this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024

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398

Apex Legends is taking away its support for the Steam Deck and Linux (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

How much fucking harder/extra work is it to maintain a Linux version of something? God damn, I don't even really use Linux outside of servers and I still think it's bullshit how little support it gets because it's like a Catch 22. Nobody works on it because nobody uses it; but nobody uses it because nobody works on it! (For gaming, anyway)

It's amazing how much actual change this one piece of hardware has done to bolster Linux's share of things, but it's still also just kind of a drop in the bucket.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Ohh my god true, these companies are massive but man for a while many games are windows first.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

One of the few ea games I played,what a shame ig my luck truly died down.
Edit after reading the article it's that same excuse, too muc hakers,dude isnt your game full of hackers wayy before linux users.(I wrote it like that to make fun of companies that say linux is a way for hackers)
But this is the time to quit all greedy companies.
Edit 2 this article is actually written poorly,it isn't a emulator it's a compatability layer.

[–] [email protected] 223 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Frrr,my opinion these companies should balance os compatability with combating hackers, but greed will always get them.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (28 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because the actual calculations aren’t done by the client but the server, or they should be

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Right, but the server is still receiving data from the client. If the client sends a plausible head shot, even though it was actually a miss, how would the server know? You still need client-side "police", AKA anti-cheat software to mitigate a significant type of software-based hacks.

Now that I've typed it out, cops are actually a great analogy to anti-cheat software. Cops play the exact same role. Nobody wants them around until a crime has been committed. Cops/anti-cheat software don't catch everyone, but the threat of being caught mitigates some crime/hacks, and for the cases where criminals/hackers are caught, society/gamers are better off for it.

In closing ACAB - I completely understand why we don't want anti-cheat software on our computers, but there really is no better way; or if there is, I still haven't heard it.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 week ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (17 children)

Your core premise is broken. Relying on trusting anything from a remote client cannot possibly result in a fair game.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Just a reminder you can add a publisher to your steam ignore list such as EA or Ubisoft.

Edit: This video shows how

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4iUUj2Y2MIE

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Fuck EA

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Ik the 2 major games that supports linux is apex(not anymore unfortunately) and i bet overwatch and titanfall will do it next, additional note: dont mind rust not allowing linux I find it fair for the devs,atleast rust gives you a choice of a mac.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 week ago (21 children)

GET THAT REFUND!

NO TUX, NO BUX

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago

Cool, fuck EA.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago

This must be the drastic change to increase monetization they were talking about just yesterday.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago

K bye.

Who am I kidding? I never bothered with that crap.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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?"

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Someone did the math on Twitter.

There is about 2900 Linux gamers playing Apex.

So even if 100% of Linux gamers cheated it could in no way be the majority.

What I think happened is the dev team struggled to solve the problem so they used Linux as a scapegoat when leadership came down on them.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Lame. :/ Guess I'm changing my review then.

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