Just like what happened with Darwin Project only recently, it seems Paladins is no longer playable on Linux with Steam Play.
Late last month, I wrote an article and made a video showing off just how well Paladins was working on Linux thanks to Steam Play. Here we are again, only a couple weeks later and it's now a complete dud, with it almost instantly kicking me (and confirmed by others) out of games. You might get in for a few seconds, but with 100% reproduction it will kick you pretty quickly back to the main menu.
Back when previously writing about such an issue, I did make it clear with a note about how "with multiplayer titles and Steam Play there's nothing stopping the developer adjusting their anti-cheat which could end up locking-out Linux gamers".
It's a real shame, as both myself and my Son enjoyed playing Paladins and apart from a few issues which were also present on Windows, it worked beautifully with some really great performance.
While Steam Play has opened the door to a lot of titles not officially available on Linux, it's not quite the answer to everything as some like to repeatedly claim. This is obviously going to be a repeating problem with multiplayer games, so for now, I would honestly just keep away from any game using Easy Anti-Cheat with Steam Play. I will repeat what I said when I spoke about Darwin Project, I think Valve should really note on store pages what anti-cheat systems are used to help gamers make informed decisions.
What will be interesting, is that Valve said they will be rolling out "Steam Trust" in their post about some changes coming to Steam. Perhaps if more developers use Valve's own tools when they're available, this might not be such an issue since you would expect Valve's own tools to work with Steam Play.
I've reached out to Easy Anti-Cheat, again, to see if they would like a constructive chat about it. They didn't reply last time, so hopefully they will this time.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
salamanderrake Feb 9, 2019
Quoting: Alm888Who cares about yet another Windows game not running on Linux? As if it is the only one…
By now we are basically swimming in good native games, so why bother spending your time on some Windows title which developers don't even care about Linux?
What hero shooters are there with native Linux support?
Quoting: KimyrielleOn-topic: While I can understand the need to combat cheaters, I never felt comfortable installing intrusive Anti-cheat software. I wish game devs came up with intelligent methods to detect cheating -behaviour- instead of the tools used to make it possible. Ideally, games should be designed from the ground up to make cheating impossible, so that EAC and Co wouldn't be needed. Security as an afterthought (and that's what Anti-Cheat software is) has never worked well anywhere.
I'm pretty sure that game devs would prefer this too, but I guess it is not that easy without locking down your whole system like on a dedicated gaming console.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm also not a fan of these solutions and refrain from using them. (Fortunately for me I'm more of a single player type thus this wont hit me. Though I understand the need for this in multiplayer games, people _will_ cheat and destroy the experience for honest players.
Last edited by jens on 10 February 2019 at 12:43 pm UTC
Quoting: Alm888Who cares about yet another Windows game not running on Linux? As if it is the only one…Appeal to popularity is a logic pitfall if the argument is about quality. If the argument is about relevance to advancement of Linux as a gaming platform for the masses, then whether things the masses want to play run on it is absolutely a logical question.
By now we are basically swimming in good native games, so why bother spending your time on some Windows title which developers don't even care about Linux?
P.S. And the "But… But… But it is sooooo popular with my classmates!!!" argument is just lame. As it was stated before, "Appeal to Popularity" is a common logic pitfall.
P.P.S. I know I'm also using a logic trick, basically "I personally do not care so every one else should not care" statement thinly veiled as a question. But it is no worse than "Many people care so you also should care" approach. :)
Quoting: KimyrielleLast time I checked, the number of big-budget games on Linux was not really stunning, and we seem to get LESS these days than 2-3 years back. Some genres are still missing completely (the number of good MMORPGs having a native client is still zero).What about the number of true Scotsmen? :P
Not that I disagree with your point.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 9 February 2019 at 11:14 pm UTC
Quoting: salamanderrakeIts strange as there are games EAC that work on linux natively that they wouldn't actually try to get it working with proton, but who knows, developers are sometimes funny and believe that its easier to cheat on Linux then on windows, except that 90% if not all of the cheating software only runs on windows.Heh. One category we don't mind missing out on. But it probably runs on Wine . . .
Last edited by Linuxwarper on 9 February 2019 at 11:33 pm UTC
Quoting: Alm888P.P.S. I know I'm also using a logic trick, basically "I personally do not care so every one else should not care" statement thinly veiled as a question. But it is no worse than "Many people care so you also should care" approach. :)
I think the reality here is neither. It would be better described as "there were a lot of people playing this game on linux, and THEY care".
The original statement was that nobody cares. While in fact, some do. Whether you care or not is ofc completely up to yourself. But those that care, exist. So they're not nobody.
Quoting: monnefI think the company is shooting itself in the foot. While count of Linux players is not high, they still bring money (by some statistics much more per player than Windows users). I think Blizzard had some issues with WoW and OW, yet they managed to update their anti-cheat to work with Wine.
Linux has some selection of games, but some genres are under-represented and many genre leaders are not on Linux at all. For example Overwatch - there isn't many similar games at all, so you can't really find an alternative even on Windows. I did try Paladins for like 20 hours and Smite for many more (hundred at least). But Paladins seemed to be quite bland to me, majority of characters not really that interesting, some felt unfinished (probably b/c animations?) and their looks not matching, overall it felt quite rubber-bandy compared to OW (maybe an issue with EU servers?). Smite, well, only game mode I was interested in playing (arena?) was not supported by developers even though it was most popular one, so I left after some time (had some fun for free, can't complain).
To the security of games being afterthought, well, maybe, but if constructing special client and mainly server costs times more (if possible at all), then it is logical to make a game with checking main cheating tools rather than investing to development of new tech costing tons of money and in the end players not seeing anything for higher price of a game (which is purely hypothetical, since gamers are not willing to pay more, so publishers would have to cut it from their money). I think vast majority of people are severly underestimating how difficult is to build a fast multiplayer action game and what hoops have to jumped through for it to feel good = responsive, you can't trade game performance for "proper" security, because who would want to pay for old-looking game with simple mechanics? I was quite stunned by all the stuff what is going on under the hood, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3aieHjyNvw.
You've been playing Smite on Linux? How did you manage that? I've never been able to, because ironically the anti-cheat always screwed me over. FML.
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