Riot's fighting game 2XKO will use Vanguard anti-cheat (www.vg247.com)

submitted 3 months ago by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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Whelp...I'm out. (I expected this to happen before they said anything though, honestly.)

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[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 50 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Kernel mode anti-cheat guarantees I will never buy your game. Not even as a gift for someone else.

Assurances like "we will never abuse this power" are laughably unrealistic, and even if they defied the history of humanity and somehow turned out to be true, that issue is made irrelevant by additional realities:

The risks come not only from corporate abuse of power, but also from vulnerabilities in their code that will eventually be exploited by third parties.
Beyond the risk of nosy corporations snooping on users' private information, there are major security risks. An exploit at the kernel level means game over for the integrity of your entire system, all the data on it or passing through it, and every other system accessed from it. Bank accounts, for example.
Client-side anti-cheat is conceptually wrong thinking and doomed to fail. Even at the kernel level, it's an arms race. Cheaters will find ways to weaken or circumvent it (such as running cheats on an external device that captures game video and generates input events) or even defeat it completely.

I guess this incredibly invasive and fundamentally flawed attempt to manage cheating might be acceptable to someone whose computer is used for nothing else but playing that game... —shrug— ...but for me, it's a hard nope.

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago

Not only that, but cheating isn't exactly a huge problem in this genre, so it's a heavy handed solution already and one that's even less necessary to consider.

[-] osprior@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Cheating is definitely a problem in SF6, but it's a lot less of a challenge dealing with it due to match duration. You generally move on to different opponents fast enough, unless of course you're at the highest ranks.

Still agree that kernel level anti-cheat does nothing here, and I also won't be buying it due to that reason.

[-] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

How would cheating in a fighter even look like? Those games are mostly about reading your opponent. Unlike a fps or moba, all info is on the screen etc :/
Auto combo-ing? Auto reponse? Legit curious as i dont think ive seen cheaters in fighters before, but ive been out of the loop since sf4 haha

[-] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

How would cheating in a fighter even look like?...Auto combo-ing? Auto reponse?

Generally the cheat will do something like, read the input the server just said you did, and then send a faster move that will beat it. It can be a bit more obvious in SF6 because usually your best move against a heavy attack is a DI (drive impact) reaction, and cheats will be suspiciously consistent and inhumanly fast. Here's a video from Diaphone that explains how he can tell.

[-] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Thanks! I will take a listen at that video! I imagine in sf3 it could also have been obvious with the parry system

[-] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 3 points 3 months ago

Since you mention it, here is the same guy using it for perfect parries and jump-ins as well.

[-] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Thanks!

That was hilarious to see, and the player was good. He went into defensive mode on the second round on the first game, and in the second game he went into faking attacks to trigger reactions and punish when responding wrong. Loved it haha

[-] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

From the article:

Tony stated the following, "A lot of the cheats we see in fighting games are either about reading inputs, reading game state, or injecting inputs. They involve modifying the game binary in some way. Vanguard is really good at that, right? It's a kernel-level anti-cheat, so it can detect and prevent a lot of those things happening."

[-] Renacles@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Auto block, auto parry, auth whiff punish, auto anti-air, auto drive impact on big moves, etc.

[-] DacoTaco@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Right, so basically things that decent skills would also get you?
Also, if you feel being aggressive doesnt help you, you start playing defensively and thats when you can strike back. Cheats or not, it still has to attack and is still stuck on the frame limits of the move right? Thats when you can strike back, no?

Im not saying cheating isnt bad, and im not saying its not annoying either, but in general fighters are different and they are completely skill based unless the cheater changes things that the other can never do.
In hindsight, pretty sure ive fought cheaters back in the day in sf4 before, but that was never that bad because i still had options to fight them back...

[-] Renacles@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

No, a lot of those things are simply not possible for a human being, perfectly parrying a 4 frame move on reaction is impossible.

Same with throws and other 50/50, they can defend perfectly in situations where a player is meant to guess.

https://youtu.be/7AoAZGHHzt4?si=g82On4LnowBkS2aM

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

The situation where the player is meant to guess is exactly where you're most likely to get a legitimate perfect parry; that's what the mechanic is there for. Those situations are often auto timed. It's in neutral where the cheats stick out.