Stop using fake idle program ASAP

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Hectic Glenn

Hectic Glenn

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Just a heads up...the rumour mill is spinning at a rate of knots. Valve are implementing deletion of all items for individuals using the fake idle system, including some kind of indicator in game that you have been using it.

Not much evidence about yet...but if you check <steamfolder>\steamapps\team fortress 2 content.gcf and inside that gcf check: "rppt\tf\resource\tfenglish.txt" you will find these messages -

"TF_CheatDetected_Title" "WARNING"
"TF_CheatDetectedMinor" "Your account has been flagged for circumventing the item distribution system. We have removed the items that were illegally obtained.\n\nFuture violations will result in the loss of all your items."
Click to expand...
"TF_CheatDetectedMajor" "Your account has been flagged for circumventing the item distribution system. We have removed all items in your inventory.\n\nFuture violations may result in your account being disabled."
Click to expand...
Time to call it a day mad hatters.
 
In other words: Play the damn game, and actually tell Valve yourself that you hate the item distribution system, instead of doing a passive-aggressive protest and expecting them to listen.
 
I wasn't wrong though! Valve are taking action and I said they would. I don't consider this cheating as you gain no advantage getting weapons via this system as any avid TF2 player knows. It's purely a mechanism to increase the likelihood of getting hats. And if you have more hats than the next person you still have no gaming advantage, hence my more lax opinion of it.

With the trading system on the way, it will certainly change the way items are valued, and become a bigger problem...which is why it is good Valve are addressing it now.

It doesn't matter anyway, any fake idle items you have will be deleted. And by the looks of it your classes in game will have to wear an obligatory indicator of your fake idling ways!
 
Hectic Glenn said:
you gain no advantage
Click to expand...
Hectic Glenn said:
a mechanism to increase the likelihood
Click to expand...
Say whaaaa?

People wouldn't be using it if it gave you no advantage.

Valve wouldn't be prohibiting it if it gave you no advantage.

Just admit it Glenn, you should have closed the thread with that post and said NO DAMN YOU ****ERS like Sparky did.

I didn't say you were wrong, you were just like a police officer that saw a mugging and said "hey, you probably shouldn't do that" and then walked away.
 
No gameplay advantage. Hats don't change your options, weapons do. But you get the weapons at a reliable rate.
 
So what if there's no gameplay advantage? That somehow makes it not exploiting?
 
How about Valve just change their own system instead of instigating stupid punitive measures against people using it in a way they don't like?
 
Stigmata said:
In other words: Play the damn game, and actually tell Valve yourself that you hate the item distribution system, instead of doing a passive-aggressive protest and expecting them to listen.
Click to expand...

What makes you think they don't do both?

Laivasse said:
How about Valve just change their own system instead of instigating stupid punitive measures against people using it in a way they don't like?
Click to expand...

God damn yes.
 
Y'know whats funny and proves their system is broken?
I've been idling for at least 5 days straight and I only got one ****ing hat.
 
I see no reason why idling should be against the rules. The only way it ever bothers me is when I check my Friends server and there are 5 people and every one of them is idling :p
 
Vegeta897 said:
Say whaaaa?

People wouldn't be using it if it gave you no advantage.

Valve wouldn't be prohibiting it if it gave you no advantage.
Click to expand...
Heh, you've not been playing much TF2 have you. People are using it to get hats, every person playing TF2 has all the weapon unlocks except for a small handful. You get the weapons from the achievement milestones and while playing normally. In fact the average player has 2 or so of the same weapons.

I'll say it again, people are using it purely for hats. Hats add no gaming advantage, they are purely aesthetic. Therefore, it is only cheating the system in the sense that the individuals gains a hat for extra credibility and wow factor in game! It doesn't have any detriment to other players.

The reason Valve are probably implementing this now, is that items need value for a trading system to work. If they are abundant, trading is pointless. So I welcome this change, for trading to work, and to deter those who wish to devalue it after it's release.

I know you are just playing with me Veggies, but I stand by my word!
 
Hectic Glenn said:
I'll say it again, people are using it purely for hats. Hats add no gaming advantage, they are purely aesthetic. Therefore, it is only cheating the system in the sense that the individuals gains a hat for extra credibility and wow factor in game! It doesn't have any detriment to other players.
Click to expand...
In theory, neither should gaining more weapons by idling.
The reason Valve are probably implementing this now, is that items need value for a trading system to work. If they are abundant, trading is pointless. So I welcome this change, for trading to work, and to deter those who wish to devalue it after it's release!
Click to expand...
That would be well and good if they had actually released the trading system.

...

Not to mention that I'm pretty sure that Veg meant that it gives you an advantage in gaining the unlocks.
 
It's such a screwball system in the first place that the practice of idling is hardly deserving of any condemnation. To the best of my understanding, Valve have implemented the random drop system as an incentive for players to play a little more TF2 than they otherwise would. However, they undermined their own objective from the get-go by designing it in such a fashion so that you didn't even need to be in-game to get the items. It's a stretch to write this off as an obscure exploit; it was apparent from the very first days of the random drop system, when people saw spectators (probably inadvertently) picking up goodies that legitimate players were missing out on.

Why, then, should the average player's response be 'I'll play more to get more items' (as Valve wanted it to be), and not 'I'll play the same amount of TF2 and then idle at other times, since it requires no effort on my part and I've already seen spectators profit where I've lost out'?

About the only harmful thing that arose from the practice was the fact that idlers take up valuable player slots. However, fake idling then circumvented that - no losers. Only people gaming the system in the best way they could. It's not like people have resorted to some kind of item unlocker this time round, nor is it easy to explain how idling is somehow bad, yet starting your own server, spawning and just waiting for items isn't.

So tbh I'm right behind Glenn in his position. As for blocking the practice now, that's fine, since the hats are going to need to retain their exclusivity value in order for the item trading system to mean anything. What would be even finer, is if Valve just changed the system so idlers don't receive drops, as opposed to dumb punitive crap which is simply going to piss a lot of people off.
 
Corp. Sheepo said:
In theory, neither should gaining more weapons by idling.

That would be well and good if they had actually released the trading system.

...

Not to mention that I'm pretty sure that Veg meant that it gives you an advantage in gaining the unlocks.
Click to expand...
Well I think they are laying down systems like this in anticipation for the trading system, meaning it may not be far away after all. Like I said, trading means items require value, and by preventing idling for weapons their value will increase.

Also I know Vegeta meant in regard to gaining the unlocks, but like I said...everyone has all the unlocks. I had them all 3 weeks after the sniper / spy update. The culmination of play time + achievement milestones means all unlocks are very easily obtainable even without idling!

The real juicy stuff comes down to the different levels of weapons. If you look in my backpack thread, Robin Walker has weapons in his backpack with lots of variable attributes. Things like 'faster reload time' 'crit on burning enemy' etc. I believe all the weapons in TF2 will get variable statistics based on their levels.

This opens up a much more desirable aspect to normal weapon drops, aside from hats. It makes them worth a damn sight more than before. I believe this will come with the trading system update, but Valve can't have everyone with level 100 rocket launchers. It again devalues special drops like that. So yet again, this throttle on idlers is more framework for their upcoming reform on weapons.
 
Hats count as unlocks. I don't think you understand what Vegita is saying. He's saying idling gives you an increased chance of unlocks. And advantage in gaining unlocks. I don't know, I can't actually read.
 
Err, nobody said anything about getting rid of players.

And it's using a program that simulates idling, without running the game.

I'm sure Valve would not have a problem with someone booting up TF2 to just sit in a server. I mean you can't really distinguish between someone who is legitimately AFK and left their game on or are actually trying to idle for items, so you can't really punish for that.
 
No they won't, they will spook them by saying 'naughty!' and deleting all their idled weapons and that's it. You might get a badge showing you were a naughty idler too.

Based on the messages in the TF2 gcf, people who continue to idle and gain drops that way may get disabled, but I'm sure players will get ample warning.
 
Actually, is there really any incentive to stop if there's just a chance you lose the unlocks you gained while idling? I mean, there's a chance you could keep them, and it's not as if there's anything else in danger.
 
Vegeta897 said:
Err, nobody said anything about getting rid of players.

And it's using a program that simulates idling, without running the game.

I'm sure Valve would not have a problem with someone booting up TF2 to just sit in a server. I mean you can't really distinguish between someone who is legitimately AFK and left their game on or are actually trying to idle for items, so you can't really punish for that.
Click to expand...
The problem with that, as it stands, is that fake idling creates no real detriment to any other players while real idling (occupying actual player slots) and making frivolous servers (filling up the server list with lots of passworded, 1 player servers) potentially could.

It's all very well to crack down on people who aren't putting in that crucial missing bit of effort in running the actual hl2.exe, but why bother since:
-the drop system isn't meritocratic or really effort related anyway
-Valve probably have no way of cracking down on AFKers who are actually annoying
-the fault lies with the way the system has been designed in the first place
...?

Just change the way it works and have done with it.
Hectic Glenn said:
No they won't, they will spook them by saying 'naughty!' and deleting all their idled weapons and that's it. You might get a badge showing you were a naughty idler too.
Click to expand...
Personally this would be enough to put me off for a while. Just as playing with my new medic's hat is an incentive to load up the game and play medic slightly more than I would otherwise, loading up the game to a depleted backpack and a patronising little badge telling me Valve don't like the way I've used their system would be a turnoff. Considering the potentially big numbers of people involved, I can't see how it would be a good idea. But Valve will ever amuse themselves... the drop system itself is testament to that.
 
How about they just make TF2 back into an actual straight up team-based FPS with unlockables?
Enough with this hat, random drop, and backpack bullshit.

Can't believe I almost thought of getting back into the game, didn't think it was possible for them to actually ruin it.
 
You can, of course, ignore the unlocks and play - it's still very fun. Valve removing people's finds is only marginally disciplinary. A mediocre amount of playtime and they'll have the weapons back. If the trading system starts up, people may wind up giving them away (what else will they trade for)?
 
The whole trading idea seems half-baked in my opinion. It doesn't seem to have any real meaningful use other than silly hats and weapons that can be unlocked with milestones. Ignoring serious itemization issues, some may argue that trading will have more value and benefit when the weapon levels show some practical effect.

I ask: Do you really want to see Team Fortress turned into that kind of game?

I'm sure there are bigger plans for it down the pipeline, but releasing stuff like this piecemeal doesn't give a strong impression. It feels like some misplaced experiment that Valve is just implementing as a testing ground rather than because it will significantly improve the game. Until the feature actually materializes into something in fuller form, I don't see why anybody should be bothered for making do with their bizarre drop system.
 
If they really want the trading system to work, maybe they should implement it before adding 2 more sets of hats for each class.
I'm sorry, but Valve should really implement trading before pulling this sort of thing.
 
Lucid said:
How about they just make TF2 back into an actual straight up team-based FPS with unlockables?
Enough with this hat, random drop, and backpack bullshit.

Can't believe I almost thought of getting back into the game, didn't think it was possible for them to actually ruin it.
Click to expand...

I'm glad to see you're reading random opinions about something you don't understand on the internet and making your decisions based on that. Great plan.
 
Corp. Sheepo said:
I'm glad to see you're reading random opinions about something you don't understand on the internet and making your decisions based on that. Great plan.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm still trying to understand the logic in random drops and the backpack system to hold said random drops.
 
I'm trying to see how that ruins the game at all or how the gameplay could be impacted in anyway by that.
 
Just ignore the post and move along, unlocks as a whole just aren't going to work in TF2 unless they do it by stats ala Battlefield 2 or COD4.
 
I think random drops is a perfectly good system for hats and aesthetic items. Right now they just have the chances of getting them too low.
 
TF2 Blog said:
Over the next few days we'll be removing all TF2 items that were earned using external idling applications. We're going to adopt a zero tolerance policy for external applications used to manipulate the persistent item system. Due to us not having a policy in place prior to today, this time we're only removing the items earned through cheating the system. Going forward, if we find users using external applications, we'll remove all of their items. If you're interested, only about 4.5% of the players in TF2's community will be affected by this cleansing process.

Meanwhile, everyone who took the moral high road will soon be finding a new hat in their inventory. We've also significantly increased the chance of finding any of the existing hats.

We realize there is a high level of demand for items, and we're still working on systems to allow you to find them in new ways (via Trading, and crafting duplicates into desired items). However, we need to draw the line at running external applications.
Click to expand...

www.teamfortress.com
 
I'm glad I never used a fake idling program to get my items; I just play on an actual server and hope that I find something valuable. By the way, I feel sorry that your hat's going to be taken away, V-Man. I guess this is a lesson to all of those people who cheated to get items.
 
Shem said:
I'm glad I never used a fake idling program to get my items; I just play on an actual server and hope that I find something valuable. By the way, I feel sorry that your hat's going to be taken away, V-Man. I guess this is a lesson to all of those people who cheated to get items.
Click to expand...

Hardly. It's not like it takes any effort to idle, so it's not like you're losing something you worked for if you just lose your idling items. It's like losing a dollar you picked up off the ground. From now on it will be a lesson though. Glad to hear I'll be getting a hat, though I probably would've idled at some point if this hadn't occurred. I'm too lazy to idle D:
 
Corp. Sheepo said:
Hardly. It's not like it takes any effort to idle, so it's not like you're losing something you worked for if you just lose your idling items. It's like losing a dollar you picked up off the ground.
Click to expand...

It's more like losing a dollar you used an automatical dollar-finding machine to find.
 
Funnily enough, I loaded up the idle prog for the first time about an hour prior to this update/announcement.

Wonder if I get mine.
 
I used it near when it came out for a poke around, and never since. My backpack hasn't lost any items as I didn't get any, and my two hats remain. However, it seems they can still detect that and hence I have been flagged!
 
Oh. THIS hat. I was hoping for something more. Maybe a real hat. Well, whatever.
 
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