PC Gaming and Cheating.

[UglyDuckling]

I am a PC enthusiast, overclocking, tweaking, building, generally always tinkering with stuff.

What i always wanted to do was play games on PC though because well we all know visuals are always better on PC, we get a lot of freedom with how we tweak games so that they run etc to how we like.

Then i feel around the past 3 years or so it has massively been declining for me, cheating is so huge now that 1 in every game will be a cheater, whether obvious about it or not.

And i have only 1 thing i can point my finger at, and that is the PC community as a whole. What argument do PC gamers try to convey to console players or new people to gaming that does not come off as elitist?

We have mods, we can tweak games how we want, freedom.

That puts quite the picture into these peoples heads, not always cheating, i'm not going that far.

But then the learning curve learning new controls, ego issues and wanting to be better than their foes..

Do you see where i am going here? ok it's a stab in the dark, but you and no one else can deny the huge cheating problem on all popular games especially FPS style E-sports titles, CSGO being the leader for just how bad it is.

I am actually inclined to stop gaming on PC online and move to console just to gain a fair match any more.

For 7 years i have been a member of the Steam community, i have been a member of the Battlefield community for 10 years.

I have 507 games on Steam, i have played a lot. Never gained any kind of ban because it is beneath me, i want to prove myself with ego in a way that i improve, not use 3rd party cheats to gain advantages or to make other people feel awful for putting their time and effort into something that is just cheated away from them.

In a way this is a sort of rant, but i feel i need to express my view, my want to play PC games is high, but online? not so much any more.

 

[Rifter]

I agree, cheating in MP on PC games is totally and completely out of control. Thats why i mainly play with friends only or just play SP games. Sad really because i used to love multiplayer back in the days when everyone wasnt cheating.

 

[UglyDuckling]

2017 in a nutshell.

People are not even ashamed any more..

 

[UglyDuckling]

 

[EXCellR8]

Ever since Battlefield 3 and coming across websites where anyone can buy stealth hacking software... I just don't play multiplayer PC games anymore, not even Steam.

It's a serious problem that developers and publishers pretend to care about.

 

[Aikouka]

Unfortunately, humans tend to have a varying degree of an egotistical nature, and anonymity just makes it worse. What this means is that these people tend to place themselves, or in this case, their enjoyment above all others. In some cases, part of their enjoyment comes from making others suffer, which means we can tack varying degrees of sadism onto the list too. I see this problem a lot in Overwatch, and it isn't just cheating. There are players who strictly play a single hero and refuse to ever change because that's what they want to play. Personally, I'd prefer if they got to have the most fun playing, but there are times when you've got to bite the bullet and realize that you're hurting the experience for everyone else.

I won't pretend that I'm perfect about it, but I do try to consider others in my play, and honestly, that makes it worse when you feel like they completely disregard you in return. I also do the same in the real world, and to give an example... my friend and I worked at this place where one of the exits had two outgoing lanes: left + straight and straight + right. I needed to go straight, but turn right up ahead, so I was in the straight+right outgoing lane. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that the guy behind me had his blinker on to turn right. I realized that I was holding that person up for really no reason. I could be in the left + straight lane and just move over after I'm out of the intersection, but my actions directly affected someone else in a negative way. From that point on, I used the other lane. My friend just told me, "I'd never think about anything like that.", and he's reflected similar notions of not caring as much about random people. (Loved ones is different of course.)

 

[Rifter]

It's a serious problem that developers and publishers pretend to care about.

The thing ive been noticing is that they arnt even pretending to care much anymore, a decade ago they were very vocal about stopping cheating nowadays they just dont seem to give a damn.

 

[DigDog]

there's plenty of games where there are no cheaters, but you need to be pro to play.

 

[UglyDuckling]

I remember a friend i had on Steam i invited him to play Co-Op in Borderlands the first game, and he had a ridiculously high level and unobtainable weapon stats and he gave me some, ruined the game for me early on, so i had to restart all over again.

It's as if cheaters just do not see how they ruin games, at least for the guy who did that in BL was doing it in a single player experience, it was just because we Co-OP'd that his single player stuff carried over.

 

[arandomguy]

I am actually inclined to stop gaming on PC online and move to console just to gain a fair match any more.

Hopefully you find playing with a controller + aim assist against people using m/kb + aim assist via a $100+ adapters fair.

Ever since Battlefield 3 and coming across websites where anyone can buy stealth hacking software... I just don't play multiplayer PC games anymore, not even Steam.

It's a serious problem that developers and publishers pretend to care about.

People, as in the customers, are more willing to pay more (and I don't just mean monetarily) for cheats, which drives that industry, compared to paying to combat it. It's a basic economic problem.

 

[BSim500]

Do you see where i am going here? ok it's a stab in the dark, but you and no one else can deny the huge cheating problem on all popular games especially FPS style E-sports titles, CSGO being the leader for just how bad it is. I am actually inclined to stop gaming on PC online and move to console just to gain a fair match any more

Multi-player games have been on the downslope for a while now, and something I've long lost interest in for various reasons. When LAN parties (could have a laugh with friends) got replaced by anonymous online self-obsessed randoms / trolls / squeakers, etc, overly-fixated with their "status" and "rank", that pretty much drove many of them to start cheating in a way they never would have in a smaller "in person" familiar group. It's basically the same underlying psychology that drives people to say silly sh*t to strangers in Youtube comments that they wouldn't do to their friends face to face.

And due to that demand, economics takes over hence the sheer plethora of various hacks, not just obvious aim-bots, (trigger-bots, lag-switches, health-hacks, etc, but everything else like "Gamer Hardware" with macro's (hardware & software), and even motherboard utilities (eg, Asus Sonar which overlays a mark on the screen to highlight where sounds are coming from and amplifies only certains patterns of sounds or frequencies, eg, bomb ticking, footsteps, etc).

The thing ive been noticing is that they arnt even pretending to care much anymore, a decade ago they were very vocal about stopping cheating nowadays they just dont seem to give a damn.

I think it's a case of "If you can't beat 'em join 'em":-

- What do you call a cheat when you can boost up stats faster than normal then hand over a monetary bribe to the developer to not be punished? A "pay2win micro-transaction".

- What's another name for cheating by gifting yourself 10,000 credits, explosives, auto-hack devices, and a free shotgun + sniper rifle at the start of Deus Ex: Human Revolution via the Debug / Burger menu mod? A "pre-order bonus".

Developers themselves are half responsible for this by pushing post-sale transactions as a "solution" to the same problem they created. Eg, making a game deliberately over-grindy to inflate sales of de-grind micro-transactions will cause many gamers to think "Wait a minute, the only reason the game is that grindy is because you deliberately made it that way to boost MT sales. I'm not paying for that." They'll then see nothing wrong in cheating themselves up to the same degree, but then often end up getting a little too habituated in continuing using same cheats in more and more games.

 

[Sinster]

PC cheating in MP has been an issue for a long time. There were cheater in Quake 2, but not to where its today IMHO. Also some these "cheaters" might be due to the netcode, lag compensation, and etc.

In the original Ghost Recon and in fact a lot of others games lower graphics settings get the advantage as it doesn't draw everything. So you would think you're in cover when in fact the person with the lower graphics it wouldn't render that cover. I personally think this is a cheat, but that's just me. I have a gaming machine so I can play my games with all the eye candy. Not to play in the lowest graphic settings to gain the advantage.

Then there's the built in cheats in a lot of games "aim assist" for the people who want to use controllers in a PC game.

Then PC games are being pushed towards console ways. Moving away from dedicated servers, limited to 20 players or less, and VOIP where you hear every racist and homophobic word known in all languages.

Counter-Strike before and after Valve bought them had a lot of cheaters and then when Valve made source 2 nothing was changed to thwart cheaters.

Good players get accused for being cheaters because there are so many cheaters.

 

[ImpulsE69]

if you enjoy playing FPS with controllers...I suppose...but some games are meant to be used with KB/M. It's a huge tradeoff. I don't understand the 'give up pc and just do console' mentality. You either enjoy tweaking or you don't. I quit worrying about it since I'm in IT now. Cheating isn't exactly something new, and there is cheating on consoles as well. Sounds like you just need to give up MP games in general and focus more on SP gaming, and if that isn't what you want to do, then giving up gaming in general.

A rather disturbing/disgusting trend lately is the vocal outcry by other players and devs around 'teaming' especially in survival type games like PUBG or The Culling. Screw you I'll play your game how I want to play it w/o hacking the code and for you to complain and tell me I can't is a very big example of the hand holding wussie gamer community things have moved to.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I'd argue the 2 best ways to stop cheaters is.

1) Community. This is by far the most effective way of playing cheat free, find communities that know each other, that have their own private servers, that run their own forums and chat channels and that have active admins. They will be able to quickly and effectively remove cheaters.
2) Have some system of reputation that tracks gamers across multiple games, so steam is really good for this. They can VAC ban your entire account, which means reputation tracks across games, once you're VAC banned you can't play any of those games on VAC enabled servers. This makes the penalty for getting caught cheating far greater which is a good deterrant and even if it's not a deterrant it makes VAC bans way more productive because that cheater is banned on VAC enabled servers across all games, which is great.

What the console lacks the most is community. Some of the best times gaming have been on medium sized gaming communities where they run their own servers, you get to know the people, the admins, you can use their private stats tracking, have it integrated into their website and forums. Make friends and have a more personal experience, you get less shit talking and less mic spamming and generally better behaviour, you also more likely to get team balance and cooperation.

The console method of one persons console being the "server" and there being no moderator tools make the community a giant shit show.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I liked the solution from the Ex COD guys had (the ones who were braggers they made the robot game where you could get out of it)
Basically cheaters don't get banned, they get restricted to servers without any cheat protection

 

[bystander36]

A lot of PC gamers just don't play competitive multiplayer games. The only MP I've ever gotten into was MMORPG PvP, which you pretty much can't cheat in.

 

[UglyDuckling]

if you enjoy playing FPS with controllers...I suppose...but some games are meant to be used with KB/M. It's a huge tradeoff. I don't understand the 'give up pc and just do console' mentality. You either enjoy tweaking or you don't. I quit worrying about it since I'm in IT now. Cheating isn't exactly something new, and there is cheating on consoles as well. Sounds like you just need to give up MP games in general and focus more on SP gaming, and if that isn't what you want to do, then giving up gaming in general.

A rather disturbing/disgusting trend lately is the vocal outcry by other players and devs around 'teaming' especially in survival type games like PUBG or The Culling. Screw you I'll play your game how I want to play it w/o hacking the code and for you to complain and tell me I can't is a very big example of the hand holding wussie gamer community things have moved to.

I can tweak consoles too, see this is your very fixed view point that only anything PC is tweakable.

Modding consoles, heck i can do something completely different and nothing to do with gaming or even electronics and "tweak" all i want.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I can tweak consoles too, see this is your very fixed view point that only anything PC is tweakable.

Modding consoles, heck i can do something completely different and nothing to do with gaming or even electronics and "tweak" all i want.

You aren't telling me anything I don't already know, you are making assumptions. Not exactly sure where you get that and must have missed the point. Your complaint was about tweaking and cheaters. You don't HAVE to tweak anything. There are cheaters everywhere. So, basically the angle you were going for that 'i'm going to just quit pc and go console and that will solve all my problems' is false.