[Florett]

Hey there,

I am hosting a server for a friend who's streaming and she loves to play intern 5v5 games with viewers.
To make the whole process as easy as possible I wrote a plugin so the people who join our server get a chat message telling them to set their rank according to their actual skill and NOT their current skill group. That rank would then be displayed on the scorboard and later be used to generate fair teams for the match.

In the Game Server Operation Guidelines, Valve says using such a plugin is okay, if you don't falsify a player's status,

(5) I’m using a mod that doesn’t spoof competitive ranks or coins, but it does adjust the scoreboard (e.g., a surf server where group tags represent skill rating, score is your rank on the server, MVP is your completion percentage, etc.). Is this ok? At the moment we have no issue with mods that modify scores or player names in the scoreboard.

As the server is password protected and everyone who joins the server is told that thats not the actual skill group of the players I was assuming that my plugin would be okay with the guidelines.
Nonetheless my GSLT was banned, most probably by an automatic detection, though I can't be 100% sure about this as Steam Support won't tell me the reason for the ban of my server.

Now I am wondering two things:
1. Is there maybe another way to contact Valve with such specific question?
2. How do I bypass the automatic detection? Is it sufficient to remove the command which allows users to set their rank, and for example just give everybody a random skill group when they join the server?

It would be great if you could help me with this issue as it is really important for my friend to have a server again...

regards florett

[shanapu]

Originally Posted by Florett ... 2. How do I bypass the automatic detection? Is it sufficient to remove the command which allows users to set their rank, and for example just give everybody a random skill group when they join the server? ...

just don't use restricted plugins

[Florett]

Originally Posted by shanapu just don't use restricted plugins

As I said, according to Valve such plugins aren't restricted if it's for the right purpose

[shanapu]

Originally Posted by Florett to set their rank according to their actual skill and NOT their current skill group. That rank would then be displayed on the scorboard

it sounds like you wanna show "fake" competitive ranks on score board.
like in the older 1.2 version of this plugin https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=258753

if i missunderstood you, sry

[Potato Uno]

If I am understanding this correctly, the detection is on the client-side, so regardless of the status of the server, anything triggering on the clients will send a report to Valve with the GSLT of the server.

You would have to disassemble the client binary to figure out the detection logic (as well as how to defeat it), but as psychonic said that csgo client binaries do not have symbols, that is a task only doable by among the best reverse engineers/hackers on the globe.

[Neuro Toxin]

That last guy is still getting advertising from their name...

[Florett]

Originally Posted by shanapu it sounds like you wanna show "fake" competitive ranks on score board. like in the older 1.2 version of this plugin https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=258753 if i missunderstood you, sry

Yeah you could say so, but I would rather describe what I'm doing as "using the possibility to set a rank on the scoreboard for something else then falsifying someone's profile status"
So imho the rank you see on my scorboard has nothing to do with the skill groups in cs:go or your competitive rank, it's just using the same icons and scales, because they are fitting my purpose.

I want to handle it the same way as that guy in the Game Server Operation Guidelines who wants to set a rank on a surf server displaying his surf skill rating. And for that case, valve has stated that the use of such plugins is not forbidden.

Hope that makes the way I see my plugin a bit clearer

[shanapu]

http://blog.counter-strike.net/index...er_guidelines/

I’m using a mod that doesn’t spoof competitive ranks or coins, but it does adjust the scoreboard (e.g., a surf server where group tags represent skill rating, score is your rank on the server, MVP is your completion percentage, etc.)...

displaying the MM ranks icons or coins is still forbitten

[Florett]

hm okay looks like I misunderstood that part then...