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PayPalBattleBit Remastered is the current game climbing the ranks on Steam, made by a tiny team of only 3 people it has regularly seen tens of thousands of players. It works on Steam Deck and desktop Linux but the anti-cheat may turn into a big problem.
It's been seeing somewhere between 60 to 80 thousand people playing it each day at the same time, making it constantly in the top 5 most played games on Steam. Clearly people were after a Battlefield-like that isn't from EA and with the graphical style, it can run on pretty much anything.
Currently it uses Easy Anti-Cheat, but they previously announced plans to switch to FACEIT, which would break it on Steam Deck and Linux desktop with Proton. On the Steam forum, one of their team noted that's not quite the plan now, as they're going to look for something "in between EAC and FACEIT Anti Cheat in terms of requirements" - so it could still end up being something that doesn't work on Linux.
To make things more confusing, I spoke to the developer today and they said "Despite we have intentions to switch to FACEIT, we will keep the EAC as an option and still have servers that support EAC." — so they actually are still looking at FACEIT which will be a problem. Although keeping EAC will be good for Steam Deck / Linux, it may cause other problems. Using multiple anti-cheat may not be an easy thing to keep up for a tiny team.
So if you're looking at picking it up, just something to keep in mind.
See my video talking about it below:
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Direct Link
You can buy it on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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14 comments
Doesn't matter what anti-cheat they use, they are incredibly easy to defeat if you k ow what you are doing. And so long as the player resists making it blatantly obvious to see theyare cheating, cheat will work.
This is disappointing to hear. Why the heck are they changing?
This is disappointing to hear. Why the heck are they changing?
3 Likes, Who?
I'm not familiar at all with FaceIT Anticheat. (I don't play a lot of competitive FPS) But if EAC is already working I wonder why they're bothering to change it?
3 Likes, Who?
I wanted to try this game too, but your news regarding possible anticheat change seems a bit concerning...
I'll probably wait until they sort this out.
I'll probably wait until they sort this out.
3 Likes, Who?
FaceIT, we're screwed.I see what you did there
Last edited by BlackBloodRum on 3 July 2023 at 4:34 pm UTC
5 Likes, Who?
EagleDelta Jul 3, 2023
I'm not familiar at all with FaceIT Anticheat. (I don't play a lot of competitive FPS) But if EAC is already working I wonder why they're bothering to change it?
FaceIT is used for highly competitive games. I haven't seen it integrated by developers, usually used by private servers and eSports events. But not a fan of FaceIT though. Not only is it a kernel level AC, they also require you to disable certain admin level Windows OS features just to use it because those features tend to block FaceIT.
3 Likes, Who?
Wow, heading into rootkit territory.I'm not familiar at all with FaceIT Anticheat. (I don't play a lot of competitive FPS) But if EAC is already working I wonder why they're bothering to change it?
FaceIT is used for highly competitive games. I haven't seen it integrated by developers, usually used by private servers and eSports events. But not a fan of FaceIT though. Not only is it a kernel level AC, they also require you to disable certain admin level Windows OS features just to use it because those features tend to block FaceIT.
4 Likes, Who?
Mountain Man Jul 3, 2023
I'm not familiar at all with FaceIT Anticheat. (I don't play a lot of competitive FPS) But if EAC is already working I wonder why they're bothering to change it?
FaceIT is used for highly competitive games. I haven't seen it integrated by developers, usually used by private servers and eSports events. But not a fan of FaceIT though. Not only is it a kernel level AC, they also require you to disable certain admin level Windows OS features just to use it because those features tend to block FaceIT.
So it's essentially malware.
3 Likes, Who?
Wow... somehow it feels like that level of invasiveness is not what a tiny game dev team of 3 should be looking into for a 3rd-party off-shelf solution for AC
3 Likes, Who?
It's very likely going through considering the community is extremely hostile towards Linux users. Brought it up as one of 5 points on a negative steam reward and got 100 jester awards, got called a schizo, and had literally hundreds of people telling me to "use a working os".
4 Likes, Who?
Anti-cheat is generally so ineffective that I just don't play competitive games any more. You still occasionally see cheating in co-op games, but it's quite rare, at least compared to competitive. Cheating is so prevalent on every competitive game I've played that I've completely lost interest in it.
PvE all the way for me now.
PvE all the way for me now.
6 Likes, Who?
The anticheat situation is exactly why I haven't played this supposedly good game
0 Likes
I've really enjoyed the 20 hours or so during the test-runs before it came out in Early Access, but while I was ready to shove some money towards them, just after release I found out about this and I had to step back. - It's really unfortunate, cause this is one of the first multiplayer military-style shooters I've been interested in since years. I mean, I came from games like "Joint Operations", "BF2", "BF2142", and some other games from around that time, but lost interest as everything became "Modern Warfare" from 2007 onward, and this game is more of a throwback to before that time.
But since I permanently switched to Linux this year, it's a terrible situation for me, because I can't be sure if a product that I paid for would be supported for long enough. - And that for a product that should be easy to run and get into, as well as on a platform that's all about support of different platforms that Valve has been working for, with the push for Linux or at least Proton and all that.
And how does this work legally?... I mean, they've actually released a product that could potentially stop working after two weeks of purchasing, and it's very likely that someone will have played for many hours at that point. - What is Steam-support gonna say? - "Too bad!" or what?...
I feel like Steam as a platform should change their policy on games that don't work in one way or another. Like I'm of the opinion that 'CyberPunk 2077' should've been forced to use the Early Access label for the last two years (cause it's just accurate), and in this case, there should at least be a big fat warning that Linux might not be supported eventually, but there's no such thing.
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“Our plan is to remain in early access likely for two years, giving us sufficient time to refine our product based on user feedback. This duration isn't fixed but is a projection of the time we believe will allow us to deliver a high-quality, user-centric product.”
We will see...
I feel like I should just forget about this game, at least for now, and see what they do and how it turns out during Early Access. - Heck, by the time I might look into it again, it might show up in Humble Choice or something.
But since I permanently switched to Linux this year, it's a terrible situation for me, because I can't be sure if a product that I paid for would be supported for long enough. - And that for a product that should be easy to run and get into, as well as on a platform that's all about support of different platforms that Valve has been working for, with the push for Linux or at least Proton and all that.
And how does this work legally?... I mean, they've actually released a product that could potentially stop working after two weeks of purchasing, and it's very likely that someone will have played for many hours at that point. - What is Steam-support gonna say? - "Too bad!" or what?...
I feel like Steam as a platform should change their policy on games that don't work in one way or another. Like I'm of the opinion that 'CyberPunk 2077' should've been forced to use the Early Access label for the last two years (cause it's just accurate), and in this case, there should at least be a big fat warning that Linux might not be supported eventually, but there's no such thing.
Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?
“Our plan is to remain in early access likely for two years, giving us sufficient time to refine our product based on user feedback. This duration isn't fixed but is a projection of the time we believe will allow us to deliver a high-quality, user-centric product.”
We will see...
I feel like I should just forget about this game, at least for now, and see what they do and how it turns out during Early Access. - Heck, by the time I might look into it again, it might show up in Humble Choice or something.
0 Likes
Anti-cheat is generally so ineffective that I just don't play competitive games any more. You still occasionally see cheating in co-op games, but it's quite rare, at least compared to competitive. Cheating is so prevalent on every competitive game I've played that I've completely lost interest in it.
PvE all the way for me now.
Today i think just like you
When I was younger I always played pvp games and over the years I got tired of cheaters and I understood that the fun is with them and you take the hassle and defeat
I see anti cheat as just an obstacle for those who use linux and want to play online pvp and it doesn't even do what it should do: keep games free of cheaters
I think when you get older you understand this and stop playing pvp games even on windows and prefer good pve games
2 Likes, Who?
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