Quote: Original post by rip-off
When cheating is indistinguishable from playing well, it isn't really annoying for me. I don't mind if people are a lot better than me at a game, as long as they don't act like a child about it.

Curiously, in Counter Strike this becomes more complex. CS has been around and active for an extremely long time, including on the professional circuit, and it's suffered from readily available cheats for many years. The former has created a number of insanely skilled players, and the latter has created a game-wide paranoia about cheaters. Players regularly do things that actually LOOK like cheating, and are often banned for their trouble.

you have to make a difference between cheating (hacking) and exploiting. Exploiting is taking advantage of loopholes in a game. For example, in Team Fortress 2, placing sentries where it is supposedly inacessible, the out-of-map engineer on Gravel Pit with an invincible sentry overlooking the enemy spawn point, the infinite molotov exploit in Left for dead, and various places in the finale maps you can camp safely. That's ok, although sometimes annoying. If the game cannot be fixed adequately, then it's pretty much game over as it exploiting will become systemic.

Cheating occurs to either ban an account specifically (some account they hacked on purpose), enhance their leaderboard position, or just for plain griefing (annoying gamers for the sake of it). Until an admin can kick the blighter, the best defence is passivity. You can't do much anyway, and getting frustrated over it is only making it harder.

From my experience, it's either plain griefing, or kiddies who think it makes them 1337. If it gets out of hands, it can really ruin the reputation of a game. Usually cheaters are exposed easily (coz most of them are really crap at it), sometimes simply by spectating a player and following his movements, or you rely on counter-measures (VAC, punkbuster, admin bans, ...). More subtle client-side hacks can be hard to detect.

If you don't cheat and just want to play for the fun of it, cheats are damn annoying. How fun would it be to play poker with someone who can see your cards?

Quote: Original post by Promit

Quote: Original post by rip-off
When cheating is indistinguishable from playing well, it isn't really annoying for me. I don't mind if people are a lot better than me at a game, as long as they don't act like a child about it.

Curiously, in Counter Strike this becomes more complex. CS has been around and active for an extremely long time, including on the professional circuit, and it's suffered from readily available cheats for many years. The former has created a number of insanely skilled players, and the latter has created a game-wide paranoia about cheaters. Players regularly do things that actually LOOK like cheating, and are often banned for their trouble.

I have problems playing on public CS:S servers anymore. I've played the game so damn long that I can often turn 180 and head shot someone who is shooting me in the back (noobs don't aim for the head). Or shoot someone just before they come around the corner because I can hear them running. Or shooting people through walls when their gun barrel is sticking out, or their shadow on the ground gives them away, or they hide in a very common hiding spot on a map. I've even gone so far as to use nothing but pistols, and I still have at least a 2:1 kill death ratio. I get kicked and or banned for cheating quite often.

And I'm far, far from the best player out there. I can't bunny hop, and I very rarely use the AWP so I am terrible with it.

That said, real cheaters piss me off to no end. I've been playing the game for 5 years, and I played plain ol' CS before that, so I can usually spot even the careful cheaters.

what really annoys me are people who think that anti-cheat protection works. What is stopping me from passively viewing the data before it reaches my client?
I could easily write a radar on my second monitor in a reletively short space of time.

I think its really easy to spot real subtle cheaters. Just spec them for a few minutes even wallhack becomes obvious:
You say "well that was an abvious hiding spot so i killed him", correct, however that player didn't look in ANY of the other obvious hiding spots. He was on a direct course for that position and never looked behind himself (radar).

There is a natural play style which cheaters just can't mimick.

I don't care that much, its makes the games more challenging and its rare that multiplayer games are challenging these days.

Quote: Original post by RivieraKid
I think its really easy to spot real subtle cheaters. Just spec them for a few minutes even wallhack becomes obvious:
You say "well that was an abvious hiding spot so i killed him", correct, however that player didn't look in ANY of the other obvious hiding spots. He was on a direct course for that position and never looked behind himself (radar).

Yeah, as long as there is think kind of facility so that accusations can be verified (and cheaters can be banned) then it can be dealt with.

One of the best features of COD is the "kill cam", which gives you a 20s replay from the eyes of your killer. This lets you learn from good players (instead of accusing them of hax!) as you can see/hear from their perspective how they managed to get you.

Quote: Original post by Promit

Quote: Original post by rip-off
When cheating is indistinguishable from playing well, it isn't really annoying for me. I don't mind if people are a lot better than me at a game, as long as they don't act like a child about it.

Curiously, in Counter Strike this becomes more complex. CS has been around and active for an extremely long time, including on the professional circuit, and it's suffered from readily available cheats for many years. The former has created a number of insanely skilled players, and the latter has created a game-wide paranoia about cheaters. Players regularly do things that actually LOOK like cheating, and are often banned for their trouble.

Definitely agree :) I play CS for 6 years now and I've learned to predict opponents moves, especially if they are noobs or low skill. This does look like cheating since someone who isn't on my skill level doesn't understand it and thinks I cheat.

Personal opinion: everyone who cheats in multiplayer deserves braking his hands. I personally would do that, I despise cheaters.

MTA suffers heavily from this, both due to small community and readily available sobeit mod.

But I have a fun time with them!

The other day there was a kid at the airport blowing everyone up with rockets (rockets are banned on this server). Of course he also had infinite health.

But infinite patience he did not have. I just walked up to him and punched him. Then he killed me, i auto spawned in the same place, and punched him again and again.

In GTA, of course, getting punched knocks you out of aim mode, so you can't use rockets if someone is wailing on you.

Eventually he teleported away, leaving the airport free to roam again.


The point is, it offered a unique challenge that i had fun with. I wish it were always this easy.

Of course I care about cheating, but I think it's much lower than the accusations make you think it is.

I get accused of cheating almost daily, but I don't cheat. And I'm not even that good compared to many people I play with. But if you listen to some of the people who play, you'd think 80% of the people online cheat, when in reality, at best it's probably only 5%. And even then, they're most likely going to be kept to the cracked servers because cheat protection such as PB, despite all it's problems, tends to be pretty effective for the most part.

But I forget that everyone who complains is in fact a top player of the said game, and thus there is nobody better than them.

Love Counterstrike... [grin]



Just missed leet haxors.