The fact that companies think client side anti cheat is a good idea is so insane. Maybe try designing your server better instead of blaming the operating system for not letting you control your users
Aside from better server side detection, which is I agree is severely underdeveloped, I’d say that the next big step should be a much bigger reliance on reputation-based matchmaking, ideally across games. It would need to be built in a way that’s not abusable by devs or trolls and should be as privacy-respecting as much as possible (as in, not having to validate with your ID South-Korean style), which isn’t an easy task. Working properly however, it would keep honest players from seeing any cheaters at all with no client-side anticheat required at all, which would be nice.
Genuinely curious, because this isn’t my area of expertise, but how do you design a server to be “better” if it has to trust data from a remote client?
Example, if the client is compromised - because as they’ve said, they have no way to “attest” that the kernel is not compromised - how would the server know any better?
If my Apex client tells the server I got a perfect headshot, how would the server know I didn’t fake the data? Is there a real answer to this problem or are we just wishing they come up with an impossible solution?
My general understanding is that EA is 100% correct. Now, on the other hand, maybe the should just limit plays between Linux <-> Linux so people can at least still enjoy the game (I’m moving to Linux soon so I’ll basically no longer be able to play the game, which is, as my primary gaming addiction, a huge loss I’m willing to take).
There’s compromises EA could take, but I think the Linux market share is just too small for them to care to spend any resources - even though they’re raking in billions (~$3.4 Billion) and could spare a few resources to find a good middle ground. Capitalism at it’s finest.
How do they know you haven’t trained an AI to get headshots? The cheats often break the bounds of what is realistic in games, whether it is allowing you to see through walls (server shouldn’t be sending enemy positions that aren’t in view), going too fast (server should speed check pplayer positions), getting items they shouldn’t have (server should do inventory sanity checks), etc. Other than that, look for signs of automated movement/things unrealistically precise for a human to do. Eventually the cheating will just be moved to a separate air gapped computer running AI on the video feed. Client side is an invasive, broken, and malicious concept.
Just tracking trended data in general would be sufficient to defeat a LARGE number of common cheats. One of the very few use cases “AI” might actually work for in a positive way. But that puts the burden on the developers and server hosters, and it’s much easier to just burden the players directly instead.
I’m fairly confident that developers already do this. When the “ban hammer” comes down it is probably after analysing data trends for players.
Yeah, they don’t ban immediately. They collate a huge amount of data and then do it in waves.
That way cheaters know what software got them banned, but not the exact behaviour that gave it away.
do you expect them to use data to fix their problems?
Servers often don’t send player data that is outside of the immediate area of the player, but they have to for enemies that are nearby. If they walk around the corner and your client didn’t know about it, then you’ll be waiting for your ping time to even render the enemy. I.e. they walk around the corner and already shot you, then you see them suddenly appear a full players width away from the corner, and you die. Aka peekers advantage amplified.
Same deal with footstep sounds, bullet tracers, a player’s shadow, etc. Your client needs to know where all this is coming from and it can’t do that if it doesn’t know the enemy exists and where. And that is a buffer zone for hackers to derive wall hacks from.
So basically, the overwhelming majority of servers do do all those things, since the late 90’s. Hacks tend to work within those bounds. The most common, impactful and hard to detect cheats are based on providing perfect mechanical inputs. Aka aim hacks. Nothing about limiting info from the server can prevent that unless you also want the legitimate player to be unable to see their enemies.
The obvious solution is to make wall hacks an intended game mechanic.
Eventually the cheating will just be moved to a separate air gapped computer running AI on the video feed.
At that point it isn’t cheating anymore; the AI would be legitimately playing the game!
God I was pissed when riot did it for league. They didn’t even have a terrible cheating issue, it was rare and they suuslly caught it and parched it quickly. If blizzard can do it so can they.
Well thank god this computer genius is on the scene. Don’t worry, EA can solve everything as soon as they hear about these great and very original ideas.
Your core premise is broken. Relying on trusting anything from a remote client cannot possibly result in a fair game.
It’s not that simple. Especially not for real time shooters, latency is a killer.
It is exactly that simple. You already have to account for latency because everyone but one player (who you also can’t trust no matter how many rootkits you install) is not the server. Having a proper server doesn’t change that in any way.
Client side validation cannot possibly provide any actual security, but even if that wasn’t the case and it was actually flawless, it would still be unconditionally unacceptable for a game to ever have kernel level access.
Too bad the server at least needs the player input data.
Yes, people can still cheat with a camera and manipulating inputs. There will never be a way around that.
But that’s entirely unchanged by adding malware, that, even if it could theoretically work, should be a literal crime with serious jail time attached. Client side validation is never security and cannot resemble security.
There are ways to detect and stop that, but they can and should happen on the server, not on the client.
Only if you’re OK banning real people.
There are lots of options such that you can tune your false positive/negative rate. 🤷♂️ Tons of ways you can structure this depending on your game’s tech.
If my Apex client tells the server I got a perfect headshot, how would the server know I didn’t fake the data?
Any game that works like that is fundamentally flawed and AC is nothing but an attempt at a cheap bandaid at best.
The client should be doing nothing but rendering and sending player actions to the server and the server should be managing the game state as well as running its checks on those actions. And when one client sends actuons that are weird and doesn’t line up with it’s internal game state it should kick the client immediately always deferring to what ITS game state is telling it, not the client.
The cheat in this case would send legitimate actions. Like maybe you, the human, would have missed the headshot, but your cheat corrected to the inputs that would have landed one.
And when one client sends actuons that are weird and doesn’t line up with it’s internal game state
What if my hacked client sends actions that are not weird, completely plausible, but didn’t happen and instead were faked? E.g. I take a headshot and would have missed, but my client sends data that I actually shot them dead center, because I wasn’t completely off? How would the server know it wasn’t me?
Genuinely curious, because this isn’t my area of expertise, but how do you design a server to be “better” if it has to trust data from a remote client?
Check the data on the server (“oh no, incredibly expensive”). Don’t give any data to the client it doesn’t need, like enemies around the corner (“oh no, now my game is so very laggy because caching and future position assumption just became impossible”)
Example, if the client is compromised - because as they’ve said, they have no way to “attest” that the kernel is not compromised - how would the server know any better?
Now the server doesn’t need to care. There’s input? Validate and use it.
If my Apex client tells the server I got a perfect headshot, how would the server know I didn’t fake the data? Is there a real answer to this problem or are we just wishing they come up with an impossible solution?
Now the client can go pound sand. Server decides if it’s a headshot. Client only sends coordinates of origin and target. Lag? Sucks to be you, with or without cheat.
My general understanding is that EA is 100% correct. Now, on the other hand, maybe the should just limit plays between Linux <-> Linux so people can at least still enjoy the game
That would only create more work for the developers, all for the defacto expulsion of Linux users (Way less players at all times). The best course of action here would be the actual expulsion of Linux users. Also, EA is at most 25% correct. (Not a rational argument, I just very much dislike them)
(I’m moving to Linux soon so I’ll basically no longer be able to play the game, which is, as my primary gaming addiction, a huge loss I’m willing to take).
Damn, sorry to hear that. It’s always bad to leave something one knows because something’s become unbearable. I wish you best of luck on your journey! (I’m assuming a lot, but why else would you switch despite your choice of use of free time?)
There’s compromises EA could take, but I think the Linux market share is just too small for them to care to spend any resources - even though they’re raking in billions (~$3.4 Billion) and could spare a few resources to find a good middle ground. Capitalism at it’s finest.
On the other hand: I quite like it. It forces them to keep their grubby little hands from my kernel.
I do not like anything anti cheat. But I also don’t really like cheaters, especially in online games, so anti cheat could be tolerated. The only thing is: nothing trumps my systems integrity. Definitely not online player satisfaction.
The server already determines if a shot’s valid or not though. Once a client receives information on where the enemy is at, then the client can send message to the server that they are shooting exactly at that location.
Well, the server acts mostly as a single source of truth. The clients are the ones registering the shot, the server confirms or denies it.
My approach would be prohibitedly expensive, as I suggested the registration would also happen on the server. It would also result in bigger lags
Check the data on the server
I believe this already happens to some degree.
Don’t give any data to the client it doesn’t need, like enemies around the corner
Enemies around the corner still make noise/peek/shoot/etc. You can’t just hide data of nearby enemies from the client because their actions still have in-game consequences that need to be reproduced across all active/nearby players.
Now the server doesn’t need to care. There’s input? Validate and use it.
How do you validate data that is within the realm of possibilities? if my head shot would have been 1 pixel too far to the left to hit and my hacked client sends it 1 pixel to the right so it makes a hit, how does the server know this isn’t fake?
Server decides if it’s a headshot.
If my fake data doesn’t look out of the ordinary i’m still hacking the system and tricking the server-side validation.
Client only sends coordinates of origin and target. Lag? Sucks to be you, with or without cheat.
The math to send the perfect headshot isn’t difficult if you know where you are, where the enemy is and you can only send origin & target coords, I’m not sure this solves anything.
That would only create more work for the developers, all for the defacto expulsion of Linux users (Way less players at all times). The best course of action here would be the actual expulsion of Linux users. Also, EA is at most 25% correct. (Not a rational argument, I just very much dislike them)
Agree with you 100%.
Damn, sorry to hear that. It’s always bad to leave something one knows because something’s become unbearable. I wish you best of luck on your journey! (I’m assuming a lot, but why else would you switch despite your choice of use of free time?)
Thanks! I’m a huge open source supporter and only ever installed Windows on my desktop to play games, still using Linux on my laptops. Thanks to Valve, Proton, and Wine, I’ll be able to go back to Linux and maybe discover some new games.
On the other hand: I quite like it. It forces them to keep their grubby little hands from my kernel.
I do not like anything anti cheat. But I also don’t really like cheaters, especially in online games, so anti cheat could be tolerated. The only thing is: nothing trumps my systems integrity. Definitely not online player satisfaction.
Kinda agree with you on this. Although I have my desktop as a strict “gaming” machine, I wouldn’t mine an EA rootkit on my Desktop Linux system if all I did on it was game. But yes, they can keep their hands off my kernel on my “work” devices.
The fact that this thoughtful comment was downvoted, while the computer illiterate reply was upvoted, speaks to the hive mind on this
subreddit. We all detest EA, but this guy has a legitimate point.“In this subreddit”
Yeah I have a hell of a time remembering what Lemmy things are called as well.
Damn, what are they called?
Communities or “comms”. Reddit would be quick to legal action if someone started using their trademarks.
I think they’re supposed to be magazines, but I’ve been saying subs for.like 12 years. Mags, I guess.
Maybe çubs?
Communities. Magazines is what kbin calls them though.
That makes a lot more sense. I was wondering why c/ stood for magazine.
Sublemmys
how do you design a server to be “better” if it has to trust data from a remote client?
Because it doesn’t have to.
But according to that article it’s still trusting the client. It’s just validating that the action was within the realm of possibilities, not that it wasn’t faked.
From the article (highlighting from me):
Here’s how it works:
- When you shoot, client sends this event to the server with full information: the exact timestamp of your shot, and the exact aim of the weapon.
The article continues to state:
The enemy may be the only one not entirely happy. If they were standing still when he got shot, it’s their fault, right? If they were moving… wow, you’re a really awesome sniper.
But what if they were in an open position, got behind a wall, and then got shot, a fraction of a second later, when they thought they were safe?
Well, that can happen. That’s the tradeoff you make. Because you shoot at him in the past, they may still be shot up to a few milliseconds after they took cover.
What’s stated above already happens in Apex, telling us that they already do everything this article is talking about. This article mentions nothing new and doesn’t solve the problem of clients sending fake data that is within the realm of possibilities - e.g. a headshot when you were actually off by a bit.
The question was about client trust, which the server doesn’t. If the shot wasn’t possible, it’s not valid and did not happen.
They should just use the same approach big minecraft servers use, the game itself has no anticheat, but the server makes sure the data it’s getting from the client makes sense and kicks clients sending weird data. Doing any checks client side will always be insecure and a nuisance to players
Yeah there’s no Minecraft cheats /s
Keeping untrusted clients in their own ecosystem is an interesting idea, and would let people access the game without affecting anyone in the “trusted” chain, but you will all be lumped in with the obvious cheaters with blatant speed/flying/aiming bots.
If you were playing without cheats on Linux, I’d imagine you’d stop soon after.
The best idea would be to let people run their own servers and then allow or IP ban cheaters themselves, but I guess with everything needing to make money from skins and paints or whatever the fuck Apex sells, that’s out of the question and has been since about the Xbox 360 era.
how do you design a server to be “better” if it has to trust data from a remote client?
By minimising the trusted data exchanged and checking it against server side data.
They already do this, so this doesn’t solve the problem.
I see you all over this thread and I want to share something you might find interesting.
You keep mentioning the server can’t handle the anti cheat because it needs to trust client data. Here’s an interesting thought: how is client anti cheat supposed to work when it needs to trust input data?
Look up direct memory access cheats. TL;DR Two computers are hooked up such that PC 1 runs the game, PC 2 reads memory from PC 1, and can then output keyboard/mouse inputs, as well as wallhacks/esp. How is the client side anti cheat supposed to know that the keyboard and mouse inputs are legitimate? How is the client side anti cheat to know wallhacks are being used when they are being rendered on an entirely different machine?
Careful what you wish for because the next step after killing physical is cloud gaming only.
Just a reminder you can add a publisher to your steam ignore list such as EA or Ubisoft.
Edit: This video shows how
Whaaaaaaat!?
Added a video I found showing where to do it.
Wtf. I did not know this. Thx
Fuck EA
I’ve been praying for an Open source Apex clone that can be self-hosted. A man can dream.
Xonotic is a thing
fr, Apex is one of their nicer products that felt a bit like new battle royal version of abandoned Unreal Tournament
If you accidentally ban linux users in three[1] different[2] banwaves[3], then linux was only halfway supported in the first place, even if they overturned (almost) all of those bans.
I think the real reason they did it was EA’s financial situation. Since money is tight, the amount of resources they were willing to put into real linux anti-cheat probably dropped to “none at all,” and now we’re here. Otherwise other cheater-prone games like Counter Strike, Overwatch, Halo, The Finals, DayZ, Hunt Showdown, etc would have probably dropped/blocked linux by now too.
I would be so upset if Hunt Showdown did this.
Hell, I’m mad Apex Legends did it and I have very little time invested in that game.
I really wish game developers would stop with this kernel level anticheat nonsense that doesn’t even work. Everyone in every gaming community just points the finger, people that play games using Easy Anticheat say Battleye sucks and vice versa.
If kernel level anticheat actually worked, there would be a definitive answer to which games have good anticheat.
Cool, fuck EA.
GET THAT REFUND!
NO TUX, NO BUX
you gotta contact EA about it, and something’s telling me they’re just going to quote some part of their ToC telling us to get fucked.
alright then flood them CC charge backs, let them explaining to their payment processor why everybody decided to do this all at the same time ;)
Its a free to play game
It’s free to play.
Uh, I’m losing access to everything I bought with apex coins though…
Yeah, but your first mistake was buying apex coins.
Counterpoint - Devs need to eat. Especially devs that are thoughtful enough to enable their anti-cheat to work on Linux. So yeah, they had my attention, my support, and my money. In return I got to play a fun game and rock some cool skins and accessories - it certainly seemed like a win-win. Now they’ve retroactively backed out of their support, and I’d like to back out mine as well.
I’m not sure what your point is? Perhaps I incorrectly assumed this was obvious but yes - if players do not financially support a game, even “free to play” games, those games disappear. There is not a single company on the planet that is going to continue investing in a negative revenue project for funsies. The teams working on the game are relocated to other projects or laid off, and the game shuts down.
If you believe I’m in the wrong for supporting a game that, until this point, was friendly to linux - then so be it.
I think you’re wrong for supporting EA, regardless of any other variables.
I don’t really know what my point is either. Sounds like you got scammed, and that sucks.
I hope you can get your money back too.
Agreed to a point. I don’t care so much that “the devs need to eat” because these are AAA corporations, not indie devs. The moderate gains and losses aren’t directly affecting the people that actually made the game, they’re just affecting the bonuses the CEOs get. What does matter though is that if we as Linux gamers want them to care, they need to see that Linux users are generating revenue. They’re greedy corpos and revenue is all they give a shit about. I’m OK contributing a small amount to games that continue to support Linux. I’m OK spending $5 every few months to buy the Overwatch 2 battle pass if it means Blizzard sees that someone who only plays on Linux is generating income. I’m certain they looked at the money coming in from Linux players more than the actual number of said players when making this decision. The only way to make corporate monsters care about you is to feed their greed. Sometimes, feeding them a small amount can potentially help your cause.
What does matter though is that if we as Linux gamers want them to care, they need to see that Linux users are generating revenue. They’re greedy corpos and revenue is all they give a shit about.
I appreciate you mentioning this, I agree. If linux made a blip on a chart, executives would prioritize figuring out a solution.
You are not paying devs… you are paying a corpo parasite who fucks you over every few months.
Ah yes, “the devs”. What percentage of the profit do you think goes to the gameplay developers, the backend developers, the designers, the character artists, the environment artists, the QA team, the writers, the voice talent, the localization teams, and the other roles too numerous to list but too important to ignore, that actually create the game? In contrast, how much do the executives, managers, and
parasitesshareholders pocket?Even if you assume a fair division between all people, just look at how long the credits list is. The average developer employee won’t go hungry because a couple hundred players stop buying gamble coins.
You know what? Developers that work at studios that are baby punching evil don’t need to eat. I’m not feeding any of them.
Shit take. Not everyone can be Eric Barone or Daisuke Amaya.
Go work at Coffee Stain or their ilk. They’re a games studio employing multiple developers working on a few games at a time, and they’re not baby punching evil.
Me too… I bought one Apex pack solely because the introduced Linux support a month after I switched to Linux.
K bye.
Who am I kidding? I never bothered with that crap.
Is this not the game I saw an article about like yesterday saying EA had missed revenue forecasts and EA stated a major overhaul is needed?
I guess step one is to restrict the player base more.
Classic “the beatings will continue until morale improves” corporate energy.
This must be the drastic change to increase monetization they were talking about just yesterday.
Does this have anything to do with the other Steam related headline I read in a post earlier: " Games now have to disclose kernel level anticheat on steam?"
It is nice timing but I believe apex is already well known for its anticheat so they wouldnt be disclosing whats not already known
I approve of that but I don’t know how it is a change? I have already been refusing to consider games because they have Denuvo listed.
Idk my sole interaction is through these headlines lol, I don’t have steam, and haven’t really even played anything since like RDR2 (well, not counting my GBC, I play with that all the time, currently playing Earthworm Jim (GB).)
Lame. :/ Guess I’m changing my review then.
This is really going to validate the anti-Steamdeck/anti-Linux gamers. It shouldn’t.
“You can’t play shitty MMO Battle Royale games if you’re on a Linux PC!”
Fucking good. That’s a feature.
It’s also keeping people from even considering linux for gaming so I don’t share your sentiment. Like it or not, these games are insanely popular. My gaming buddies won’t even think of switching to linux until 100% of the games they play are working on it, and that include “shitty MMO Battle Royale” I’m sorry to say.
Oh no
Anyway
They just can’t stop killing this game, the last few updates have been dog shit and now they do this.
People still play Apex?
Not people on Linux.
