nProtect Information Please

[Le Phrog]

I got the game, Haven't downloaded or played it yet because I caught wind of suspicions around the Anti-Cheat, and I have two weeks left to refund it.

I seemingly cannot find any unbiased information about this Anti-Cheat; people are either claiming that its totally fine and everyone is unjustly paranoid, while others are saying it is borderline malware and spyware.

I'm aware of what many have claimed it does - and if anyone could point me to a trustworthy source for any of this then that would be very much appreciated.

Considering this is a case of 'should I refund or not?' I am asking if it is worth refunding the game over nProtect or not. I'm not concerned with the merits of the game itself, just if nProtect is truly worth avoiding the game over.

[Khuros]

Would you make this post on a game with EAC or Battleeye? No? Then why now? They both work in the same exact way.

[Terotrous]

My program "Tero's random process terminator" also functions similarly to Gameguard. Would you run it on your system?

When you're giving administrator control over your PC to a program, where it's from and how well tested it is is very relevant.

[Le Phrog]

Both of you provide compelling points. Khuros. I understand that nProtect has a questionable history, and I had not heard of it before Helldivers 2 because it has only been used on a small pool of games, hence my hesitation.

Equally Terotrous, from what I have gathered nProtect seems to be from a legitimate company with legitimate business interests - alongside the fact that any security concerns would result in heavy backlash against Sony and Arrowhead - surely security and privacy are at least of some concern?

Also it's genuinely very useful having two completely opposing viewpoints, so thank you both.

[Terotrous]

Originally posted by Le Phrog:

Equally Terotrous, from what I have gathered nProtect seems to be from a legitimate company with legitimate business interests - alongside the fact that any security concerns would result in heavy backlash against Sony and Arrowhead - surely security and privacy are at least of some concern?

It is true that certainly INCA (the publisher of Gameguard) is a somewhat well-known company that has been around for a while. However, it's also true that very few Western games use Gameguard, it's near-exclusively used by old Asian MMOs. As such, you can fairly easily make the case that it's not nearly as well-tested as something like EasyAntiCheat, which is used in many big Western games.

And as for backlash? Well, it seems like there's been quite a backlash already, if this forum is any indication. It's pretty clear that this game has had a fair number of crashes and compatibility issues, at least a fair number of which probably are linked to Gameguard.

[Le Phrog]

Having done a little more reading I think I agree. While it may not be the Boogeyman some people would like it to be I am still uncomfortable with having it on my computer.

That being said it really is a shame (and extremely confusing) that they chose this anti-cheat of all possible options.

I've already submitted a refund request and will probably purchase the game if they change out the anti-cheat, hopefully the petition that was made a few days ago causes Arrowhead to switch nProtect out for something safer and more reputable.

Thank you Terotrous and Khuros.

[Glue Eating Adventure]

Something with this level of access needs testing to assure people that this stuff is safe and have confidence in the publisher. Nprotect has a history of zero day exploits, and causing system issues. It's up to the Helldivers' devs to ensure they've including something that's actually safe in the product they're shipping.

The devs for helldivers keep doubling down on the narrative that it CANNOT do anything, and making provably incorrect statements about what the anti-cheat does and affects. It blows any confidence for it out of the water. There's large questions about the safety and impacts of nprotect, and the helldivers devs are blowing huge amounts of goodwill by refusing to even approach the conversation.

Not to speak of it not even achieving the basic goal it was added for. Nprotect was supposed to make it hard for cheaters, the game was cracked open day one anyway. There's no other reason that the devs have fronted up for including nprotect.

The backlash you're seeing are a combination of unaddressed concerns being hand waved with blatant lying for a product that doesn't even work.

[MediocrePigeon]

Tons of people are unable to even launch the game because of the anti cheat. I am being 100% serious it would not startup for anyone in western Australia. Then there's error 114 which seems to be completely random with fixes either not working or only being temporary. Frankly I couldn't care less about what access the anti cheat has, my main concern is that thousands of people are unable to even start the game and the only dev response so far has been, "Yeah it does that lol, don't worry we're totally working it out with the company. BTW we have no intention of switching anytime soon. :)"

[dok]

Originally posted by Khuros:

Would you make this post on a game with EAC or Battleeye? No? Then why now? They both work in the same exact way.

Yeah, just generalize and ignore all the points people make why this specific anti-cheat has been one of the worst for the past 20 years.

[★ ace ★]

seems to work fine for me

[Yew Nough]

I'm running it on my steam deck: A FAQ page of the anti-cheat opens everytime I start the game (I don't think GG works correctly on linux?).

Considering it fires up at launch: It may be the reason for all launch-related issues (and potentially others).

[★ ace ★]

[HeviSevi]

Originally posted by ★ ace ★:

seems to work fine for me :cupup:

That does not mean it works fine for others.

[★ ace ★]

it worked for me in windows 10 and 11, i had an issue with the black screen but fixed it with alt+enter and simply waiting for the game to initialize, took like five minutes but after that the "black screen" hasn't been an issue, match making is a mess but that's excusable, networking isn't easy even with cloud-based solutions

[Saul]

3 hours after installing gameguard (with the game), a mid-game hard system crash killed two separate SSDs. Both drives with zero errors, less than two years old. I struggle to imagine the game itself causing that kind of damage, but something about it is damaging hardware. There are several posts on hardware issues in the last day or so alone here on steam. Is it gameguard? It's one variable for sure.