Valve is punishing Deadlock cheaters in the best way possible, turning them into helpless frogs

GamesMOBADeadlockValve is punishing Deadlock cheaters in the best way possible, turning them into helpless frogsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Valve)

deadlock

Deadlockhas hada few issues with cheaterssince it entered its closed beta test, as some players found ways to give them an unfair advantage over their opponents. But now we have a way to fight back—frogs. No, I didn’t misspell ‘frags’.

“The system is set to conservative detection levels as we work on a v2 anti cheat system that is more extensive. We will turn on the banning of users in a couple of days after the update is out. When a match is ended this way, the results will not count for other players.”

If you’re wondering what this looks like, here’sa videoof one player who got caught cheating, desperately trying to hop away from an enemy team that is just beating them to a pulp. With only 500 health, you probably won’t last long as a frog who hops slowly and has no way of defending themselves.

This is what cheaters will look like if you turn them into a frog using the new anti-cheat pic.twitter.com/ECVx7uQAudSeptember 26, 2024

I think this is a fantastic way to punish players who bend the rules. I’ve come up against someone who was clearly aim-botting before in Deadlock, and while Valve has been quite strict with punishing those found guilty of cheating, it’s still annoying to play against them for an entire match, knowing there’s not a lot you can do about it until the game is over. So cursing cheaters and transforming them into frogs seems like a proportionate response if you ask me.

But you also shouldn’t worry if you find yourself accidentally fighting alongside a cheater. If the other team does vote to carry on the fight with your sixth team member as a frog, then the result of the match won’t count. Otherwise, innocent players would be forced to carry on a losing game of 6v5 (plus an unhelpful frog). This way, everyone wins except for the cheater, just as it should be.

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But that’s a problem for another day. For the time being, I’m just happy that Valve has done something to address cheaters in Deadlock. Toward the end of August,Valve announced that it had a team of developers working on anti-cheat, as well as a review group in Discord dedicated to monitoring reports of cheaters, so it’s great to see the result of all this hard work.

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