Numerous CS2 players wrongfully VAC banned—and their friends are paying the price, too

Friends of CS2 players who were falsely VAC banned over the past few days due to an AMD GPU driver update are seemingly also dealing with consequences, even though they did nothing wrong.

Valve let the player base know the day CS2 was released on Sept. 27 that when one or more party members get banned because of cheating, their “associates” will lose ranking points in Premier mode. Though this is a fair measure that should make people think twice before queueing with a cheater, it’s also being applied to friends of whoever was wrongfully banned due to the AMD GPU update on Oct. 12.

One of the players who was VAC banned because of their GPU wrote on Reddit on Oct. 17 that all their friends lost 10,000 Elo in CS2 Premier, even those who play a lot of solo queue. One of their friends had 14,000 points and is now left with just 3,000, the player claims.

“Valve, I hope players get their ranks back after a VAC ban is reverted, in the meantime I think my whole party is moving to FACEIT,” the player wrote.

Numerous CS2 players have been affected by bans that shouldn’t have been issued in the first place as it even took a while for Valve to advise the player base not to use AMD’s anti-lag feature. It wasn’t their fault that their graphic card made a feature that tampers with CS2’s anti-cheat.

This becomes an even worse problem because everybody who currently plays CS2 or played CS:GO over the past 10 years knows that Valve doesn’t do much against actual cheaters. Many players, including pros, have already complained they’re coming across a lot of cheaters in Premier, which is supposed to be the mode that makes everyone play on Valve’s official servers rather than using third-party software like FACEIT.

While Valve has vowed to reverse the VAC bans that were wrongfully handed out because of AMD’s driver, it remains unclear if the players who lost Elo because of that will get their Premier points back.