Riot Games talk Vanguard anti-cheat for League of Legends and why it's a no for Linux
3 years ago by Fubarberry to c/linux_gaming
This also applies to Valorant. I know a lot of people look down on both games, but it's still unfortunate for Linux to lose access to such a popular game.
I thought this part was particularly interesting:
Half of anti-cheat is making sure the environment hasn't been tampered with, and this is extremely hard on Linux by design. Any backdoors we leave open for it are ones [cheat] developers will immediately leverage for cheats
Their post is a bunch of PR hidden by funnyspeak while not addressing people's concerns in any way. The worst is that they're officially ditching LoL on linux because reasons, they're forcing the anti cheat on windows BUT they can't implement it on MacOS because Apple won't allow it
Their post is a bunch of PR hidden by funnyspeak
I disagree, I think they said pretty plainly that they rely on security by obscurity, which is fundamentally at odds with an open platform that gives you control over your hardware. They're not wrong, they can take their shitty anti-cheat arms race and shove it.
But if the Mac client doesn't have anti-cheat, doesn't it totally defeat their whole argument?
If running on an obscure platform avoids cheaters, that's still security by obscurity. I assume it's only a matter of time before the number of cheaters using that client grows to the point where they either have to invest in anti-cheat there, or cut support for the platform.
MacOS is not an open platform, so as long as apple support their efforts, they will be able to have kernel mode anti-cheat there when they want it.
Yeah, but Apple isn't allowing it (at least according to the comment you replied to), so if Riot continues to allow their games to run on Mac without kernel anti-cheat, then their whole argument against Linux support is moot.
"They'd find our backdoors T_T"
Oh noooooo! /s
To be fair, I think the backdoors they're referring to would be ones meant to allow Linux users to play.
But with Riot being owned by a Chinese company, I suspect there are plenty of backdoors to go around.
Yeah, you're right. It just sounds kinda bad to call them "our backdoors". It's not inaccurate, but still sounds kinda sus
That's pretty much the only reasonable explanation at this point. If they were afraid of people finding errors it would be beneficial to allow more players to see what's the program doing. Riot basically confirming they just want to run spyware on SpywareOS.
Linux only grants access inside user space, so yeah. Says a lot about any game that refuses to adapt to that
I get your point, but that is only 50% of the article. 800 players simply don't justify the effort of porting everything to Linux and risk more cheaters. Issues with cheaters affect the entire playerbase, not just those 800.
I'd like more Linux compatibility in large games as much as the next guy, but I get the justification not to do it.
Vanguard was announced and was supposed to be added to League imminently a while ago. I stopped playing months ago as a result. I can hardly imagine that I am the only one, so the number seems cherry picked for convenience.
I'd like to know what the average daily player count on Linux was prior to 2024, I suspect it's higher than 800.
That said, I get the trade-off. I won't support that trade-off though because I will never agree with an anticheat implemented like Vanguard is.
Well if you and assumingly many others decided to quit the game for good after that announcement, the number might be cherry picked, but not misleading as you said yourself that you are not going to play anymore.
In that case they also get what they want - solely Windows players.
I mean I'm not really picking to not play anymore because I don't want to. They said they were going to turn it on like two months ago and I believed them. I wasn't about to risk my account on the odd chance my crapple device is good enough to play it.
I mean, the question should also be, does league of legends have a big enough cheating issue to justify having an invasive anti-cheat. I played the game for 10 years and not once did I knowingly encounter a cheater.
Is Vanguard actually that much more effective than say, the EAC that we have on Linux?
- this plays in their favor
- clicking install in lutris rather than just downloading is not much more effort for the end user. Beit supported or not, a rather tech savvy group such as linux users can handle that obstacle and thus the numbers will not change drastically (just my asdumption)
I enjoyed playing TFT but this whole thing made me ditch LoL altogether some months ago. And cheaters on LoL are so rare...
According to the original Riot post, 1 in 15 games has a cheater, and in some regions it's 1 in 5 games.
But valorant has the same kernel anticheat, and has rampant cheating. So I don't think the new anticheat will actually help.
Depends also on their definition of cheater. If they count the mindless weak bots that keep playing just to farm currency in non ranked or if they only count serious cheats.
Tbf they're probably rare because of the rootkit anticheat right?
No, they haven't deployed the anticheat yet I think
Oh, I see. Haven't been following this story that closely tbh.
League just doesn't have that many 'traditional' cheaters and the game lends itself to server-side AC way more than most. The cheaters in League are more often win-traders at high elos and smurfs in low elos. Also lots of feeding and trolling. So I have no idea why they are adding Vanguard, a good reason to stop playing the game though.
Even with premium Linux support, who in their right mind would run that shit with kernel access
World of Warcraft has its own anticheat that works on Linux no problem, if Blizzard can do it why Riot can't? It's not that WoW has more players than LOL so it could be justified, it's actually the opposite.
It's probably because WoW isn't as competitive as LoL or Valorant, so Riot's games need to be more aggressive in figuring whether someone is cheating or not. A more apt comparison would be with Valve's Dota2 and Counter Strike
So no 2XKO? :(
I was so excited
The problem with anti-cheat won’t get away anytime soon, and at least not until one invents effective server-side detection, or some completely different methods that can work with Linux and probably not anything that is known already
No sweaty, angry, sexist, racist, sub-human filth League gamers on Linux? What a shame. How will Linux users ever recover knowing the trash will never leave the dumpster? I for one am completely devastated.
/s
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@lemmy.ml
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That's ok I don't really want spyware anyway.
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