DOOM Eternal will soon get an update to patch out a previous update from last week, which added in a form of Denuvo for anti-cheat measures. Following the addition of the anti-cheat to the PC version of the game, fans began to review bomb Doom Eternal on Steam, demand a refund, or show their disappointment across social media. The anti-cheat also appeared to introduce new bugs to the game, with many reporting performance issues and rampant crashing that would render the game unplayable. Publisher Bethesda mentioned that they were looking into the source of the update's performance problems.

A few days later, id Software's executive producer took to Reddit to announce that due to the instability and performance issues, a new v1.1 update would be issued soon to players on PC. According to the developers, Denuvo anti-cheat was added as an update to prevent cheaters from taking over the game's online BATTLEMODE and because "players were disappointed on DOOM 2016" for not including an anti-cheat closer to launch to combat hackers online. After the negative response to the new anti-cheat, id stated that they would be removing it from the game in the impending update, though they claim that the performance issues were not related in any form to Denuvo, instead attributing the problems to a new code change made to VRAM allocation, which will also be fixed with the patch.

Currently, there is no date for the release of the v1.1 patch.

I want to provide our PC community the latest information on a number of topics related to Update 1, which we released this past Thursday. Our team has been looking into the reports of instability and performance degradation for some users and we’ve also seen the concerns around our inclusion of Denuvo Anti-Cheat. As is often the case, things are not as clear-cut as they may seem, so I’d like to include the latest information on the actions we’re taking, as well as offer some context around the decisions we’ve made. We are preparing and testing PC-Only Update 1.1 that includes the changes and fixes noted below. We hope to have this rolled-out to players within a week.

Our team’s original decision to include Denuvo Anti-Cheat in Update 1 was based on a number of factors:

• Protect BATTLEMODE players from cheaters now, but also establish consistent anti-cheat systems and processes as we look ahead to more competitive initiatives on our BATTLEMODE roadmap
  
  
• Establish cheat protection in the campaign now in preparation for the future launch of Invasion – which is a blend of campaign and multiplayer
  
  
• Kernel-level integrations are typically the most effective in preventing cheating
  
  
• Denuvo’s integration met our standards for security and privacy
  
  
• Players were disappointed on DOOM (2016) with our delay in adding anti-cheat technology to protect that game’s multiplayer

Despite our best intentions, feedback from players has made it clear that we must re-evaluate our approach to anti-cheat integration. With that, we will be removing the anti-cheat technology from the game in our next PC update. As we examine any future of anti-cheat in DOOM Eternal, at a minimum we must consider giving campaign-only players the ability to play without anti-cheat software installed, as well as ensure the overall timing of any anti-cheat integration better aligns with player expectations around clear initiatives – like ranked or competitive play – where demand for anti-cheat is far greater.

It is important to note that our decision to include anti-cheat was guided by nothing other than the factors and goals I’ve outlined above – all driven by our team at id Software. I have seen speculation online that Bethesda (our parent company and publisher) is forcing these or other decisions on us, and it’s simply untrue. It’s also worth noting that our decision to remove the anti-cheat software is not based on the quality of the Denuvo Anti-Cheat solution. Many have unfortunately related the performance and stability issues introduced in Update 1 to the introduction of anti-cheat. They are not related.

Through our investigation, we discovered and have fixed several crashes in our code related to customizable skins. We were also able to identify and fix a number of other memory-related crashes that should improve overall stability for players. All of these fixes will be in our next PC update. I’d like to note that some of these issues were very difficult to reproduce and we want to thank a number of our community members who worked directly with our engineers to identify and help reproduce these issues.

Finally, we believe the performance issues some players have experienced on PC are based on a code change we made around VRAM allocation. We have reverted this change in our next update and expect the game to perform as it did at launch.

Please stay tuned to the official DOOM Eternal community channels for more on the roll-out of this update. As always, thank you for your passion and commitment to DOOM Eternal.

Marty Stratton
Executive Producer, DOOM Eternal

Source

 

[The Catboy]

Now we just need to wait for Bethesda to find some way to fuck this up

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Anything Denuvo is already ill received in the gaming community. Adding a Ring 0 (kernel level) anticheat with the Denuvo name is asking for trouble. There's no valid reason an anticheat needs full, unfettered access to your system. It's asking for problems. I actually Uninstalled Valorant because of the same thing (different AC).

Well, I never buy pc games with Denuvo in it. Least until it's removed. I mean, some games are like over 4 years old and still has it. I just prefer not to have my games I paid for bogged down by software I am not familiar with. I don't know what it does and I don't want it messing with my game or my systems that I'm not aware of because they probably forgot to put in a disclaimer (not that most people read it)

I understand the need to protect the games from piracy, but it feels like the reputation has just made a worst impact on things especially for people who has obtained it legitimately. Next thing I know, Anti virus programs will start labeling games as malware and now is a problem to believe programmers are making the games safe for use or we have paid for faulty virus protection.

 

[the_randomizer]

Well, I never buy pc games with Denuvo in it. Least until it's removed. I mean, some games are like over 4 years old and still has it. I just prefer not to have my games I paid for bogged down by software I am not familiar with. I don't know what it does and I don't want it messing with my game or my systems that I'm not aware of because they probably forgot to put in a disclaimer (not that most people read it)

I understand the need to protect the games from piracy, but it feels like the reputation has just made a worst impact on things especially for people who has obtained it legitimately. Next thing I know, Anti virus programs will start labeling games as malware and now is a problem to believe programmers are making the games safe for use or we have paid for faulty virus protection.

When people are forced to install Ring 0/kernel level drivers to prevent online cheating, even when they only play single player, you know the developer is run by dumbasses. The BSODs were the least of their worries.

 

[MercilessDeth]

The whole "angry mob" mentality is a bit silly and blows up insignificant issues a lot of times, I'll agree with that.

But the update really didn't give a ton of indication that, once applied, anybody running Linux would no longer be able to even boot the game. This locks me out of the single player campaign of a game I paid for. One that previously had a "platinum" level compatibility with Proton.

I don't think many or any of us condone online cheating, but they broke the ability to play the game at all for a portion of their paying customers