So How Good Is VAC

[Phoenix]

I can never remember COD4 who was controlled by Punkbuster being riddled with cheats like Black Ops 2 is. Night after night I just want a few games with friends and all we see are blatent cheats. So my answer is how good is the VAC system on Steam because so far i`m not that impressed TBH ???

[nya[dc]]

These paid cheats don't come from a website, they are not advertised anywhere, they cost hundreds of dollars and you have to be extremely well in with the person making them and their associates to aquire them, if you don't know these people you don't know that these cheats exist. There are countless groups of people like this all with their own private cheats that only their little posse of players have access to.

For the coders, this is essentially their employment, they are very talented people who can do things beyond both of our levels of comprehension.

[Zefar]

Publicado originalmente por Nya`:

These paid cheats don't come from a website, they are not advertised anywhere, they cost hundreds of dollars and you have to be extremely well in with the person making them and their associates to aquire them, if you don't know these people you don't know that these cheats exist. There are countless groups of people like this all with their own private cheats that only their little posse of players have access to.

For the coders, this is essentially their employment, they are very talented people who can do things beyond both of our levels of comprehension.

Uh huh. Yea, sounds like bs to me.

If it's so secret. How do YOU know about it? :/

Then for "There are countless" groups of people like this. Really?

*Sigh* Really?

[nya[dc]]

Publicado originalmente por Zefar:

Uh huh. Yea, sounds like bs to me.

If it's so secret. How do YOU know about it? :/

Then for "There are countless" groups of people like this. Really?

*Sigh* Really?

That's really neat that you don't believe me, I couldn't care less to be honest as everything you say is just a naysaying generic and ignorant reply for things you have no knowledge of and have never been around.

How do I know about this? I've been in the Counter-Strike community for nearly 12 years man, I know people and have been friends with many, many, many different people and groups of people in that time. It's all about how deep you get involved, your longevity in a gaming community and how much you are willing to take in. Just because I can't produce some graphs and analytical data for you doesn't mean what I am saying is untrue. These are things that you experience over time, you learn these things, some things can't just be told they must be learned.

I'm am also very active in the league communities which these cheats get detected in because the AC is constantly updated and maintained daily. The only reason they ever get updated is to further bypass league clients, nothing else is a threat.

You may think that VAC is the bees knees but outside of your little Steam forums bubble there is an entire different world looking in that can't believe how poor the detection methods are for VAC. If VAC actually worked for these cheats there would be no use for a league client, think outside of the box.

[Zefar]

So these super secret cheats somehow gets into the hands of league players. These people are supposedly friend with these super secretly cheaters who know super secret cheats that doesn't exist on the internet......Bwhahahahahahah Do you have ANY idea how silly that sounds? It sounds likes a bad Spy movie. I just don't buy that. They could be sold on the internet as "VAC proof" and the moment they get detected they change it enough to not get detected again.
They would make far more money that way. As I think that's what they do it for.

But what's more fun is that the league Anti cheat are somehow able to make counter for something no one is able to give to them.

The ones who make the League anti cheat should try to be hired by PunkBuster or VAC. I remember reading one guy from a certain anti cheat team tried to apply for VAC but was declined.

[nya[dc]]

Publicado originalmente por Zefar:

So these super secret cheats somehow gets into the hands of league players. These people are supposedly friend with these super secretly cheaters who know super secret cheats that doesn't exist on the internet......Bwhahahahahahah Do you have ANY idea how silly that sounds? It sounds likes a bad Spy movie. I just don't buy that. They could be sold on the internet as "VAC proof" and the moment they get detected they change it enough to not get detected again.
They would make far more money that way. As I think that's what they do it for.

But what's more fun is that the league Anti cheat are somehow able to make counter for something no one is able to give to them.

The ones who make the League anti cheat should try to be hired by PunkBuster or VAC. I remember reading one guy from a certain anti cheat team tried to apply for VAC but was declined.

Stick to what you know and understand man, all I'm going to say from this point on. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm just explaining things beyond your range of expertise or experience, it's really as simple as that.

I'm sure you know things about other topics that I don't but could only provide first hand accounts and personal involvement with it to bring those things to light. I wouldn't greet you with such cynicism because the fact of the matter is I don't know and for this neither do you.

Your relevance and understanding of the topic seems to go as far as common publicly available information, and I'm sensing strong hints of bias and fanboyism towards the Steam client and VAC which I expected from the beginning given your position.

You can't teach or explain things to people who already have their minds made up.

[nya[dc]]

Publicado originalmente por Moon Pie Shelley Bean:

I refer you, Nya' to read again what I posted.
You are trying to compare VAC to otrher forms of AC which operate in different ways to achieve different results. Like Apples and Lemons.

VAC works. It does EXACTLY what it is intended to do and flawlessly. There are downsides to the use of VAC where certain companies have implemented it incorrectly, or do not provide a level of support in the form of server-client infrastructure and/or administrative tools to allow the VAC system to operate at its fullest potential.

The biggest reason cheats are so prevalent in games such as MW3 or whatever, is that these are the popular games. The greater the popualrity, the more likely there are people willing to pay for cheats. Like any business, the cheat creators are going to concentrate their efforts in where there is a greater market potential. Since there are so many willing to purxhase cheats for these games, it's clear that the cheat creators will actively work on developing and updating their cheats since there is a definite opportunity for growth and profit. Once the popularity of said games falls off, less people will be playing, and even less will be willing to pay for cheats, therefore the cheat creators are less inclined to update those cheats, instead, they will be working more on the newer more popular games.

I didn't miss what you had to say and I even referenced it in one of my posts and I will say it again. VAC doing exactly what it is intended to do isn't even close to enough of what it could and should be doing which is currently complete mediocrity. The goal of every anti-cheat is to catch cheaters, that is why they exist, it's their purpose in the world and it doesn't matter how they operate as long as their means to an end is carried out. If it's not catching things which have been around for years then there is a serious problem.

The issue is how ineffective the detection methods are for VAC as a whole. VAC works great for pub cheats, no one will deny that because the proof is in the pudding, it bans simple coded things which are readily available and function in the available detection spectrum, anything out of that though and it's really worthless. It just can't detect some things and until it's brought up to snuff and not running on obsolete technology it's still going to be scoffed at and abused horribly.

Sure it works as intended and for what it is intended to do it does flawlessly, however that is really just an excuse for mediocrity and ineffectiveness for everything else. You have to compare it to other anti-cheat's which work far better and are kept up to date. If something is out of the range of a league's detection methods they will continue to update those methods until whatever it is irradicated. It doesn't matter what these cheats are or how they function in a league, they don't last long.

VAC in some ways can pull its weight but in others can't do a thing, until they get serious about keeping detection up to date it's going to remain a joke.

[nya[dc]]

Publicado originalmente por Moon Pie Shelley Bean:

Clearly you did not uinderstand.

VAC's purpose is noit to "catch cheats" where exactly does it ever state this?

It is a tool to support the server-client infrastructure and server admins to police their servers effectively that is all.

Still you try to compare it to other cheat engines that (try to) operate independantly by using heaurtistics and non-permanent methods which cause false-positives and allow cheaters to simply log back in.

If it's not catching things which have been around for years then there is a serious problem

If it's not catching things that have been around for years and you have definite proof of this, then do your part and send the cheats to Valve rather than just whine about it.

Clearly you never understood and just continually soaked up misinformation spread around for years by people such as Zefar who think they have a handle on what they are talking about.

http://i.imgur.com/3KvOA.png

It doesn't get any more clear than that now does it? Is that purpose enough for you? Saying VAC is just a tool to support and help admins police their servers is nothing more than ridiculous excuse and scapegoat for the anti-cheat's shortcomings.

It's an ACS pretty much just like any other, it's just not very good and guys like you go out of your way to invent other purposes and functions for it because it's not a very good system but you blindly defend it for reasons completely unknown.

In terms of heaurtistics that is off the table completely, league clients which detect virtually anything created don't function that way. The ACS is continually refined, the detection methods never remain stagnant and it only bans cheats, not behavior indicative of cheating, this isn't Punkbuster.

You also clearly missed the post where I stated myself and friends of mine have been reporting several cheats we know not to be detected, we have sent the hash and all. We sent these things multiple times every few months to get the detection methods updated. They still cannot be detected because those methods have not changed and these cheats still work, we gave up.

If you guys knew anything about the history of VAC you would know why VAC2 was created to replace VAC1. It simply wasn't detecting most cheats anymore because the coding had evolved far beyond the capabilities of it, history is again starting to rear its ugly head.

[Phoenix]

Thanks for all the replys, wide variety of feelings. Do you not think that not only does it take a good anti cheat program to keep a game reasonably clean and I say reasonably clean because you cannot expect any game to be completely cheat free (Unfortunatly) it also takes good admins. I was dissapointed that Black Ops 2 was not releasing dedicated server files for the game. I know there are pro`s and con`s to server files but I think clans and their admins should be in control of their own servers. I have spent numerous hours looking through screenshots and log files and doing what is needed to keep our servers clean. I know I mentioned Punkbuster but you also have communities like Punksbusted, Respected Admins & PBBans all who have live banlists that not only help to catch cheaters but also add Circumventers to their banlists. I just feel that all of this helped the community as a whole and when there are no duties like this as a Clan Admin and the Anti-Cheat software like VAC runs invisibly as such without releasing information it leaves us all curious as to how good it really is. Unfortunatly Black Ops 2 is riddled with cheats but like any new game it takes time to siv these out.

[Kura]

Let's not pretend that gamers ego's play a massive part in what they think is someone cheating. I would guess that 99.9% of people that call cheater when someone kills them. "OMG there's no way....." Of course everyone is cheating but you. Maybe you just arn't that good?

[Tito Shivan]

Publicado originalmente por Theeski:

Let's not pretend that gamers ego's play a massive part in what they think is someone cheating. I would guess that 99.9% of people that call cheater when someone kills them. "OMG there's no way....." Of course everyone is cheating but you. Maybe you just arn't that good?

There's a share of that too. There are many people that jump into gaming without a clue of concepts like ping compensation or latency (If i had a penny for every time i've been killed after turning a corner...) Not to mention when they are oblivious to game mechanics (Got called a cheater once by reflecting a rocket as a Pyro in TF2)

[nya[dc]]

Publicado originalmente por Theeski:

Let's not pretend that gamers ego's play a massive part in what they think is someone cheating. I would guess that 99.9% of people that call cheater when someone kills them. "OMG there's no way....." Of course everyone is cheating but you. Maybe you just arn't that good?

Ton's of people cheat, anything else Mr. Wizard?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=111474628
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=59511
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=90973287
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=91017783

[Tito Shivan]

Whoa, a bunch of scoreboard screenshots!... Undeniable proof!!... Quick send those to Valve so that people can be banned!
/sarcasm.

[nya[dc]]

Publicado originalmente por Tito Santa is coming to town:

Whoa, a bunch of scoreboard screenshots!... Undeniable proof!!... Quick send those to Valve so that people can be banned!
/sarcasm.

That post was way over your head....

[Tito Shivan]

Publicado originalmente por Nya`:

Publicado originalmente por Tito Santa is coming to town:

Whoa, a bunch of scoreboard screenshots!... Undeniable proof!!... Quick send those to Valve so that people can be banned!
/sarcasm.

That post was way over your head....

Then you may want to elaborate a bit for those down on earth, instead riding on your high horse.
And stop assuming things...

[nya[dc]]

Publicado originalmente por Tito Santa is coming to town:

Then you may want to elaborate a bit for those down on earth, instead riding on your high horse.
And stop assuming things...

Theeski says....

Publicado originalmente por Theeski:

Let's not pretend that gamers ego's play a massive part in what they think is someone cheating. I would guess that 99.9% of people that call cheater when someone kills them. "OMG there's no way....." Of course everyone is cheating but you. Maybe you just arn't that good?

to which I then reply with screen shots of ME and say...

Publicado originalmente por Nya`:

Ton's of people cheat.

Clear enough?