devtrackers.gg → League of Legends
League of Legends

League of Legends Dev Tracker




All Patch Notes Twitter Reddit
View
View: List Card

11 Apr

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by TheHunterZolomon

Hey you seem like you know what you’re talking about - are keybinds to hardware devices - say binding attack move click to the “A” key, then binding the “A” key to a side mouse button - allowed in league? Sorry to waste your time with a dumb question.

Yeah, remapping like this shouldn't pose any issue that I know of. There are artificial input checks we have in VALORANT that can be blocked, but these aren't applicable to League of Legends, and these remappings aren't "artificial input", just input in a different form.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by Beats29

I believe most people aren't against the Vanguard itself (besides cheaters of course). People just don't like that something has kernel access. This dev blog is ignoring that, unless you really are a cheater you don't have issues with installing an anti-cheat, the issue is just the kernel access. That is a vulnerability to your OS, whatever you guys say.

Unfortunely, I don't believe there are other ways to circumvent this, since my guess is that probably the cheat programs also work through kernel. I must be saying something completly wrong though, since I have no idea if that's the case.

I understand you guys want to ease the playerbase, and you put several statements on the blog about privacy, but you completly ignored the issue about working on kernel level. There may not be other alternatives, but it's a bit depressing that you don't talk about that concern in this dev blog.

Again, I understand probably (?) most cheats work through kernel, I also want a ...

Read more

Hey there,

I think this article we launched around initial Vanguard launch does a pretty good job explaining the exact "why" of kernel mode/Ring 0 driver:

https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-null-anti-cheat-kernel-driver/

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by ranranrandrand1

Global community manager having technical opinions about topics he doesn't understand? What a failure of a response. I would expect nothing better than an immature "bruh"

I just think there are some fundamental differences here in that what works for an MMO versus what works for an FPS or a MOBA. The standards and asks of an anti cheat solution are just vastly different.

Scope of scale is also a factor here with the size of League. Realistically you cannot scale manual detections and enforcement, or automations/detections to counter the scale of the scripting problem for example that League has outside of the kernal level, we've tried. Prevention will ultimately counter the majority of the problem in the long term which is a massive boon that we feel that League needs because we know it works with Valorant.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by TheSoupKitchen

Sounds good to me.

I'm not sure if you have an answer for this, but I assume it's going to be fine on my PC. But it mentions that Windows 11 might have issues with Vanguard, if Vanguard is running on my PC already, I should be fine, right?

This version of Vanguard is just an adaptation for League, so if it's working with Valorant, it theoretically should be okay, even on Windows 11? Or is this windows 11 issue league specific, and I should look into it? (I probably will regardless, I just wasn't sure how similar Vanguard Valo is to Vanguard League, or are they separate entities.

Yep if it already works for you with Valorant then you should have no issues with League once Vanguard is live.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by TheSoupKitchen

I trust it.

I'm curious what you guys think of all the nay-sayers on reddit (and elsewhere) that seem VERY AGAINST Vanguard. I feel like a lot of them are just angry cheaters but that's just my hunch.

I've had Vanguard since Valorant came out, and I have no qualms with it. As long as it behaves and lowers the amount of cheaters in a game I like by 1% I'm happy.

Also please don't stop here. Keep making smurfing/boosting/cheating/botting/account selling go away as much as possible. Competitive integrity in soloqueue has been at an all time low in the last 2-3 years. Thanks.

I think its pretty reasonable for people to have this aversion or skepticism. Some of it I personally think is a little hyperbolic or silly, but that's usually based off of misunderstanding either because of a lack of knowledge or bad faith actors. Even still that's understandable. This is quickly becoming the norm when it comes to modern anti cheat because it kind of has to be in order to be effective, that's just the reality. What worked on a game 10 years ago doesn't cut it anymore and it just does far too much damage to competitive integrity. Our ladders at the moment are compromised and we simply cannot manually keep up or iterate fast enough. That's just the cold hard truth.

People had the same aversion to Valorant and people are voicing the same things we saw then on League today. Majority of players won't and don't care, and while that's convenient for us here, I also don't think that's good. Everyone should approach every bit of software they allow onto their machi...

Read more

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by Turtvaiz

Can you comment on if it blocks AutoHotkey? I've had anti cheats like Faceit block AHK from running, which is pretty annoying due to how much non-game related stuff like mic mute hotkeys I have running with it

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1c1kgrk/dev_vanguard_x_lol/kz4dl39/ K30 says it better here than I'd be able to. hope that answers what you're wonderin.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by Reydude

Hey. Will apps like porofessor still be okay to use? Otherwise, I need to delete it before vanguard goes live. Also, what about AHK? I use it on another game, to overcome difficulties caused by my disability. For league, I don't use AHK, but I modify input.ini or persistedsettings.json file for that reason. Would that be considered 'cheating' by vanguard? Just looking to put some fears down.

Tools that use the API in an authorized way, like Porofessor, will still be ok to use.

Non-malicious usages of AHK should be ok, especially if it's not actively trying to continually interact with League. You should still be able to modify input.ini and persistedsettings.json regardless, though. Let us know if anything doesn't work as intended!

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by Vortexspawn

What about used hardware? Do I now have to be afraid that something I buy used will be banned for League because a cheater used it before?

We have seen players unknowingly buy banned hardware that caused a ban. It is a niche case, but we do handle these escalations in Player Support.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by Tapurisu

So where can I request all of the data that Vanguard has collected about me?

You can follow the procedures here:

https://support-leagueoflegends.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001299888-Requesting-Your-Account-Data

For context on Anti-Cheat and privacy, you can read the Anti-Cheat and Fraud section here: ...

Read more

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by mcworkreddit

Not a great look when a rioter is saying not installing their anti cheat is "based" lmfao

More like it's based to say "I'm skeptical, I'm gonna wait and see", that's a pretty healthy take when it comes to software and the permissions you allow or grant. There's nothing wrong with that. We even say in the article that if Riot hasn't earned your trust then don't install our games.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by LifeIsToughEatBacon

How many clicks to turn it off each time I reboot? Just as a best-practices thing I'm not a huge fan of having 3rd party kernel-level drivers on my PC, so I'll be turning it off whenever I'm not actively playing league.

Right click Vanguard in System Tray

Click Exit Vanguard

Click Yes

Those are the steps to disabling Vanguard when you're not using it. It's intentionally easy to disable (and even Uninstall is virtually the same flow) to help make folks like yourself feel in control of what they're comfortable with.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by BLACKROSESFALL

but is there no way to turn it off whilst you're not playing. i haven't read the article yet, but i am not comfortable having an anti-virus that is enabled at all times for zero reason.

but is there no way to turn it off whilst you're not playing.

You can right click Vanguard in your system tray and select Exit Vanguard.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by _CaptainNoob69

Much appreciated Riot Man! I'm more comfortable playing League with anti-cheat system now and it's even better that I'm afforded some control over Vanguard.

If there's anything you'd recommend we NOT do (aside from straight up cheating) while running League, please also let us know. I assume Vanguard looks at activities while the client/game is running, but sometimes between matches or during queues Id be doing work stuff on another screen. If my work stuff is something that can be captured by Vanguard while the game is running, then yea I'd have to stop doing that.

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to reassure my thoughts on this 🙏

While I'm sure the work you do is cool, unless you're creating cheats, or you're like loading libraries into League or something, Vanguard will be totally disinterested :)

In case you didn't get to the bottom of the article, Phillip touches on what kinds of data Vanguard looks at here:

Riot only collects what we need to run and secure our games. More data is just more risk for us, and we don't want anything except the bare minimum required to get the job done. Locally, Vanguard has system hooks to run its protections, but we're not shipping back your files or documents. Like most anti-malware and anti-cheat systems, we leverage a technique called "Signature Scanning," to determine if a series of bytes in memory matches a known cheating application. The results of these are only true or false (it was present or it wasn't), and we try to use this pattern for other checks too. Things like, "are you currently using a DMA device" or "did an application just...

Read more

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by FilthySionMain

Will a TFT auto-clicker be detectable by Vanguard? It doesn't affect competitive integrity, but I've always seen it as a somewhat unfair way to complete the event pass.

I personally know a group of friends who boot up an Android emulator and play TFT on a script 24 hours a day when a new event pass arrives.

We've already done some actioning on TFT bots, and Vanguard will further help with prevention and detection of those. They are prohibited under section 7.10 of the Terms of Use, and while they're not as painful to players as other bots because it can be inflationary towards top 4 finishes, they still do affect competitive integrity and the actual fun of the game.

...

Read more

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by Bornfighter

Don't let this post brainwash you into thinking that giving Riot access to your kernel makes the game "safer".

If WoW never needed kernel level access for bots, why does Riot?

As someone that once worked on WoW and is intimately aware of the botting problem that game has even with the Anti Cheat tools it has. I say with the upmost respect and confusion: bruh

In case you read this RISK team, hi, love you all. Keep killing it, yall are badasses.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by FairlyOddParent734

My only real question is what’s the plan like if an automatic detection system sees me playing on my brothers computer while I’m visiting him, or playing my account on a friend’s laptops and we both catch bans for account sharing?

Account Sharing is already against TOS; but there are plenty of like PC Cafes or valid reasons two people might play off a single computer; but it sounds like with Vanguard you’re going to be much more aggressive in using hardware ID’s to moderate player behavior.

We have an allowlisting system for PC Cafes, and also review tickets for players who state they may have gotten banned by one that could have not been on the list.

In terms of using your brothers computer that would be infected by cheats, it is a risk. We do look to have our Hardware bans be preventative rather than immediately banning the account, but if you were to play on it while cheats were injected, that could cause your account to be banned.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by LifeIsToughEatBacon

So will this startup by default every time I restart my PC? Or will I have to turn it on, switch something on, and then restart?

After installing, any time you reboot your PC it'll just boot alongside it, no extra steps needed unless you want to turn it off or uninstall.

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by PyrrhaFan

Okay, I'm a boomer with boomer eyes and lose track of my mouse easily when I play the game, especially during team fights. I have been using YoloMouse from the Steam Store (yes, that's its name) that uses a custom mouse cursor to be bigger and, most importantly, set to a brighter color when playing.

Will running the program possibly trip Vanguard?

The dev of Yolomouse has stated it's working in VALORANT in their testing. It should be ok. This isn't something we'd look to ban for its current implementation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/yolomouse/comments/190g3cf/yolomouse_180/kixyeei/

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by small_toe

Just because I’m curious, is there a specific reasoning for it always booting and there not being an optional toggle?

E.g. I’m fine with having to restart my pc to turn it on for a session of league or valorant - but I play them 2-3 days a week so I don’t want to have to manually disable it in startup options or right click close it in my drivers tray every boot.

There's some difficulties in implementing a toggle of that nature (I'm sure one of my more technical colleagues could speak to the effort involved, but an example that springs to mind is how to reliably tell a program to generally not launch on boot, except next time I reboot please do.")

I think if this is how you'd want to interact with Vanguard (which is great if it will help you feel authoritative about what you're comfortable with!), probably currently the avenue I'd suggest is to actually Uninstall Vanguard when you're not planning on playing LoL for a few days - it's also just a right click away (Right Click > More > Uninstall Vanguard > Confirm).

Then the next time you Launch LoL, Riot Client will prompt you to install Vanguard. Happily, the download + install is SUPER quick (my entire Riot Vanguard folder is 43 MB), so this flow actually wouldn't add much time to your get-in-game, as the reboot itself will probably be the longest part if you have broadband...

Read more

/dev: Vanguard x LoL

Comment

Originally posted by _TeflonGr_

A limited period that caused damage in some user's systems because it disabled fan controlling software and drivers. There were a couple of users on Twitter where that happened that reported having system inestability and windows not booting because of it.

What guarantees do we have that wont happen again? Knowing Vanguard can do that what is preventing you to access all of our computer like you have already done in the past?

You give 0 technical information. You are basically just saying trust us, that wont happen again but we have the tools to make it happen again if we want.

It's best outlined under "Q: Why not open source the driver?". If every bit of telemetry was provided, it would make us lose our effectiveness.




Subscribe to RSS
Get Discord notifications

When do they post?

(GMT +0)
Something missing? Let us know and we'll add it!