for their team involvement.

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.

 

[Cronenberg1]

The following quote really pissed me off:

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 criticized Valve for punishing the players with disregard for their team involvement.

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.

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.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

"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."

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.

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)?

EDIT: Okay, so I've done a bit more digging about this cheat, and yeah, I haven't found anything else about its behavior other than it somehow improves your aim just a little bit.

Apparently it attaches to your SteamCloud like a Steam Workshop attachment (it might even have been a Steam Workshop file, but if it is I haven't found any info on it other than it was removed). So the hack would boot up with your game and load like a custom Workshop file, which is normal behavior for Source games. This means that there is no external program that has to be opened in tandem with the client, and there's no menu that appears in-game because the hack would start on launch, meaning that the hack practically is so undetectable it makes sense that it could be used at LANs, where hundreds of Counterstrike enthusiasts could look at you and see nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[Reed Spacer]

Being as they had to resort to hacking, it begs the question as to just how 'pro' these gamers are.

 

[smithy_2045]

"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."

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.

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)?

That's pretty much it, which is why it's borderline impossible to detect even with thousands watching.

 

[Irick]

I have always opposed the idea of any Zero Tolerance policy. Doubly so when the policies are enforced automatically and with no appeal process.

I see VAC and other automated systems with the power to permanently ostracize a player from a game's community as fundamentally detrimental to gaming. They inherently sacrifice the ability to iterate, explore, discover and learn game design at the altar of competitive play. This is so fundamentally wrong to me and I can only see it hurting the game community in the end for the sake of a 'better product'. As a professional sporting institution, the focus is naturally on fairness so it would make sense to have these sort of policies during tournaments (like a drug test) but to make this the de-facto interaction with the game? I fundamentally disagree.

I can not comment on the specifics of this case, but the implication that the use of this program was not in any official bracket is troubling to say the least. VAC has always been an invasive piece of software by the nature of its operation (again, the analogy of a drug test is well served here). I have truly never been comfortable with it and systems like it, but doubly so when they are enforced with such a dumbed down black and white mentality. This solution to the supposed problem of cheating is just nuking it. It is so stupidly easy to protect against cheating in a competitive environment for video games it can be boiled down to a single word: checksum.

Why do we allow this sort of paranoia drive the experience of our medium? It's become a caricature. The sore loser screaming 'hax!' at their computer screen when they are outclassed. We have for some reason largely decided that the rules for the games are more important than play itself in nearly all circumstances, so much that we take this mentality beyond simply excluding players who make the game unfun or unfair to excluding players who potentially make the game unfair. Anyone who dares explore a games system now is just as likely to get pegged by VAC as someone who actively cheats to ruin a game. The process makes no differentiation between someone who was curious as to what happened when the rules changed and someone who didn't want to play by the rules. There is no warning system, there isn't a possibility for the forgiveness of honest mistakes. Instead, all of that potential to learn from a game that you love is tossed aside to facilitate the consumer product.

So, I must oppose this decision not because it is wrong, but because the methods used to reach it are destructive to the greater whole. It is cutting off the whole damn face to spite the mole on the nose.

 

[smokingplane]

Being as they had to resort to hacking, it begs the question as to just how 'pro' these gamers are.

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.

Unless you meant pro as "having a positive atitude towards". They're probably more pro money and status than pro games.


OT:good ridance cheaters, ban them (for a good long time at least). It sucks for the rest of the team, but thats life I guess.

 

[seris]

"Im just going to hack in pubs" That doesnt make it any better, and your still ruining peoples time by hacking. and how do we know you werent hacking in tournaments? ey all deserved their ban, and they can keep the VAC of shame on their profile forever.

 

[mxc2012]

The problem that I have is their stories never seem like more than excuses. All of it is some variation of either using a cheat on another account for a short time or someone else using their account. I can't imagine for a second that someone who makes a living off the game would risk trying any cheat even for a short time or let anyone use their account. Go to the steam VAC forums and you'll see loads of people with the same excuse.

 

[deleted+75193]

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[Irick]

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.

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.

 

[MJpoland]

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.

1) Valve developer could easily create circumstances under which ban wouldn't be an issue.
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.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

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.

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).

 

[Rayce Archer]

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.

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.

This wasn't any of these things, and there are ways to cope if you are. Fuck all cheaters, period.

 

[Worgen]

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.

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.

Not really, valve dev's have their own closed off sandbox to test stuff like that.
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.
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.

 

[VincentX3]

So what I gathered from this is:

>Big fucking tournament involved
>Guy decides to cheat because why not
>Gets caught and vac-banned
>"but gais!11 all da pr0s are dooing it!!11


You reap what you sow, if you we're confident enough you shouldn't have resorted to any kinds of cheats period.

 

[Vigormortis]

This doesn't surprise me in the least. In fact, I'm amazed they haven't caught more pro-players using hacks.

From my own experience in online competitive gaming; both in amateur and pro leagues; I've found that many pro-players use hacks.

Now don't misunderstand me. None of them used the hacks during official scrims or tourneys. They primarily used them whenever they were playing in some random PUB match.

And here's the thing. I actually brought this up with some pro-players I knew when I noticed they, or others, were using those hacks during PUB games. I would ask them why they were using those hacks when they were clearly good enough to not need them. Most of the time I'd get the same line of excuses. Anything from, "Because it's funny." to "Because it's fun to piss off pubbies."

Personally, I think it's more an ego thing. The notion of losing to some random PUB player would be a massive blow to their (often bloated) egos. So anything they could do to ensure their victory was A-okay in their book.

Regardless, good on Valve for removing these players. Issues of supposed "pro" players using hacks aside, if they were dumb enough to use hacks on officially hosted, VAC-secured servers, then I have no sympathy for them. It's like lighting up a crack-pipe in the middle of a police station.

snip

Your complaint would hold more weight if VAC wasn't an opt-in feature for official or non-official servers.

As it is? It's a reasonable system and I'm baffled how anyone interested in fair play for all players could think it a detrimental system. 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.

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).

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.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

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.

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.

If the ban had been because FoV was locked for multiplayer balance, I'd call it justifiable. But if FoV is locked just because it's a lazy console port, and going to become an option down the road, I think there should be an option to submit an appeal for review. I know that the console-friendly FoV of Call of Duty: Ghosts single player was enough to make me a bit queasy, so I can sympathize with my friend's reasoning. But granted, that queasiness may have just been because I was playing CoD: Ghosts.

 

[Irick]

The problem with making blanket absolute statements is that it only requires one plausible situation to disprove its universality.

1) Valve developer could easily create circumstances under which ban wouldn't be an issue.

WHich is true, but in no way invalidates the reason

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.

Define 'really need' and how it invalidates the reason.

3) Is it that hard to find a game with some servers without any anti-cheat protection?

No.
However it still in no way invalidates the reason.
In fact, the argument then can be made that the possibility to connect to a server without any anti-cheat protection serves to illustrate a situation where in the legitimate exploration of a game could bring one to a point wherein VAC flags them because of a simple mistake (e.g. accidently joining a VAC secured server after running through a few without VAC). This is precisely why I am against systems like VAC. They punish exploration and make our medium poorer for it.

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 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.

Not really, valve dev's have their own closed off sandbox to test stuff like that.

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.

"Not really"

"This is not really a valid reason, which is why it routinely happens in a real environment that is specifically set up to facilitate it directly because the system itself if universally applied prevents its existence."

Which of course means you inadvertently support my argument while disagreeing with my sentiment. The statement "There's never any valid excuse to be using cheat programs under any circumstance." is false specifically because of the need to 'test stuff like that' in order to facilitate the very act. This is of course, something that happens in reality, which makes it 'really'(adj).

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.

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.

VAC doesn't need to invade your privacy. VAC doesn't need to be able to hand out permabans. VAC doesn't need to be able to exist and I can even make the argument that, because VAC relies on that element of deception on how it works, VAC is as immoral as cheating. It already fails kantian universality by even existing.

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 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.

You want to ensure an official tournament is fair? Spin up a SteamOS custom distro with the game installed for the even and run a checksum before the event. It's infinitely more effective. Making the tower inaccessible to the players or even just putting the damn thing into kiosk mode solves this problem far more effectively without necessitating an imperfect nuclear solution inforced with a mindset that stubbornly refuses to accept that reality is nuanced.

Your complaint would hold more weight if VAC wasn't an opt-in feature for official or non-official servers.

This dismissal of my point would be more understandable if VAC was an actually an opt-in feature rather than opt out.

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

As it stands, it isn't.

It's a reasonable system and I'm baffled how anyone interested in fair play for all players could think it a detrimental system.

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.

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.

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.

Which further illustrates my argument. It's bad, it makes the act of exploring inherently dangerous and at best discourages it which is fundamentally against what I value in gaming. I do not find it reasonable to sacrifice the ability to explore games, to learn from them and internalize their design, to further the art itself for 'fairness'.

In the end, I do not find it justifiable to support or hold a system which is fundamentally ignorant of the nuance possible in reality up to be a reasonable measure.