An extremely interesting view into the massive botting problem that Team Fortress 2 has. The creator comes to the conclusion that at least 70% of official steam user numbers on TF2 are bots...
An extremely interesting view into the massive botting problem that Team Fortress 2 has. The creator comes to the conclusion that at least 70% of official steam user numbers on TF2 are bots farming items.
Great video. Didn't realize the problem was this bad. I mentioned in a thread about Deadlock that I think that game is going to be a disaster, and one of the factors will be the woeful anticheat...
Great video. Didn't realize the problem was this bad.
I mentioned in a thread about Deadlock that I think that game is going to be a disaster, and one of the factors will be the woeful anticheat that has caused cheating and botting to be so prevalent in TF2 and CS2. Uncle Dane's raised that point too. I hope it fails, because maybe it'll shock Valve into realizing their techniques in this space simply do not work.
The problem is that other methods that work better are questionable, to say the least. I don't have a clue on what the solution to cheating might be in the long run, but, as an individual,...
The problem is that other methods that work better are questionable, to say the least. I don't have a clue on what the solution to cheating might be in the long run, but, as an individual, non-professional gamer, I'm sure as hell don't want invasive, kernel-level programs (that are, in essence, malwares) to become the norm in gaming.
If anything, I really want Valve to succeed in their endeavours to find an alternative to this madness, and continue it's support to gaming on Linux.
Isn't the solution simply to make nothing worth botting for? That is, make a game where the only reward is the fun we have playing it? No skins or doo-dads. No "meta-progression". I mean, is any...
Isn't the solution simply to make nothing worth botting for? That is, make a game where the only reward is the fun we have playing it? No skins or doo-dads. No "meta-progression". I mean, is any of that stuff actually fun? Or is it just a cheap dopamine hit?
Maybe i sound like a time traveler here, but the solution is pretty obvious to me.
I think the hard reality of "solving cheating" starts by recognizing that it is largely a product of the culture and incentives (economic or otherwise) that a game, its design, developer, and...
I think the hard reality of "solving cheating" starts by recognizing that it is largely a product of the culture and incentives (economic or otherwise) that a game, its design, developer, and community, fosters.
Deep Rock Galactic for example, has no anti-cheat at all. Online matches are peer-to-peer hosted, and the host can ban a player from ever being able to play in one of their hosted lobbies again, but that's pretty much it for moderation or preventing cheaters. Trainers for the game can easily be found online, are updated regularly, and don't require much maintenance between game updates. DRG has basically no barrier to cheating.
Yet, with over 400 hours in the game, I have literally never encountered someone cheating.
I've read posts on social media before about people complaining about cheaters, but those posts are rare.
So Deep Rock Galactic lacks any way to prevent cheating, which means something about the game must generally not encourage cheating. I've got a few ideas:
Cooperative multiplayer to the bone. You can't play Deep Rock Galactic with other players without working together. Each of the four classes fills a niche and provides a service to all of the other classes, both in terms of combat and mobility. Even when playing alone, the player by-default gets paired up with Bosco, the world's bestest flying drone who sort of can do everything each dwarf class can do, just not quite as well as any one of them. Deep Rock Galactic is cooperative, not competitive, to its bones.
The only microtransactions that Deep Rock Galactic has are cosmetic DLC. The DLC are bought with real money, not bullshit fake in-game "currency". The items in the DLC are unlocked immediately with no grinding or other requirements.
No gambling... sort of. Deep Rock Galactic actually does have a lootbox-ish system, in that all of the cosmetic items and weapon overclocks that come with the game are (mostly) unlocked by completing in-mission challenge encounters and then choosing a random reward. This is the game's "progression system" and how the developer keeps players invested in the game for a long time. You can ignore unlocking the cosmetic items because all the dwarves are ugly and nothing you dress them up in is going to change that, but the weapon overclocks, which probably take at least 150 hours to unlock all of, actually change the gameplay and team dynamics quite a bit. Still, there's no way to trade or idle-out unlocks from this system, and none of the unlocks can be acquired for currency, fake or otherwise.
I'm sure there are other major reasons for why the game doesn't have many issues with cheating. The community just generally being not very toxic is probably one. There are thousands of little design details I'm sure you could point out as well. For example, players are able to "salute" each other in-game with a "Rock and Stone!" as much as they want, and that helps to encourage comradery and teamwork. (If you "Rock and Stone!" at Bosco, he gives you a little salute back.)
The point is, Deep Rock Galactic has no technical means to prevent cheating, and it doesn't need them. The game doesn't set up the incentives, in its design, in how its monetized, in how the community is encouraged to behave by moderation or gameplay features, that encourage people to cheat.
One big difference is between DayZ and Escape from Tarkov. DayZ as a game is all about personal goals and ephemeral impact on the world. You spawn in with nothing and loot items, kill zombies and...
One big difference is between DayZ and Escape from Tarkov. DayZ as a game is all about personal goals and ephemeral impact on the world. You spawn in with nothing and loot items, kill zombies and players. You can voice chat with people in proximity of you. Some maps have fun little secrets to explore. There are usually no "ultra rare" items, there's no grinding to be done, and the good servers don't even allow you to build a base to keep your stuff safe. It's a roguelite open-world MMO FPS.
Escape from Tarkov on the other hand is made for the sweatiest of gamers. It's what's called an "extraction shooter". It's a loot-focused FPS like DayZ but plays very differently. Some items might take a hundred hours of grinding to get. You have a massive out of game stash where you can hoard hundreds or thousands of items. There are in-game currencies to hoard. Essentially, your player lasts for the full duration of a persistence "wipe" period, which is usually around 3 to 6 months. Contrast this to DayZ where your character is lucky to survive 3 hours in game, at which point everything you collected is lost.
DayZ does have cheaters. I've encountered them a few times even on the well moderated servers. It's also got anti-cheat. But we're talking about 3 or 4 instances over hundreds of hours. EFT on the other hand is rampant with cheaters, something like 20% of all players in game are cheating. Why would they do this? Well, the incentives of the game make it incredibly profitable to cheat. Cheaters are getting the best loot and selling it, or their whole account, for real money. The street cred of certain loot items is so high because of the grinding required. The ability to maintain ownership is strong, thanks to your stash and the in-game insurance system. I'm sure the best EFT cheaters are actually making pretty good money. Depending on where they live they might be able to cheat as their sole source of income.
Well yeah, that's great for games like DRG. I mean technically, the cheating "problem" would be totally eliminated if multiplayer games didn't exist. No one cares if people cheat in single player...
Well yeah, that's great for games like DRG. I mean technically, the cheating "problem" would be totally eliminated if multiplayer games didn't exist. No one cares if people cheat in single player games. The preference of cheaters in games wouldn't bother a single person if all games were single player only.
The issue of course is that just as you enjoy cooperative multiplayer games and wouldn't want to live in a world without multiplayer, lots of people (myself included) enjoy competitive multiplayer games, and wouldn't want to live in the world where the only type of multiplayer games are cooperative.
We just want to compete on a level playing field without cheaters ruining the game, which is, of course a gargantuan, and probably impossible ask.
Because of that, anticheat is a complete cat and mouse. People have been able to sneak cheats into consoles, competitive in person matches, bypass kernel level anti cheat, AI anticheat detection, human review. There's no perfect system. Some can be somewhat effective though, and these days a competitive game lives and dies on how good it's anticheat is.
Deep Rock Galactic is not a PvP game so the same incentive to cheat simply isn't there. People want PvP games, and PvP games need anti-cheat. Unlocks and progression systems have nothing to do...
Deep Rock Galactic is not a PvP game so the same incentive to cheat simply isn't there.
People want PvP games, and PvP games need anti-cheat. Unlocks and progression systems have nothing to do with it either. This was a problem back in the '90s when multiplayer games had none of that.
The worse thing is that even if they did, it doesn't really fix much. Virtual machines get around even that with little effort. I don't know why specifically Valve games have such an issue – a mix...
I sure as hell don't want invasive, kernel-level programs (that are, in essence, malwares) to become the norm in gaming.
The worse thing is that even if they did, it doesn't really fix much. Virtual machines get around even that with little effort.
I don't know why specifically Valve games have such an issue – a mix of popularity and the title's long lifespans, perhaps? ‐ but going kernel-level wouldn't fix things even besides the invasiveness problems.
Cosmetics sales, most likely. If a scammer convinces your grandma to send them a Steam gift card, that card can buy a TF2 hat. Suddenly there's money with legal provenance you can defend. So aside...
Cosmetics sales, most likely. If a scammer convinces your grandma to send them a Steam gift card, that card can buy a TF2 hat. Suddenly there's money with legal provenance you can defend. So aside from the moment-to moment benefit of winning a match, any cosmetics from a Steam game that can be resold can be part of a money-laundering operation.
I mean sure, but the best way to scam or get TF2 items isn’t to cheat like the most problematic bots do. Trade bots and especially idle bots are everywhere, as the video itself says, but those...
I mean sure, but the best way to scam or get TF2 items isn’t to cheat like the most problematic bots do. Trade bots and especially idle bots are everywhere, as the video itself says, but those don’t usually cause problems.
The bots that cheat and kill everybody and ruin games are up primarily because they ruin games. No idea what the cheaters are even trying to accomplish (I find it difficult to believe that ruining people’s fun alone is the reason since the bot runners aren’t there to see it), but I don’t think money is at all the reason.
Disclaimer: I have not finished both of the videos the author uploaded about this (yet) I could imagine that a significant-enough population of people running idling and trading bots believe, for...
Disclaimer: I have not finished both of the videos the author uploaded about this (yet)
I could imagine that a significant-enough population of people running idling and trading bots believe, for some reason, that also running cheating bots and ruining the experience for normal players, somehow helps with the outcome of their activities. Perhaps driving away actual players is the point?
I also think the cheating bots are just an inevitable contaminant of any gaming space that mixes gambling or other money-making incentives and ineffective or nonexistent anti-cheat.
There's a really great episode of darknet diaries about this very subject, cheaters in video games. After listening it's pretty clear no anti cheat is effective and it's more the method you apply...
There's a really great episode of darknet diaries about this very subject, cheaters in video games. After listening it's pretty clear no anti cheat is effective and it's more the method you apply the bans and anti cheat that count. Not even kernel level anti cheat methods work.
Not sure if the video you mention addresses it, but I think it’s worth mentioning that authoritative servers tend to work extremely well for some games. Less effective for fast-paced stuff like...
Not sure if the video you mention addresses it, but I think it’s worth mentioning that authoritative servers tend to work extremely well for some games. Less effective for fast-paced stuff like FPS games, since latency would be gnarly for them, but other games can take excellent advantage of it since hackers don’t have physical access to the source of authority (i.e., the server).
The problem is that most people will take the anti-cheat over cheaters any day of the week. Nobody has come up with a more effective solution. I don't think they qualify as malware unless they do...
don't have a clue on what the solution to cheating might be in the long run, but, as an individual, non-professional gamer, I'm sure as hell don't want invasive, kernel-level programs
The problem is that most people will take the anti-cheat over cheaters any day of the week. Nobody has come up with a more effective solution.
(that are, in essence, malwares)
I don't think they qualify as malware unless they do something malicious
How so? What other live-service title has a prevalent botting problem? It’s only Valve FPS titles that are this cursed. We could sit and discuss whether kernel-level anticheats are the only...
The problem is that other methods that work better are questionable
How so? What other live-service title has a prevalent botting problem? It’s only Valve FPS titles that are this cursed.
We could sit and discuss whether kernel-level anticheats are the only solution (I’m personally a) not concerned about their security because 95% of the supposed harm can be achieved with user-mode level software and b) personally believe the only place this is going to go is full boot-to-title level hardware validation, whether it be via TPMs and Windows or consoles offering KB+M), but like, I don’t care what the solution is, Valve don’t have one, and haven’t had one in basically 10 years.
Minecraft has had horrible cheating problems on multiplayer servers for its entire history. People "x-ray" for valuable ores (as trivially as using a resource pack with invisible stone, though...
Minecraft has had horrible cheating problems on multiplayer servers for its entire history. People "x-ray" for valuable ores (as trivially as using a resource pack with invisible stone, though mods do it better), they exploit the terrible server-side validation of inputs for movement and combat cheats, etc..
It not only lacks anticheat, but blindly trusts the client when it shouldn't. Then you have occasional dumb exploits that break the server, like creative mode being so permissive that it would accept whatever item the client said it wanted to place (because after all, the UI allows you to place "any item")...which included doctored chests full of other chests that were recursively full of more chests, basically creating a zip bomb that blew up the deserializer and caused crashes.
I haven't touched it in about seven years, but that was still seven years from release without taking those issues seriously, and I doubt much has changed.
I think to extrapolate from what is essentially abandon-ware to a new game when CS2 and Dota 2 work pretty well is going a bit too far. I disagree with ZJ on one thing in the video: Valve is still...
I think to extrapolate from what is essentially abandon-ware to a new game when CS2 and Dota 2 work pretty well is going a bit too far.
I disagree with ZJ on one thing in the video: Valve is still providing game servers for TF2, which cost something, they do have a moral right to get some cash out of it. Obviously, the current state of TF2 is a joke though. The problem is that Valve has zero incentive to fix it, because using the steam market they can monetize all item trading pretty well.
If they'd really care (and Valve is a private company, they can do what they want), what I would do is stop all item drops and give every TF2 player one item each except for like the special untradeable ones that are rewards, like that golden statue you get for winning their short film contest. Stop the lootbox bullshit and do regular item releases from the workshop for a sensible fee in the ingame store. The game's community is small enough that they deserve it tbh.
The problem remains that there's a significant portion of bots that exist seemingly just to ruin the game for others, which are the cheater bots. For those I would deploy hidden features to root out the actual accounts connected to them and ban them completely, no more trading, no more nothing. Dota 2 did a similar thing a while back where they made a honeypot that cheat developers got in on and using that they banned a shitton of cheating accounts. All cheating ruins the game for others, but the people who use cheats to beat others I at least have some tangible understanding for why they do it (obv still deserve a ban), but people who run a bot that 24/7 exists for no other reason other than to ruin the game for someone else are the lowest of the low.
I saw this explicitly because I play CS2, which, as the video mentions, has a massive cheater infestation, and bot farms. The reason I think Deadlock will suffer is because, unlike CS2, which can...
I think to extrapolate from what is essentially abandon-ware to a new game when CS2 and Dota 2 work pretty well is going a bit too far.
I saw this explicitly because I play CS2, which, as the video mentions, has a massive cheater infestation, andbot farms. The reason I think Deadlock will suffer is because, unlike CS2, which can circumnavigate these problems because of the player size and goodwill towards the game, Deadlock does not have any of that goodwill to keep players attached.
An extremely interesting view into the massive botting problem that Team Fortress 2 has. The creator comes to the conclusion that at least 70% of official steam user numbers on TF2 are bots farming items.
There's a follow up video where the creator goes out and finds around 60k bot accounts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnuxHZm73PU
Great video. Didn't realize the problem was this bad.
I mentioned in a thread about Deadlock that I think that game is going to be a disaster, and one of the factors will be the woeful anticheat that has caused cheating and botting to be so prevalent in TF2 and CS2. Uncle Dane's raised that point too. I hope it fails, because maybe it'll shock Valve into realizing their techniques in this space simply do not work.
The problem is that other methods that work better are questionable, to say the least. I don't have a clue on what the solution to cheating might be in the long run, but, as an individual, non-professional gamer, I'm sure as hell don't want invasive, kernel-level programs (that are, in essence, malwares) to become the norm in gaming.
If anything, I really want Valve to succeed in their endeavours to find an alternative to this madness, and continue it's support to gaming on Linux.
Isn't the solution simply to make nothing worth botting for? That is, make a game where the only reward is the fun we have playing it? No skins or doo-dads. No "meta-progression". I mean, is any of that stuff actually fun? Or is it just a cheap dopamine hit?
Maybe i sound like a time traveler here, but the solution is pretty obvious to me.
That doesn't really stop cheating. People are hardwired to enjoy winning over other people, even if through underhanded means.
Overall, this is the solution: just don't make anything worth money, and there will be no reason to farm.
I think the hard reality of "solving cheating" starts by recognizing that it is largely a product of the culture and incentives (economic or otherwise) that a game, its design, developer, and community, fosters.
Deep Rock Galactic for example, has no anti-cheat at all. Online matches are peer-to-peer hosted, and the host can ban a player from ever being able to play in one of their hosted lobbies again, but that's pretty much it for moderation or preventing cheaters. Trainers for the game can easily be found online, are updated regularly, and don't require much maintenance between game updates. DRG has basically no barrier to cheating.
Yet, with over 400 hours in the game, I have literally never encountered someone cheating.
I've read posts on social media before about people complaining about cheaters, but those posts are rare.
So Deep Rock Galactic lacks any way to prevent cheating, which means something about the game must generally not encourage cheating. I've got a few ideas:
Cooperative multiplayer to the bone. You can't play Deep Rock Galactic with other players without working together. Each of the four classes fills a niche and provides a service to all of the other classes, both in terms of combat and mobility. Even when playing alone, the player by-default gets paired up with Bosco, the world's bestest flying drone who sort of can do everything each dwarf class can do, just not quite as well as any one of them. Deep Rock Galactic is cooperative, not competitive, to its bones.
The only microtransactions that Deep Rock Galactic has are cosmetic DLC. The DLC are bought with real money, not bullshit fake in-game "currency". The items in the DLC are unlocked immediately with no grinding or other requirements.
No gambling... sort of. Deep Rock Galactic actually does have a lootbox-ish system, in that all of the cosmetic items and weapon overclocks that come with the game are (mostly) unlocked by completing in-mission challenge encounters and then choosing a random reward. This is the game's "progression system" and how the developer keeps players invested in the game for a long time. You can ignore unlocking the cosmetic items because all the dwarves are ugly and nothing you dress them up in is going to change that, but the weapon overclocks, which probably take at least 150 hours to unlock all of, actually change the gameplay and team dynamics quite a bit. Still, there's no way to trade or idle-out unlocks from this system, and none of the unlocks can be acquired for currency, fake or otherwise.
I'm sure there are other major reasons for why the game doesn't have many issues with cheating. The community just generally being not very toxic is probably one. There are thousands of little design details I'm sure you could point out as well. For example, players are able to "salute" each other in-game with a "Rock and Stone!" as much as they want, and that helps to encourage comradery and teamwork. (If you "Rock and Stone!" at Bosco, he gives you a little salute back.)
The point is, Deep Rock Galactic has no technical means to prevent cheating, and it doesn't need them. The game doesn't set up the incentives, in its design, in how its monetized, in how the community is encouraged to behave by moderation or gameplay features, that encourage people to cheat.
And that's what makes it such a great game.
One big difference is between DayZ and Escape from Tarkov. DayZ as a game is all about personal goals and ephemeral impact on the world. You spawn in with nothing and loot items, kill zombies and players. You can voice chat with people in proximity of you. Some maps have fun little secrets to explore. There are usually no "ultra rare" items, there's no grinding to be done, and the good servers don't even allow you to build a base to keep your stuff safe. It's a roguelite open-world MMO FPS.
Escape from Tarkov on the other hand is made for the sweatiest of gamers. It's what's called an "extraction shooter". It's a loot-focused FPS like DayZ but plays very differently. Some items might take a hundred hours of grinding to get. You have a massive out of game stash where you can hoard hundreds or thousands of items. There are in-game currencies to hoard. Essentially, your player lasts for the full duration of a persistence "wipe" period, which is usually around 3 to 6 months. Contrast this to DayZ where your character is lucky to survive 3 hours in game, at which point everything you collected is lost.
DayZ does have cheaters. I've encountered them a few times even on the well moderated servers. It's also got anti-cheat. But we're talking about 3 or 4 instances over hundreds of hours. EFT on the other hand is rampant with cheaters, something like 20% of all players in game are cheating. Why would they do this? Well, the incentives of the game make it incredibly profitable to cheat. Cheaters are getting the best loot and selling it, or their whole account, for real money. The street cred of certain loot items is so high because of the grinding required. The ability to maintain ownership is strong, thanks to your stash and the in-game insurance system. I'm sure the best EFT cheaters are actually making pretty good money. Depending on where they live they might be able to cheat as their sole source of income.
Well yeah, that's great for games like DRG. I mean technically, the cheating "problem" would be totally eliminated if multiplayer games didn't exist. No one cares if people cheat in single player games. The preference of cheaters in games wouldn't bother a single person if all games were single player only.
The issue of course is that just as you enjoy cooperative multiplayer games and wouldn't want to live in a world without multiplayer, lots of people (myself included) enjoy competitive multiplayer games, and wouldn't want to live in the world where the only type of multiplayer games are cooperative.
We just want to compete on a level playing field without cheaters ruining the game, which is, of course a gargantuan, and probably impossible ask.
Because of that, anticheat is a complete cat and mouse. People have been able to sneak cheats into consoles, competitive in person matches, bypass kernel level anti cheat, AI anticheat detection, human review. There's no perfect system. Some can be somewhat effective though, and these days a competitive game lives and dies on how good it's anticheat is.
Deep Rock Galactic is not a PvP game so the same incentive to cheat simply isn't there.
People want PvP games, and PvP games need anti-cheat. Unlocks and progression systems have nothing to do with it either. This was a problem back in the '90s when multiplayer games had none of that.
The worse thing is that even if they did, it doesn't really fix much. Virtual machines get around even that with little effort.
I don't know why specifically Valve games have such an issue – a mix of popularity and the title's long lifespans, perhaps? ‐ but going kernel-level wouldn't fix things even besides the invasiveness problems.
Cosmetics sales, most likely. If a scammer convinces your grandma to send them a Steam gift card, that card can buy a TF2 hat. Suddenly there's money with legal provenance you can defend. So aside from the moment-to moment benefit of winning a match, any cosmetics from a Steam game that can be resold can be part of a money-laundering operation.
I mean sure, but the best way to scam or get TF2 items isn’t to cheat like the most problematic bots do. Trade bots and especially idle bots are everywhere, as the video itself says, but those don’t usually cause problems.
The bots that cheat and kill everybody and ruin games are up primarily because they ruin games. No idea what the cheaters are even trying to accomplish (I find it difficult to believe that ruining people’s fun alone is the reason since the bot runners aren’t there to see it), but I don’t think money is at all the reason.
Disclaimer: I have not finished both of the videos the author uploaded about this (yet)
I could imagine that a significant-enough population of people running idling and trading bots believe, for some reason, that also running cheating bots and ruining the experience for normal players, somehow helps with the outcome of their activities. Perhaps driving away actual players is the point?
I also think the cheating bots are just an inevitable contaminant of any gaming space that mixes gambling or other money-making incentives and ineffective or nonexistent anti-cheat.
Or maybe it's just spite?
There's a really great episode of darknet diaries about this very subject, cheaters in video games. After listening it's pretty clear no anti cheat is effective and it's more the method you apply the bans and anti cheat that count. Not even kernel level anti cheat methods work.
Not sure if the video you mention addresses it, but I think it’s worth mentioning that authoritative servers tend to work extremely well for some games. Less effective for fast-paced stuff like FPS games, since latency would be gnarly for them, but other games can take excellent advantage of it since hackers don’t have physical access to the source of authority (i.e., the server).
The problem is that most people will take the anti-cheat over cheaters any day of the week. Nobody has come up with a more effective solution.
I don't think they qualify as malware unless they do something malicious
Totally agree. But then, who is it to say? They're all closed source afaik.
How so? What other live-service title has a prevalent botting problem? It’s only Valve FPS titles that are this cursed.
We could sit and discuss whether kernel-level anticheats are the only solution (I’m personally a) not concerned about their security because 95% of the supposed harm can be achieved with user-mode level software and b) personally believe the only place this is going to go is full boot-to-title level hardware validation, whether it be via TPMs and Windows or consoles offering KB+M), but like, I don’t care what the solution is, Valve don’t have one, and haven’t had one in basically 10 years.
Minecraft has had horrible cheating problems on multiplayer servers for its entire history. People "x-ray" for valuable ores (as trivially as using a resource pack with invisible stone, though mods do it better), they exploit the terrible server-side validation of inputs for movement and combat cheats, etc..
It not only lacks anticheat, but blindly trusts the client when it shouldn't. Then you have occasional dumb exploits that break the server, like creative mode being so permissive that it would accept whatever item the client said it wanted to place (because after all, the UI allows you to place "any item")...which included doctored chests full of other chests that were recursively full of more chests, basically creating a zip bomb that blew up the deserializer and caused crashes.
I haven't touched it in about seven years, but that was still seven years from release without taking those issues seriously, and I doubt much has changed.
I think to extrapolate from what is essentially abandon-ware to a new game when CS2 and Dota 2 work pretty well is going a bit too far.
I disagree with ZJ on one thing in the video: Valve is still providing game servers for TF2, which cost something, they do have a moral right to get some cash out of it. Obviously, the current state of TF2 is a joke though. The problem is that Valve has zero incentive to fix it, because using the steam market they can monetize all item trading pretty well.
If they'd really care (and Valve is a private company, they can do what they want), what I would do is stop all item drops and give every TF2 player one item each except for like the special untradeable ones that are rewards, like that golden statue you get for winning their short film contest. Stop the lootbox bullshit and do regular item releases from the workshop for a sensible fee in the ingame store. The game's community is small enough that they deserve it tbh.
The problem remains that there's a significant portion of bots that exist seemingly just to ruin the game for others, which are the cheater bots. For those I would deploy hidden features to root out the actual accounts connected to them and ban them completely, no more trading, no more nothing. Dota 2 did a similar thing a while back where they made a honeypot that cheat developers got in on and using that they banned a shitton of cheating accounts. All cheating ruins the game for others, but the people who use cheats to beat others I at least have some tangible understanding for why they do it (obv still deserve a ban), but people who run a bot that 24/7 exists for no other reason other than to ruin the game for someone else are the lowest of the low.
I saw this explicitly because I play CS2, which, as the video mentions, has a massive cheater infestation, and bot farms. The reason I think Deadlock will suffer is because, unlike CS2, which can circumnavigate these problems because of the player size and goodwill towards the game, Deadlock does not have any of that goodwill to keep players attached.