VAC 7/23

[entRo]

VAC would be better than C-D if either one caught more than 5% of the cheats out there.

[Spartibus]

entRo wrote..

VAC would be better than C-D if either one caught more than 5% of the cheats out there.

you're a moron. there are probably 10 cheats MAX that get passed either one of them. 5%? go away

[Gpig]

As long as there's one that gets by it doesn't matter.

[Spartibus]

Gpig wrote..

As long as there's one that gets by it doesn't matter.

Well yes actually, it does. That means that cheaters are having a tougher time finding cheats, and the less "hardcore" cheaters might give up because of the fact that it's getting harder to find them. The less cheaters, the better.

[rizzuh]

Gpig wrote..

As long as there's one that gets by it doesn't matter.

Right, that's why virus scanners are pointless because there is one virus out there that they can't detect.



Wait, that's a really stupid opinion.

[BoNeLeSS]

Exo wrote..

Maybe VALVe should spend less time on VAC and Steam, and more time on 1.6 and HL2. I mean am I right?

VALVe has dedicated teams for each task... so you are wrong...

[LordIcon]

Ofcourse they would have seperate teams for certain projects.



Btw, Gpig just got TOLD!! Oh Snap!!!

[orion]

Gpig always gets told, what else is new?



Where there is someone who wants\needs to cheat at a game, he will find a way. VAC, CD, PunkBuster, anything, no matter how much they update, cheats will update. It is destined to be an endless battle.

Even if it IS harder for a person to find a cheat, he can still find one. However these anti-cheat tools do keep the cheating to a very minimum. Go ahead and scrutinize me, go tell me to view the CAL Cheater's list. Just imagine how much longer that list would be without VAC.



P.S. Anyone who owns a server and you plan on entering\continuing CAL this season. Remove all mods besides AMX and CALSERVER.cfg (Not just CAL.cfg, CALSERVER.cfg), for WWCL and all other server mods are now illegal in CAL. CALSERVER.cfg is the new wave in anti-config.

[Lento]

I'm not sure how cheating-death works but VAC seems good in the long run, if it bans people for longer and longer time eventually there will be no keys left for the cheaters. So what if they have 1000 keys today? Tomorrow they might have only 900. Then 800. Then eventually there are no keys for them left to use. Hopefully the system will also get more secure in the next HL with a login/password for each user like in Steam so keys can't be randomly generated and accidently trip over one that actually works online. Just my 2 cents...or 3.

[Ravenium]

Uhhh...the usual .02 here, I guess:



1. CAL is NOT making WWCL "illegal". They're just removing their official sanction for it as their optional config tool in favor of a small config file that each client runs before the match.



I'm not sure I'd call it "new wave" since it uses scripting that's been around for, say, 4 years, but the point is that running it on the client prevents the player from simply aliasing out the cvars (the screenshots back up the fact that the player ran the config). This also means that you can run the client config on any server, not just ones with specific mods installed. It's by no means foolproof, but it's at least a smidge more effective than WWCL was.



The server version suffers from the exact same problems as WWCL, so I have no earthly idea why they did this (other than to supposedly "make it simple" - thus removing any advantage of having a config...ugh). The AMX team should be rolling in their sleep, especially since I'm not exactly sure if they know CAL happily is distributing a stripped version of their software.



2. Regarding cheating death/VAC, C-D is not dead - I have NO idea why people continue to think this. The effort is being continued by UnitedAdmins and continues to be improved in ways cdeath never envisioned. The end result, if you will look, results in 99%+ cheat blocking (it's also worth mentioning that the few cheats that have gotten past C-D recently have been half-hearted "aimdowns" and 2 year old obvious aimbots with colored models).



VAC, however, has yet to show that they have been able to block more than 50-75% of publicly released cheats. Some effort is better than none, and the fact that VAC runs on servers by default has at least had a hit into cheating. I have severe misgivings about the idea of detection (ie, look at hlamp users), but the general public appears to enjoy pointing the finger rather than merely blocking the user, as with C-D.



My point is that VAC can release updates until Valve is numb and blue in the face - the question is how effective they are. Quality over quantity.

[DaiTengu]

entRo wrote..

VAC would be better than C-D if either one caught more than 5% of the cheats out there.

As of the current release of Cheating-Death (4.0) there is *1* multihack that gets past it. if 1 cheat = 95% of the cheats out there, then Cheating isn't as big a problem as we've been led to beleive.

[DirtyDevil]

Ravenium wrote..

Uhhh...the usual .02 here, I guess:



1. CAL is NOT making WWCL "illegal". They're just removing their official sanction for it as their optional config tool in favor of a small config file that each client runs before the match.



I'm not sure I'd call it "new wave" since it uses scripting that's been around for, say, 4 years, but the point is that running it on the client prevents the player from simply aliasing out the cvars (the screenshots back up the fact that the player ran the config). This also means that you can run the client config on any server, not just ones with specific mods installed. It's by no means foolproof, but it's at least a smidge more effective than WWCL was.



The server version suffers from the exact same problems as WWCL, so I have no earthly idea why they did this (other than to supposedly "make it simple" - thus removing any advantage of having a config...ugh). The AMX team should be rolling in their sleep, especially since I'm not exactly sure if they know CAL happily is distributing a stripped version of their software.



2. Regarding cheating death/VAC, C-D is not dead - I have NO idea why people continue to think this. The effort is being continued by UnitedAdmins and continues to be improved in ways cdeath never envisioned. The end result, if you will look, results in 99%+ cheat blocking (it's also worth mentioning that the few cheats that have gotten past C-D recently have been half-hearted "aimdowns" and 2 year old obvious aimbots with colored models).



VAC, however, has yet to show that they have been able to block more than 50-75% of publicly released cheats. Some effort is better than none, and the fact that VAC runs on servers by default has at least had a hit into cheating. I have severe misgivings about the idea of detection (ie, look at hlamp users), but the general public appears to enjoy pointing the finger rather than merely blocking the user, as with C-D.



My point is that VAC can release updates until Valve is numb and blue in the face - the question is how effective they are. Quality over quantity.

Do you have facts to actually prove this or are u just pulling numbers out of your ass?

[MikeJ]

The whole CD argument is a bit silly. Who the fuck wants to work their ass off making CD proof hacks? CD is ran on what, 1% of servers? VAC is run on practically every server and as such is a much more appealing target to hack makers. If CD was the default anti cheat, all of the cheater's attention would be changed to that and there would be much more CD hacks coming out and they would come out much more frequently. It would fill up the margin between CD proof and VAC proof hacks rather quickly and we would see the same amount of cheaters. Which granted, compared to the old days of CS 1.3, is very very little and hardly a problem or threat to public players.

[Ravenium]

If you think cheating is no longer a problem, then you need to get out a little more in the community :) Just about every server has 1-2 typically if you go in, though they are much harder to spot than in 1.3 because cheat makers have gotten more sophisticated. This means cheats no longer aim for heads through 80 ft of concrete and automatically hit - they incorporate a more "fuzzy" logic that makes the player spread just a slight bit or miss on occasion. Even more prevalent is the simple toggling wallhack that would be next to impossible to prove in the absence of a first person demo.



If you'd like to do statistics for C-D, just fire up ASE and filter. It's more than 1%, easily last check.



The one factor you are forgetting is that cheat makers don't generally make cheats just to cheat - if they did you'd never see many of them out there. There is one component hubris ("look at me, thank me, look what I'm giving you") and one component "because I can". Just like when octinium threw out the flag of "my program is unbeatable", cheat makers flocked and had a workaround within a week. Cheat makers have tried to do the same with C-D, but so far it's frustrated more than one, including Joolz (who has had a field day bypassing VAC).



Even if it is true that cheat makers are not trying as "hard", wouldn't you rather use something that does in fact block a far greater number of cheats? I would hope someone would not let a simple popularity contest determine their choice of anticheat, especially when one of them gets to come pre-installed with your server, whether you like it or not (VAC). Also, keep in mind that with detection, there is the distinct possibility that mistakes can be made, something I sure wouldn't like if I found my cd key banned until 2008 for using a program that "seems like" a cheat (hlamp).



and DirtyDevil, while perhaps I couldn't be a statistics man by any means, the percentages come from a general viewing of cheating download sites (ie, public sites) and their available offerings. From there, it can be determined which ones work with VAC and which are detected. A distressing number still do.



One more thing, for MikeJ: I don't think anyone disparages valve for a lack of effort as of recently. The problem is when they release an update and a 3 month old cheat STILL works. This has happened before, and seems to indicate a lack of proper homework on the research of the valve staff.

[MikeJ]

I dislike CD because i have problems with client side programs that can and do mess up my shots.



I pub pretty much every day and my ratio is always hanging around 20-4 or higher. I don't know where you guys play, but cheaters aren't ruining my experience.



I think most CD users are paronoid and think anyone doing good is cheating.



Tell me, if a cheater is hard to detect, hiding it real well, playing it off most of the time, setting his aimbot vectors to random and avoiding the head, etc etc. How is he a threat to you? How is he any better than a skilled player? Unless they are killing you instantly as they turn the corner shooting, or blasting you through walls, they are no more dangerous than any player with a bit of skill.



It's nice to think that every time we die something fishy is up, and the enemy had some kind of advantage over us. The most common reaction to any death is "omg wtf". But sometimes you just have to accept the fact that not everyone is cheating, suck it up, and try to switch up your strategy next round and deal with it.