Undo the hacking punishment revert

Suggestion/TL;DR:
Hacking 2nd offense and above should continue to be permanent and should be met with a zero tolerance policy. It is not in the interest of the average player to play with hackers.

In the interest of not just being my opinion, I've added a poll at the top to make counting easy. If I'm hilariously out of touch and this is not popular opinion, so be it. But if on the flipside the community should wish for this, please don't deny them it for original values' sake.

Now for the rant:

Spoiler

According to Lion HERE, the hacking punishment being reverted to 4w and doubling per offense is because:
"It reflects better with the original values of SGM."

According to Teroxa, this is in large part Highwon's decision:


I disagree with this change and would like to voice dissent as such. Banning hackers permanently on their 2nd offense is a far better approach than the quite lenient method of the past.
Nobody enjoys having hackers ruining their game. 1st time? Okay, not cool, but if you come back and drop that shit, we cool. But if you keep hacking, you're throwing up a big fuck you to the other players and ruining the game for everyone else. That should not at all be tolerated or met with leniency.

The 2nd offense being perma may not reflect the "original values" but tradition is not always right. Sometimes a change makes something better - and sometimes it doesn't. This is one of the things that was made better.
Originally, there may have been a different approach to hacking. It was a different time and a different server altogether. Reverting this change now is stupid in my opinion, as the 2nd offense being permanent is a far better and healthier stance on hacking.

I saw Lion also added this quote from MangoTango:

First offense isn't globalized to give players a chance to realize they've been discovered?
That's a silly approach. The first ban being global does that just fine as well, just also makes it very clear that we don't want that shit. Only.. y'know.. They're actually dealt with and off the servers for the better part of a month, leaving the server free of their shenanigans for that long.

And thinking of it that way.. Wowsers. You're right. If you ban them locally and for less time, they'll have an easier time getting more bans, so they'll come back to hack even more! This is not at all a disservice to the player, I must say, what a marvelous solution to the hacking condition: just embrace it!
Unfair incendiary comments aside, I think it should get my point across: it is in the best interest of the average player to have a hardline stance against hackers and cheaters.

Hackers and cheaters, they didn't hack or cheat by some cosmic accident. They chose to do so deliberately. It serves nobody except the hacker to be lenient with hacking. A more lenient stance with RDM makes sense, since anyone can end up doing it. A more lenient stance with spam makes sense, since sometimes you're a bit loud when having fun - or having fun being a bit loud. A more lenient stance with hacking makes no sense, since they're deliberately playing the game in an unfair manner, detracting from the experience.

If you want a more pragmatic reason: some hackers are more subtle. They can hack for several rounds, maps, hours, days, weeks even, before they're conclusively caught (again). With a hardline stance, you'd only ever have to catch these guys twice total. Everything else would be evasion and you wouldn't have to prove hacking for that person ever again.

 

I agree. There is no reason to be lenient on hackers. The tradition in every server I've been to before has been an instant, global permanent ban for hackers with no exceptions. SGM's previous punishment is already lenient compared to other communities, but being so scared of losing potential players or being unfair (to people who are inherently unfair themselves) that we will never perma them and it takes over 6 offenses to even get to a ban that is over a year long does not reflect well on our community. At minimum, it reflects a weak attitude towards hacking and keeping the game fair, and suggests to players that we prefer to have more players vs. a fair game.

One ban can knock some sense into people. If they need more than one ban to have the sense knocked into them, then they don't belong on our servers full stop. One warning ban and then perma is the most sensible option. If we REALLY want them back and they REALLY want us back for whatever reason, they can come appeal and show some fucking regret for being such a douchenozzle.

 

this aint a government, if the rule works out it works out. if it doesnt it can be changed back /thread

 

From what I heard, this wasn't a staff proposal, it just happened. Purely for that reason, I'm against the change. Aside from that, I don't understand the mentality of giving local hacking bans so that they know that we know that they're hacking. It's almost no different from a warning, they're still on the server.

I don't care what you wanna do for hacking 2nd onward, but local hacking 1st bans are absolutely pointless

 

Could you explain how you imagine we would see the effects of the rule change and whether it "works out"? And what time-frame are we thinking about here? Do we need to analyze the number of players that left due to hackers over the course of a year and compare it to the number of hackers that we're banning? What's being measured, exactly?

I don't think we need to see this punishment length "in action" to see if it works out. We can look at them here in the thread and think about which one makes the most sense, giving reasons like "this is too lenient considering it always happens on purpose and with the intent of destroying the game", etc.

And you can't /thread your own post.

 

It worked fine as it was before.
Hacking has always been lenient. Permaing hackers seemed to attract more hackers to the server in my opinion.
also the perma ban list now.. how come so many ban evasions now

Spoiler: yikes

anyways Highwon can change what he wants so no point in trying to argue against something that he wanted changed.

 

I've seen at least three different accounts with +20 perma evasion bans. lots of them are just the same couple people.

 

This logic is, I'm sorry, a little dumb. The idea that we shouldn't discuss anything or offer suggestions is completely antithetical to both the idea of forums outright, and specifically the idea of the suggestions forum. I have more faith in Highwon than to think he'll just make important decisions for the community and give 0 shits about any discussion or backlash that occurs surrounding those decisions. Why do we even have a suggestions forum if people are just gonna' say "welp, can't do anything about it, owner's choice, no point in talking about it, shuddup!"

 

yeah but it is his choice so this thread is sort of useless

 

You just... completely ignored my point about how yes, it is his choice, but this thread is not useless because he might look at this thread and make a different choice or at least consider making a different choice.

 

Nobody said it didn't work or couldn't work again. My only point is that 1st being global and 2+ being perma is a better stance in my opinion.
Nobody said this change means hackers will never be perma'd. My only point is that having a low, set perma threshold is a better stance.

Glyph kinda made my point already, but since I only said it in shoutbox:
If this is what the staff team thinks is best moving forwards, np. Hell, if this is just Highwon's decision, np.
But I think it's a bad change and I want to say as much. And if many or most agree that a different protocol should be had, I think that should be entertained and considered.
If there's no interest in community feedback and Highwon will rule from above with the leads and pursue his ideals for SGM, then so be it. That's his perogative. I'm sure it can and will work.

 

why'd you put me on Siddo's side

Or...any side

Pretty epic pic though

 

I guess its sort of like, the SGM version worked fine, the STTT version worked fine, there was no real need to change it back, but there's no real consequence to changing it back. At the end of the day the hacker gets banned, this thread is just an opinion of how often that hacker should get banned.

The only supporting point for the perma second view is that you only have to catch them twice but lets be honest here, the one's that are hard to catch either haven't been caught yet (I mean daniel is still allowed to play) or do get caught at some point after which you tend to never see them again (unless your name is Rice and Chicken). And most importantly are less than 1% of cases.

 

With how cheap the game is if someone is really determined they could just use multiple accounts. With that being said, hacking should be a permanent ban so long as there is sufficient evidence. Hackers ruin the game for everyone but themselves.

 

Well.. Idk about that

Yeah, game is so cheap, lots of accounts with family share or whatever. But once people hear "Hey ___ bans you perm if u cheat lmao" they will just go onto the server, cause terror, just to be banned.

 

I don't get it. If all these people will just evade anyway, why do we ban at all? Why don't we just let them on our server if banning is so ineffective we might as well give up? It's not like permabanning is any more laborious than normal banning, it's literally just typing '0' into the ban length.

 

well i mean what sounds more fun to some dummy that thinks hacking in Garry's Mod is cool;
Going onto a server thinking its super funny to headshot 5 people in a span of two seconds and getting perma banned while you laugh your ass off then go tell your friends what happen
or
Going onto a server, doing the exact same thing, but instead getting just a like two week ban and being like "ight ill just go onto a different server lol"

err that's just how it seems to play in my mind. Either way, hackers will always be a problem, the ban not being permanent just gives em a chance I guess to not be a twat and do it again