Cheats - seem abundant

[EagleC]

It's really difficult to spot cheats without a specator view but I get the feeling that the lack of vac support means that hl2mp is attracting the cheaters.

All too often I see players that seem incapable of missing, or run faster than anyone else - this might well be down a good player on a good day but then yesterday I saw someone draw an smg, grenade or rocket launcher and start killing players with it.

Yeah ok, this doesn't sound odd until I mention that we where playing db_bunker (the grav ball game). There are no weapons on that map, sv_cheats was 0.

So I banned him, permenantly but obviously this was only easy to spot because the map is 1 room and there was no way to get those guns without cheating.

Dont post any steam-id's here, dont tell me how he did it (except in closed email).

I thought it might be an idea for us to swap tactics on catching/stopping these tossers.

I use steambans.com but obviously its not perfect as its just a blacklist.
VAC is not available
I've used CD in the past but since steam its been unreliable due to valve updates.
hlguard is not available
There is no spectator mode.

Anyone got bright ideas, stories, info ?

[PhatBoy]

We've signed up to steambans, but they don't even seem to scan your server all that often so I'm not sure how much of a difference they'll really make. I guess until VAC comes out it'll still be down to the admins to try and figure out players are cheating or not.

The other thing I wondered is how much extra burden does all the anti-cheat stuff put on your server, ie. can I expect my pings to suffer as a result?

[EagleC]

steambans rcon connection wont trouble your server but CD, hlguard or vac can. With CD and vac it depends on the build, some versions are unnoticable then a bug creeps in and its adding 150ms to all your pings With hlguard its dependant on settings too as you can trim down exactly what its doing but I dont know if hlguard will make it to source and its quite good at false detections too.

[PhatBoy]

We did seem to get some extra lag periodically after setting the steambans up the other night, but I'm not sure at the moment if it was actually steambans or just a naff internet connection (we've got 1.5Mb down, 256k up but occasionally the connection can get a bit slower than that - i think possibly because we're sharing the cable junction box with other houses in the street).

CD seemed like the most comprehensive anti-cheat, but the other problem i see with it is that users have to download a client. We specifically want guys to come in from the internet so that put me off using CD (i didn't think a lot of players would want to go to the hassle of downloading the CD client). HLGuard seems like it would probably be the best low maintenance alternative to VAC, but as you point out it isn't available for source.

So the answer to your original question is, unfortunately, no I haven't got any bright ideas.

I haven't played HL2DM but are you saying that they have completely removed the spectator feature? Seems to me that without being able to spectate admins face a hopeless task trying to catch guys cheating. Better just stick to CS:S.

[PhatBoy]

Sigh.

Still no sign of VAC.

[EagleC]

Nope, and I've found the cheat they're all using. Well maybe not all but once I learned the name it was all over google.

[FireGaming.net|Mob]

I am ranked #1 on Steambans.com and have been with them for almost a year. The real secret to being hack free is to just have a good admin staff. Get some regulars together and they will more than likely WANT to help rid the cheaters.

Also, VAC is about to be updated (FINALLY!) and Source mods will be protected with the update as well. There will always be thousands of people working to make hacks and cheats and the ONLY bulletproof way of staying cheater free is to make a great admin staff and setup a website with forums so people can appeal bans.

Steambans.com only runs a "users" command via RCON, copies the STEAMID's and compares it to their DB so there should not be any lag involved whatsoever. Nothing funnier than a Steambans.com message humiliating a player before perma-ban... especially when you are in a scrim getting pwned. You feel vindicated that... yes... they are hacking.

They are working on a MetaMod plugin that will help admins submit hacker demos easier without all the harsh requirements. Our servers are signed up for Beta testing of this plugin. I will post when I have used it and let you know what I think.

[EagleC]

Cheers mate, you're right and previously the servers I've run have had extensive experienced admins. It's just so hard to spot a cheater on a new game like hl2mp that has no method of spectating players.
was it speedhack or did he just sprint? is it aimbot or is he good? and so on. OK so the stupid ones get caught but some sort of automated backup system for when the admin overlooks something is always a good idea. That and I know I'm prone to give the benefit of the doubt. :/

[FireGaming.net|Mob]

The day VALVe comes up with an absolute full-proof anti-hack system will literally be one of the best days of my life. It sounds nerdy and shallow, but CS is my life and leagues or my life. I am currently CAL-IM and it took 2 seasons to get there because of the terrible hacking problem. As a matter of fact, my clan made CAL-IM because a team we played got caught hacking later in the season (playoffs actually). When we played them, they straight owned us. We suspected they hacked, but had no proof since they weren't speedhacking across the map or using the 360-aimbot. I have no doubt that a majority of "good" clans use ESP which is almost impossible to detect by just spectating. ESP can tell you if a team stacked one bombsite or is rushing another site.

I GUARANTEE many teams will have to drop from leagues because their players' STEAMID's got VAC'ed.

...but I've been waiting for that day for over 3 years.

[EagleC]

Yes, this is where the CD solution is better than VAC. It's just a shame that it hits the genuine players so harshly too. I used CD on my NS server for a long time until Steam started making updates days apart and each one broke CD so that people couldn't log in or got kicked after a few seconds for 'not running the client' even though they where.

oh well. At least having VAC would be something.

[FireGaming.net|Mob]

If you are running any HLDS servers off of Linux, Steambans.com just released a new plugin for MetaMod for enhanced protection. They are also releasing a new scanner for HL2 mods (CS:S, HL2: DM). They also announced a plugin in development in conjunction with HLGuard to be released in the next few weeks.

THis clearly shows how anti-cheat can be done without VALVe's help. It is the people who are sick and tired of these punks hell-bent on ruining our fun that can rid them from the game and our leagues.

[PhatBoy]

Bad news I'm afraid. Looks like Cheating Death has been broken by the hackers allowing all existing cheats to run on a C-D enabled server without detection.

I dare say the team over at UA will get a fix out pretty quickly but you do get to a point when you start to wonder if there will ever be a way of riding games of cheats. Unfortunately it seems that they are able to get round new A/C systems as quickly as they are being written .