Should Accounts w/ VAC Ban Be Allowed to Play DBD?

Yeah I know DbD doesn't use VAC but they could do a profile lookup for VAC bans on an account and flag them.

I agree it's not fair to someone who has cheated 9 years ago so maybe there could be a lockout period (i.e. VAC bans need to be at least 1 year old to play DbD).

Also, the data suggests that no, most cheaters do not reform.

That's not an answer. It's the "because I said so" argument. If your point is that one is too much then okay but just come outright and say it instead of doing this.

Also, the second part of your premise is false. Really? No one?

Yes, false positive happen. Yes, false positives shouldn't be a sign of cheating. An actual ban that is persistent is a sign of cheating. There is an appeals process for VAC bans if someone is part of the 0.0001% or w/e they say it is now of false positives. I am pretty sure that they are actually more lenient then they could be just to avoid false positives.

My entire premise is ridiculous? Followed it up with "something something LoL statistics?"

Really? Including statistics is now ridiculous? Why do you think this?

My logic is based on statistics, yes. Statistics that include reformation rates of another popular online game. My logic is predicated on studies (you can just google these or LMK if you want a link) that the behavior of video game cheating are largely based on personality and cultural traits. Personality traits that change very little and culture which takes decades to go through significant transitions.

If I could surmise your point it would be that

1. One innocent banned is too much.
2. Cheaters use free or low cost Epic accounts.

Yes, someone can always get a new account. There is no solution around this especially if they bypass HWID bans. This is a problem that is already in existence and will likely be in existence forever. Thank you for mentioning it. Should we not ban anyone because of this? It seems to be a fallacious point. So I'll stick with the first point you made.

1. One innocent banned is too much.

Okay. I disagree. One, this argument can and will be used against any prohibitive or punitive action. Yes, innocents will always be the victim of any process. It is it inevitable. Whether that's because of the process itself or the abuse of the process by individuals is a separate matter but I just can't see this being a coherent argument if you actually apply it to society.

Two there are solutions to this. Solutions that already exist. Maybe there could be appeals process. Maybe the ban could only apply if the VAC ban is less than a year old.

Did I surmise your point correctly? Is there anything I misunderstood or left out?

Yes. More specifically, I am discluding people who have been proven to cheat in other games because based on all available resources, it would seem like the possibility of the reform is highly unlikely.

The system I am recommending will do nothing against new accounts. Perhaps a new system will be required for these new accounts acquired for free at the Epic Games Store will be in order. Mobile verification maybe? Something more strict to restrict access to people who ill intentions. The system I am proposing is in line with these outcomes.

What would it take to change your mind?

Yes, all good points.

1. Correct.
2. Correct.
3. Assuming, they are not banned correct.
4. Mostly correct.

You see, what you just did was assume that everyone in that category has not cheated or have not been banned already. When you do this, which by the way is explicitly contrary to the data I provided it is easy to come up with the conclusion you just did. So you established a false premise (no one in this group has cheated!) and tried to hide it in this little story. Very sneaky of you!

Of course, it contradicts the data I provided. So let's take the data I provided and apply it to your scenario.

1. 100% of VAC banned players cheaters haven't been banned yet in DbD.
2. 9% of these people are genuinely reformed and will never cheat again ever!
3. Of the remaining 91%, they will cheat, are currently cheating, or are currently banned.

The end.

So if you just want to make up false premises, distort the statistics, and attack my argument while committing your own logical fallacies which are plain to see go ahead. You've already said NOTHING will change your mind. This is obvious from the logical fallacies you've committed and that I've pointed out.

To your final point, yes they should improve the report system. I am open to all solutions.

Anyway, seeing as how you are unwilling to change your mind, just made a sneaky attack on my proposition, and accuse me of being fallacious and illogical I won't discuss this with you further. However, if you do suddenly change your mind and your answer to the question I posed

If I told you (and assume it is true because it's just a thought experiment) that 100% of VAC banned players cheat again would that change your mind? If your answer to this is no, why?

is yes, then I will be willing to re-engage with you again. As you can see from the above statement, this was a thought experiment. The situation I posed to you was would you ban a group of people who were 100% guaranteed to cheat again. That's it. A simple yes would have let me know you were in good faith.

This is a good point. The age of the ban should be taken into account. Maybe 1 year is good enough to deter them?

As for the some stop cheating after getting caught, that is correct. It's around 9%, according to RIOT.

Yes, the real solution is an highly efficient anti-cheat. Unfortunately, that seems to be the most difficult part and for the foreseeable future an obtainable goal.

As for dodging for recent VAC bans, I do the same.

The plan is flawed because of its existence?

Yes, false positives occur.

No, just because false positives exist should not deter us from pursuing a plan of action. If false positives were egregiously high then yes, it should but from the evidence I provided this is not the case.

Again.

Large player base.

Of this large player base, only a small minority cheat.

Of these cheaters, only a moderate amount get caught and banned.

Of these that get banned only a small number reform.

So let's sub in some numbers.

Let's say .5% of the player base cheats.

Of these, 50% get banned.

Of these, 9% will reform.

That's a 0.018% false positive rate. Is this acceptable to you? What would be acceptable?

Nothing about those things are complicated. A year long timer on a VAC ban is a timestamp comparison. One line of code, maybe a few more if you need to need to get the timestamps through an API or something. An appeals process already exists......

Don't tell me what to or not to advocate for. To be completely honest, it seems like you are in bad faith. I've asked you several times now what percentage of false positives would be acceptable for you even though you refuse to answer. In fact I've asked you several questions which you've neglected. You've already admitted you won't change your mind which is okay but these fallacious arguments, attacks on my arguments without explanation, omitted relevant things I've said, and generally poor attitude grows tiresome. If you're going to tell people to not be a jerk you should tell by example and not engage with others in this manner.

To your final point, you don't think a single cheater will be deterred? Not a single instance of cheating will be prevented? We can argue about degree all day and I agree there is merit to the degree of relief this solution will provide but to say that you don't believe it will reduce the absolute amount of cheating seems to be another bad faith position. Surely at least one person will go find something else to do or at least one game will not have a cheater. And if it's one, there's probably a few more.

Anyway, you don't seem to be really engaging with what I have to say and ask you so this will be the end of our conversation.

I do think I understand your point thougj. False positives are bad, any degree is too much, and this won't catch enough cheaters. I agree with points 1 and 3.

Thank you for participating.

Yeah I am aware of the technical restriction.

It would seem like there isn't much that needs to be extended to support cross game bans for non Valve titles. The feature is there it just needs to be enabled. I am speaking in favor of removing this restriction.

Except they literally do cross game bans as the previous person mentioned. Why are you so consistently wrong?

Goodness. Moving the goal post.

Cross game bans on the same engine are still..... cross game bans. So no, Valve doesn't support you opinion about cross game bans. They outright stated they do cross game bans.

Do you think a ban from an Unreal Engine game should be applied to all Unreal Engine games? What about Unity? What about other engines? If the answer is no you are being inconsistent and don't actually agree with Valve. If the answer is yes, well then you contradict yourself.

I expect your next move will be a further qualification and moving of the goal post. Well, they support my idea that cross game bans should be only acceptable if they are in the same engine, the same company, and the same genre! Which really isn't your idea anyway as you've been saying that no cross game bans should be acceptable and only bans that occur during the specific game should be allowed. I'm not sure how you even came to the conclusion that Valve agrees with you anyway, seeing as how you never mentioned support for cross game bans and seem to be vehemently against it. After all, nothing will change you mind as you've directly stated.

If you read the rest of article that was linked you would see that there are in fact negative global consequences for receiving a VAC ban. You can no longer share VAC games. The article doesn't say this is associated with AppID so it's probably all VAC games that are unsharable. This is a global VAC banlist from sharing.

You're right, Valve does say that they shouldn't do this. Except there are community servers that do exactly this. Valve knows this and has done nothing to remove the ability of the community servers to take advantage of the VAC ban list. It is viewed more of recommendation than a rule, so the question is why? Clearly, cross game bans do not bother them because they engage in it themselves.

It is likely that this is a financial consideration by them. They have their own platform from which they sell games. Being VAC banned once and losing access to all online games in the library would likely be a problem for them would likely create financial issues.

Finally, they say "no you shouldn't do this" yet do it themselves. Isn't that contradictory? What is your point? That they agree with you? You are making less and less sense as this goes on.