Have you ever cheated on a Steam game?
Define cheating. I love to disassemble and warp game mechanics and memory data through CE. Teaches me a ton about the game's internal logic and the ways to do things even without memory hacks that the devs probably never thought of.
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I guess the definition is in this case valve's own, which we do know, but i'm sure each one can estimate if he drives with a safe distance or not.
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Oh, that? VAC is only monitoring MP matches, and since I think that if a game needs me to team up with a bunch of random twats to enjoy it, then it is not an interesting enough game to begin with. (It is a totally different topic that I think CS is conceptually weak as a game in general and laugh whenever someone says it requires "skill".) So, I play only SP.
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Can you take that a bit further lease, to let me follow what you mean?
You don't like CS - I got that, and you might not be entirely off either that it isn't the most innovative of games.
But that it doesn't require skill to master is a bit harsh on the players that have spent a lot of time honing their skills, don't you think?
I mean, looking at Steams entire library, you can find many games that are conceptually weak, or outright bland copies of other games, or even clones of copies of games, but saying that and equalling it to that it won't require skill to play sounds off to me. Even a bad game requires skill, no?
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CS uses permadeath per match. This means that if someone gets lucky, you are out, done.
Take Quake 1 for example. It takes 10-30 kills in a 1v1 to determine a winner since it means that if you are less skillfull but managed to happen upon the railgun faster and shoot off one lucky headshot, you won't be deemed the winner.
CS is like playing football where the first goal determines the entire match. It is partly skill, sure. But partly. The only thing that partially offsets this is that at least tournaments are determined by several matches in a row, not just one.
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Isn't that really the same thing but just time-managed differently?
In Quake you players then re-spawn 10-30 times in the same match and then the winner is announced in that match - so a lucky shot or two doesn't get you the win - constant kills do.
In CS you re-spawn in the next match (out of 8) and by the end of the 8 matches the winning team is announced - so a lucky shot or two doesn't get you the win either - constant kills do.
That the games are different, with different flow and game mechanics - of that there is no question.
That one game favours personal skill while the other favours team-skills is also no question.
That that is two slightly different skillsets is maybe true, but they still are skillsets.
You a could argue the point that a Quake Champion is better player than a CS player as the Q-C has to go it alone, while the CS player has a little help from his friends - you could as easily turn such an argument on it's head by saying the Q-C never had to carry a lousy team, and therefore is the worse player - but arguments such as these just goes around in circles.
Both games require skills, slightly different skills in the different game environments, but skills nonetheless.
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Don't know how much CS you played, but I used to play it a ton before Steam, on dial-up.
You could tell when one player was better than the other pretty quickly. How they moved through the level, how their tactics changed based on what else was happening, when they chose to pop the different grenades and their skill at aiming and timing those grenades, the weapon loadouts they chose (okay, usually this was just Deagle/AWP or USP/Scout...), whether they listen to footsteps or not, whether they'd check the area first before disarming a bomb, etc.
That skill would be borne out by those players being consistently at the top of the scoreboard all day, in every match. Playing with those sorts of people while on dial-up, I was able to easily hold my own when I went to my first and only experience at a LAN gaming center, even while they were looking at my screen and calling out where I was.
There's a ton of skill long before you get to lucky headshots(*) which are, as you said, lucky. But in the probably fifth of a second (literally) before you get a lucky headshot, you usually have time (half a second) to get a kill without a headshot. Unless you get a seriously lucky headshot without even aiming or through a wall -- and those are relatively rare. I don't know if it's still possible in the current CS, but it was hilarious (and very very rare) when you'd get a headshot with a grenade fragment.
In any case, yes, it really does require skill to be good.
As for it being a weak concept. I'll agree with that, but that's it's strength as well. It keeps it simple. Stupid simple. You can definitely call that a weak concept if you like. The only major groundbreaker for it was "realistic" weapon damage and people having to sit out their deaths between rounds.
P.S. Cool that you use CE to figure out how a game's logic sort of works internally, rather than simply to cheat.
(*) Footnote -- as opposed to aimed headshots, which are absolutely not lucky -- they are headshots. Period.
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I got owned in many games. I was a mediocre FPS player who was much more efficient in a team support role. But in Q1 and UT when I got owned, I felt like losing to a better player. In CS, I felt like losing to a luckier player. Rather large difference. If you pit a total newcomer against a megapro in CS, the newbie can score a lucky shot any time. If you do it in Halo 1, any Quake before Champions, or in any UT, the newb will end with a 0 score. Realistic shooters will never be fully skill-based since one stray bullet can decide any matchup.
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I'll grant you that a new player can get lucky against anyone in CS, true enough. It won't happen often ("spray and pray" isn't generally a good idea in CS), but it can happen. Doom / Quake / Unreal / Halo mitigates this with everyone being a bit of a bullet sponge against many weapons. It's definitely a different kind of gameplay, and if you prefer that -- awesome! :) And I get now why you suggest that those games take more skill than CS.
Also, I forgot to mention anything about team tactics in my prior post. Hugely important. I hated team jumpers (people who would switch to the winning side), and that was definitely an issue that plagued old CS (no idea if it still affects new CS, and if it does, that's sad). A more aggressive and more tactical team would continuously steamroll the other side, resulting in a very un-fun time for the losing team (sadly, often newer players). If you were good at CS, and the rest of your team wasn't, it could be frustrating, and it felt like most people acceded to that frustration by switching teams at the first opportunity, only making the problem worse.
Also bunny hopping... all the ridiculous damn bunny hopping (messes with your hitbox a little, harder to hit a moving target).
And always moving diagonally -- you move slightly faster (blame the Quake-based engine), getting to the center conflict point faster, getting the drop on the enemy.
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first gosal what ?
you dont watch football often do you ? and sports in general ?
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I can only assume you never played CS, because I while I will be the first one to agree that it is a horrible experience to play with randoms and it is broken in more than just one way, saying that it doesn't require skill is just plain wrong.
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I played it when it still was CS. Got bored pretty fast with the mechanics and went back playing UT99 where I did not have to wait to respwan for two minutes because someone threw a random grenade somewhere and I happened to turn that corner at that moment or because I was in a reload animation in a godsdamned team deathmatch game. (As someone who grew up in the Quake 1-3 era, I cannot really take any FPS DM game seriously that has a reload animation unless it is a double-barrelled shotgun and it is essentially just a mechanic to reduce fire rate.)
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You are comparing two totally different things though.
I hear Hamilton is terrible at Mario Kart, it must require more skill than F1 driving.
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Different how? Are they not both first-person shooters? Are they not both aimed at multiplayer? Are they both not doing a team deathmatch game mode? The only difference is one using semi-realistic damage model, which was a novelty back then.
(Also, Hamilton is a gokart world champion. :P)
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Well, with in the confines of what the article describes, cheating online by giving yourself an unfair advantage over others.
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Define cheating.
Definition, Cheating (Gaming): Modifying or otherwise exploiting a game for the purpose of gaining an advantage in gameplay.
with in the confines of what the article describes, cheating online by giving yourself an unfair advantage over others.
That's pretty much the core definition as it applies to gaming. Though, it kinda bugs me when people conflate single-player and multi-player cheating (since the latter negatively affects other people, while the first is relevant only to the gamer in question), but general modding isn't ever related to cheating in any way, so it's rather peculiar when that gets lumped into such considerations.
Rather, it's like scripts on SG- auto-join and one-click-entry ones are obviously intended to cheat the system, but all the many other convenience and interface scripts that so many of us use are clearly not exploitative in nature.
Of course, as far as online multiplayer games go, it's usually impossible for the developer to easily determine what scripts are exploitative and which are not (outside of customization systems the developer themselves have implemented into the game), so it's understandable that any sort of modding ends up getting caught by anti-cheat methods.
While it's possible that some of those VAC bans are tied to innocent modding efforts, it's not necessarily probable, given that non-exploitative gamers rarely intentionally try to contest games with established anti-cheat efforts. As such, the usual arguments of modding versus cheating really don't apply to things like VAC bans, where (barring any kind of glitch) the bans are warranted by the decisions made by the gamer in question.
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I also love to use CheatEngine to gain fuller control over games, but this is exclusively for single player games. ;)
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Why where are 1 answer for all cheaters: 1) multiplayer cheaters, 2) singleplayer cheaters, 3) achievment-cheaters?
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Well, I could have broken it down in pieces and gotten a small answer for each, but I'm more interested the type of cheating the article talks about, which are the VAC-monitored games. It sort of implies online multiplayer FPS/MOBA type cheating, which in my opinion is the only cheating that really matters - giving yourself an unfair advantage over others online.
Single player cheaters are just playing themselves (or adjusting to a tedious game part) - So only answer yes if you've done it in a MP game.
Achievement cheaters, well.... I haven't contemplated that at all really. Don't even know if I would say that's cheating, I'll have to think about what I think about it. =)
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Sadly, nowadays it is more complex. Probably the only reason CS:GO is still old-school in this regard is because they would lose all players of they implemented the modern mechanics. Where the more you play, the more advantage you have over other players. Where your skills are totally meaningless, it only matters how much money and time you sank into the game so you can feel superior over others who may be technically a lot better than you, but you managed to buy your way to the top instead. And I am totally not thinking right now about… pretty much any multiplayer game released by Activision or any mobile PvP game in the past 6 or so years. :)
And it is still unfair advantage, but since it is built into the core game, it is okay now.
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Oh my god, don't even say these things....
Imagine if they did. Not only would we have to listen to 11-YO Russian kids telling us how much they fuxxxed our mothers and cyka this and cyka that, we would also have to live with the humiliation of knowing the kids have more money to spend on that shit than we do....
Steam-employee; this thread is not for you - Do NOT get any ideas!
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So a VAC ban tradebans you as well? Makes it much more amusing that they lose all their $$$$$$$ pixels. Not that they care, just buy couple more accounts full of them and better cheats this time.
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It causes all your items from the game you're playing to be non-tradable and non-marketable, but only from the game you got VAC in.
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People were cheating in that summer sale event (TD). That was "innocent", but cheating anyway. And Valve doesn't care. Why are some cheats allowed? :p
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People used scripts during the summer event, that made it so that no monsters would spawn, and ones that made them auto-pick new regions to fight (to increase their levels) so that they would not have to actually be at their computer to enter places. Seeing how high level you "could" get, it feels like valve pretty much expected this.
The game was also very easy to accidentally cheat in, as if you changed active tab, no monsters would spawn.
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This is real problem imho.
On one hand - valve bans cheaters and supports fair competition. Clear message - right?
But on the other hand - creates event where you can gain high lvl badge - ONLY by using scripts. People who were playing manually during last event earned only lvl 3 badge... or lvl 4 badge and carpal tunnel sindrom xD
It was the same with last "clicker" sale. They even added more levels for badge - so even people who use scripts had to use them like 24h for getting last badge.
Also stating that
Valve doesn't care
is not true. Valve stuff even warned people who created scripts that they are going to introduce "boss zones" and they should update their scripts or scripts would stop working xD
And that is clear message - cheating is something that everybody should do.
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On one hand - valve bans cheaters and supports fair competition. Clear message - right?
Well, are they though?
Aren't they saying;
''We have these games over here - Here you are not allowed to cheat at all and we are watching you and trying our best giggle to stop and ban you.
And we also have these other games over there, we don't really care what you do with them as it doesn't affect anyone but you.
Oh you internet goofy people like scripts do you, we'll do a silly competition; a Steam version of Cookie Clicker if you wish, and you can affect it as much as you wish for yourself.''
Isn't that what they are saying?
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Valve VAC-bans on their own games... and games that support vac bans :) I guess it only depends on developer. Valve cares for cs but for example Tomb Raider is not their business and you will get cancer from playing mp there
Other thing is what talgaby already mentioned. "Modern" gaming industry is supporting cheaters by implementing unfair advantage as game mechanics. When I was younger I played quake. A lot.
And I crushed other players because I had more experience in game. Knew how to use weapons efficiently, where are certain items on map and when they respawn and so on. Sometimes I was playing with bots - only to train rocket-jumps and some alternative paths to various places on map. And I was mediocre player - because some people were playing a lot more then me.
Right now people who have more gameplay hours have advantage - not because they are better, but because they unlocked scope to their rifle, or unlocked drone that reveals enemies on map or unlocked armour piercing bullets... and so on.
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people who have more gameplay hours have advantage - not because they are better, but because they unlocked scope to their rifle, or unlocked drone that reveals enemies on map or unlocked armour piercing bullets... and so on.
Yes. This is cancer to games. I avoid these types of games as much as I can.
And I can actually even find it funny to be killed in impressive ways by a more skilled player - I learn by watching it happen, and sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself and how much you suck.... lol (and by you, I mean me...)
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And I can actually even find it funny to be killed in impressive ways by a more skilled player - I learn by watching it happen, and sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself and how much you suck.... lol (and by you, I mean me...)
So much this xD
But hey! People will rather say that it's unfair that somebody has better skill. And it's completely fair if somebody have advantage by playing game longer.
I you wan't skill - you have to LEARN. In modern system all you have to do is some time consuming farming - and that is something that everybody can do. Equality over quality xD
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I wonder if that's really it though - because people think skill is unfair?
I think it's more of a logical outcome of new marketing ideas that first (?) came with game apps;
Grab'em while they are young (add in some cool animations that doesn't do shit - kids like hat stuff) and teach them to grind. Then slowly insert paying options to get ahead of the game.
It's sort a marketing grooming of an entire generation - and from the compannies standpoint this new method is great. Have 'em stay with your product and do micro-transactions in them for ever. Ka-Ching!!.
And as they are groomed to it they might not even see how wrong it is.
But the outcome is poor for the rest of us, as more and more companies switch to this and similar methods as it works, so there might be less and less 'proper' games in the future...
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What I said is rather a result of what you described xD We do see what's wrong with those new games. And still playerbase of those games is huge - and a lot of people will argue if you dare to criticise their beloved game.
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This is not a real problem. Cheating gives you unfair advantage. As long as that unfair advantage has single scope - you, and game mechanics, it's mostly considered to be grayzone/fine by majority of users and devs, since it doesn't hurt anybody in the process. Unlocking game achievements or using cheat codes is such example. You getting L6 badge in summer sale does not hurt your friend who went on holidays and missed entire sale with L0 badge, it also did not hurt anybody else participating in the event. There was no "prize" for the user who gets max level fastest.
If unfair advantage presented you with cheats gives you unfair competitive advantage, in which you cheating directly affects other people that do not cheat, this is what almost everybody will consider as something unwanted. This includes all MP games that are typically PvP based (not in a strict MMO sense, but more like players playing vs other players) as in those games your cheating directly weakens your opponents. This is majority of MP games, and this is why nobody will tell you that cheating in MP game is fine, simply because it's not fair compared to other people participating in the same goal.
I'm not sure what to think about cheating in games where it's you and other people vs game mechanics (e.g. campaign co-op, even if multiplayer), I'd probably say it depends on more factors such as how much your playthrough relates to other people - if not at all, it's once again single scope with just your friend, otherwise (if your playthrough could affect the world for example), it's same as cheat. Example of the second that comes to my mind is fastest run for example, as there is a prize for being faster than everybody else, and all people compete in a single challenge, even though they're not strictly against each other.
You can't just say that taking drugs and murdering a person is the same, even though both are crimes and both are punishable. If alcohol didn't cause you being unable to focus, it'd not be illegal to drive while being drunk, same as it's not illegal to drive while being on high caffeine. It is illegal because it directly affects other people on the road and you significantly increasing risk of at worst crash, at best killing others during one. They didn't just say that alcohol is bad, drugs are bad and caffeine is good in some arbitrary way - in exactly the same way you shouldn't assume that all cheats should be punishable, especially those that do not hurt anybody in the process. If the guy has paid for the game, then by all means he has the right to have fun with it, also in non-intended ways, as long as he isn't hurting anybody in the process.
(This is also why I'm opposed to drugs being illegal - as long as nobody gets hurt, it should be same as alcohol)
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To be honest - idk why I wasted that amount of time with latest valve's sale game. But people using scripts indeed affected my gameplay :)
Seriously - if you tried to play on "hard" zone - you had a really small frame of time between spawn of new planet and a moment when all scripts that automatically detected hardest zones farmed them mercilessly.
A lot of people treat steam itself as "metagame". Collecting achievements and badges is part of it. So there were a lot of people who would do anything to get lvl 6 badge.
I totally agree with all that you wrote - except first sentence. Drugs and alcohol example nailed it.
It's ok to drink alcohol if you are doing it in responsible way. And still - in many countries it's illegal to advertise alcohol. And that shitty - sale clicker - is just like advertising: "We made this for people who use scripts! Get one for yourself! Now!".
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The one destroys the gaming experience of another Person, the other does not even involve another Person.
Every Person can cheat as much as they want as long as they do not influence the experiance of other People.
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Cheat only in single player stuff. Specially grindy RPGs...
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Can't say I fault you for that, or anyone really. If you can bypass a boring or really tedious part of a single player game, then why not? Doesn't hurt anyone.
The ''doesn't hurt anyone'' stance is probably one Valve takes too, or these games would also be VAC-monitored.
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The issue with VAC and other stuff is that there are "false positives" like when people hacked Dark Souls 2 to look better and triggered VACs, no idea how often it happens but I tend to go offline to avoid issues.
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Uh oh, let's hope VAC doesn't get Google detection any time soon. I like trying to figure out stuff on my own, but if I'm just hitting my head to a wall for hours for missing something obvious, continuing to do it gives me no satisfaction.
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Well, I do cheat a lot, and I don't think I should be ashamed of it. In singleplayer games, that is. Obviously.
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LOL
My blood pressure rose at the bloody gall in that first line. Until I read the second one. Obviously.
Damn I'm easily triggered - I need to lay of the coffee....
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Finally a little bit... but still to less... but I guess that I should be, more patience xD
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IMHO all BANs...including all kind of them...shall be always LIMITED to MULTIPLAYER GAMES
the highest priority for cheaters hunting shall be competitive PVP
2nd generic PVP
Multi PVE is a third class - much less severe imho.
Coop PVE it's borderline (it's almost a single player game)
Finally, in single Player, I shall entitled to do whatever i want...ALWAYS, including CHEATING.
That said, companies needs to enforce secure and proven method of identifying cheaters - otherwise is again witch-hunting
I've gave up ALL games from UBISOFT when I've read that shitty things they do on Uplay regarding BANs.
Like having people banned coz they have CE installed in their rIg...not a single proof that CE has been used in any particular game by that player. that is nonsense.
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Already Googled it myself: https://www.cheatengine.org/ :)
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I've never cheated. Yeh like ingame cheat codes. If you want to go on a rampage with godmode and all weapons or something :P But yeh thats obviously single player. Never even downloaded a third party cheat. I am not a big fan of cheaters at all, so good riddance.
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The only time I would cheat in an MP game would be if I wanted to mess with a friend. Like suddenly switching gravity in Quake. But other than that, I would never cheat in an MP game.
In SP I don't see anything wrong with cheating, but my personal sense of pride often makes me not want to cheat even when it would spare me some suffering :P
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to mess with a friend. Like suddenly switching gravity in Quake.
Okay, that sounds like a good laugh. :P
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Good, don't really know how they have fun cheating... they rather piss off other players than play fair and have fun...
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Some people need to win at all costs. Others enjoy the anger and frustration they cause. Human psychology is a strange and multifaceted thing.
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I don't see the point in punishing cheating in singleplayer games, but whatever.
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I never cheat in multiplayer games since Runescape, got banned there with high level account and learned my lesson.
But in singleplayer games I use Cheat Engine all the time. Sometimes I just like the leverage from the beginning in the games like Sims 4, EU4, Assassin's Creed (god mode).
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I don't get it ,why people even cheat in mp ,how its fun when you are so bad at the game that you need to cheat...
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No, I've never cheated (unless you count cheat codes like in GTA as cheating). I don't see the point in doing that, it's not an accomplishment beating a game if you didn't actually beat the game.
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I voted "No, never" but now I realized that I did cheat in old King's Bounty games... these game were insanely difficult even with cheats, lol
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I've used hacks only once in my life approx 13-15 years ago. @ CS 1.6
I was young.
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lets see how many people claim they were wrongfully banned or they were using cheats by accident, or only cheats which didn't give them an advantage..
It's normally a very glorious time on multiplayer games when cheaters get banned, you can typically have some fun non cheat infested games for like a week before the cheats are updated and everyone is back to cheating again..
I've never cheated in an online game at all.. no point to it really, you're just screwing over yourself and everyone else..
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Seems like they got one of their interns to clear out that big pile of paperwork that amassed over a very long period of time and nobody cared for ;>. And I gotta admit that I love the old school vibe that CS/Quake discussion gave me, good ol' times, hehe. Back in the day, when the majority of games had cheat codes already implemented, it was always fun to goof around a bit, but only SP... people using cheats in MP were always suckers, nothing more to add.
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I don't know if they'd be considered suckers, the non cheaters would be suckers because they were the ones that paid for a multiplayer experience that was plagued with cheaters.. The worst part is the people who use the cheats just don't even care about the game, they are only doing it just to screw with people..
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good. now lets mark them with a "cheater" with an hot iron on their forearms.
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You. You are an unforgiving sort, you.
I like that about you.
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95.000 VAC bans in seven days.
Comments on that?
(As pointed out the questionnaire does not differentiate between single player games and multiplayer games - which have very different connotations in regards to cheating. So to clear up; The questionnaire is about online multiplayer games.)
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