Do you dislike/hate VAC banned people?
Most VAC banned players I met, lied and denied that it was their fault they were VAC banned. I would later find out that they were rightfully banned. So it's easy to be expecting another dishonest person if one is VAC banned, my experience seems to match the stereotype. As always, there are exceptions, but they are fewer and I've only met 2 so far.
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Interesting, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I hope your experience in the future will be a lot more pleasant.
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No point in hoping, the experience won't change, it's only how you choose to accept it. For me, a VAC ban isn't a big deal, only a warning label that I should be more careful around such players.
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Yeah, but I do feel like some people are being harshly harassed because of a VAC ban. It's unfair even if a mistake was made years back, when you're a lot more younger and more curious about things.
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You seem to be understanding and forgiving towards VAC bans. What's stopping you to be understanding and forgiving towards the other group that's doing the harsh harassing? Just like you understand that some people when they are younger and curious about things experiment illegal stuff for personal benefit, you can understand how some people find life easier to live black and white, find a designated group to blame and hate on.
It's all human nature, people are flawed.
Or does it only matter when it affects you?
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You seem to be understanding and forgiving towards VAC bans. What's stopping you to be understanding and forgiving towards the other group that's doing the harsh harassing?
I am really, I look at the facts from both sides and try to be opened. I judge things based on the approach of a message, not it's truth in it. I think the way we say things matter. One way is addressing: "You got VAC Ban, and don't have a good ratio, you can't voice your opinion" and one is "I think your option is relevant/not relevant and we should do this this and that." Pointing fingers and ignoring the person's question is overall kinda disrespectful, no matter if they are criminals or not. They are still human and have the same right to ask questions and maybe even answer them. Do you understand what I mean?
Just like you understand that some people when they are younger and curious about things experiment illegal stuff for personal benefit, you can understand how some people find life easier to live black and white, find a designated group to blame and hate on.
I get that, but that's a problem people need to work it out. Being too anti-something and not analyzing the facts ruins your understanding of things and you'll always be blind to reason. There's nothing to learn from that.
It's all human nature, people are flawed.
Or does it only matter when it affects you?
Not at all. I am not affected by this discussion, but I'm rather an observer from the outside. I've seen a couple of things and well, I had to ask.
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I understand what you mean and I agree with you. But this is Steamgifts, a site where people come to give away games or even make their own kind of rules about how they give them away. They are given the freedom to do that and aren't obligated to provide you an answer to your questions or a reason why they do things the way they do. That's how it works. You are only guaranteed a giveaway, not answers or reasons. If you don't think that's fair, you have your own freedom to create a giveaway where you exclude that person. Or would you say that the overall standard of SG should be raised to only allow giveaways from people that would provide answers and reasons as well? It will become a ghost town in no time.
It is a problem, but people don't come here to solve problems. They come here to get away from them. Maybe get lucky and win a game, or host a giveaway to make someone else happy, that kind of stuff. Good luck getting people who come to get away from the problems to make them work it out.
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I understand what you mean and I agree with you. But this is Steamgifts, a site where people come to give away games or even make their own kind of rules about how they give them away. They are given the freedom to do that and aren't obligated to provide you an answer to your questions or a reason why they do things the way they do. That's how it works. You are only guaranteed a giveaway, not answers or reasons. If you don't think that's fair, you have your own freedom to create a giveaway where you exclude that person. Or would you say that the overall standard of SG should be raised to only allow giveaways from people that would provide answers and reasons as well? It will become a ghost town in no time.
I perfectly understand that and no, I don't want those things to be chanced. I do appreciate people sharing their thoughts in these random questions. I don't expect or demand people to answer or speak their thoughts just because I made them, but I do appreciate it.
Do I want to change the way people perceive things? Yes, maybe, but I am well aware I will never be able to. I wish people would leave their hate and judgement aside and see things from a wider perspective, but that won't change for this website or any other website, not to mention the real world.
In the end, I think it's healthy to have sometimes discussions like this and better understand one another. There's a lot of opinions and even if it seems that we both disagree, it doesn't mean there's hate or a fight between us for example. It's just a share of options, which I think we both have had quite nicely.
It is a problem, but people don't come here to solve problems. They come here to get away from them. Maybe get lucky and win a game, or host a giveaway to make someone else happy, that kind of stuff. Good luck getting people who come to get away from the problems to make them work it out.
The forums are actually saying otherwise, they are filled with discussion about the war where people share opinions. I thought the same, but it wasn't in reference to that, but to rather see the options of others in this regard. Some people share their dislikes without really understanding why.
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I think you are mistaken, we don't disagree. I was only trying to explain the nature of things to try to help you understand what are you getting yourself into when you try to change the way people perceive things. Obviously you are inspired by a specific situation, but since you are afraid to bring it up, I think the best advice to give you is to understand the nature of things.
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I do and again, I don't favor VAC Banned people over the opinion of other. I have rather a neutral stance, that's why I created this whole topic to see the opinions of others. Pretty nice though. π
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Some VAC bans seem to be out of the blue or because the person was just having a REALLY good day ... if that is the case then can forgive and forget.
If they actually cheated then unlikely to trade/befriend, but if they have learned their lesson then fine okay, they deserve a second chance.
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Some VAC bans seem to be out of the blue or because the person was just having a REALLY good day
Is it possible you're referring to overwatch bans? Because VAC bans are automated, and triggered by software. There have been false positives, but 99% of the time it's because someone cheated.
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False positives will also get reverted rather quickly so if someone has a vac ban that is older than a month you can be sure he cheated
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Not always the case either. Of course, they're very rare cases and bans are more than likely 99.9% (instead of my original 99%) of the time legitimate. Just pointing out that it's not as fool proof as some make it out to be. iirc, MW2 was plagued by false bans for a period of time. No idea how/if those ever got resolved.
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My bad, I mean both.
VAC bans out of the blue and Overwatch for just having a really good day.
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No u don't get a vac ban for having a good day. Vac bans are some of the most accurate bans u can get
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That's true, I'd give a person a second chance if I can see that what happened they are willing to leave behind and never do again.
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I have never had VAC.
However, I have been asked for advice by someone who has had VAC.
Actually, I don't know the details.γThnkingγ( Β΄ο½₯Οο½₯)Β΄ο½₯Ο)(Οο½₯(ο½₯Ξο½₯ )
I suspect that they installed a file that they were told was a game manipulation mod, and it behaved incorrectly, and that is why they received a VAC.
There seems to be a forum in the Steam community for people who want to file a complaint about the VAC.
In some cases, if the cause and details are appropriate, it may be recoverable, but "what were the operations you were doing after receiving the VAC and before that?" It seems important to explain this.
It is often a sad fact that even if the reason for obtaining the VAC is other irregularities, from the outside it looks like an excuse. (Whether or not you are considered falsely accused is determined by your daily conduct).
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What hurts the most is that you'll always keep that VAC ban unless it doesn't show anymore directly on your Steam account, but it's on other websites to find.
Modding a game and leading to a VAC ban is really unfortunate.
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Well, it may also be a warning against viruses that are sometimes called mods....
(For example, it seems that a long time ago it was popular to distribute viruses to game members under the guise of teamspeak.)
In any case, it is possible that some security measures were lacking.
(Considering past cases...)
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I see, I've never heard about it, but it's possible I guess.
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Pretty much all vac people I've met has is from like 2000 days ago. Obviously seeing a game ban or a vac ban does make you hesitant with people, but I do also believe the time line matters. By my example that's 5-6 years, so there's a better chance of them having changed then someone who was recently banned in that current year.
I don't trade or really friend anyone I don't know. Same for multiplayer games, I've only really played with some very close friends. So for me I probably wouldn't accept them anyway even if on good terms, but lets say a close friend got it, I would probably be like what the hell but eh I like you so I'll keep you
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Agreed, you gotta look at all the aspects. People can make mistakes and it's not fair to harass or mistreat people for something they did. Apparently VAC bans are for games particular. So, let's say that they got one on Counter Strike, it doesn't mean they will constantly break the rules in other games.
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Only time I've cheated in a multiplayer game happened because my game was broken. Left 4 dead 2 (xbox) somehow glitched out for me so I was like super speed crouching. I tried doing the damn get over the bridge in 3 minutes but while I was fast I of course had to wait for my team mates to catch up which went over that 3 minutes. I think I actually tried killing them before hand at one point. I rarely played the game anyway, like three times? so I think that was my last time.
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You didn't get punished for it and it was more of a bug that you exploited. If you don't do it often, then I don't find that as a problem.
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Idk what they do for xbox users. I've only really encountered cheaters on gears of war which I lie I cheated there. But not to win multiplayer matches. There were certain parts of the games where if you clip into them it would put you out of bounds so it was really funny going on the outside of the map. Or another place would shoot you right up into the air, you had to land on the building near you or auto death. It was typically a thing you do with like the whole team, was not fun finding someone who did it to actually win
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I think it's rather remarkable to see people do this kind of stuff because they are not afraid to experiment a game to the fullest. It's bad when you're using cheats or exploits to win games over someone who plays fairly, but to explore boundaries I think it's what a game tester does too, so you may as well have been a curious one.
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I don't think it's hate. Rather untrusting their reasons to make a certain suggestions, which I think it's the thread you refer to.
I felt more disliking the ratio part in that thread, like "you haven't contributed much to SG but you want more chances to win your AAA games?"
About VAC ban in general, big majority of the times there's a reason to suspect from such people. Sure you can argue all you want about false positives, you can put all the reasons why your VAC ban was unjustified, but the excuses they'd put are mostly 10-yo level, which makes them more sus. Much more sus. I don't trade or trust anyone with a VAC ban.
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Yes, that's right! It's mainly because of that topic. I didn't wanted to make remarks on that, but I see what you mean by wanting to win more AAA games. It's an unfair advantage over people who have dedicated all their time to get in giveaways.
There's some good GA's here, but publicly, they are a lot harder to win.
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As far as i know mistakenly applied vac bans are so rare its neglible- to the point that 99.9% of the time it means the user used a cheat or really heavy farming (multiple accounts or similar).
IRL and even on the internet im very forgiving and neutral, i know people can make mistakes, get bans for things they didnt realize could incur it and heck just a matter of age- everyone have been kids and crucifying someone because they installed some cheat as a kid ages ago is too much
But inside of steam, on games and anything related to steam keys (giveaways or trading) i avoid vac bans completely. Clearly the majority of cheaters and scammers have a 'all gain no pain' swindle and scam mindset where the majority will try to unfairly gain advantage (best case scenarios)... to much worse, like getting a kick of ruining other peoples day, experiences, accounts you name it. Ive seen prints from discords of both cheaters and scammers, a very good interview once that confirmed my view - too many people whos major kick is rulebreaking and making others suffer.
My favorite mp game (tf2) is ruined by folks like that. Kids been loosing accounts and itens to scammers everyday, and the worse toxic players ive ever met were cheaters
I know theres exceptions but every suspicion and protective measures are justified. It doesnt help that theres a huge overlap of cheaters and scammers, also of farmers(as means of 'profit' and scammers). No one wants to be scammed... and its entirely fair people not wanting any of those winning their GAs.
All that said im against hate or persecutions in all forms. People can change and heck i bet someone of my irl friendships may have cheated and i wouldnt ever know, the world isnt black and white and partaking in something i disavow doesnt make someone some vile creature or anything like that...
But i think the 'stain' of the vac ban is a good thing. Punishment and accountability arent enought to stop misbehaviour, be it online or in laws- but lack of consequecens/repercursions IS tied to increase in misbehaviour, meaning a lot of people on the fence or wondering about breaking rules are deterred by the consequences... (Im Brazilian, and the lack of consequences turned my country one of the top in corruption rates)
So i see it as a plus that theres a social added weight to being vac banned (wich, lets be fair, is a very very light/soft punishment already). We cant know the numbers but i bet a number of people have tought of cheating or attempting a scam, weighted the risks and didnt go foward.
I would care less but sadly everytime i run Team Fortress 2 im reminded of how many people just want to ruin everyones fun (for what, really?) and makes me wish for harsher measures. Cant help but wonder if a heavy hand could help cutting in half or more what is almost like a pandemic that hurts pc gaming as a whole
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As far as i know mistakenly applied vac bans are so rare its neglible- to the point that 99.9% of the time it means the user used a cheat or really heavy farming (multiple accounts or similar).
IRL and even on the internet im very forgiving and neutral, i know people can make mistakes, get bans for things they didnt realize could incur it and heck just a matter of age- everyone have been kids and crucifying someone because they installed some cheat as a kid ages ago is too much
Very true, we do need to be more opened to that.
But inside of steam, on games and anything related to steam keys (giveaways or trading) i avoid vac bans completely. Clearly the majority of cheaters and scammers have a 'all gain no pain' swindle and scam mindset where the majority will try to unfairly gain advantage (best case scenarios)... to much worse, like getting a kick of ruining other peoples day, experiences, accounts you name it. Ive seen prints from discords of both cheaters and scammers, a very good interview once that confirmed my view - too many people whos major kick is rulebreaking and making others suffer.
My favorite mp game (tf2) is ruined by folks like that. Kids been loosing accounts and itens to scammers everyday, and the worse toxic players ive ever met were cheaters
It became a lot more harder nowadays to cheat, or so I think. I've met a lot of toxic players in other games, but that wasn't because they were necessarily cheating, but rather just the type to complain if they were loosing and could not accept that responsibility.
I know theres exceptions but every suspicion and protective measures are justified. It doesnt help that theres a huge overlap of cheaters and scammers, also of farmers(as means of 'profit' and scammers). No one wants to be scammed... and its entirely fair people not wanting any of those winning their GAs.
That's true, but by farmers, what do you mean by that? I don't think I understand the term. Is a Steam Card farmer categorized as a cheater for you?
All that said im against hate or persecutions in all forms. People can change and heck i bet someone of my irl friendships may have cheated and i wouldnt ever know, the world isnt black and white and partaking in something i disavow doesnt make someone some vile creature or anything like that...
That's how I see things too. I'm glad that I'm not the only one.
I would care less but sadly everytime i run Team Fortress 2 im reminded of how many people just want to ruin everyones fun (for what, really?) and makes me wish for harsher measures. Cant help but wonder if a heavy hand could help cutting in half or more what is almost like a pandemic that hurts pc gaming as a whole
I've felt like that with other games online I've played. Luckily nowadays, I don't play online much and I don't encounter anymore players like that. I hate it when people go out of their miserable life to hurt others so they can feel better about themselves. Ruins your whole gaming experience.
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By 'Farmers' i mean people who generally use multiple accounts to farm itens and cards, generally using multiple accounts also bots. They have always existed in mmorpgs and similars, farming for gold, drops etc. On steam theres the added cards and steam market as venues, on top of any particular games with online economies.
'Farmers' are the people trying to profit of games, generally in disavowed ways (most online games are against then). A lighter or amateur farmer wouldnt ever get vac banned i think (1 account or multiple but manually) but for bots or making farming inside of games quicker applications and scripts are used and some can get someone vac banned.
Big overlap with scammers since its the same root mindset (breaking rules for profit)- and very common to overlap with usual cheating as well, the same spirit- disregard for rules, 'gaming the game' etc. Ive read an interview that showcased the pov from 5-6 'pro' scammers (someone famous in a game for it, another with a good monthly income from it, etc) and it was very evident that, at least for those who really invest in it they perceive the very platform as a 'game' so to speak- almost as if fair conforming users were like noobs, and if they realized how to gain/profit better they deserved the rewards. As if it were only smart/smarter to gain by more 'optmized' ways (why work hard if you can profit easier? Why train gaming skills if you could win easier... same root mindset)
In trying to squeeze more buck for my budget or some sold cards ive resorted to buying tf2 itens in some thirdparty sites (theres a bunch of then)- and over there the majority of best prices are traded by bots.
Most of those bots are only trading bots- its a whole subgenre of people who just try to game the buy low/sell higher over steammarket itens (mostly cs and tf2) wich by itself doesnt hurt any of the gamers as far as i know- but ive saw more then a couple of said bot owners being called out in the community for being scammers, others with vac ban on their accounts... so theres some overlap there.
heck the worse cheaters are doing it only/mostly for profit- by that i mean the ones writing cheating apps and scripts. Tf2 have a bot problem where bots enter to ruin the game- while some are from someone in the match who paid for the tool that can summon then, a majority of the bots only come to advertise where to buy the tool.
Its a pretty safe assumption that those programers/cheaters in it for the profit have the coding skills to bot-farm cards/itens, to make fake sites for scamming people, etc, etc- if theyre not afraid of consequences and already have their hands dirty i guess most of those dabble in scamming etc as well. Profit is profit, 'easy money' etc
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By 'Farmers' i mean people who generally use multiple accounts to farm itens and cards, generally using multiple accounts also bots. They have always existed in mmorpgs and similars, farming for gold, drops etc. On steam theres the added cards and steam market as venues, on top of any particular games with online economies.
Oh I see, I do farm cards as well, but generally stop once I obtain them, unless the game I farm I want it to figure my experience with the game in the past.
'Farmers' are the people trying to profit of games, generally in disavowed ways (most online games are against then). A lighter or amateur farmer wouldnt ever get vac banned i think (1 account or multiple but manually) but for bots or making farming inside of games quicker applications and scripts are used and some can get someone vac banned.
I remember these kind of accounts, seen them a lot in games from 2003 to 2014, when I kinda stopped with MMO's.
heck the worse cheaters are doing it only/mostly for profit- by that i mean the ones writing cheating apps and scripts. Tf2 have a bot problem where bots enter to ruin the game- while some are from someone in the match who paid for the tool that can summon then, a majority of the bots only come to advertise where to buy the tool.
Its a pretty safe assumption that those programers/cheaters in it for the profit have the coding skills to bot-farm cards/itens, to make fake sites for scamming people, etc, etc- if theyre not afraid of consequences and already have their hands dirty i guess most of those dabble in scamming etc as well. Profit is profit, 'easy money' etc
Well yeah, I do see why they should continue to be flagged and eventually removed too.
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True, but everybody makes a mistake and can learn from it. I think as a kid I've personally tried my ways to play single player games that had trainers or cheats in. I never thought I would go for online, because it's an unfair advantage. There's a limit and everybody can learn from it.
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It depends on the ban's age. People were stupid kids that did stupid things, and an eternity of punishment does not seem fair to me. So I will treat differently a person whose VAC ban is 2000 days old and a person whose VAC ban is 30 days old. Also, as the person above said - if they admit they cheated, I will have more good will, because it most likely means they moved on
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That's the best approach. People make mistakes and people learn.
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I dont hate vac banned people ,but im cautious about why/How ,because some people will try to scam you .
Overall if the ban is atleast 1000days old he might have changed his ways .
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I think the reason behind a vac ban is important. One who has used a tool to idk, mod or modify some files caused a VAC ban is nothing related to one that cheated in a game using aim-bot and different to one that has cheated people on trades.
I don't think I have a problem if one cheated in a game and wants to trade. I will be careful always, no matter if they are banned or not.
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You can only get VAC bans on VAC enabled servers, those servers don't allow mods or the modifying of any files of any kind. So if any one says they got banned for using mods then they are tellin' pork pies.
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I see, thanks for bringing more clearance to the matter.
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Well, I used to be the guy who always said "if there is a VAC ban - they must be cheaters". I learned the hard way that I was wrong. What I dislike about VAC is it's exposure.... I mean, sure, ban from a game is justified, even if it's false positive as in my case - sure, whatever, I never played it anyway. But now I have to be stigmatized by everyone, and what can I do? Explain the situation? Pfft, I would not believe that explanation myself, if it did not happen to me.
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Yeah, that's the thing I don't understand. It's easier to blame, judge people and to rather listen to their story. It's like the story of Albert Einstein, if it's true or not it doesn't matter, but the value behind the story is so important.
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I have yet to see a single false positive in VAC that doesn't get overturned in a day or two so I have my doubts.
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You can have as many doubts as you'd like to, the fact is that if I somehow manage to link your phone number to my other account and get VAC there, you'll get VAC as well and there is nothing you can do about it.
No, nobody is willingly giving out his phone details and allowing to link it to some random Steam account, except people here all have family members, friends, on top of doing silly mistakes like getting phished, not caring much about account access, or using public phone number on entirely insignificant accounts that somehow got linked to the main one through other way and transfered the ban. You can take a guess at this point what happened to Ryzhe.
I don't have a VAC, and hopefully I'll never get one, but I know enough of internals of this system to claim that, while majority of VAC bans are indeed handed out due to cheating and cheating alone, there are legit cases of accounts that got caught in a crossfire. It's enough for you to family share your library with your son, daughter, brother, sister or any other family member that you trust, if they're not as cautious as you are, you can get VAC banned even without doing anything wrong. Even without doing anything of that, you may get phished because there is no human immune to social engineering, it only gets to the point of how easy or hard it is, which is heavily affected by your current mood, situation and other things that you do not directly control. Even the smartest people can fall to this common technique if they're currently in a hurry, are dealing with some other issues or otherwise are not paying as much attention as they normally would.
VAC is not flawless, and people who believe it's always right are unlikely to change their fixed minds, even if the arguments come from people like me that really know what they're talking about, on top of never receiving one.
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I would just like to add more "fun" ways how you can get banned for doing literally nothing wrong that don't involve false positives.
There are exploits for at least 3 games (hopefully has been patched by now) where you can get someone you are playing on the same server with VAC banned. No idea what the success rate is to actually get the ban removed.
This is for game bans in particular, not for VAC (tho I am pretty sure it is the same there too, I just don't know of a specific case where it happened with VAC) but a game ban basically achieves the same thing in the end on Steam: a dev (not necessarily a Valve one) can manually game ban you even if you don't own the game and have never played it (for example with family share). Or of you did play it for no reason other than the dev doesn't like you in particular. This one is straight up against Steam TOS, but have fun getting it removed regardless.
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I don't really care about VAC bans if they are quite old. I do however have another pet peeve. People abusing SAM. As someone who strives to reach a completion rate of as high as I can on most games, it just pisses me off when people just use SAM to cheat their way to completion and then show them on the profile as if they did it legitimately. I even seen people actively bragging about their achievements and at a quick check, the SAM abuse is obvious. The only instance I understand using it is for broken achievements or online ones that are no longer doable due to the servers being shut down. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most people that use it.
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The only instance I understand using it is for broken achievements or online ones that are no longer doable due to the servers being shut down. Unfortunately, this is not the case for most people that use it.
That makes sense, but people don't get banned for that because it's not ruining the fun for anybody only the people that strive to get it. I've used SAM a couple of times for similar reason. My first time with the tool I f**ed up something and activated all achievements in a few games. I wanted to reverse it, but it's not the same, those records stay there, they show up as notifications.
I'll only consider using SAM is as you've said for achievement corrections like broken achievements and multiplayer ones that are available, but also for one thing particular. If I've played a game long ago and finished it 100% before, before owning Steam, I would not feel ashamed to use the tool for that entire purpose, which I did.
Nowadays, I am completely aware how stupid it all looks, but it's a good tool if you use it with good intentions. I take more time in playing my games 100% and if they are too tough, I'll not bother fixing my score in Achievements, because that's not who I am.
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I've never used SAM (I'm even on a mac) and I've had someone accuse me about 1 game's achievements. Sometimes I play offline, so when I have access to wifi again, I get a few achievements all at once.
And you know what the funny thing about that is? I own a LOT of games, most of them are unplayed, so if I was gonna cheat with something like SAM, I think I'd have a lot more games "played" and a lot more perfect games.
People get really weird about achievements. lol.
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That one's also understandable, but it's usually pretty easy to mistake it as cheating. I had that happen to me with the original Binding of Isaac. Back in the day, I've played it a lot but pirated, not proud of it but I didn't really have no other choice at the time. A few months later I eventually bought the game and didn't want to play from the beginning so I imported my save from the cracked version, which resulted in a bunch of achievements all unlocking at once as soon as I opened the game. Funny thing is, I got accused of it but didn't even know what SAM was at the time.
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SAM doesn't run on a mac, so I couldn't use it if I wanted to. I like to get achievements, they can be fun, but if I don't get 100%, I don't really care that much. I just find it kinda funny that some of them care that much about what I do on my account. I posted one day "Yay, finally finished." "Oh, you cheated, I see you unlocked some achievements all at the same time." I didn't even have 100%, I just finished the game, or what I considered finished, getting to the end with all objectives. Some games I enjoy til they're not fun anymore, and some achievements are not necessary to enjoy the game to it's fullest. Some achievements even have ridiculous goals that require many replays. haha.
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I posted one day "Yay, finally finished." "Oh, you cheated, I see you unlocked some achievements all at the same time." I didn't even have 100%, I just finished the game, or what I considered finished, getting to the end with all objectives. Some games I enjoy til they're not fun anymore, and some achievements are not necessary to enjoy the game to it's fullest. Some achievements even have ridiculous goals that require many replays. haha.
I'd unfriend that type of person without a second thought. They seem toxic.
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It's fine man, thank you for being transparent about it. I used to pirate games too when I was much younger and could not afford it. Some people really get really heated up because of piracy.
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In the end achievements don't really matter. They are a metric for me to keep playing. I run by the motto that "Game is not done until 100% Achievements are obtained." and I firmly believe that you only finish a game when you explored and got everything there was to get. I don't do that for every game, but I try to get games I like to perfection.
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My VAC ban is currently 4422 days (over 12 years) old and I've had people act prejudiced towards me because of it. I was a dumb teenager at the time and thought it'd be funny to mess around with hacks on Counter-Strike: Source (not even to gain a competitive advantage, I used them on Jailbreak & Surf servers of all things). People are fully entitled to their opinions but if they jump to the conclusion that I'm a bad person because I hacked once, it's likely we'd never get along anyway so I'd want nothing to do with them regardless.
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Seems reasonable for me. I don't see why people need to point out such mistakes after so many years. This is why the VAC Ban doesn't really clears your name and stays with you until your last day on that account. Have you've considered making a new account?
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If I made a new account I'd lose 1300+ games so that's not really an option, lol. The VAC ban is only for a small handful of Source games though so I'm not too bothered.
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Now it would be too late, but when it happened? Did you have many games? In fact, never mind, it's a stupid question. π€£ Even a few games are not worth trading, unless you paid a few $/Β£.
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how many times do you have to steal to be a thief? does it only count if you get caught?
Once is enough, even if he or she is caught or not.
how long does it take, before you stop being an ex-con? π€·πΌββοΈ
It really depends on the level of the crime. I personally can't compare a thief with a murderer. That's why there's punishments for each type of crime differently.
Now it really depends on what the person did to get the VAC ban, because not everybody is the same and if they got blamed for being a cheater when maybe they just modified visual files and ended up at the wrong side of the stick, as I've heard a story where a guy got banned in TF2 for having a hats mod.
haven't such issues been a matter of social ethics (crimes, penalties) vs personal morals (conscience, justifications), since the dawn of cultures?
Yeah, but to better understand people we must stop judging the person and rather the actions. If a person's actions repeats the same mistakes, then we can personally consider doing so.
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TF2 is a VAC enabled game and because of that you're not allowed mods or the modification of any game files. Having a hat mod modifies the game files and could give an advantage over other players. For example you could make all hats bright red for the opposition giving you a clear advantage when it comes to spotting the other players.
All VAC enabled games don't allow you to use mods or modify any files at all.
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It really depends on the mod I guess and it's impossible for an anti-cheat to detect if it's one that modifies the hats colors or just ads them for style. You're right. ππ»
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Yeahbuts don't exist, they're an extinct form of rabbit
It's hard to determine by this sentence if what you mean is " Yeah, 'buts' don't exist, they're an extinct form of rabbit". I'm not a native English speaker, and even if I've studied English for years, I've never encountered such a saying, so that's why you lost me on the whole saying. It could be an Australian slang or particular saying in the area, that I'm not familiar with. Sorry if I'm slow on that behalf. π
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What would be a much easier way to explain that sentence so I may understand it better or did I get what it means?
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"No, people make mistakes. If they did in the past, it's not like they will always do it... but I'll be careful with them when trading"
But of course if the VAC ban is 10 years old, it's just a totally different person than 10 years ago that we're talking to today because people change.
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True, yet there's still people who would harrass them no matter when it happen.
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The equality nobody asked for. π€£
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Depends really. If they keep coming back and keep cheating and ruining the game for everybody. Sure I dislike them.
If it was 10 years ago and the person was 8 years old back then... Kids do stupid things and they learn from them. So no problem with it.
However,
From my experience from hosting game servers (non steam/vac). If a cheater gets caught, or they leave the game for another game to cheat in, or they keep coming back to cheat more with a different nick/IP, or they lie about cheating and blame the software or the admin or the brother or the dog and start making havoc. Of course there were cases where people admitted their mistake and after half a year ban they were allowed back and started playing clean, but there were few compared to the rest.
(we had the rule that a player is banned for half a year if they cheated. Then he was allowed back and closely watched. But the same as the question you are making here. Some players/clans would never play an ex cheater again.)
Personally I don't understand why people do it. I don't see how you can get satisfaction from a game you cheated. For some people it's all about winning I guess. A cheater once told me "cheating is a smart way of winning". Even with sports, people are willing to swallow/inject drugs into their body just to get a head start. There was even a Russian state-sponsored doping scheme in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. It's completely insane what people are willing to do to win.
Personally I don't verbally attack cheaters. They got caught, knew it wasn't allowed and got banned. That's already their punishment. Would I trust them less in my head? Yes, I would think twice before trading with them or allowing them to join my clan (if I still were in one). But I am a bit prejudged as I had to deal with a lot of them over 15 years of hosting or so. As you can expect they weren't very polite when they got caught. Harassment, ddos attacks, death threats etc etc.
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Oh creepy...
You are Dutch too and know I played in clanbase too :D
Do I know you?
haha what the...
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Haha, nah don't worry. I just got curious when you mentioned 'clans' (never seen that word used outside of CB context) and saw you have a Q3 background. So the CB connection seemed logical to me. π I did play on CB, but different games entirely.
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Haha awesome :D. But I have a saints row background, not quake 3?
But indeed, I played Q3 instagib freezetag on CB. Good detective work :D
What did you play?
btw you can still see snapshots of the old clanbase site on the way back machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/clanbase.com
It was fun looking myself up from years back. :)
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Haha, I meant your gaming background - not your literal background xD, just noticed all the Q3 groups you're in. I played MOH:AA and CoD, so the 'lesser' FPS games back then :P
Oh man, that archive goes back way further than I expected! Seeing that red and gold really makes me nostalgic β’Μ βΏ ,β’Μ
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Ahhh that makes more sense lol :D
Yeh it makes me nostalgic too. I remember my last game there. It was the last nationscup. I wasn't supposed to play this match but someone didn't show up. I had a huge hangover, threw up during playing. I've never played a game that bad :D
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Personally I don't understand why people do it. I don't see how you can get satisfaction from a game you cheated. For some people it's all about winning I guess. A cheater once told me "cheating is a smart way of winning". Even with sports, people are willing to swallow/inject drugs into their body just to get a head start. There was even a Russian state-sponsored doping scheme in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. It's completely insane what people are willing to do to win.
I've personally never cheated in an online game and never intend to do. But I did test the waters of cheating on single player games. Remember when GTA 3 and GTA San Andreas used to have a cheat list? I used to have all the cheats printed out. Same example goes for The Sims, to earn money so I can build what I want. Another thing, that I personally have no remorse was to use trainer to test the GOD mode AFTER I've finished the game organically. It's to test the waters, try new builds, or go over other side of campaigns quickly to see how the game really is. There's a limit on how fun that is and it only lasts a couple of minutes/hours until it kills the purpose of playing the game, so that's why I'd leave it last, where I'd not break my experience.
I like to struggle in a game, so I don't see why I'd have fun constantly in a game if I'd cheat from beginning to end. Now for online, that's a totally different thing. I'd never dare because I value my reputation as a player and my account on Steam or anywhere I have is important to me. If I spend money or not, I will respect it, no matter if I am dog s**t at the game. π
The only way I'm still currently "cheating" is with mods. I love mods that modifies game experiences. E.g. M&B 2 Bannerlords has a mod called "Cut through" that creates realism and allows your blade swings to cut through enemies if they are next to each other and in contact with the blade. This is to preserve the realism of a battle. The mod affects all units across, so they can do the splash damage to anyone they hit as well, so that keeps the game more realistically and interesting. Another similar mod, is one that creates a life and death situation, where a fatal blow kills you instantly. A mod like this online would be bannable.
Personally I don't verbally attack cheaters. They got caught, knew it wasn't allowed and got banned. That's already their punishment. Would I trust them less in my head? Yes, I would think twice before trading with them or allowing them to join my clan (if I still were in one). But I am a bit prejudged as I had to deal with a lot of them over 15 years of hosting or so. As you can expect they weren't very polite when they got caught. Harassment, ddos attacks, death threats etc etc.
It also depends a lot on what type of ban they got. If they got banned for auto-aiming, doesn't mean they would make for scamming you in trades. There's a difference of where the VAC ban is in my opinion.
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Oh sure, I have cheated with single player ingame cheat codes too. After normal gaming campaigns just blowing off some steam with all weapons and god mode. Just blowing everything up for a few minutes. Those codes are there for a reason :P (just not for multiplayer)
I have no problem with mods in general. As long as they are made to improve the game. autoaim is technically also a mod :P. But good mods keep the game more interesting. It's great what some of them people create.
Of course if someone cheated before doesn't automatically make him a scammer too. Just like a thieve isn't automatically a murderer. But it does tell you something about the persons morals so I don't think it's strange to be extra careful.
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autoaim is technically also a mod :P
Really? I thought it was considered as hack as it really creates an overall gameplay advantage.
But good mods keep the game more interesting. It's great what some of them people create.
I pick my mods specifically for immersion and additional gameplay. I rarely get it to fix a problem, unless the game is flawed. Nothing too much. I don't like adding superman in a Skytim game. It has to make sense with the lore somehow.
Of course if someone cheated before doesn't automatically make him a scammer too. Just like a thieve isn't automatically a murderer. But it does tell you something about the persons morals so I don't think it's strange to be extra careful.
True that!
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Well,I said technically. Mod stands for modification. It is just not a very friendly modification :P.
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Well yeah, that's true. I mean it makes sense if you think about it that any modification can trigger a warning to an anti-cheat system as it's unable to determine what the modification does.
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Yeh very true. But anti-cheat systems are pretty sophisticated these days. You won't get banned for a general mod that is a safe modification. Like changing skins, different gameplays, mods that are actually made for good etc. It might be blocked for use on an online server but you won't get banned.
The most basic form of anti cheat is pretty much a virus scanner. It checks the hash of files that are opened up during the game. Most known cheats (hacks) are hard coded into it. So if the hash of an opened file matches the hash of the known cheat, its an auto ban and there is no discussion about it if the person cheated or not. It works for cheat mods, injections and also visual known cheats. Also there are protections that outside third party software or drivers can't take control over your mouse and such (autoaim).
So if you do get banned for cheating these days... You did something bad.
Of course their are ways to evade it but I won't disclose them here for obvious reasons :P
HOWEVER! :D I will give an example of my old days that will disprove my point.
Back in the day in Q3, the creator of the mod decided to add an experimental anti-cheat in his mod. It was secret and ran on official game servers. It wouldn't ban cheaters, it would just add them to a list. And later that list got published. Nicknames of players who cheated. (it is known as THE LIST lmao)
It checked for binaries but also the config file for variables of cheating mods. The thing was, people in quake 3 often exchanged their config file, to see if it was better then theirs, it was very common. Not many people could be bothered to read what was written in the config file (as they were to lazy to create their own). One mod/cheat added the variable "q3_wall 1" to the config. (its a variable to turn on wallhack obviously). So all the players who shared configs were marked as cheaters because that line was in their config file but they didn't actually own the cheat. It was their own stupid mistake of course, they were even warned beforehand. But there were still MANY false positives. It was a whole drama :P
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I think most mods now are quite easy to no screw up. You can find mostly good ones on Steam Workshop and Nexus Mods. If you do go outside of that, unless the website is legit and offers some sort of safety, you're on your own.
Stuff like this can happen all the time and well, that's why I want people to be more aware before throwing judgement onto others.
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I don't befriend VAC banned people mostly but i currently don't remove them if they get a ban while on my list. I also accept trading with them to some extent since trade ban and vac ban are two different worlds IMO.
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I also accept trading with them to some extent since trade ban and vac ban are two different worlds IMO.
Yes, that's also super important and what I made as remark also.
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I've played with lots of players with vac bans before. Most are banned because they cheated they also just moved to playing non vac games or just other games. I would 100% not trust them in trading or various links though. Vac banned players may happen to have several accounts especially in F2P games so vac bans would not matter to them.
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I mean, some of the free games that have VAC are quite good. You're probably right, but I think it's best to not try stupid stuff on your main account. π
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Not at all accounts was banned by owner cheats! Sometimes (and it can be more times than usually) accounts are hacked and specially made bans by hackers
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I've heard situations like that in the past. I think this may be the most common reason some accounts have VAC ban.
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Hey there fellow SG member's,
Just came across a Discussion and I've noticed the amount of hate for one person because he addressed a topic and after checking their stats, people were pointing out that they are VAC banned and they don't deserve to be asking any kind of questions or take part in conversations.
What's your thoughts in that and what kind of experiences have you've had with someone that had a VAC Ban or something similar? Do you think people can redeem themselves after a VAC ban and what does it involve in getting one? How bad can you mess it up to get a VAC ban?
Looking forward to hear your honest thoughts. Thank you! π
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