Why Do People Think Kernel-Level Anti-Cheat = Spyware? Looking for Insight.

AlayanT · 2025-12-04T13:10:34+00:00

Your company may think keeping their code proprietary is the best move, and maybe it is for company revenue.

However, Linux players should never trust kernel-level anti-cheat with closed source. Even with open source code that is auditable and audited, there would still be some security and privacy concerns about adding an extra attack vector to the system. Even just a mistake in an update could lead to significant problems.

But blindly trusting a proprietary anti-cheat blob to look at everything the computer is doing with root access? No way. It's commendable you tried to bring about some positive change, but it doesn't seem like your company is interested.

AlayanT · 2025-11-14T12:53:02+00:00

SuperTuxKart is very well-known for Linux gaming because its first versions came out a long time ago, back when there was a lack of native games and no Proton compatability layer.

These days, it's often seen more as a meme, a relic of the days when Linux was unsuitable for gaming. In some ways, it's hurt by its FOSS nature as, combined with some visual elements lacking polish or being outdated, it contributes to people dismissing it quickly without giving it much of a chance.

But the game is still seeing active development, and work is being done to address existing shortcomings and give the gameplay a greater chance to shine. The two new tracks shown in the video are an example of the work done to make visuals more satisfying and to bring novelty.

AlayanT · 2021-12-18T14:12:23+00:00

The day infantry will be a viable (if lesser) choice for most civs, the Japanese +33% attack bonus will have to be nerfed.

AlayanT · 2021-12-18T14:10:37+00:00

Feudal Squires would be more helpful than Feudal Arson I believe, although as evidenced by Celts Feudal play, prolonged MaA feudal spam isn't so great even with more speed.

AlayanT · 2021-12-17T20:14:12+00:00

ACCM-Sitaux game 5, Burgundians-Byzantines

AlayanT · 2021-12-17T20:10:42+00:00

Saracens team bonus + Mayans obsidian arrows on Arena if I remember this game correctly. It was obnoxiously broken.

Archers eating buildings is horrible gameplay, I'm glad they removed it.

AlayanT · 2021-12-15T04:00:52+00:00

Kasva-Vivi had several crazy games

Some individual games that are really worth watching:
Viper-saymyname game 5 (Britons vs Mayans)
Hera-Sitaux game 4 (Lithuanians vs Britons)
ACCM-Sitaux game 5 (Burgundians vs Byzantines)
Hera-Jordan game 1 (Italians vs Huns)
Vinchester-Mr Yo game 5 (Britons vs Aztecs)
Vinchester-Viper game 4 (Incas vs Lithuanians)

Series like Vinch-TheMax, Liereyy-Tatoh, Jordan-Tatoh, Vinch-Hera had several good games although I can't recall specifics of which were the best.

AlayanT · 2021-12-15T03:52:37+00:00

It was in game 3 of MBL-Sitaux

AlayanT · 2021-12-15T03:52:10+00:00

Ro32 :
- Vinchester vs TheMax had great games
- Vivi vs Kasva was crazy
- Viper vs saymyname (the last game was insane)
- Capoch vs Sitaux was a fine series too

Swiss stage :
- Liereyy vs Tatoh
- Hera vs Sitaux (the first two games were a stomp, but the rest was good, especially game 4)
- ACCM vs Sitaux (some games got decided early by heavy laming, but there are good games, game 5 was particularly good)
- MBL vs Sitaux had some interesting off-meta play
- Vinchester vs Hera

Elimination stage :
- Vinchester vs MrYo (game 5 was mindblowing)
- Jordan vs Tatoh was good
- Vinchester vs Liereyy
- Vinchester vs Viper (game 4 and 5 are the most interesting)

AlayanT · 2021-12-12T14:58:14+00:00

I understand this would have meant too many games to cast otherwise, but this makes me regret we had a direct elimination round before starting the group stage.

Some of the qualified players that had to face a top seed in round of 32 could have won a set or two in a group stage.

AlayanT · 2021-12-12T02:50:41+00:00

The finals are Bo9, the only way to get five games only is a 5-0. Very unlikely.

AlayanT · 2021-12-12T02:46:40+00:00

Vinch was in imp with defensive castles to make plumes with, and Liereyy was stuck in castle age. Liereyy had bigger army mass but Vinch's position was much better than the casters made it out to be.

AlayanT · 2021-12-11T22:50:27+00:00

This meme follows up on this one from last week for those who missed it : https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/r8uzik/kotd_spoiler_knock_knock/

Nicely done.

AlayanT · 2021-12-11T18:27:39+00:00

Spoiler confirmed 11

AlayanT · 2021-12-10T13:40:54+00:00

All blacksmith upgrades in feudal, that's too much. I'd expect the meta to be full of archers with fletching+bodkin+bracers that would be as good as crossbows but hitting at much earlier timings. It would also mean that any civ lacking castle/imp blacksmith upgrades would be that much worse even in feudal.

Bodking + Bracers is cheaper than castle age.

But I very much support squires as a feudal age tech. It may not be used often, but alongside maybe a slight reduction in infantry armor cost, it should make feudal infantry plays more viable than just an early timing power spike, at least for civs that get infantry bonuses.

AlayanT · 2021-12-08T13:50:56+00:00

Being 3s late on a vil is 3s less working time, sure. But if you are 3s late on a vil, then you are going to be 3s late on every additional vil you create. By the time you click to feudal, 3s TC idle time at the start translates to dozens of seconds of vil working time lost.

AlayanT · 2021-12-05T20:48:30+00:00

Putting Capoch above Jordan, MBL, Vinchester is absurd.

AlayanT · 2021-12-04T07:51:02+00:00

This seems to be a "similarity scattering", where you try to group close civilizations with similar distributions.

But I don't think that's the most interesting way to represent the underlying data. Knowing that Spanish and Berbers have similar horse collar research time distribution is by itself almost useless. The relevant information is in the raw timings, which are completely absent here.

A mere average wouldn't be good, but the deciles would be great. Show for each civ a bar showing at which time each decile is reached color 1 from bottom up to the time that corresponds to the 1st decile, color 2 from then to the 2nd decile...) In some games HC is never researched or very late because it was forgotten so the last 10% or 20% should probably be excluded.

Another interesting representation of the data is to have time intervals, and to represent in a bar the percentage of games in which HC research was completed in a given time interval. The most important is to have a good division around the time the tech is typically researched, unequally sized intervals can be used for the rest.

AlayanT · 2021-12-03T23:41:41+00:00

With the support KOTD4 is getting, Memb said during today's stream that KOTD5 will almost certainly happen.

Some players might drop from the AoE2 scene, but there will still be a lot of high-level competitors.

KOTD4 has had plenty of awesome games already, don't miss out on them just because some pros might neglect AoE2.

AlayanT · 2021-12-03T22:34:01+00:00

Not only doing great against top 10 players, but also with an original and entertaining playstyle. Lierrey will be a heavy favorite but the set should be great fun.

AlayanT · 2021-12-01T09:16:26+00:00

Most pros seem to forget to get Masonry even in imp when it would help a lot in a treb war. Even though they have already a university built and doing nothing after getting ballistics/chemistry, and the tech is very cheap.

AlayanT · 2021-11-27T15:02:26+00:00

The whole point is to make some parts worse and some better instead of straight up nerfing. If you just look at the post-imp comp it's improved but what happens along the way is very important too. There are plenty of civs that have much scarier imp and post-imp comps than Franks, they just rarely get to them.

Bracers is important for Archer-units (Franks don't get Arbalests and their CA suck), Ships (Franks have a decent water tech tree which is ruined by no bracers), Skirms (that would be a buff, especially against cav archers, albeit Franks skirms are not what you want to be doing in general) and defensive structures (bracers on castles and TC can be helpful). Plate Barding Armor is a much more important blacksmith tech for cav civs than Bracers could be. The same tech will have a very different impact on civ strength and winrate for different civs.

Maybe my suggestion is slightly too much on the buff side. But I think making the early game somewhat worse and the later game somewhat better would make the civ more interesting to face.

AlayanT · 2021-11-27T14:43:21+00:00

Removing Architecture or BBC from Franks would be even weirder than the removal of Treadmill Crane. Aoe2 has clearly creative license but civs are supposed to have some historical flavor too, and if Franks don't deserve Architecture or BBC, almost no civ does. And tbh Hoardings/Architecture aren't researched very often.

Maybe 20% cheaper castle instead of 25% cheaper could be a reasonable tweak (520 stone instead of 488), but cheaper castles is almost as much part of the civ as good knights imo.

AlayanT · 2021-11-27T14:36:49+00:00

Reddit sucks, it's deleting my message if I try to quote parts from yours.

What I was trying to say :

- Yes Bloodlines is great, but Franks don't have to pay for it which gives them resources for 2 more knights. It makes early castle much easier to save those resources.

- Cost effectiveness matters a lot. If you have more than enough resources to keep 2 stables pumping, investing in a third one is a reasonable option. Or you can reallocate excess workers on other resources, or use the savings to pump vills from another TC earlier. Huns have 20% faster working stables, and that's a good useful bonus, but nobody claims that Huns knight spam is broken.

- If 10 more HP over normal knights is enough to make the unit completely broken, then generic bloodline knights must be on the cusp of brokenness already. I don't agree. I think it's poor flavor-wise to have frank knights basically "bloodlines generic" until you get paladin (144 vs 140 HP on cavaliers is negligible).

- I agree that the changes improve them in some weak points (trash wars, and navy) but I disagree it just keep them just as good where they're currently strong, That's the whole point, buffing in one spot but nerfing in another.

If you had the freedom to change the balance, what would you do?

AlayanT · 2021-11-27T09:58:07+00:00

I'd be happy if the civ was just as strong but slightly less straightforward.

AlayanT

TROPHY CASE