So yeah, I want to discuss or point out why I think Valve needs to fix Anti-Cheat issues.
They have VAC but apparently its doing jackshit, be it Counter Strike 2 (any previous iterations) or something like Hunt: Showdown the prevalence of cheating players is non deniable.
For me personally it has come to a point that I am not enjoying playing those games anymore, although they are great games by itself. But the amount of occurrences being killed or playing against cheaters is at a height, where I don't see the point anymore.
- Why I think Valve is the only company able to something against cheaters?
Because they have the tools with VAC already aiming to prevent cheaters. Valve has got the resources to actually invest into something more profound which could be used for any game where anti-cheat protection needs to be implemented. And lastly Valve is the company which is interested in furthering the ability to gaming on Linux, the anti-cheat solution needs to work on both operating systems. Only Valve has the motivation and means to achieve that with their knowledge and resources.
What do you guys think about the topic? Is the fight against cheaters hopeless? Do you think some other entity should provide anti-cheat protection, why? I skimmed over "anti cheat in linux kernel" posts in the net, but I have very little knowledge about the topic, what is your stance on it?
Edited:
Mixed EAC with VAC. EAC seems to be part of Epic Company. Both of these tools seem unable to prevent cheating like mentioned above.
I have run into maybe 3 people that I legitimately think were cheating, in 6+ years of CS:GO, and now CS2.
Where the hell are you running into this many cheaters?
On the flipside of this, I've been kicked from games because I know how to prefire, and a lot of players see that and just assume you're wallhacking. Nobody pays attention to the 70% of the time that you prefire at air, but when you guess right and instakill someone holding an angle, it's easier to say "cheater" than "i've been holding this same angle for the past 5 rounds, perhaps I've become predictable"
It's basically luck of the draw with trust factor and region
I regularly run into cheaters who I watch the demo afterwards and they just sit there aim locked onto someone and tracking them through the wall for 10s before blasting them without ever seeing them, or react to things they can't see (e.g. suddenly flick to a corner someone is walking up to in a panic wo seeing or hearing a thing). Basically every other game has someone suspicious if not blatantly cheating from the start. If was bad in CSGO and it's 10x worse in CS2
I remember back in like 2016~2017 seeing one of those spinning aimbots with a wallhack, just sitting at CT spawn in Dust 2 and killing everyone on T. We all watched it for 5 minutes until it got VAC-banned. That one was hilarious.
I do wonder if West Coast US (where I am) is more heavily policed than other regions. That would make sense if Valve is doing some kind of post-match automated analysis of player behavior, which would probably be too compute-intensive to run everywhere.
Apparently East coast is just a FFA. Ive played in EU and West Coast servers with friends and they're definitely better about cheaters
You are either using hyperbole or you are lying. VAC is an incredibly good AC for CS. To have a cheater every other game is not possible unless your trust factor is in the basement/you are at 20k+ (which I doubt)/ or you are really low like <3k (most likely).
Game sense is a big thing in CS and it can be the reason for a lot of decisions that people make, which can be thought of as cheating. Go watch professional LAN tournaments of 1.6 especially on Nuke and see all the wall bangs that happen that's not wall hacks it's game sense.
I have been playing CS since 1.6. I know a cheater when I see one and I know wallbangs can happen. You mean the guy with 100% headshot rate, shoots exclusively at people thorough walls before seeing them, and puts their face into a wall to stare at the enemy and track them walking through the map on 1v1 is playing legitimately? Unless I've done something to tank my trust factor and it hasn't changed in something like 5 years, then there's no reason for me to have low trust factor.
The cheater problem was not like this before and has been getting steadily worse. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they don't exist. Besides that wallbangs are nothing like in 1.6.
Most cheaters are good at hiding it.
I'm usually ranked either 3rd or 4th in FFA deathmatch matches, so if they're hiding it so well that they're not pushing the non-cheaters down, what is the point of cheating? And if they're hiding it so well that they're not actually even winning, how are they causing so much grief?
Maybe it's a bigger issue in Ranked/ competitive, but if you're not actually on an esports team I just don't get caring about rankings and playing ranked (is it just for the ranked season profile badge? I did that one year to get to Gold Nova 3, and then never bothered again).
What is your playtime? Mine is pretty low on CS2 but the biggest critics on the game online are the amount of cheaters.
In CS:GO I have/had ~1600 hours. In CS2 only about 120 so far.