Why is Steam defending cheaters?

[otakon17]

Why? I don't care if they cheat in single player, it's their game and they're not affecting anyone else in it. But in multiplayer games where they do shit that is just not possible they shouldn't be allowed to be protected by the system.

Case in point, in playing Dark Souls II I was invading Sinners/Wretches as a Blue Sentinel. Face off against this one toon named TheAlonneK***ht(yeah, the censor system can't handle "nig"). We're fighting in Heide's Tower of Flame area, the final pedestal before the Cathedral of Blue in front of the huge drawbridge. He's there with a Red Invader he summoned(I assumed at first to gank me, but that was not the case, as you will see).

He starts firing off greatarrows from an Alonne Greatbow. No pause inbetween his shots, he's using an infinite stamina cheat, probably a trainer. However I manage to get him to one hit from death, then he backs over the edge of the platform. Normally that's fatal to anyone, cheater or no. But apparently he used some kind of glitch, specifically one where you can literally walk on air after performing a specific maneuver. Which explains the Red Invader, that was his buddy helping him set this up. He literally walks on air, heals before I can get a chance to fire at him with a bow then kills me in another shot.

So, I reported him, then made a topic in the forums about it, asking how he did it. I mentioned his character name and then suddenly the cheat defenders come out of the woodwork. "You can't name and shame cheaters on the forum". I didn't name him I only named his character, more than likely only ONE of his characters he has access to as a warning for other people to just avoid that fight when invading in the game. Then my topic gets locked by a moderator.

What the HELL? WHY is this a thing? Damn it I wish I hadn't been so gobsmacked when it happened so I could have taken a screenshot of it to show you. As far as I'm concerned, the PvP of Dark Souls II is dead because the moderators there don't want to buckle down on cheaters and silence anyone that speaks up against them.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Simple explanation is you can't "name and shame" cheaters because then every person who gets butthurt about losing a fair fight will come on the forums and complain about the "dirty cheater" that beat them. It's really that simple.

Also, we only have your story to go on and no proof of cheating, and I'm guessing it was the same on the forum you posted on. What exactly do you expect the mods to do, let you badmouth another player with no proof of wrongdoing?

Finally, while those are the game's forums, the moderators of those forums likely have nothing to do with the actual game, and really have no power to do anything about the cheaters (because anyone who actually would have power to ban cheaters and the like is actually working on the game rather than moderating the forums).

 

[Clowndoe]

Considering VAC bans are 0-tolerance and permanent, regardless of what you did to earn it, I think it's a bit much to say Steam is "defending cheaters".

 

[StriderShinryu]

It does sound like you had a very legitimate case against the cheater(s), but you are never allowed to name cheaters in game linked online forums. I've never seen a game linked forum ToS where that's considered acceptable.

 

[Eve Charm]

Eh basically you have people back in the day get into dumb arguments whenever someone would try to make a thief or do not trade list for old games cause someone would always get smart and put the TC's name on it and then you might as well throw everything in the garbage there.

Anyway you can't name and shame anymore, Unless you took a screen cap ;p

 

[Smooth Operator]

Because witch hunts, witch hunts everywhere. You shame a person publicly and suddenly he gets flagged a thousand times over from people who never had anything to do with them... that shit makes it ten times harder and longer to figure out what they did, if anything all.
Also very important to note while your compliant might be legitimate 95% of them aren't, people will just report anyone who beat them and then end up on forums looking for someone to legitimize their claim.

 

[Yopaz]

My friend is a quite highly ranked CS:GO player and he is fairly good and usually manages to get a 3:1 k/d ratio as long as his team isn't complete wank.

When he was on his most active he got accused of cheating at least once or twice a week. I could leave it at that, but the thing is that people who are good (or manages a lucky strike) are often accused of cheating just because someone gets pissed. This isn't about defending cheaters, it's about discouraging public accusations that may just be the result of someone getting attacked by someone who's simply better. The VAC anti cheat will ban a user from all online servers if they are caught so it is important that a ban is justified rather than someone having a hissy fit.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Defending them? If anything, there's evidence that it's too overzealous with regards to "cheating."

Spoiler

As for the "no naming and shaming" rule, it's a pretty common practice on most game forums. It's primarily to prevent ugly and confusing situations, such as false accusations from sore losers or newcomers ignorant to the game's finer workings. I've had people call me a hacker in TF2 when I've merely taken advantage of existing game mechanics, such as backstabbing an Engineer and sapping his sentry gun before it turns around to fire. Hell, someone once accused me of aimbotting as a Huntsman Sniper. Do you really want to give people like that the power to "name and shame" on a public forum?

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

As has already been explained, this isn't a case of "Steam defending cheaters" and simply that naming and shaming is against the rules because the moderators don't want to deal with slander and witch hunts, regardless of if said person was actually a cheater.

Also, the moderators were probably hired by the DS2 team, not Valve.

 

[Doom972]

I don't have the game but I just looked at the store page. It doesn't use VAC (Valve Anti Cheat), so it's not Steam's responsibility to ban cheaters.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Valve has absolutely nothing to do with the multiplayer aspect of games other then the ones actually made by Valve.

All multplayer/online components are handled by whatever company made the game, its not Valves job to ban cheaters in other people's games, nor did it ever say anywhere when you bought the game that anyone other then the game's maker would monitor the online portion.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Simple explanation is you can't "name and shame" cheaters because then every person who gets butthurt about losing a fair fight will come on the forums and complain about the "dirty cheater" that beat them. It's really that simple.

One and done.

"No naming cheaters" is a fantastic way to avoid whinyness and drama.

 

[ExtraDebit]

I cheated on COD ghost, hacked all the guns and unlocks because I didn't had the time or patience to unlock them naturally. I was ban within a day, permanently without probation. How is steam defending cheaters?

 

[PinkiePyro]

they don't defend cheaters,
it sounds like you just got the bad end of a rule to stop false accusations..
I personally make a habit of screen-capping cheaters I catch in the act so I can back up the claim if needed

 

[NiPah]

They deleted your post because:
A) They have no proof that he was a cheater, you could just as likely been linking a completely innocent person just because they legitimately killed you and you're just angry.
B) It spams up the forum, in the age of google every idiot can look up the latest exploit and use it, leading to hundreds of "this guy cheated" threads.

It's best to just report the user through what ever system they have available, when implemented correctly it's a perfectly fine system to catch cheaters (but requires a ton of resources).

Look at it this way, if a person gets caught breaking the law they are innocent until proven guilty, the US isn't defending criminals, they're simply using a system to insure innocents are not victimized.

 

[Artaneius]

Because all it does is create witch hunts. Besides getting that angry for one match that has a hacker while you have so many others that don't have hackers is really sad.

 

[Flunk]

Make a recording and report it properly, forums are not the right place.

 

[Something Amyss]

Considering VAC bans are 0-tolerance and permanent, regardless of what you did to earn it, I think it's a bit much to say Steam is "defending cheaters".

Yeah, I clicked on the thread specifically because I was like "wot."

Because, seriously, I wanted to know if this was really a thing.

OT: I'm mixed on "naming and shaming." On the one hand, it'd be nice to know who the cheaters are. On the other, people are seldom to be trusted to handle such possibilities. I get called a cheater occasionally simply for doing better than the other team in MP games. And that's not even necessarily because I'm good. Just because I was better in one game out of five (or ten, or twenty).

People accuse others of cheating as a matter of course.