How to Counter the Dustbowl Cheaters

Introduction

Do you play cp_dustbowl? Maybe you play on Virginia servers? And perhaps you've encountered players that seem suspiciously good at the game? Then this guide is for you. As someone with well over 1000 hours of Dustbowl experience, I’m here to offer my take on how to counter the most common types of cheaters that you will encounter on my beloved map. I’ve even split this guide into sections to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Identifying a Cheater

The first step to countering a cheater is to actually identify them as one. There are many factors involved in determining if someone is cheating or not, and this can all be pretty complex, so I'll break my process down step-by-step (most of this process works for all cheaters in general, I'll get to more of the Dustbowl-specific stuff later).

Step 1: If you are suspicious of someone, check their score. This isn't always a clear indicator of whether someone is cheating or not, but it can help. If that Sniper on your team who just hit 3 headshots in the span of 5 seconds has a score that's far above anyone else's, then he may be cheating. When it comes to Dustbowl, if you see ANY player with a killstreak above 100 or a score over 300, there is a high chance that they are cheating as these numbers are rarely achieved by legit players. But if you see this in a match, don't call a vote to kick this player just yet! In order to be sure someone is cheating, move on to the next step.

Step 2: What class are they playing? Despite what people seem to think, you CAN cheat as ANY CLASS. But even though this is true, cheaters seem to prefer some classes over others. After all of the stuff with bots in the past few years, Sniper is the one most people think of. On Dustbowl, Snipers with aimbot are fairly common. However, you will also encounter genuinely skilled Snipers on Dustbowl as well, so this can be somewhat hard to determine. The classic Demoman + Kritzkrieg Medic combo is probably more common on Dustbowl servers. While identifying if they are cheating can be tricky, actually getting them kicked is usually the hardest part, and I'll go more in depth on this later.

Step 3: Watch them play. Depending on the cheater, this can be the most clear indicator of guilt. Some cheaters are really obvious: if your team's Heavy is spinning or snapping to enemies instantly, then duh, he's cheating. Other cheaters are using less obvious cheats or are just better at hiding the fact that they are cheating. If the person you are suspicious of is on your team, you can just follow them closely and see if you see anything unusual (though try to be subtle about it so they don't toggle their cheats off). If this person is on the other team, however, it can be harder to tell. There are still the obvious indicators, like if you are getting headshot while invisible, or if the enemy team's Demoman has a random critrate well over the average. But it can be hard to tell, and the last thing anyone wants is for a legit player to be kicked for the wrong reason. It may sound wrong, but I think it's best to wait a few minutes and see if the person you think is cheating is consistently dominating the enemy team. Oftentimes a Soldier will get 3 crits in a row or a Sniper will accidentally headshot an invis Spy. This stuff happens, and it doesn't mean they are cheating. But if it's happening a lot, then things are different. And it's important to remember not to assume someone isn't cheating simply because they have a high casual rank and/or unusuals equipped. The cheaters I encounter most are all Tier 8, Level 150 with many unusuals and rare items. So the "don't judge a book by it's cover" rule certainly applies here. A final tip I have is to look for any binds that they may spam in chat. Obviously bots spam chat constantly, but some cheaters do as well. One that I've noticed only cheaters use on Dustbowl servers is "Remember to invite friends and have them queue in to avoid bot rolls". If you see this bind, they ARE cheating.

Step 4: If you really want to go the extra mile, check their profile. If you think someone is cheating and they have a VAC ban on their account, then that sure simplifies things. Many cheaters also stupidly have screenshots on their account depicting them playing with other people in their party. For example, if your team's Demoman "Best Demo Ever" is cheating, and they have screenshots of them playing with "medicmain76965" on their profile, and "medicmain76965" is literally on your team healing the Demo, then kick both of them. You can easily access someone's profile in-game by typing the command tf_scoreboard_mouse_mode into the console.

Step 5: Call them out. Once you're sure someone is cheating, I recommend letting the whole server know this before actually kicking the cheater. Though outing a closet cheater to a server of 24 people can be extremely fun and entertaining, there is actually a practical reason for doing this outside of the sick joy I get from it. If you call a cheater out, don't pay attention to what they say in response, but rather what the rest of their team does. For example, if you let your team know that "Our Sniper is cheating" and someone replies with "I thought so too" or "I knew it" then it's clear that the team is smart enough to press F1 and kick him out. But if you tell your team that "Our Demoman is cheating" and his Pocket Medic says "No he's not wtf" then that just confirms that the Medic is in his party, and will vote no if you try to kick the Demoman. If this happens, all you can do is try your best to convince your teammates of the truth.

How to Kick a Cheater From Your Team

Once you have followed my steps to determine if someone is cheating or not and you are ready to kick them from your team, STOP. Many people make the mistake of immediately trying to kick a cheater from their team without properly preparing. This may sound stupid; why shouldn't you kick a cheater as soon as you can? In most situations, you can. If you are only suspicious of one player on your team, they don't seem to be coordinating with anyone else, they don't have a pocket medic, and they aren't using voicechat, then by all means, start that vote as soon as possible. But if you think the cheater isn't alone, or if your team doesn't seem to realize they are cheating, then it's time to take a step back and plan your next moves. Something you have to consider before trying to kick a cheater is that, if they aren't completely obvious, have multiple people in their party with them, or are using voicechat, the vote will fail more times than not. Prepare what you are going to say, and be ready for them to deny it. If the vote fails, encourage one of your teammates to try again. If the cheater starts a vote on you, try your best to deny it, but don't think there's anything wrong with leaving the game. You tried your best, and they didn't listen. Don't let it ruin your day.

How to Fight a Cheater on the Enemy Team

Now it's time for the section that most people will be looking at: strategies to counter cheaters on Dustbowl. If you've determined someone is cheating on the enemy team, and they aren't being kicked from the match, then it's time to fight them the fun way. While there are many types of cheaters you can encounter on Dustbowl, the vast majority of them all have similar strengths and weaknesses.

Demomen with wallhacks and a Kritzkrieg Pocket Medic do a lot of damage and rely on crits.

Snipers with aimbot do a lot of damage and always rely on guaranteed headshots.

Heavies with aimbot do a lot of damage and sometimes rely on crits.

Direct Hit Soldiers with aimbot do a lot of damage and sometimes rely on crits.

Even Widowmaker Engineers with aimbot do a lot of damage and can rely on crits.

So to put it simply, the key to countering cheaters is to negate both standard damage and critical damage as best as you can. Thankfully, TF2 has a surprising amount of items that can do just that. In the next section, I'll break down each class, what items they have that are useful for countering cheaters, and ask if they should even be used against cheaters at all.

Classes to Play Against Cheaters

Scout: Scout is pretty mediocre at countering cheaters on Dustbowl. While the Bonk! Atomic Punch can let you slip by some sightlines and chokepoints that cheaters use, this class has such low health and needs to get so close to the enemy to deal good damage that he is almost useless.

Soldier: Soldier can be a very strong counter to cheaters. He can deal really solid damage and is a decent Ubercharge target. The Battalion's Backup can also be an extremely effective tool for countering cheaters, whether it's a Sniper or a Demo. And as a Soldier main, there is nothing more fun than killing 2 cheaters with a fair and balanced crocket.

Pyro: Pyro has similar weaknesses to Scout when fighting cheaters. He's such a close-range class that he can do very little against cheating Snipers, and he struggles at fighting all cheaters in general. That being said, he can be useful for punishing overconfident cheaters who overextend.

Demoman: Demoman's damage output can be monstrous in the right hands. While countering damage is the most important part of fighting cheaters, dealing damage back is still needed if you want to win, so a good Demoman can be very effective. Demo is also arguably the best Ubercharge target, especially on Dustbowl, so he can be a very powerful force alongside Stock Uber.

Heavy: There is a little-known fact about Heavy, that applies to both normal games and games with cheaters alike: If you all pick Heavy on offense, you'll probably win. Really all you need on a team of 12 people is like 8 Heavies with 4 Medics to completely overwhelm the best cheaters with a wave of high health-pools and insane damage. Try it some time.

Engineer: Sentries don't take critical damage. This fact alone makes Engineer a worthy candidate to counter cheaters. While you can't just run into a cheater and slap down a Level 3 Sentry and kill them just like that, a good Engineer can completely shut down a choke point while playing against cheaters who rely on crits. This can be crucial on offense or defense, or for preventing spawncamping.

Medic: If you have skilled Power Classes on you team, Medics can utterly destroy most cheaters. The Vaccinator can be a godsend against any type of cheater, and even standard Ubercharge can often be too much for them to handle. If you're playing on a full team of 12 players and the enemy team has a cheater who is really giving you a hard time, the biggest middle finger you can give them is to have 3 Medics on your team running Vaccinator and standard Uber.

Sniper: Sniper is probably the class with the most variation when playing against cheaters; he can get completely shut down, or can wipe them all out easily. A good Sniper with a Vaccinator Medic can easily deal with bots or other cheating Snipers, but this strategy doesn't work well against other types of cheaters and can't push very well either, so make sure you have more Medics and Power Classes with you.

Spy: Spy is undoubtedly one of the worst classes to play against cheaters. Whether you like it or not, the vast majority of cheats allow you to see right through a disguise or full cloak, so as a spy, you are basically a worse Scout, who is already mediocre at countering cheaters.

List of Cheaters

The accounts listed here are cheaters or supporters of them. They were added to this list due to a combination of VAC bans, Game bans, comments accusing them of cheating, screenshots, YouTube videos, and my own encounters with them. It is important to note that while these people frequently change their Steam usernames, they never change their Steam ID. Typing their Steam ID in when searching for their profile will still get you where you want to go no matter how many times someone changes their profile. While most names on the list are cheaters, a small portion of them are what I consider “cheater supporters”, which can be a number of things. If someone frequently plays in parties with cheaters without cheating themselves, I think it’s fair to add them on this list. Also, if someone refuses to kick a cheater on their team even when it’s obvious, they will be added to this list as well, only after being warned of this. Lastly, if you are in a small group of like, 20 or so people, and the majority of the group are known cheaters or VAC banned or something like that, you are associated with cheaters and will be added to the list. Rest assured, no one on this list is completely innocent, so if you see someone in-game with a username that's here, be wary. I won’t update this much anymore, since most cheaters have been banned. It’s not nice to kick them when their down.

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[76561198962066802]

I'm missing on that list

[worthless ugly femcel]

I still wasn't a cheater lol. why do you have me listed?

[mahboigoji]

It’s fun to reminisce about these times. 90% of those listed have been banned these past few months. What a bunch of losers

[Strider]

A piece of advice, list individual steam IDs rather than in-game names. You've listed some individuals multiple times.

[worthless ugly femcel]

why am I in this list..?

[Giantesslover]

S P Q R

[Giantesslover]

I would marry a giant

[Giantesslover]

I like giants a lot

[mahboigoji]

man is still coming after me because I don't cheat in a game made for 13 year olds like he does

[norsus]

funky comments