Update Team Fortress 2 should fix persistent lagbots and server sabotage

Valve has released another update for Team Fortress 2, this time to address common forms of server sabotage. In particular, the use of ‘lagbots’ is countered with a new server setting.

Server hosts can after the new update use the server command net_chan_limit_msec to set a limit on the time the server can spend processing packets sent by a player. When a player requires too much server processing power, he is automatically removed from the game.

This setting is a direct answer to Team Fortress 2’s lagbot problem; cheaters and other malicious users have been able to crash servers unhindered for years, according to critics. This was often done when a votekick procedure was started against an alleged cheater. Crashing the server simply failed to ban the cheater. Now that happens automatically when a malicious player or bot releases a lagbot, a kind of ddos ​​attack on the server.

Valve also adds a diagnostics function to Team Fortress 2. Server hosts can use the command net_chan_stats_dump to request statistics from players present in a server. It concerns information such as messages sent, bandwidth and CPU processing time. Based on this, hosts can more easily identify malicious players and possibly manually ban them.

The affected update is a follow-up to an update released at the end of June in response to ongoing issues with bots and cheaters. Both updates are in response to Valve’s requests from Team Fortress 2 fans to address the longstanding cheating and bot issue within the competitive shooter. Fans therefore started the #SaveTF2 movement.

Despite the considerable age of Team Fortress 2, the 2007 game still attracts a huge audience through Steam. Roughly a year ago, a new player record was set. Also in July of 2022, the shooter is consistently in the top 10 most played games on Steam, according to figures from SteamDB.

Image via Valve