Valve is punishing Deadlock cheaters in the best way possible, turning them into helpless frogs

Deadlock has had a few issues with cheaters since it entered its closed beta test, as some players found ways to give them an unfair advantage over their opponents. But now we have a way to fight back—frogs. No, I didn't misspell 'frags'.

A recent Deadlock update, shared by Valve dev Yoshi, has given players a new way to combat cheaters: «When a user is detected as cheating during the game session, the opponents will be given a choice between banning the user immediately and ending the match or turning the cheater into a frog for the rest of the game and then banning them afterward,» Yoshi says in a forum post. 

«The system is set to conservative detection levels as we work on a v2 anti cheat system that is more extensive. We will turn on the banning of users in a couple of days after the update is out. When a match is ended this way, the results will not count for other players.»

If you're wondering what this looks like, here's a video of one player who got caught cheating, desperately trying to hop away from an enemy team that is just beating them to a pulp. With only 500 health, you probably won't last long as a frog who hops slowly and has no way of defending themselves. 

This is what cheaters will look like if you turn them into a frog using the new anti-cheat pic.twitter.com/ECVx7uQAudSeptember 26, 2024

I think this is a fantastic way to punish players who bend the rules. I've come up against someone who was clearly aim-botting before in Deadlock, and while Valve has been quite strict with punishing those found guilty of cheating, it's still annoying to play against them for an entire match, knowing there's not a lot you can do about it until the game is over. So cursing cheaters and transforming them into frogs seems like a proportionate response if you ask me. 

But you also shouldn't worry if you find yourself accidentally fighting alongside a cheater. If the other team does vote to carry on the fight with your sixth team member as a frog, then the result of