The announcement of the Premier Season 2 in Counter-Strike 2 came as a surprise, mainly because Valve Time dragged on so long that instead of the expected six months, we waited over a year. This delay may be due to Valve working on refining its anti-cheat system, known as VacNet 3.0. At least, that’s the theory put forward by well-known data miner Gabe Follower, who specializes in Valve games.

According to Gabe Follower, developers spent a significant amount of time individually testing various modules of VacNet 3.0, designed to detect different types of cheats. Recently, Valve activated all the modules, and cheaters began receiving bans one-day bans. Why so little time, you may ask? Because a major challenge for Valve was avoiding false positives — instances where the anti-cheat incorrectly flags a legitimate player. If Valve has announced Premier Season 2 now, it might mean they’ve gathered enough data and found an effective solution.

Theoretically, if a player behaves suspiciously during a match (for example, if the system detects unusual shot accuracy or abnormal patterns), a special bot will join the match to analyze the situation. If confirmed, the match should end within five rounds, and the offender will receive a ban.

Let’s hope Gabe Follower’s analysis is correct and that the start of Premier Season 2 brings matchmaking with significantly fewer cheaters.

Main image: steampowered.com

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