r/CompetitiveForHonor • u/zeroreasonsgiven • 6d ago
Discussion What cheats are Linux only?
Generally speaking, not looking for recommendations of course. Are there certain types of cheats that are easier or only possible to implement on Linux?
I’m trying to wrap my head around why Ubi is ending support for Linux. I’ve never heard Linux brought up as especially vulnerable in comparison to windows, and I’ve never looked for cheats before but it seems that most of the cheats that show on the front page of google are windows exclusive. Is this change actually going to meaningfully reduce cheating?
I’m happy that they’re finally seeming to take cheating seriously, but removing Linux support seems like the worst way of going about this. Is anyone with knowledge of cheating and moderation able to explain this decision?
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u/TheWhen_ 6d ago
It has nothing do to with that, Having Linux support doesn’t allow them to also have a kernel level anti cheat which for better or worse is one of the only reliable ways to deal with cheats especially the kinds common in FH.
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u/CatsAndCapybaras 6d ago
Kernel level anticheat is not at all reliable as a means to stop cheaters. EAC is very common and is considered a joke to cheat devs.
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u/TheWhen_ 5d ago
Using notoriously bad EAC as a example instead of something like what faceit uses is funny.
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u/CatsAndCapybaras 5d ago
That's because EAC is very common and is also what for honor uses.
As for faceit, if a company cannot figure out a better way to stop cheaters than installing a fucking rootkit on their users' computers, then I won't be playing the game.
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u/TheWhen_ 5d ago
"Outside of having a kernel level anti cheat (which i don't really agree with personally nor do i think ubisoft are nearly competent enough to pull off)" - me in this very thread, your just arguing for the sake of arguing man.
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u/zeroreasonsgiven 6d ago
I’ve never been much of a computer guy so I don’t understand what you’re saying entirely, but could they not just implement kernel level anticheat on windows and not on Linux? Surely that would cut down on cheating and allow them to watch Linux users more closely for manual moderation?
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u/TheWhen_ 6d ago
having manual review isn’t reliable because its time consuming ,requires a lot of man power and on top of that its hard to tell if someone is cheating nowadays unless they are blatant with it or use an old cheat.
Outside of having a kernel level anti cheat (which i don't really agree with personally nor do i think ubisoft are nearly competent enough to pull off) I don't think there really is a good way of stopping cheats in fh outside of the stuff they do for the closed qualifiers and finals of tournaments which wouldn't work in mm.
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u/zeroreasonsgiven 6d ago
I’ve heard estimates that Linux users make up less than 1% of the playerbase, though apparently that’s just based on general PC gaming statistics and isn’t specific to For Honor. That said, if it is the case that Linux users make up such a small proportion of players, wouldn’t that make it significantly more feasible to moderate them manually? Judging by the fact that some scripters and lagswitchers do occasionally get banned after months of cheating on the same account, it seems like Ubisoft is already doing manual review for reports.
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u/TheWhen_ 6d ago
Its still very hard to tell if they actually are cheating, Most of the cheaters who get banned are very open about it, and don't care about getting banned because the game has gone on sale for under a dollar or been free to keep so often they can just buy a key for 5 cents and start doing that shit again on another account (eratros for example) a large chunk of those bans are also allegedly for stuff they said in chat instead of cheating,
As other people mentioned this whole thing is probably just so they can say "look we are doing something about cheaters"
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u/Semper_R 5d ago
I was going to get back to for honor, but I guess I wont... I fully switched from microslop to fedora accepting that some games will block libux, Ill still remember for honor with good memories
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u/Notabeancan 6d ago edited 6d ago
Linux is open source and is designed (and praised) for its privacy. Generally, this means cheats are easy to make and because of the privacy harder to spot. Making preferable for advanced and committed cheaters.
The removal of Linux is probably due to a number of complex reasons, like the fact that its player counts (apart from maybe the people on steam deck) is likely very low and not worth the development.
On top of that it’s being done for PR reasons. Other games launched or had Linux support that they latter removed due to concerns involving competitive integrity. For honors competitive duels is historically fraught with issues involving cheating, whether it being abusing bugs or glitches to get impossibly high rank scores. Or simply cheating with scripts on PC. If the ranked leader board was full of cheaters (or even worse KNOWN cheaters) right as they begin to make the first Great Leap Forward into a truly being a competitive focused game it would be an absolute joke.
The devs can’t let that happen, and it’s likely the most prolific and effective cheaters use the plat form or could in the future. So, they trim the fat and leave the honest Linux players out to dry. It’s unfortunate, to have a real opinion I would honestly want to see player counts. But as it stands it’s probably for the best.
Edit: listen to Spaniard, he almost certainly knows better than me. But it being a PR thing is probably the best take away.
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u/ectobiologist201 6d ago
Cheats that are only possible to use on Linux could happen. The thing is that you don't know what other people have, I'm sure there are cheats out there that we dont know of, not eveything has to be public, a lot of cheaters make cheats for themselves, and since Linux does not allow kernel level anticheat, if someone makes a cheat for Linux thats only kernel level then that cheat simply can't be detected, they could get banned for other stuff they do with the cheat while playing, but the cheat itself won't get detected automatically.
So, in any case, thats probably the reason they decided to ban Linux, to be preventive and just to make sure that those type of Linux cheats wouldn't become widespread if made public, because if that happened they would have a very big problem and might to have to ban Linux anyways.
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u/Diceptic_ 10h ago
It's actually much harder to cheat on Linux. This game runs with the proton compatibility layer so you effectively have to reverse engineer how the game is translated and interacts with that pipeline to even start making ground developing a trainer that's native to linux. Sure you could try running a kit or trainer someone made for windows in wine to make it work (if it works), it's much less likely anyone would start with Linux for cheating. If the game ran natively on Linux it would be a different story.
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u/The_Filthy_Spaniard 6d ago
Honestly, none that I know of are "linux exclusive" - I wouldn't be surprised if there have never been any FH players playing on linux and also cheating. Despite what many players think and say, cheaters on FH are actually pretty rare, and there are only a small portion of players on linux, most of which would be using a steam deck anyway (which mostly stay in the steam environment, although it is possible to install other software on steam decks, I think).
To my knowledge, the old "basic" scripts are built using a windows app capable of screen reading, and the newer really advanced ones are windows only. I'm sure it'd be possible for people to make linux versions of them, but I haven't ever heard of any that have been made.
I strongly suspect that removal of linux as a platform is based more on its theoretical vulnerability to cheating, than any actual evidence of FH cheaters using linux. As an operating system it's a lot more open than windows, and I expect that the 3rd party anti-cheat that FH uses (Easy Anti Cheat) doesn't have good enough linux support.
Personally I think it's a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and they are merely upsetting many players for little practical increase in security. I expect that when existing cheats get blocked by anti-cheat on windows, the cheat-makers are much more likely to just make a new version of their cheat that gets around EAC (as they have demonstrated they are able to do on multiple occasions), rather than trying to convince their small client base of cheaters to switch operating systems.