Validity of -rep for cheaters

[FP jh34ghu43gu]

So awhile ago a cheater, who recently acquired a high valve item, received a -rep from a high tier trader advising people not to trade with them as they openly admitted to cheating. This cheater is pretty much a nobody in the trading scene and immediately went to a 3rd party site to cashout said item so I can't imagine many people, and the cheater themself, saw the rep and bothered reporting it because I think most people would agree doing business with cheaters is a scum move and thus the rep is still there.

 

But this promotes the question: should irrefutable proof of a user cheating be an acceptable -rep? And even further: Should backpack start banning these people?

 

This was a non-issue the further back in time you went because vac would actually get some high value people from time to time so there was always a threat of punishment, but as of recent there is ZERO repercussions for cheaters in the trading side of the game. These people who are actively harming the game will, at most, get banned from trade servers, which is a laughable restriction of their trading freedoms. And they know it! I've never seen more cheaters with backpacks in the hundreds or thousands of dollars than present day. Hell some of them are even using their cheats to profit (naming bug a few months back that required cheats to abuse). It's clear valve isn't doing shit any time soon, maybe the threat of severing access to 2/3 of the trading scene would be enough to keep the average joe from installing cheats and ruining matches?

 

As to anyone's question on what irrefutable proof entails:

• Self admitting in steam chat with steamrep quality screenshots (hovering over names, uncropped, etc...)
• Linked youtube videos of using cheats on the steam profile (screenshots provided in case of future removal)
• Recordings of multiple (2+ depending on the chance of it being legit) obvious signs of cheating (invis spy headshots, the blatant looking straight up while spinning and then getting an instant headshot, 10 random crockets out of 13 shots) with a capture of the console command "status" which displays usernames and steam ids within the same recording. These recordings would need to be single session to avoid splicing 3 lucky invis headshots in a row.
• I don't think this one should be used for issuing bans but would be valid for -reps: recording of showing the leaderboard and then opening overlay and showing that a user's username in "view players" is different than the in game one. Cheaters commonly use this but there's a few niche cases where a normal user could find themselves matching this criteria, primarily I believe this can happen with a community ban or changing name while connected to the server, however most people changing names mid-game will retry so the new name appears. Would also be fine not allowing it due to those reasons but I've never encountered a false positive with this method.

 

TL;DR valve ain't punishing cheaters, backpack absolutely can and should start punishing the ones who think they are untouchable.

[Keks]

like... who cares lol... cheating in game and scamming others is different

[FP jh34ghu43gu]

5 minutes ago, Keks said:

like... who cares lol... cheating in game and scamming others is different

And yet valve issues bans for both; the cheating one also includes restricting trade.

[n_n]

21 minutes ago, Keks said:

like... who cares lol... cheating in game and scamming others is different

Seems like something a trader main who doesn't care about the game would say.

 

I absolutely would support some sort of -rep in backpack.tf. I have seen cheaters with nice unusuals who have active listings on backpack. In fact one of them used to be a "friend". I block/unfriend these people.

 

They should absolutely be rejected by the community because they do a lot of damage, in some cases I'd say even more than scamming.

[Vidual Cadet]

What cheat was used to profit? Please enlighten me, as I've never heard of this. 

 

Also interesting topic, personally I don't care much if they cheat, as long as their items are acquired legitimately. I think it's their own risk. I'm not sure it's worth bptf admin's time to ban cheating people, as it doesn't directly intervene with trading. 

 

I don't think dealing with cheaters should be the community's responsibility, but rather Valve, which is still unlikely, but I don't think cheater's care that we ban them on backpack, as almost every site is still useable.

[gege hates anime]

As much as someone would want this, cheating in the game doesn't have anything to do with trading.

[Vidual Cadet]

1 minute ago, n_n said:

Seems like something a trader main who doesn't care about the game would say.

 

I absolutely would support some sort of -rep in backpack.tf. I have seen cheaters with nice unusuals who have active listings on backpack. In fact one of them used to be a "friend". I block/unfriend these people.

 

They should absolutely be rejected by the community because they do a lot of damage, in some cases I'd say even more than scamming.

I don't think cheaters can do more damage in any way, as you can always just leave and ignore them

[Vincentius]

I'm trying to understand how this will help at all, cheating in tf2 is nothing uncommon especially given the game has no anticheat, if we go by the logic that we should ban cheaters then would it not be the same course to ban anyone who breaks other steam tos including scm scripting? Scripting the scm is not rare at all and extremely easy to spot but nothing ever happens within that either.

Cheating in cs is another great example, people cheat all the time within that game with inventories that make tf2 insignificant overall, $2mil+ accounts obviously cheating at times even and people have no problem still selling and interacting with said users so why would it matter within tf2, a far smaller and more insignificant market. 

 

Going over the possible proofs "required" real quick

56 minutes ago, FP jh34ghu43gu said:

Self admitting in steam chat with steamrep quality screenshots (hovering over names, uncropped, etc...)

This is not itself proof as people jokingly say they cheat all the time so how could you tell what's legit and not.

 

56 minutes ago, FP jh34ghu43gu said:

• Linked youtube videos of using cheats on the steam profile (screenshots provided in case of future removal)
• Recordings of multiple (2+ depending on the chance of it being legit) obvious signs of cheating (invis spy headshots, the blatant looking straight up while spinning and then getting an instant headshot, 10 random crockets out of 13 shots) with a capture of the console command "status" which displays usernames and steam ids within the same recording. These recordings would need to be single session to avoid splicing 3 lucky invis headshots in a row.

These can go hand in hand within this response, getting multiple headshots on invis spies is nothing uncommon. Any good/competent sniper with enough game sense can predict the movement enough to do it consistently to the point where in your mind would be suspicious. A recording is also something very subjective given the very low tickrate tf2 has and any replay will look off given such, unless its beyond obvious given full on locking and tracking perfectly there is nothing you could say with 100% accuracy.

 

Talking about ytube videos of using cheats is kinda self explanatory though these videos could easily be not from them and could just be a joke of a user copying an obvious cheater as some people did for awhile with the random "Box extermination" crew. So this would need to be something needing closer viewing of and not something instantly usable as proof. Every case is different as the user could be quite obviously be using it on their actual profile that goes back some time with the same name and profile or it could be a meme mincing and legit for fun.

 

1 hour ago, FP jh34ghu43gu said:

I don't think this one should be used for issuing bans but would be valid for -reps: recording of showing the leaderboard and then opening overlay and showing that a user's username in "view players" is different than the in game one. Cheaters commonly use this but there's a few niche cases where a normal user could find themselves matching this criteria, primarily I believe this can happen with a community ban or changing name while connected to the server, however most people changing names mid-game will retry so the new name appears. Would also be fine not allowing it due to those reasons but I've never encountered a false positive with this method.

As someone who use to change names multiple times in a game when I played comp, this is common aswell from legit players so it would be a very slippery slope to where if you could call someone cheating or someone having a good game and just changing names for fun. 

 

 

Overall this would be a very slippery slope as if someone is obviously cheating they most of the time wont hold actual value or wont care about trading in the first place.

Only the small minority is open about it and holds an actual valuable inventory, its mostly when people are banned in waves when anything is found out.

[Very Frank]

No lol, even if you could give -rep, that doesn't solve the root of the problem. You'd have to jump through so many hoops, that may put a yellow warning sign on somebody's backpack page for... what? It doesn't help the people actually playing the game, people not at all involved are still going to be annoyed by somebody cheating. The purpose of the -rep is to inform and possibly warn people trying to trade with the person, and using a -rep for cheating just diminishes the purpose of doing so. 

[Keks]

47 minutes ago, FP jh34ghu43gu said:

And yet valve issues bans for both; the cheating one also includes restricting trade.

i meant to say that both are definitely bad. just want to say that the two should be separated.

 

valve probably issues trading restrictions on cheating to discourage it. Steam is a free platform. If you didn't get a trade restriction on cheating, cheaters - who may be rich - would be able to just transfer their items to another account and continue cheating.

[Keks]

29 minutes ago, n_n said:

Seems like something a trader main who doesn't care about the game would say.

yeah...

[Colonel Johnson]

The only official counter to cheaters for preventing them from trading is (should be, considering that it doesn't do a damn thing these days) the VAC ban. If you cheat, you get two punishments: you can't join protected servers and your inventory is locked. Hearing about aimbotters and cheaters with a rich backpack getting locked from trading is not a new thing since in the past this happened to people like Kaybee and Jcapps and still up to this day there are aimbotters who have decent items in-game present in TF2's community. From my point of view, whoever uses cheats should be confined as much as possible or even getting their Steam account obliterated into oblivion; however, Valve seems to have no plans in removing cheaters from the trading scene by giving us a better version of the anticheat anytime soon, and so Backpack, by not reacting to these cases with bans.

[FP jh34ghu43gu]

47 minutes ago, Api said:

What cheat was used to profit? Please enlighten me, as I've never heard of this. 

The most recent naming glitch with stock items required memory editing (iirc, it def. was not possible with the base game), a few users then tried selling these glitches for many times what they paid for the name tag. One of the notorious abusers of this glitch has since received (at least) 2 smac bans on community servers while having a 4 digit backpack, IIRC partially from the funds received for selling the bugged items.

50 minutes ago, Api said:

I'm not sure it's worth bptf admin's time to ban cheating people,

I will partially agree with this which is why I'm primarily for allowing -reps related to cheating and less caring about a site ban.

52 minutes ago, Api said:

I don't think cheaters can do more damage in any way, as you can always just leave and ignore them

Not directly cheaters I am referring to, however it is certain the bot crisis has hurt the game's ability to bring new users in, both via the off-putting nature of joining a server to be insta kicked/killed by bots and the fact it's pretty much p2p if you want the "team" half of team fortress. I am of the mindset that any cheater is indirectly (although sometimes directly) supporting these bots unless they are 100% homemade cheats if this helps in seeing why I am against ignoring these users.

 

 

55 minutes ago, Vincentius said:

As someone who use to change names multiple times in a game when I played comp, this is common aswell from legit players so it would be a very slippery slope to where if you could call someone cheating or someone having a good game and just changing names for fun. 

Understandable, obviously I only have my personal experience to draw from for that argument.

56 minutes ago, Vincentius said:

This is not itself proof as people jokingly say they cheat all the time so how could you tell what's legit and not.

The screenshots provided for the -rep I mentioned in my initial post are very obviously not joking but I understand the point.

59 minutes ago, Vincentius said:

these videos could easily be not from them and could just be a joke of a user copying an obvious cheater

Referring mainly to officially added videos which require linking a youtube account, as for the joke videos, most people linking youtubes and showcasing cheats are repeat uploaders and not doing it one off like a joker would (presumably).

1 hour ago, Vincentius said:

These can go hand in hand within this response, getting multiple headshots on invis spies is nothing uncommon. Any good/competent sniper with enough game sense can predict the movement enough to do it consistently to the point where in your mind would be suspicious. A recording is also something very subjective given the very low tickrate tf2 has and any replay will look off given such, unless its beyond obvious given full on locking and tracking perfectly there is nothing you could say with 100% accuracy.

So for the spies point there's a difference between being read or accidentally getting headshot and baiting invis headshots/attacks; I am referencing the 2nd. As you said these aren't 100% because an incompetent spy will often hide in corners that a sniper could feasibly be expected to randomly shoot into, or cloak way too late after nearing a sightline; but for example an experienced blue spy with cloak and dagger that manages to go all the way to this purple dot without getting randomly hit on the way there could say with 99.99% certainty that getting headshot by a freshly respawned sniper is a sign of cheating.

For the 2nd part, that's why I'm saying it needs to be irrefutable, at least if banning people route was taken. If the -rep system is taken they can obviously report it with their claim of why it's fake and then if it checks out it can be removed. There IS evidence of people cheating that can be irrefutable.

 

1 hour ago, Vincentius said:

I'm trying to understand how this will help at all, cheating in tf2 is nothing uncommon especially given the game has no anticheat, if we go by the logic that we should ban cheaters then would it not be the same course to ban anyone who breaks other steam tos including scm scripting? Scripting the scm is not rare at all and extremely easy to spot but nothing ever happens within that either.

Cheating in cs is another great example, people cheat all the time within that game with inventories that make tf2 insignificant overall, $2mil+ accounts obviously cheating at times even and people have no problem still selling and interacting with said users so why would it matter within tf2, a far smaller and more insignificant market. 

Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn't, this was simply an idea (that I could waste time on writing out vs. doing a final) and I wanted to see how other people would feel about it. You have brought up some valid points above and I recognize there's flaws but honestly this seems like one of the few things the community can actually do to attempt to help the game. I don't expect it to completely solve any problems but if it stops an edgy 14 year old from scripting because they're scared of hindering their ability to trade I would call it a win.

Backpack hardly holds domain over cs:go, I don't believe it's a fair argument. I am not versed in cs:go trading so correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there's even anything close to comparable to backpack's domain over tf2's pricing and trading. The fact tf2 is smaller is a perfect reason why I don't think they should be compared because it is actually possible to severely cut trading potential. A bp ban pretty much means you're gonna have to use a scammer site that usually pays out less than buyers on bp would.

 

Generic response to a few other responses bc I don't have time to finish: slippery slope fallacy might be at play in your arguments.

 

Gonna go eat so I'll post what I got now, reply to other people probs tmrw. Assuming this doesn't get locked.

[Breacher]

3 hours ago, FP jh34ghu43gu said:

TL;DR valve ain't punishing cheaters, backpack absolutely can and should start punishing the ones who think they are untouchable.

bp should but I don't think mods have the capacity to do all this with the work they currently do rn cause mods understaffed.

[n_n]

I'd never (knowingly) support a cheater, even if trading is unrelated to the actual playing of the game.

[TheLAW]

2 hours ago, Breacher said:

bp should but I don't think mods have the capacity to do all this with the work they currently do rn cause mods understaffed.

I do agree that they are understaffed. I have three (3) reports that have gone to the wind despite requests being fulfilled as asked and them being legit. Ya love to see it.

[N.J]

The reputation system is used to demonstrate trust. A user "cheating" or not does not affect this as much as I despise these types. It also begs the question, if backpack becomes the enforcer of "cheating" bans, how do they moderate it?  Do they have to review clips of the accused or is it a guilty until proven innocent system where the accused submits clips? I don't understand how this would logistically work even if it was a reasonable suggestion which it is not.

[TheLAW]

14 minutes ago, N.J said:

The reputation system is used to demonstrate trust. A user "cheating" or not does not affect this as much as I despise these types. It also begs the question, if backpack becomes the enforcer of "cheating" bans, how do they moderate it?  Do they have to review clips of the accused or is it a guilty until proven innocent system where the accused submits clips? I don't understand how this would logistically work even if it was a reasonable suggestion which it is not.

Did you get past the second paragraph, or did you see "-trust for cheaters" and write this? JH mentioned ways to possibly provide proof, which others users chimed in on and provided their criticisms/thoughts. I do encourage you to read the whole post thoroughly.

[N.J]

1 hour ago, TheLAW said:

Did you get past the second paragraph, or did you see "-trust for cheaters" and write this? JH mentioned ways to possibly provide proof, which others users chimed in on and provided their criticisms/thoughts. I do encourage you to read the whole post thoroughly.

No I didn't and I don't plan to, the premise is silly.

[Brown]

I don't think trust ratings were intended for anything outside of trading to begin with, site bans may apply though. You'd have the same level of stringency of evidence, which might be harder to obtain when there isn't a direct victim, and then there needs to be a measurably negative effect on the game. Monetary loss is the easiest to measure, and the only scenarios where someone loses money to cheating that I can think of are:

 

during a betting duel &

bots, autokick and making the server unplayable/unjoinable, basically DDOS

 

Cheating in a duel is scamming. Bots can have a measurable impact depending on how they're administered, some bots aren't as server-clearing as others. One bot owner was banned from backpack for "ruining the game", so it works in practice. I think you lose this measurability of impact when you deal with individual cheaters

[Misty Skull]

Nobody who cheats with high value will actually care, not many people list items and a -rep for cheating isn’t like a -rep for scamming or sharking, a legit trader but an in game cheater will have no issues finding somebody who is willing to trade with/sell to them. 
 

All the evidence stuff here can be easily faked and easily rebutted unless they have some signature unusual or look that makes it incredibly obvious. This wouldn’t deter anybody with a high value from cheating and it wouldn’t slow down profit or trades significantly enough to deter people, and people who would be deterred are a small insignificant minority out of an already tiny community. Nobody who hosts random bots has a backpack over 200 keys and most cheaters with expensive backpacks just quicksell for keys and dump.

[3.50]

11 hours ago, gege hates anime said:

As much as someone would want this, cheating in the game doesn't have anything to do with trading.

TF2 is a game, and trading is a game, and they aren't the same game.

[LSO]

tl;dr but I couldn't care less if I traded with an in-game cheater. I only care about the trading scene as far as this game goes.

[Beaser]

ill trade cheaters so long as they are not steamrep banned 

[Xaeriel]

19 hours ago, FP jh34ghu43gu said:

The most recent naming glitch with stock items required memory editing (iirc, it def. was not possible with the base game), a few users then tried selling these glitches for many times what they paid for the name tag. 

I wasn't aware it's been fixed