Valorant's anti-cheat system requires TPM 2.0 and secure boot on Windows 11
techspot.com
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I can understand these measures being taken in game consoles, but most people use their PCs for a lot of stuff, and most likely store sensitive information that they wouldn't want to risk being exposed to some potencial malicious entity.
That's a weird hill to die on, but it is, of course, your choice.
This is absolutely not remotely true with a root kit which could mess with all sorts of things, especially if you have multiple installed. And it won't be clear what is causing it.
It's not a weird view at all, it's perfectly pragmatic.
I understand that propietary things like the graphics drivers are inevitable to install on Windows, but what Riot does with their Vanguard anti-cheat system is crossing a line. If you look up the documentation on how to disable it, this piece of software loads every time your computer boots, and to enable it again the computer has to be restarted, so the kernel module can be loaded again. Most games will load any anti-cheat mechanisms when opening the game and run it only while playing. After you exit out of the game, every single process related to it is killed. This is different from having Vanguard constantly running in the background, with maximum privileges regardless of what you're doing.
Isn't all anti-cheat systems exactly that? Is there a way to differentiate any proprieatary driver to what you describe?
The most benign explanation would be the misguided attempt by their system architects to solve the cheat problem by abusing client resources because it was easier.
The malign explanations border on conspiracy theories, but benign or malign, I too refuse to allow it. Cheating is a scourge of multiplayer games, but this isn't an acceptable solution.
But I look forward to video players using the TPM preventing screenshots or recording, and after that, websites preventing screenshots or copying text, and your bank verifying your browser before letting you log in.
Of course only a handful of large browsers will be supported or able to get licenses for the accompanying DRM code, but you can still use your 'free' browsers for less important things. Don't worry.
Haven't browsers supported DRM for some time now? Anti-cheat like this has also been around for a long time, with the apocalypse you posit having failed to come to pass. This reads like a slippery slope fallacy to me.
We're sliding down the slope right now. The fallacy is thinking the trend will stop, because.. well, surely this is the last step, right? Just like all the ones before it.
You already can't login to, or use, Google accounts with unapproved browsers.
Cheaters will find a way - but not around ban-hammers... and if their cheating is so subtle that most people can't notice then it's a much less important issue to deal with (outside of professional league stuff - there sure, force people to do all sorts of crap to their computers if there is a cash prize on the line).
Valorant does not have a cheating problem. The Battlefields and the CoDs of the world do. The difference between them is not that Valorant has a vote kick feature (it doesn't.)
The difference between them is that Valorant anti-cheat is far more capable, because it is far more invasive.
[1]: https://www.callofduty.com/blog/2021/10/ricochet-anti-cheat-...
Depends on the incentives of the game and game price. Escape From Tarkov has a big cheating problem because people will pay for in game items, the devs will ban them, they will simply buy another copy of the game because they still make a profit even buying the game a few times a year.
I'm unsure how Valorant bans are useful, they must ban based on hardware 'signature' ?
The farmers will continue to find work-arounds if farming is profitable, but honestly, wtf is farming doing in an FPS - that's a bad design decision. Just let people play the game and enjoy stand alone sessions.
1: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/10/blizzard_ente...
If it doesn't come with Win11+TPM, it will come from this: https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-...
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/games-apps/game-setup-an...
Perhaps, for backwards compatibility, "insecure" computers that don't implement this will be allowed online, but they will have to either be registered or have something like the "evil bit" set on all their packets so that sites (like banks) can refuse connection to them.
Or to put it another way, "past the elbow, you have to give us a kiss first"
The problem is, after some time demands will be made as a requirement of porting software into Linux and soon we'll have this in the Linux kernel.
I don't think there's an answer until the OS itself has a way of preventing cheaters in a trustworthy way. Maybe cloud gaming will solve this, but it isn't solving it yet. Until then, I don't blame Riot or anyone for aggressive anti-cheat practices. They're protecting their community and their business.
If you haven't, give it a try (free): https://stadia.google.com/games/destiny-2
The edge is going to eventually get so close that no one is going to care. As a person who enjoys competitive gaming, I would be more than happy to surrender local simulation for a guarantee that no one has access to more information than I do.
The path Riot has taken is never going to work. The most devastating user experiences are going to hide in the shadows of "world's best antihacks". The best hackers will continue to be undetectable because they use other external computers and low-level hardware magic that doesnt give a shit about TPM or other measures. All someone really needs to do is break whatever encryption exists on the network stack to gain access to 100% of the available information regarding other participants.
The only solution is restricting the theoretical information at the source. Nothing else could ever be trusted by any participant.
No one who cares about actions-per-second or reaction times is ever going to seriously use Stadia.
Now is there a market for more casual users who don't care about that, want to play games and don't want to have their own hardware? Maybe? But I'm not seeing any evidence it's anything more than a niche.
You could probably play Civilization that way. FPSs? MOBAs? Not so much.
>If you haven't, give it a try (free): https://stadia.google.com/games/destiny-2
Perhaps you should also mention you work for Google.
It would be hypocritical of me to not do as I ask of others, so for the record: I'm a self-employed programming consultant.