How Valve Fixed Lag Bots...

TF2 Lag bots have been fixed by Valve! Now to see when these updates are out of the testing phase. Recently Valve dropped two TF2 updates, one being various bug fixes from the TF2 community. The other could be a long awaited update to TF2's net-code, hopefully getting us up to speed with CS:GO's server security. TF2's Scream Fortress this year has been almost ruined by bots, but a lone janitor and potted plant from the TF2 dev team have put together a fix that's been in development since 2015.

Shoutout to OldSchoolTF2, Gamepro5, Fletcher Dunn and the people at GDC!

[Doilem]

TF2 is genuinely getting better, there's loads of new players thanks to COVID and the Janitor is actually putting the effort in to keep the game playable. God haven't been able to say that in a while.

[Toopys]

Who knows what this may bring, hopefully it's as good as anticipated

[WEEDCLOWN]

Fun Fact: Overwatch 2 just got delayed, again.

Look at the TF2 community; We don't even care if our last dev is just there to fix bugs. He's mopping each bug up and is making sure bots can get hardwared by valve just by a simple key change.

Good job, mister janitor. you should lead valve.

[PajamaPantsStudios]

Cool! I’m happy to see there’s some real quality damage control going on for tf2.

[OldSchoolTF]

Thanks for the shoutout! :D I remember getting very excited about this when I noticed on console the new SDR commands and reported on them on my channel. It's great to see Valve is interested on improving networking for TF2, and your video is very informative and straight forward, but let's not be too quick to celebrate. When I posted my video on this topic in September I was certain ddos on TF2 would be a thing of the past, only to later on, in October, see a lot of TF2 casual servers lagging because of those attacks. It was disheartening. SDR sure is an improvement and a huge step forward, but I now know it isn't the silver bullet I thought it was for these sorts of issues, at least not in its current implementation on TF2. Perhaps with time it will be able to finally end this bot/ddos issue, we'll have to wait and see. I have hope.

[Kindwater]

valve prioritized bot fix over heavy update.
Valve did a good job. And a good decision

[tsamuki]

Very well explained, I've been confused about those patch notes for a while.
I really hope that this is a sign of more updates, even major ones, to come

[Gamepro]

I'm glad I was able to help you understand SDR and DDoS attacks! This was an amazing video, and it's something more players need to hear. For those wondering, there is a possibility that the bots lagging out servers isn't due to a DDoS attack, and if that's the case SDR wouldn't help with that. It's technically possible to abuse an in-game exploit that lags the server, like by making it waste a bunch of resources calculating physics or something. This is much less of a problem than general DDoS attacks because the server can just boot out that specific user, and valve would just fix whatever exploit that bot is using. Solving DDoS attacks, in general, is much harder without something like SDR. If it wasn't for Valve having fat stacks of money, SDR wouldn't be possible. It's incredibly expensive to have this infrastructure of proxies for game servers, but valve is able to do it and it's something any developer on steam using Steamworks can use.

Basically what I'm saying is there is a possibility this won't fix anything, and I have a lot of doubt in Valve. If the bots are using DDoS attacks to take down servers, however, SDR is designed to solve at least that once it's fully implemented and implemented correctly.

Also, Fletcher Dunn is my new spirit animal because he seems to genuinely care about TF2, since he even used TF2 visual aids in his 2018 GDC presentation about this new SDR system. Any sign of life for the game is a good thing :)

[thinkingwithpotatoes]

Man I'm getting so impressed with your videos. Excellent job dude!

[heckincat]

I feel like Valve sees tf2 like that game that should be dead but kept going because money, but it's the opposite for us players. That's why they won't spend necessary resources on the game like we want sometimes.

[tiamat]

For once in my whole life, I can feel hope.






But then I realizes. Script-kid are fuckin persistent.

[zachsharkattack]

You make some good ass commentary vids. I'm excited to see this vid and the new update changes

[keepcalm]

Thx for the information and btw congratulations u just got a new subscriber

[maodebo]

this video made me a bit more happy, thanks :)

[MrHam-oddd]

Makes me happy having the weekly or so reminder that a dev at Valve still has passion for TF2

[bogdanradosavljevic]

I really hope valve doesn’t “fix it” and then never work and tf2 again because the bots WILL find a way around it, there’s no denying that. Yea but it’ll suck if this is valves last chance to save tf2 :(

[guythatcommentsoneverythin]

thanks for the update janitor from the valve hq!

[DrummerBoys]

I'm pretty sure the thing he's talking about with "man in the middle" stuff is them blocking the ability for people to view the connection if they aren't the client (the player) or server (valve).

Typically on unsecure connections, external parties can view the connection with a packet checking program and use that to tamper or hi-jack the connection. So basically if someone wants to do that now they'll have to be connected with the game open, which means they can be detected and VAC banned.

[furchad]

“Removed The Observer”

My Observer Loadout - “Adios.”

[gratefulgamer]

Eventually, they should be able to hide the I.P Adress without the need of those servers