Is reporting a cheater via steam community actually effective?

[leet2spy]

Hello!

I just encountered 2 cheaters in Counter-Strike; reported and
I am wondering if the report on the steam community page actually
does anything?

[BS_1]

I would think so. I'm sure if the person gets enough reports Valve will keep a close eye on them. I've done it before to someone who was cheating for over a year, and they were banned within the month. Just a coincidence?

[Gone'Postal]

No, VAC doesn't ban for reports, it's pointless for users, but Staff get to make some nice statistics, maybe a nice pie chart at Christmas.

Link

[leet2spy]

Originally Posted by Gone'Postal

No, VAC doesn't ban for reports, it's pointless for users, but Staff get to make some nice statistics, maybe a nice pie chart at Christmas.

Link

Thanks for the link. That basically sums up my question
but that is depressing that players cannot report cheaters
and have something done about them. (Except Blackops)

[Gone'Postal]

Oh you can report cheaters, they just don't do anything on the reports.

[Rdemption]

Originally Posted by leet2spy

Thanks for the link. That basically sums up my question
but that is depressing that players cannot report cheaters
and have something done about them. (Except Blackops)

It's a good thing players can't report cheaters. Reports would be very unreliable. The team would get tens of thousands of reports on a daily basis, and the vast majority of those would be about raging kids reporting good players. A report function is very easily abused and it simply not worth the time or effort.

[Gone'Postal]

Originally Posted by Rdemption

It's a good thing players can't report cheaters.

You can report cheaters. Valve just doesn't act on them, except to make pie charts or something, but as you have stated (and I agree with), the statistics Valve hope to get from that will be messed up by raging kids.

That begs the question, what does Valve expect to get out of wrong data?

If the hacker is using Vac-security bypass the server wouldn't detect and thus it's useless. But maybe sometime the server might detect unusual activities

VAC sucks and is worthless.

[Gone'Postal]

Originally Posted by Rapidfire48

VAC sucks and is worthless.

Reporting a cheater sucks if Valve don't to act on it, which makes the act of reporting them worthless and nothing more then a placebo for the common gamer to make him feel like he's done something positive.

is that what you mean?

[Method320]

I've reported a few groups and users, and I've kept tabs on them since I've noticed nothing happening to others when Ive tried reporting, and honestly, I can say reporting someone is very very ineffective.

I reported one group for giving away steam accounts via a contest, which is very much so against the SAS.

I reported that group about 3 months ago. They're still giving away accounts.

I don't know how the system works behind the scenes and how many reports they have to sift through but, clearly it needs an overhaul.

[MikeBlaszczak]

Yes, reporting cheaters (and other problems) is useful.

[Gone'Postal]

Originally Posted by MikeBlaszczak

Yes, reporting cheaters (and other problems) is useful.

Could you go into more detail with that (not the other problems) but the cheaters part?

Since the support page states:

Note:
VAC does not ban based on reports. Such data is only used for tracking and statistics purposes.

Are you really trying to make us believe that by getting people to report cheaters, while stating that they won't be banned for it is doing anything other then nothing for the users of your software?


I'm sure the pie charts look great and all, but lets face it... it's pointless (using it to report cheaters) and is there to just take some heat off the VAC sub-forum and to make people feel good (placebo effect) about (not) helping.

[MikeBlaszczak]

Originally Posted by Gone'Postal

Are you really trying to make us believe that by getting people to report cheaters, while stating that they won't be banned for it is doing anything other then nothing for the users of your software?

Are you really trying to make everyone believe you know how it works better than Valve's own employees?

[Gone'Postal]

Originally Posted by MikeBlaszczak

Are you really trying to make everyone believe you know how it works better than Valve's own employees?

Not at all, we can only go on how it works with what information we have, and right now, that leads to the one conclusion that it doesn't.

But I do love the way you answered with a question and didn't correct//answer me.