Recently, i had to move from nixos to windows against my will simpy because of anti cheats. While i dont game that much, the few games i enjoy playing are all online with some kind of anti cheat. I used to dual boot but i was tired of having to wait for my slow hdd to load windows (i only have one ssd). I literally used linux for everything else but because of anti cheats i am forced to move to windows. I managed to make it a little better by using wsl2 and removing bloatware but it will never be the same as linux

  • @CeeBee@lemmy.world
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    3010 months ago

    I think what you meant to write is “online games with anticheat are the worst thing”.

    Because “online anticheat” is becoming a thing wherein the anticheat system is run on a remote server and not your local system. Not only does it not need to install malware on your local system, but it does a better job at catching cheaters.

    • @calzie@lemmy.ml
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      210 months ago

      I could be wrong but I believe most games (e.g: Fairfight in all EA games) do have a server-side anti-cheats, just not very effective ones because they like for EAC/BE to do most of the work.

  • @cooopsspace
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    10 months ago

    Don’t be so spineless.

    Plenty of games work without anti cheat on Linux and I only play them.

    You just buckled under the tiniest amount of pressure, but you would have to pry Linux out of my cold dead hands.

    • @Clipper152@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Not sure why there are so many downvotes. Are there really that many people in here of all places who think gaming is just triple-A games from companies that don’t respect their players and nothing else?

      Edit: wording

      • @cooopsspace
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        1010 months ago

        It’s actually pretty hard to fuck up your game that much that it doesn’t work on Linux.

        Many anti cheat even work under proton.

        So yeah, just don’t fucking buy shit games.

      • @mee@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        I don’t like it because that’s the kind of elitist attitude that turns away new people from checking out Linux gaming. Imagine that as a response to “Hey I play these games and am interested in Linux”. You’re going to tell them: “switch to Linux and give up those games and if you don’t you’re not committed enough”?

        It’s gatekeeping “console-wars” fanboy mentality. Like a Linux Playstation fan attacking someone for playing an Windows Xbox Exclusive. As if that’s supposed to be their whole identity, and not just a way to play video games.

        There’s nothing wrong with having multiple consoles; there’s nothing wrong with dual-booting.

        • @Clipper152@lemm.ee
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          410 months ago

          In my experience, most Windows-exclusive games work just fine under Wine. It’s not that big a deal.

          This thread isn’t even about Windows games per se, but about a few games whose anti-cheats are screwing over Linux users.

    • @Ineocla@lemmy.mlOP
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      210 months ago

      I could stop playing these games right now. As i said i’m don’t use my computer for gaming that much. I could be perfectly satisfied with only minecraft. But i play them with the homies and i can’t let them down

      • ampersandrew
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        610 months ago

        I don’t think I would consider “games with anti cheat” to be “every pleasure in life”. We’re spoiled for choice in games. I can increasingly narrow the scope of what I’m willing to support with my money every year and still not run out of great games to play.

        • @glimse@lemmy.world
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          -110 months ago

          I figured the “open source gods” line would have given away that I was being hyperbolic.

          We’re talking about online multiplayer games. Unless all of your friends are in the same camp as you, have fun playing not playing with them.

          DRM, especially the always online kind, is shit. I get that and I agree. But to act like OP is weak for wanting to play the games that have it is EXACTLY the dismissive shit that turns people away from the FOSS community. It’s gross and I hate it, get off your high horse (not you in particular) and have a real conversation with a person who comes with an earnest question, don’t tell them they “buckled”

          • ampersandrew
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            110 months ago

            Unless all of your friends are in the same camp as you, have fun playing not playing with them.

            You won’t play everything with your friends, but you probably don’t have a 100% overlap in interest in which games you play anyway. Plus, a friendly suggestion goes a long way. “Hey, want to play Quake now that it just got remastered?” or “I just found this game X, and it’s on sale. It’s kind of like Y but with Z. Want to check it out with me?” And yes, I knew you were being hyperbolic, but I think you were serious when you were saying you were denying yourself some pleasure rather than sticking to some principle. And the value of that principle is going to vary from person to person, so I also agree with you on the “buckling”, but there’s just so much to play out there that one criterion is unlikely to be a deal-breaker given the breadth of games available.

            • @glimse@lemmy.world
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              110 months ago

              I mean you’re basically saying “it’s different for everyone so do what you want” which is very different than calling OP spineless for wanting to play games that don’t work on Linux. I’m not arguing that the best games require Windows or that nothing else is worth playing - I’m saying it’s arrogant and idiotic to insult someone over wanting to play.

          • Fluchtkapsel
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            110 months ago

            @glimse
            I’d have said that cheating is the worst. Especially in the light of all the measures the software studios have to take to protect honest gamers from being taken advantage of.
            @ampersandrew

  • Rob Bos
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    1610 months ago

    Sometimes you have to choose between what is convenient and what is right, and sometimes that means giving things up. But not everyone is willing or able to do that. It’s fine, do what you feel you need to.

    • @sirsquid@lemmy.ml
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      310 months ago

      This. Use whatever is best for you and sometimes that just isn’t Linux. We don’t win people over by trying to force anything :)

      Hopefully this issue will continue to get better over time, which it is slowly.

  • @philluminati@lemmy.ml
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    1210 months ago

    Same here. I’ve only a Linux machine for over a decade but I had to go out and buy Windows just so I could play on FaceIT. I’m praying that cs2 supports Linux and the MM experience is good enough to make FaceIT obsolete.

  • czech
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    1210 months ago

    NVMe drives have become to inexpensive recently I just bit the bullet and dual-boot windows from it’s own drive. Takes less than ten seconds to switch.

    • @apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca
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      1010 months ago

      Just make sure you physically disconnect all other storage devices while installing windows. The windows boot loader seems to make itself comfy on any drive it can find.

  • @MJBrune@beehaw.org
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    1110 months ago

    Honestly, I’d rather the anti cheat be there. Playing a game with a bunch of cheaters ruins the game. Not wanting to play it is equal to not buying it in the first place in terms of enjoyment. So I’d rather have strong anti cheat on Linux. Anti cheat doesn’t ruin the game, you are still able to enjoy it.

    But this is also why I think supporting native Linux builds is better. If they are supporting native Linux builds they are supporting Linux as a platform. With proton the developers don’t think about Linux. Proton overall has kind of hurt Linux support because it means no one thinks about the platform anymore.

    • Atemu
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      610 months ago

      Anti-cheat as a concept is fine but invasive client-side anti cheat just aren’t it.

      • @MJBrune@beehaw.org
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        10 months ago

        Client-side anti-cheat is the way to go for this. You need to, at some level, trust the client to get good feeling gameplay. Otherwise, you’ll end up with the Counter-Strike style missing. Where bullets on the client hit the head, the head shows blood but the target doesn’t get damaged. If you don’t trust the client, you are going to get pop-tarting where someone jumps over a wall/hill/etc. and shoots, and because the only physics that matters is server side, they are already down under the thing they shot over. There are strong reasons why Six Siege, Valorant, Overwatch, Squad, and almost any modern shooter trust the client but put anti-cheat on it. Server-side checking can only do so much.

        Overall what runs on the client is going to be 1 frame behind at least of what runs on the server. Usually far more due to latency. So the only answer is client-side anti-cheat. Now let’s talk about the “invasive” part. The only way to securely ensure there are no third-party applications affecting your play is to tie into the kernel and a definitive process list. Otherwise, anyone could just prevent the process list from being accurate. So you then need kernel-level modules to report and secure the client.

        There is another method that is rarely enacted. Hysterics, simply if you do too well on a game, you get banned. Have 99% Headshots? Banned. Have higher reaction times than most people? Banned. It’s a real big brother solution. That’s what you really should be fighting against. Banning people from games without solid proof but just statistical evidence that they shouldn’t be that good. This is mainly been the focus on combating those controller automation cheat systems. It also means people who use macros can get banned.

        All in all though, if you aren’t doing client-side kernel-level anti-cheat then your game at this point is filled with cheaters. It’s exactly why Counter-Strike has ESEA and Faceit which both require kernel-level anti-cheat to replace VAC which doesn’t have kernel-level hooks and is easily by-passed. Thus CSGO’s matchmaking is filled with cheaters where anyone using EAC has a relatively cheater-free game.

    • @Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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      110 months ago

      I play League of Legends via Proton. I assume it has an anti cheat and I never had issues with cheaters/hackers. I refuse to believe they need kernel level anti cheat for valorant. Not that I care about shooters.

      • @MJBrune@beehaw.org
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        10 months ago

        If you refuse to believe it then my 10 years of making fast-paced shooters won’t change your mind. League uses a userland-level anti-cheat that is easily broken. This is why most of their hacking detection is server-side. Also, reaction time doesn’t really play a huge factor in League. So as long as it’s within human range, the cheaters can go undetected since Rio believes that using cheats to get you high human reactions “defeats the purpose of cheating.” as documented here: https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-anti-cheat-in-lol-more/

        So overall, shooters are much faster and require client-side authority to feel good. In league, the game is slow enough to wait for the server to tell you what happened. In something like Overwatch, the clients report what happened. When you have that level of fidelity you need that level of trust. But you don’t care about shooters, so don’t worry about it. You can make your flawed argument that all games can be league and all anti-cheat systems can focus on league-like gameplay.

    • @jerkface@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      Most developers don’t support their native Linux release at all. You’ll download an automatic update, and suddenly the game doesn’t even start; check the forum and find out, they never even tested the Linux build, it’s just all automatic, and it’s gonna take a couple of weeks before they get their linux box updated and working again so they can fix it because their one linux guy is working on something else. It’s crap. Proton has been a massive improvement in game reliability.

      • @MJBrune@beehaw.org
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        010 months ago

        Really? Do you have an example of this with non early access games? I’ve personally never seen this happen and I’m my experience when a studio supports a platform they buy a computer to run the game on for that platform. I can only assume this was an experience with some very indie game?

          • @MJBrune@beehaw.org
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            110 months ago

            Native builds on steam are by default picked over proton. You might be playing great native builds without realizing. Although since 2016 native build support has gone way down. Even before proton came out.

            • @Paulemeister@feddit.de
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              110 months ago

              My experience with native Linux ports has been kinda bad actually. I usually don’t play AAA games so maybe that explains it. But Black Mesa or Psychonauts are better on proton. Could be true though, that those are just the ones I noticed. But If I can choose I usually go for the Proton version, seems to be more reliable. It’s a shame though.

              • @MJBrune@beehaw.org
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                010 months ago

                My guess is that because those games target DirectX during development then they add a native build at the end that uses Opengl. What Proton does is take the DirectX version and route it to Vulkan. So it’s potentially just the Vulkan usage being better than actually Proton itself.

  • @cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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    810 months ago

    I just refuse to buy any games with client side anti cheat. It’s just too much of a security and privacy risk to have those rootkits on my computers.

  • MinekPo1 [She/Her]
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    510 months ago

    Honestly something I’m surprised no game is doing is embrace the hackers.

    For example, create a HvH gamemode where users can use lua scripts to aid them. I bet this would turn a lot of people away from the actual cheating scene.

    • @______@lemm.ee
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      410 months ago

      Cheaters are sociopaths. Most of them pretend to be good and post clips or try to get a following until they inevitably get banned.

      Every script kiddie says this same thing. There are already HvH servers. Barely anyone plays them. If a company had official HvH it would encourage cheating. Fuck cheaters…

      • @calzie@lemmy.ml
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        210 months ago

        definitely not all cheaters are sociopaths, been in the cheating community since 2014-ish (starting to slowly back off and leave recently just due to the the obvious toxicity in it) and have made plenty of genuinely great friends there but ofc it is mostly horrible people, especially the people who closet and hide it from friends. do agree that this plan would never work though, but HvH was never really dead, it was at its peak in 2020 where there were probably 200+ people playing although it’s really only active in EU now.

      • MinekPo1 [She/Her]
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        110 months ago

        Cheating via a lua script integrated into a game is waaaay different to cheating via external software, though mainly from the cheat developers side, less so from the users side, as you need to “fight” the anti-cheat.

        Also, I think that considering all cheaters selfish (what is what I think you meant by calling cheaters sociopaths, see below) and bad at the game, really limits ones perspective, as not everyone hacks for the same reason. These reasons include:

        1. Believing one needs cheats to stay competitive (either because one believes others are cheating or because, as you mentioned, due to lack of abilities)
        2. For profit (to produce accounts with high value / tradable items/currency or to develop and sell cheats)
        3. Due to frustration with progress towards a goal (often overlaps with #1, especially for players which are good at the game)
        4. Enjoyment in breaking the games limits (note that this doesn’t decrease much in HvH)
        5. The feeling of being more powerful than other players (often overlaps with #1, but also overlaps with smurfing)
        6. For a sense of community (among other hackers, overlap with #2 or among mainstream players, overlap with #1 & #3)

        Full disclosure, for me #4 and #5 are the most appealing, with the first two not being that appealing.‌ Note that #1 and #3, are as applicable, if not more sometimes, to high skill players as to low skill players. Two examples I can give of the top of my head are the 2021 trackmania cheating scandal and the Hypixel skyblock dungeon speedruning scene. In both cases there were competitive scenes that (at least from an outsiders point of view) seem legitimate, but a lot of top players all use cheats.‌‌ Also note that players motivated by #2 are less affected with a pay wall, which could even make them cheat more.

        Why one cheats can also impact how one cheats. A player motivated by #1 and #3 is likely to hide their cheats (aka silent cheating I think?) while a player motivated by #2 or #5 may cheat in a way which is obvious to other players and they might not mind getting banned.

        Also also, players who are more skilled at the game, can not only take a fuller advantage of cheats but also be more difficult to detect, as they know what they can get away with.

        As for your usage of the word sociopath, which I don’t think is accurate, though I don’t blame you for it, mind you: antisocial personality disorder (the formal diagnosis for someone referred to as a sociopath), is an actual mental condition and using it because someone does not show empathy and/or seeks attention (which is not even a symptom of ASPD, I think you may be confusing it with narcissistic personality disorder?), not only flattens your understanding of the disorder but also raises a bad assumption: while a person with ASPD may find it harder to understand why certain actions are considered bad by others, that’s not an excuse for them to be abusive etc. The same applies to the common usage of narcissist/narcissistic.

        TL;DR: IMHO what you said is an oversimplification which may make reducing the number of cheaters in competitive spaces more difficult.

        • @calzie@lemmy.ml
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          110 months ago

          using LUA is an interesting idea to say the least but again likely wouldn’t prevent or demotivate current cheaters from doing their thing.

          • MinekPo1 [She/Her]
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            110 months ago

            It wouldn’t get rid of the issue, I agree. But it would divert some of the cheating community away from fighting against the developers to playing by the developers rules.

            Treating all cheaters as a monolith is really limiting which is kinda my point haha

    • @calzie@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      this might (barely) work for Source games like CS:GO, TF2, etc but on games like Overwatch, Valorant, Fortnite, etc there are a lot less exploits that would keep HvH actually interestering like fake angles, doubletap, etc like there are in the Source Engine (mind you this is because the engine is literally from 2003 and based on Goldsrc which is based on the damn Quake engine.)

      also this did exist for a while in cs:go TECHNICALLY, wingman in CSGO had overwatch disabled (when they were collecting data for vac.net) for almost a year and was literally just used to hvh but it never stopped people from cheating in competitive.

      • MinekPo1 [She/Her]
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        010 months ago

        Good point! I honestly only have experience with Minecraft where the vanilla anti cheat is so bad it is often disabled and there are quite a few interesting ways to cheat (Cristal PvP, baritone, etc), so my perspective is limited by that.

        However, I feel like if a game has mechanics with enough depth and achieving TAS like gameplay gave a significant advantage, I think, at least for those wanting to develop cheats, it could be fun.

        Also, I’m not saying this would prevent cheating in competitive play, but it could give developers more insight into how cheats can be used (like with your example). Cheaters are not a monolith, but I don’t want to repeat my other comment :P

    • @Ineocla@lemmy.mlOP
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      410 months ago

      Fall guys fortnite and apex (judge me if you want but my broke firend don’t wanna try anything else)

      • Micha3lo
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        710 months ago

        I can confirm that both apex and fallguys are working just fine on Linux. Fortnite on the other hand does not.

      • @ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        510 months ago

        I’m not judging, as I said I was curious. I get it though, Apex just had a Linux ban wave, Fortnite well, it’s owned by Epic and Fall Guys to my knowledge requires editing AC files so Windows in your case is more convenient

        • @Ineocla@lemmy.mlOP
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          010 months ago

          Sorry if i sounded a little rude. It’s just that most of the time people think i’m 6y/o just because i play fortnite and it got quite annoying

          • @MJBrune@beehaw.org
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            110 months ago

            Hey, I like some backstreet songs. Just like in music, if you just like what you like and don’t let people tell you differently you’ll have a more healthy relationship with your own opinion. Like what you like and don’t be ashamed.

      • ffhein
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        10 months ago

        With the exception of the false positive ban wave reported a few days ago, Apex Legends has played flawlessly on Linux for the last couple of years. According to comments on protondb, Fall Guys also appears to be working fine, including multiplayer with anti-cheat. I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t run Windows if you want to, but perhaps you didn’t fully explore all options?

        If you switch back to Linux you could suggest Shatterline to your broke friends. It’s f2p and had no issues with anti-cheat last time I tried it. I think Overwatch 2 is also f2p.

        • @Ineocla@lemmy.mlOP
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          110 months ago

          I tried playing fall guys back in the days but it needed a few tweaks and it just didn’t work. Maybe it has changed so idk. Also thanks for your suggestions i’ll try them and see if i can switch back to nixos

  • @BURN@lemmy.world
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    210 months ago

    There’s unfortunately not much to do.

    Linux is inherently less “secure” to developers. They have to sacrifice anti-chest efficiency to enable them on Linux, which is a tradeoff most aren’t willing to make.

    Most every game I play requires me to stay on windows. I don’t really get any enjoyment out of single player games anymore. So windows stays as the primary OS and that’s likely never going to change.

    • @jerkface@lemmy.ca
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      310 months ago

      So don’t get into those games in the first place. There are so many games available. You will never exhaust them all.

      • @BURN@lemmy.world
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        410 months ago

        I primarily play competitive fps games. They’re more or less the only genre of gaming that’s any kind of fun anymore imo.

        I don’t enjoy single player games. I own literally thousands of dollars of indie/AA single player games that I don’t enjoy, so I’ve stopped buying new ones. I’m simply not interested in non-competitive games. They’re not fun and I’d rather not play them.

        • Hagbard
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          210 months ago

          Personally I don’t really enjoy multiplayer games much because they are all so stale nowadays.

          I guess I grew up with dedicated servers, map editors, and mods coming out all the time but most of the modern ones are so fixed on DLC and battlepasses.