The anti-Vanguard uproar from the League community has been very swift and very loud.
  • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.socialEnglish
    822·
    8 months ago

    Wow, who could have anticipated that kernel-level anti-cheat was a bad idea? It’s like people haven’t been warning that giving an increasing number of programs that level of access might be a Bad Idea.

  • cyr0catdrag0nz@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    582·
    8 months ago

    Kernel-level anti cheat is spyware, say it with me everybody. Complain on steam about it. Post this nonstop. This standard is NOT OK and needs to change and that’s the only way it might.

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
    542·
    8 months ago

    I would never let some random anticheat code have kernel access. Games are demanding something crazy, and users are stupidly letting them get it.

    • jkrtn@lemmy.mlEnglish
      102·
      8 months ago

      It’s not just silently installed by Steam, or something, they have to explicitly confirm they accept it? I don’t play this game, I am curious if players are unaware or actively stupid.

      • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        9·
        8 months ago

        Riot’s games can only be played with their own launcher, so no steam. They give a big message about “now installing vanguard, our anticheat,” then inform you to reboot to finish the install, since vanguard is the only ring 0 anticheat that puts itself into the kernel start up, always running.

      • aphonefriend@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        8 months ago

        Some are unaware, but most are actively stupid. Bring this topic up in any helldiver’s thread and you’ll get down voted to oblivion.

      • Triasha@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        8 months ago

        I I stalled helldiver’s and didn’t realize I was doing that.

        I’m not exactly savvy though.

  • priapus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    463·
    8 months ago

    The first time I installed Vanguard, for the Valorant beta, it decided to disable my mouse and keyboard on each boot.

    • Paradoxvoid@aussie.zoneEnglish
      9·
      8 months ago

      This is why I absolutely refuse to install Valorant (and now LoL) - I could somewhat understand if an anticheat refused to boot up the game in question if something triggered it, but it going massively outside of its scope and wantonly disabling or killing other processes is just nuts to me.

    • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      8 months ago

      To be fair, if they were typical RBG mouse and keyboard, and you used the brands software to change their settings, it blocked that software. Those programs were absolute dog shit in terms of security. I have no idea if it forced them to make better software, or Riot just started to allow them. Regardless it’s all pointless because Vanguard has been defeated. Imagine making ring 0 anticheat that loads on boot, and it still isn’t good enough, fucking LoL pun intended.

      • priapus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        6·
        8 months ago

        Both had optional software, and I only used the keyboard. The software didn’t have to be running for either to work, it was only to configure it and then it wrote the configuration to onboard memory. It was the generic mouse and keyboard input drivers provided by Windows that was blocked and it affected a pretty significant number of users.

  • Mikufan@ani.socialEnglish
    293·
    8 months ago

    Its Malware. Literally by definition. Who the fuck thinks it’s ok to put that on anyone’s PC?!?

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      What stops consumers with bricked PCs from claiming the max amount in small claims? That would drain funds quick

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.caEnglish
      21·
      8 months ago

      Someone is having me “fix their pc” to work with it and they understand the problem but say “i only play a little” and “it’s really important to me”

      They asked about getting a separate computer just for the game

  • CarlosCheddar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    252·
    8 months ago

    This is either the final nail on the coffin for playing league on linux or it will motivate linux devs to figure out a way around it. I don’t play league but I did enjoy playing TFT with friends always on Linux.

        • onnekas@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          8 months ago

          I tried. But Google Play store won’t install it on my waydroid because the device is not verified and I don’t think it is possible. Correct me if I’m wrong! :)

    • DrRatso@lemmy.mlEnglish
      31·
      8 months ago

      I doubt there sustainable way around a kernel anticheat, that will not get you banned eventually. People either have to quit or dual boot.

  • Aido@lemmy.worldEnglish
    231·
    8 months ago

    I installed Fortnite to check out the LEGO mode without realizing EAC was a rootkit and the next Windows update bricked my PC.

    • voxel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      62·
      8 months ago

      I’ve never had any issues with EAC, it’s probably one of the least invasive kernel-level anticheats out there (with vanguard being the most invasive)

      • AProfessional@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        8 months ago

        Have you actually audited its behavior? Both are proprietary and any kernel module is inherently dangerous.

  • stardust@lemmy.caEnglish
    192·
    8 months ago

    Even ones like easy anticheat have given me problems where if a game didn’t exit properly my whole system got bogged down and required a restart.

  • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.caEnglish
    161·
    8 months ago

    Others simply dubbed it “malware” and declared they would be quitting League until the program stopped breaking PCs.

    Silly that malware is okay once it stops interfering with your day to day

  • Shadowedcross@lemmy.worldEnglish
    184·
    8 months ago

    One of my favourite games to have kernel level anticheat is Helldivers 2, and I think it’s definitely caused a few issues for me.

    • CarlosCheddar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      8 months ago

      Helldivers 2 works on Linux even with the anti cheat unlike Valorant so there must be some differences there.

      • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        131·
        8 months ago

        Riot’s Vanguard is the only one that needs to start with boot, and always run in the background. Others can initialize and close when the game is done, IIRC. Which is why they can work with proton/wine.

      • Heavybell@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        8 months ago

        Supposedly it falls back to usermode anticheat on linux. That’s what I heard but there wasn’t a source, so could be BS.

    • StitchIsABitch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      8 months ago

      It’s really sad that they chose to implement it. I would’ve loved to play Helldivers 2 but I just refuse to allow them that level of access to my device, especially for a game that isn’t even competitive.

      • Jax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        71·
        8 months ago

        That’s where I’m at with the game.

        Like yeah it looks fun, I’m not willingly installing malware. Especially after the apex legends debacle.

      • LordKitsuna@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        8 months ago

        Thankfully on linux we have tools to heavily limit it’s access such as firejail. It doesn’t just get unrestricted root access

      • Codilingus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        84·
        8 months ago

        Their explanation for it makes sense though. They were running into the problem that a player could cheat and progress their games faster, etc. Since HD2 is essentially a MASSIVE, single DnD campaign that every player is a part of, those cheaters would break the campaign progress and ruin it for every single other player.

        They also include shortcuts to install and uninstall only the anticheat. So you can remove it immediately once you finish playing.

    • DrRatso@lemmy.mlEnglish
      103·
      8 months ago

      There’s realistic only DotA and I can understand the reluctance, the two games are massively different, League is much more suited for casual play.

      • hector@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        81·
        8 months ago

        Ahaha no I swear to god Dota 2 is ridiculously fun

        In LoL you play the same game over and over again.

        Yesterday on dota I planted trees with my friends to hide and wait for people to come to ambush them lol

        You can do all sort of funny stuff, TPing people in your base etc… everything is OP so you don’t feel like you have no agency. You feel like it’s just your skills that are lacking!

        • DrRatso@lemmy.mlEnglish
          4·
          8 months ago

          I mean, ive played some dota in the past, i have about 200h on it, not nearly as much as league tho. But IME, especially for solo, league is just nicer overall. The mechanics for champions seem a lot more polished these days, and it is a lot more action focused, you have to worry about macro much less. The games are also like 50% shorter in league. As a solo player I find league to be a lot more laid back, where I can just play the champ more than play the game, if that makes sense.

          To each their own of course, Im not saying one game is better than the other, but it is a hard sell to transition league to dota.

          • hector@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            5·
            8 months ago

            You’re right, DoTa is a lot more chaotic, but there’s a lot of action on the map! Macro play is not necessarily doing nothing in this game and often time fight breakout for runes, etc…

            I think it’s about preference rather than reality because we had two completely different experiences so yeah, I love League but I don’t see the point of playing it now!

            • jacecomix@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              3·
              8 months ago

              While I’m League hater, I would love if the Dota meta shifted to shorter games like League has. I really miss the strategic depth of normal/ranked, but realistically if I want to play more than one match per evening, I have to play turbo mode.

              • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                8 months ago

                Turbo has immortal players in it, I’ve gotten up to 4 immortal players in one game of my turbo players, average ancient-divine rank games pretty often

          • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            8 months ago

            I actually play a lot of “Turbo mode” in DotA 2, everything is 2x gold 2x exp. Games end faster! Towers have less armor and less HP. Games end at 12 minutes for stomps and 20ish minutes for even games

              • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                8 months ago

                It has auto hidden rank you can check your average rank of the mmr in the game afterwards with 3rd party websites

                • DrRatso@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  1·
                  8 months ago

                  In league non-ranked matchmaking is pretty all over the place. It is also supposed to be mmr based. In a single session i can play vs everything from iron to emerald, how is it in dota?

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.caEnglish
        21·
        8 months ago

        HOTS is actually in a released state

        It’s what the former pros/high elo lol players go to

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.eeEnglish
    7·
    8 months ago

    I loved the way CS:GO1 had an anticheat program called Overwatch. If you are experienced enough and a trusted user, you can review games that players have reported and ban the cheaters if you deem them cheating. I don’t know if csgo2 has this but I haven’t seen it so far.

  • voxel@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    81·
    8 months ago

    what about making actual authoritative servers?
    that would break most cheats except *-bots

    also there’s usually no need to replicate the entire game state on all clients, some details like movements of players out of view can be omitted (ofc this doesn’t apply to lol but whatever)

    • Faresh@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      I’ve never played it, but aren’t League of Legends servers already authoritative? Also, I’m pretty sure it would only deal with certain kinds of cheats. An authoritative server won’t be able to prevent a player from using an aimbot, for example, since nothing says that a player isn’t allowed to have super accurate aim. The server can’t tell if they are cheating or just insanely good. Nevermind I missed your sentence mentioning *-bots.

      I wonder whether, even with an omnipotent anticheat software installed, cheating would still be possible by having the router manipulate your packets on the way to the server (ie. having all the *-bot work being done on that device). I imagine TLS could maybe thwart that attempt, since the router can’t decrypt the packets, but I don’t think it’s really a problem since the client could also just provide it with the unencrypted packet and the server’s public key, so that the router may fabricate the packets. On the other hand, anticheat software would be aware of that since the client has to send those extra packets, but how could it know that those packets are being sent for nefarious purposes and not just simply some other normal software doing it’s thing?