VAC Bans

[Hectic Glenn]

I was thinking to myself, just how many people get banned automatically in the scale of the 20 million Steam accounts that have been created. A stat from VACBanned.com says...

7.38% of Steam accounts checked are VAC banned

I think that's incredibly high. Thinking about it, that means there is a hell of a lot of people buying games through Steam then searching out cheats / hacks online (and 7% are only the ones which are caught).

It's great these accounts are excluded from secure servers but what else could be done to stop people turning to cheats in the first place? Or making things harder for individuals get cheats working?

I get the feeling a lot of young players just get a silly urge to try and cheat and get caught out. Perhaps there should be more notices in Valve games to show VAC constantly on the prowl and most of the time they will get caught. I'm not defending them, I think further deterents would be useful to drive this behaviour out fully when players first join Steam before they start getting ideas.

Thoughts of others?

 

[Lucid]

They need to let you plead your case if you get banned due to your account being hacked.
Which I believe may be the case with my account, I've never cheated in my life.

But, I did let my friend borrow my account for a while so he could try TF2 until he could buy it.
I know him in real life and I'm POSITIVE he didn't have anything to do with it being VAC banned.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

They need to let you plead your case if you get banned due to your account being hacked.
Which I believe may be the case with my account, I've never cheated in my life.

But, I did let my friend borrow my account for a while so he could try TF2 until he could buy it.
I know him in real life and I'm POSITIVE he didn't have anything to do with it being VAC banned.

The only issue with that is that every cheater will start pleading their case even though they intentionally cheated. A cheater can report the account as stolen then cheat and say someone else did it.
I think VAC's zero tolerance system is fair. When you are dealing with people who are trying to get round the rules you must be tough You are responsible for your account, if you get hacked, download dodgy stuff for Steam, or lend out your account it's your fault and yours alone.

 

[Dekstar]

From my Communication and Persuasion classes, I think it's actually server players/owners themselves that account for a lot of the problem. Robert Cialdini actually did a talk, and if you have 1.5 hours to spare, I seriously suggest listening to it: http://uc.princeton.edu/main/index....videos/1784-the-secret-impact-of-social-norms. In it, he talks about the 6 principles of influence, and gives real-world anecdotal evidence of them, all of which is incredibly interesting.

The principle of influence I'm thinking of is called Descriptive Social Norms. That section of the talk begins on page 7 of the PDF. Basically, DSN according to Cialdini means "Descriptive Social Norm of the situation the behaviour that defines what is typically done in a situation what is normal. People are likely to follow the lead of multiple comparable others so they want to follow the lead of many others. They want to follow the lead of similar others." (Page 7)
Since so many people in games like Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source tend to accuse people without any real evidence except that they were killing them incredibly often, they obviously complained, saying VAC sucks etc. And so more people start doing it, assuming it's what everyone else is doing, and since not many others are banned they'll be relatively safe.

So in effect (or TL;DR), when players accuse others who aren't cheating, they're making it seem like so many more people are cheating, leading others to assume it's the normal thing to do and thus unlikely to ban them, so they cheat.

 

[Sierra Oscar]

The amount of people scamming accounts and then cheating on them is atrociously high too, unfortunately.

 

[Druckles]

Most unfortunately, there's no way to measure that statistic. As with prison, everyone's innocent. Your criminal record doesn't just rely on a password, unfortunately.

 

[Sierra Oscar]

Most unfortunately, there's no way to measure that statistic. As with prison, everyone's innocent. Your criminal record doesn't just rely on a password, unfortunately.

Well, if your account gets hijacked and then someone cheats on it I think it should be VAC banned. At the end of the day your account security is your responsibility.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Some of it might be that kids who start playing suck, and they know it(i.e. 1:27 KD ratio), and thus they try to get better not through practice, but through cheating. The same kids aren't very knowledgeable in right/wrong on the internet, and the anonymity makes them feel safe, and they overdo it by, say, going on VAC-protected servers, or not being careful enough, and they get banned. Now, I'm not saying hackers should be more careful, but moreover they should find a place where the playing field is a little more level, where say everyone hacks.

The most of hacked was with name spoofers in Warcraft 3, and that was mostly for laughs, not getting an up on the competition. Heh, a group of us all named 'Elephant' in different colors. Awesome.

 

[Adabiviak]

I like the idea of a one-strike policy. It's still pretty draconian, but has enough leeway not to turn people off to Steam entirely. I don't know enough about bona fide cheating/hax statistics to know if even that one-strike policy would be worth it (the resources required to make it happen would be costly).

 

[Druckles]

Well, if your account gets hijacked and then someone cheats on it I think it should be VAC banned. At the end of the day your account security is your responsibility.

As is your car and your house. A similar principle could be applied to being framed for murder of a loved one.

 

[Fiberawptic]

The system is fine the way it is. If they start tampering with it, it will become drastically unfair. People who cheat are pathetic, i know they have urges to know what its like using a speed hack or how many people they can get headshots off of with an aimbot, but cheating is a low and more than 'just stupid' thing people do. Theres no way escaping a VAC ban, you screwed yourself over, deal with it. Thats the way it is, and thats the way it should be. People should know hacking is bad and can result in punishment, Valve shouldn't have to spam 'DONT HACK, YOU WILL BE VAC BANNED' all over the computer screen for people to get it through their heads...

 

[Sierra Oscar]

As is your car and your house. A similar principle could be applied to being framed for murder of a loved one.

If your car gets stolen do you expect the manufacturers to take responsibility? If your house gets robbed do you expect the builder to accept responsibility?

:O

Basically, what I am saying is if Valve start reversing VAC bans on accounts that were hijacked, it would just result in cheaters claiming their account was hijacked to get the ban reversed. Tis a harsh thing for a person to have their account VAC banned when it was hijacked, but it is a necessary policy.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

There is no need for a one-strike policy or additional warnings. Valve have made it perfectly fair. If you wish to hack, then go onto a Non-VAC secured server and hack to your hearts content. No-one cares if you wish to try out a hack as long as you stick to the Non-VAC servers. It's when you bring your hacks to the VAC servers are start ruining a legit game it's becomes a problem. When you connect to a VAC secured server it's say "Cheating will result in a permanent ban" you still have time to click cancel and stop connecting to that server.

 

[Druckles]

If your car gets stolen do you expect the manufacturers to take responsibility? If your house gets robbed do you expect the builder to accept responsibility?

:O

Basically, what I am saying is if Valve start reversing VAC bans on accounts that were hijacked, it would just result in cheaters claiming their account was hijacked to get the ban reversed. Tis a harsh thing for a person to have their account VAC banned when it was hijacked, but it is a necessary policy.

No-one asked Valve to take on 'responsibility'. A better analogy would be being arrested for the theft of your car.

 

[GT-Rick]

No-one asked Valve to take on 'responsibility'. A better analogy would be being arrested for the theft of your car.

http://www.examiner.com/a-232591~Man_arrested_for__stealing__own_car.html

Like that guy.