Just before the new year, the developers of Counter Strike 2 released what seemed like a minor update. But despite long and rather suspicious silence, Strings mentioned in a new system for preventing suspicious hits appeared. The issue of cheats and the impunity of bad actors is a hot topic for discussion. And I'm surprised why this discovery didn't create much noise, and no one tried to delve into this topic, as it could be one of the first major initiatives from the developers to combat this problem in CS2. Especially considering that in early January, we saw the first results of this update, and finally witnessed a relatively large wave of WAC bands. Hey everyone, Max at the microphone again, and today I'll try to explain what the new WAC anti-cheat module does, some exclusive info about the cash remake, potential legal issues for WALF, and much more. So let's get started. And while you have time, check out Skins Monkey, use code Gabon and get up to a $5 bonus, select a few of your current skins, pick a new one in the same price range, and exchange your old and ugly CSGO items to something new and shiny from Counter Strike 2. Use code Gabon and buy Skins much cheaper with a 30 plus 5% top up bonus. Skins Monkey, Links and my code down below. Firstly, let's understand what happened and how the new module works. On December 18th, in a routine update with minor mappin bug fixes, some extremely unusual strings appeared, mentioning three new console commands in the client and server DLL, one of which has a full comment from developers. Suspicious hit literally means suspicious shots, and from day one, it was clear that this system was necessary to fight cheat features that disable spread, or even more severe magic bullet, which teleports the player's camera to a zero coordinate and allows you to wipe out the entire enemy team without physically leaving the spawn. The first command, suspicious hit Odds Trashhold, has a default value of 0.01, which is the lower threshold to activate this system and works like a multiplier in the formula. The second one, Suspicious hit player radius, is the radius within which this system triggers. It defaults to 8 and if the trajectory of a shot matches the ideal shot by less than 8 units, the game uses one of three tactics indicated in the third command. Suspicious hit strategy. Zero, current default value does nothing with suspicious shots. One, subtracts a bullet from the magazine and doesn't count the hit. Two, doesn't count the original hit and recalculates it on the server with a randomized spread pattern. Interestingly, the developers decided to use the zero tactic by default, where nothing happens with suspicious shots. This could indicate that they deliberately added a bait in the game to collect data on dishonest players, and all the bad actors who actively use functions to disable spread before the bandwaves simply took the bait from the developers and served themselves up on a silver plate. It's important to note that this isn't the first time someone from Valve has used such tricks. For example, almost a year ago, in a Dota 2 blog post about taking action against cheaters and banning over 40,000 accounts, the developers talked about a little feature they used. Months before the bandwaves, they deliberately added a small vulnerability to the game, betting that bad actors would find it. Any use of this hole literally tagged the account, added it into a database of bad guys and collected as much info as possible. On his players, physically couldn't stumble upon this exploit as it used required constant game memory reading. This way, the developers avoided false positive bands and all 40,000 accounts got what they deserved. So the bandwaves that occurred in early January, which according to CS Stats.g, accounted for over 8,000 accounts based on a 30 million sample, could well be the result of a similar bait exploit from the counter strike developers. If you look further, the second tactic with the value of 1, which simply doesn't count the hit, sounds quite strange, as players would quickly notice the trick. Bullets disappear and enemies don't die, so the system is triggered. Something similar exists in Rainbow Six Siege, where you shoot seem to hit an enemy, but bullets also aren't counted. However, there, firstly, you get a visual warning hit rejected. So the game warns you about this situation. And secondly, this system seems to be activated only when one of the player's experiences sudden connection drops. But when this feature was added, people on forums discussed that sometimes it also triggered when using cheats. And the third tactic with the value of 2 sounds the most balanced of all. Players who use the most hardcore features simply won't be able to use them anymore. And ideally, they shouldn't interfere with regular players, as their hits will be recalculated on the server. But at the same time, the system triggers, shots are marked suspicious, and information on the account is collected. It's important to note that this solution isn't just a fix for a specific cheat. It's a fix for a particular function in all cheats. And if the counter-strike developers continue to cut off similar functions one by one, the final combination of all their solutions could be quite effective. I want to clear up a quite popular misconception in the community that Valve is cooking a new anti-cheat based on artificial intelligence. If we're talking about VACnet, it's been around for at least 7-8 years. If it's VAC Live, it's just one of the anti-cheat modules that triggers in real time if one of the players gets one or more reports and stops the game if the users bend during the match. Counter-strike developers are far from being dumb, and I suspect they're quietly collecting information about all the bad players, sacrificing the short-term experience of a large part of the community. Because in the long run, the one with more data wins, especially in the case of neural networks that need constant retraining. FM-Pone finally released a remake of his map called Santorini. I chatted with him on Twitter and learned a lot of details. Now it's called Thera and creating the new version on Source 2 started from Absolute Zero. FM-Pone didn't import a single texture or model from the original version for CSGO. Over 200 models were created for the remake, with high poly and low poly versions. Right now, he's focused on getting feedback from users and refining all gameplay aspects of the map. And his only goal is to officially add the map to the game and get it into the active competitive pool. However, if you didn't know, FM-Pone is the creator of the much-loved map cache, and I didn't miss the opportunity to find out all the most interesting things about the current development of the remake for Counter-strike 2. First and foremost, Cache will be remade based on the same philosophy as Thera. The map will be created from Absolute Zero with no textures or models imported from CSGO. Secondly, to the delight of a huge part of the community, the map will be developed based on the original version in CSGO from 2013. That means the best combination of a gloom-each-er-nobal-industrial zone with the distinctive style of the new Counter-strike and the use of all advanced technologies and improved graphics of Source 2. Nevertheless, FM-Pone doesn't deny that he likes some elements of the secondary make-of-cache from 2019. And maybe he'll take some stylistic decisions from there. Right now, the map is in the early stages of development and FM-Pone is focused on working on the location in the middle. He wants to achieve the effect so that people look at the screenshots and say, yep, that looks like Cache. And wow, it looks good. He estimates that the remake of Cache will require about the same amount of custom models and materials as Thera, as if he makes more. The map will exceed the two gigabyte limit of the workshop. In the last video, I talked about the leak of the official remake of Cobblestone in a winter style, and it would be cool to mention a remade win-man map called Raven by JD40, Quadratic and Quoting. The action takes place somewhere in a snow-covered castle in the mountains, and the main goal of the tea site is to blow up boxes in the middle of the day. In my opinion, the map looks impressive, and the Counter-strike developers should definitely take a look and perhaps get a little inspiration from this project. And while we wait for the new case, which should be released very soon, we need to discuss a very unusual precedent. Valve lost a lawsuit against a user who spent over 14,000 euros on opening cases over several years. An Austrian court found Valve's game loot boxes illegal in the country, as a result of which they should not have provided their services to users from Austria. Previously, Valve had already faced similar restrictions as an X-ray scanner to the French client, and it should be noted that Valve disputed similar lawsuits in the United States. So it's quite possible that this will not affect the game's monetization in the future. Leave a snowflake emoji in comments if you watched this far and be sure to check out my previous video where I talk about all the most interesting things about the upcoming operation, the Danger Zone update, new items and weapons, and much more. Until next time, see ya!