Where's the "This Game Sucks" thread?

[Mrbloodworth]

Played a scenario last night where the enemy's zealots did nothing but circle strafe and window drag.  If this continues, it's going to be a deal breaker.  DAoC suffered this kind of crap for years and I'm really tired of the lame asses call this type of thing "skill".  If you're so damn skilled, just play the game straight and see how you do.

Yep, its starting to annoy me too.

[rk47]

Yeah it seriously made me gave up going 2hand dps mode cause I couldn't hit shit at all with my Swordmaster, and giving up the shield made me squishier for the Black Orcs and Chosen to rape me in combat. Can this actually be prevented by forcing the game on fullscreen mode for future clients?

[Nebu]

Yeah it seriously made me gave up going 2hand dps mode cause I couldn't hit shit at all with my Swordmaster, and giving up the shield made me squishier for the Black Orcs and Chosen to rape me in combat. Can this actually be prevented by forcing the game on fullscreen mode for future clients?

In DAoC you could get a similar effect by resizing the chat box during combat... so I'm not sure fullscreen will help much.  People will always find a way to game the system and call it skill.  Ok... it's kind of a skill.  It does take some insight to find ways to use mechanics to your advantage, but this is a bit outside the realm of the intended.

[Khaldun]

Window dragging is spreading very rapidly. Mythic better get on top of it somehow, because it pretty much fucks RvR up in a serious way.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Window dragging is spreading very rapidly. Mythic better get on top of it somehow, because it pretty much fucks RvR up in a serious way.

I was wondering why people were warping all over the place. I had figured it was something on my end but yes in a pvp game this is inexcusable.

[bhodikhan]

The DAOC engine gets really stupid whenever it's processing a WM_MOUSEDOWN and WM_MOUSEMOVE. They need to stop giving priority to that and make sure the position info and net traffic of the players is the top priority.

As it is they stop all net traffic when you resize the window or re-position it. Fix the damn code already.

You should see the D3D dump that goes on when you cross the zone boundaries. That stutter is them resetting the entire graphics engine and reloading DirectX. They're also making about 1000 registry reads as well.

This codebase is so bloated I'm not sure it can be fixed. Tweaked? Maybe. 

[Paelos]

Explain windowdragging please. I'm confused as to what they are doing.

Also, roots don't stop them doing this?

[Riggswolfe]

I'm confused too. Do you mean that in Windowed mode, dragging the game screen around causes you to "warp"? I know I've seen people bouncing away from me in Stone Troll Crossing but I thought it was some kind of lag or a graphics bug since monsters have warped to me too.

[Merusk]

If I'm reading this right, Window dragging is like the oldschool "pull your modem out, then run around and plug it back in."  

When you did that, the server and the client talked to reset position, with the Client getting the benefit of the dobut. You could run through walls, pop into places you shouldn't be able to access, all kinds of fun stuff that way.   What it looks like to other people is that you blinked 10-20 yards away from where they were seeing you.

No idea why window dragging, chatbox dragging or other such nonsense would have any effect like that other than lazy/ poor coding. But then IANAC.

Roots may STOP a person, but roots and stuns very short duration effects in WAR. Chances are you're rooting someone you think is right in front of you, who then "blinks" into a different spot, forcing your ass to run up to them just as the root breaks and you repeat the cycle.  Roots, etc would work best against melee characters like Marauders, but they're not bunny hopping into and out of range on you, just circle-strafing to get back-attacks and other positionals off.

[slog]

I'm confused too. Do you mean that in Windowed mode, dragging the game screen around causes you to "warp"? I know I've seen people bouncing away from me in Stone Troll Crossing but I thought it was some kind of lag or a graphics bug since monsters have warped to me too.

Yes.  It's an exploit carried over from DAOC.  Looks like they got lazy when porting over the code.  In a nutshell, you just run in windowed mode at a smaller res than your desktop.  Then you just move the window around as you do other stuff.  This causes you to warp all over the place.

I find it pretty funny that they didn't fix this in either of their MMOs.  And before someone goes off on his this isn't fixable, I don't know of any other MMO that suffers from this.

[ajax34i]

*nevermind*

[HaemishM]

'Splain to me what is this "window dragging?" Is it a way of inducing lag and thus creating problems with other people trying to get near you?

EDIT: Nevermind too, window dragging was explained. I have noticed a bit of warping, but nothing game breaking yet.

[cevik]

No idea why window dragging, chatbox dragging or other such nonsense would have any effect like that other than lazy/ poor coding. But then IANAC.

Probably because it forces a continuous stream of screen redraws, which takes a lot of horse power, which is causing the networking part of the code to lose time slots, which means that you aren't getting as many updates to the server, so it's bouncing you around.  Basically you are doing the same thing as unplugging them modem (starving the server of position updates), but you are using a processing bandwidth issue to cause the problem, instead of physically disconnecting.

[Merusk]

No idea why window dragging, chatbox dragging or other such nonsense would have any effect like that other than lazy/ poor coding. But then IANAC.

Probably because it forces a continuous stream of screen redraws, which takes a lot of horse power, which is causing the networking part of the code to lose time slots, which means that you aren't getting as many updates to the server, so it's bouncing you around.  Basically you are doing the same thing as unplugging them modem (starving the server of position updates), but you are using a processing bandwidth issue to cause the problem, instead of physically disconnecting.

Ah I completely understand now. Thanks for the explanation.

[Ingmar]

What that essentially boils down to of course, is lazy/poor coding. 

[UnSub]

I find it pretty funny that they didn't fix this in either of their MMOs.  And before someone goes off on his this isn't fixable, I don't know of any other MMO that suffers from this.

Anyone: are there any other MMOs that suffer from this kind of exploit?

[Righ]

In DAoC you could get a similar effect by resizing the chat box during combat... so I'm not sure fullscreen will help much.

As I said before, root people when they resize an in-game or main window or switch task while in combat. Doesn't rule out all sources of induced 'lag' but takes care of the most commonly abused ones. You don't need to be perfect - the more resourceful exploiters are still going to abuse the client - but stopping the many people who use the well-known methods of cheating from doing so will make life bearable for those who don't cheat.

[Mrbloodworth]

I find it pretty funny that they didn't fix this in either of their MMOs.  And before someone goes off on his this isn't fixable, I don't know of any other MMO that suffers from this.

Anyone: are there any other MMOs that suffer from this kind of exploit?

Not window dragging (First i have heard of it), but the modem trick was Lolz in SWG, to the point of getting into unfinished areas of the games, or simply walking down into Faction bases.

[FatuousTwat]

There is also a way to fly straight up into the air to avoid being attacked... Forgot how to do it now.

[Dren]

In DAoC you could get a similar effect by resizing the chat box during combat... so I'm not sure fullscreen will help much.

As I said before, root people when they resize an in-game or main window or switch task while in combat. Doesn't rule out all sources of induced 'lag' but takes care of the most commonly abused ones. You don't need to be perfect - the more resourceful exploiters are still going to abuse the client - but stopping the many people who use the well-known methods of cheating from doing so will make life bearable for those who don't cheat.

Yeah, if you can explain to me (somebody that doesn't even play the game) how to do the exploit in basically one sentence and I understand it, you have a problem.  I can't believe people thought this wouldn't spread through the playerbase like wildfire and be abused to no end.

At least get it down to a few people that go way way out of their way to cheat and have to update with each patch.  At least then it is "hard."  

[Bzalthek]

I'm just going to throw this out there:

I would love an option to opt out for PQ loot.  When I'm just farming influence, and I've already gotten (or don't need) rewards from the PQ, I feel like shit turning it into cash. 

Also, when in a scenario, if you are a level 10 healer, and a level 2 healer shows up and curb-stomps you in the healing charts, you should be temp-banned and your significant other should be sent a box of wire coat hangars. 

[bhodikhan]

Radar and Window Dragging killed DAOC for me. It was always amazing how a group could find our stealthed group and make a straight line to us. The widespread use of radar programs made me cancel without any remorse. Mythic better not do that again.

[Lantyssa]

I would love an option to opt out for PQ loot.  When I'm just farming influence, and I've already gotten (or don't need) rewards from the PQ, I feel like shit turning it into cash. 

This would be nice.  Yesterday I had to kill a handful of mobs in a PQ area and put two hits on the final hero since I wandered by as the fight was finishing.  I was 13th in influence rank.  Rolling a 994 gave me second rank and one of the two green bags available.  I shouldn't have even been on the list and really wanted to opt out.

[Goreschach]

You know, given that the gui windows are drawn using the same scripting system that the players can modify, then if resizing the windows allows for this effect I'd wager it would be possible to create a mod for the game that gives the player a 'lag hopping' button. Working up such a thing, and posting it on the general forums at all the major websites could be a rather effective, if underhanded, way to force Mythic to address the problem.

[Nebu]

You know, given that the gui windows are drawn using the same scripting system that the players can modify, then if resizing the windows allows for this effect I'd wager it would be possible to create a mod for the game that gives the player a 'lag hopping' button. Working up such a thing, and posting it on the general forums at all the major websites could be a rather effective, if underhanded, way to force Mythic to address the problem.

What could they do about it, exactly?  People will still pull their connection out intermittently, etc.  The best solution (in my code-ignorant opinion) would be to just leave characters stationary in cases where there is latency.  If players try to use lag to their advantage, they simply remain stationary rather than warping around.  Maybe one of the gurus around here can speak to this topic.

[murdoc]

I would love an option to opt out for PQ loot.  When I'm just farming influence, and I've already gotten (or don't need) rewards from the PQ, I feel like shit turning it into cash. 

This would be nice.  Yesterday I had to kill a handful of mobs in a PQ area and put two hits on the final hero since I wandered by as the fight was finishing.  I was 13th in influence rank.  Rolling a 994 gave me second rank and one of the two green bags available.  I shouldn't have even been on the list and really wanted to opt out.

Definitely would like this feature. Helping a couple of lower level guildies and a couple random others in a PQ, I would love to just opt out of the roll and let all the lowbies have a better chance at the loots bags that I'll just turn into cash anyways.

Last night it seemed that most of the playerbase we were up against was window dragging or doing something along the same lines. I'm sure our side was as well. It's basically made collision detection useless and taken away one of my best tactics for keeping our healers safe, or corner someone with a flag. Very frustrating to get someone hemmed in and they warp not only through me, but quite a bit out of melee range as well.

[Goreschach]

You know, given that the gui windows are drawn using the same scripting system that the players can modify, then if resizing the windows allows for this effect I'd wager it would be possible to create a mod for the game that gives the player a 'lag hopping' button. Working up such a thing, and posting it on the general forums at all the major websites could be a rather effective, if underhanded, way to force Mythic to address the problem.

What could they do about it, exactly?  People will still pull their connection out intermittently, etc.  The best solution (in my code-ignorant opinion) would be to just leave characters stationary in cases where there is latency.  If players try to use lag to their advantage, they simply remain stationary rather than warping around.  Maybe one of the gurus around here can speak to this topic.

The thing is, most mmo's are susceptible to similar cable pulling, using a program like gear to play with internal clocks, and that kind of stuff because the mmo servers need to trust the client on things like player position. Simple numbers, like your stats or equipment, are stored and managed on the server because they're small and the things that use these numbers won't be crippled by the response time between the client and server. You can memhack your client to display 10000 str or whatever, but this will have no effect on gameplay. The server doesn't trust your client to manage your characters stats. However, if the server had to confirm every position change before it showed up on your screen, then every time you moved forward, or tried to turn, there would be a significant lag between when you hit the key, and when it happened. And whenever a packet from the server arrived out or order, or got lost, you'd notice your character rubberbanding, suddenly jump in position or stop running for a fraction of a second. Since this would be horribly irritating, they have no choice but to trust the client when it tells the server 'I'm over here and I'm running in this direction'. This is somewhat simplified, and there are more accurate methods of predicting position than linear extrapolation, and there are ways to optimize this while reducing ability to exploit, but the basic network speed limitation is still present, and will always be present in mmos until we're on superinternets with single ms ping times. Until then the server won't be capable of managing movement the way it manages things like spell casts.

So pulling the network cable, of course, can't be fixed completely, but the gui issue can. I've been doing some modwork, and I've noticed some problems with what I think is the way the game's internal script interpreter figures out when to run and update scripts. I can't be sure, but I think the nagging problems they're having with the animation/spell timer funkyness, the issues with the scripting, and the way that dicking with the gui seems to be tying up the network response are all based on a fundamental problem with the way the game is set up to handle multiple threads for different operations. Ideally, all the network stuff, graphics, scripting, and so on should be multithreaded, so if a script cocks up the gui then the operating system will take a break from that thread and move on to another that can handle the network response stuff independently. But it seems like currently either the different parts of the game aren't multithreaded, or the threads are too interdependent. This would explain why screwing around with the gui windows would prevent the client from sending updated position/velocity data to the server.

[cevik]

The thing is, most mmo's are susceptible to similar cable pulling, using a program like gear to play with internal clocks, and that kind of stuff because the mmo servers need to trust the client on things like player position.

You don't have to have it as an either/or thing, you can overcome lag by assuming that the server will eventually get around to okaying the movement, and thus drawing it on the screen before you hear back from the sever.  The client experiences no latency and the server still gets to proof the movement.  If you have a disconnect or severe packet loss, then you'll rubberband back to the initial position (or last approved server position).

Likely this is "too much" checking for the client, so some middle ground is chosen, but you can avoid things like teleport hacks or fast run speed by checking the state of the player, which is maintained server side (i.e. walking, running, sprinting), vs the straight-line distance moved over any given period of time.  If the distance is greater than acceptable (by some margin of error) then boot the player.  That simple check won't fix the circle strafing/warping issue that DAoCWAR is experiencing, but it must be fixable since there are other games that do not experience the problem.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Mythic really should hire people that know how to write and handle code. I think these guys are called programmers, or something.

[Nebu]

I will say this, if circle strafing, window dragging, and lag jumping become the norm, I'm out.  There's no excuse for this stuff to exist in a PvP-based MMO. 

[Khaldun]

Especially one that tries to implement collision detection and builds at least some of its gameplay around the assumption of a successful implementation of same.

[Lum]

Radar and Window Dragging killed DAOC for me. It was always amazing how a group could find our stealthed group and make a straight line to us. The widespread use of radar programs made me cancel without any remorse. Mythic better not do that again.

Radar was finally beaten (as far as I know, it may have come back recently) in DAOC about 2 years after release, when a packet encryption was introduced that the radar coders couldn't crack easily. A "man in the middle" client scheme was introduced about a year later, but the coders weren't able to keep up with client changes and gave up. There was another radar hack (XUnleashed) but it caused the DAOC client to crash a lot. Which was amusing when it appeared in bug reports.

http://capnbry.net/daoc/daocskilla.php

Also, radar never detected stealthed players, as the packets for stealthed players were never sent to the client.

[Nebu]

So Lum... can you speak to why these lag exploits are so rampant in Mythic games but not in WoW or is that proprietary info?

[ffc]

Cheating is where I draw the line.  

No more chain kill xp bonus?  Ok.  Quest xp not scaling up properly in Tier 3+?  No problem.  Still a buggy White Lion pet?  Fine.  The core PvP game remains fun.

But cheating ruins the fun.  Fix it if it is fixable, otherwise I guess I get to eat a couple extra value meals a month at Jack in the Box.

The fact that this problem was in DAOC, and somehow made it into WAR (!!!!), likely means I'll be getting fat.

PS - I feel Tortaged regarding Tier 3 quest xp. 

[Lum]

So Lum... can you speak to why these lag exploits are so rampant in Mythic games but not in WoW or is that proprietary info?

WoW doesn't have server-side collision detection for players, which makes lag exploits a lot more critical.

Plus, well, it's a different client. Warhammer uses Emergent (which used to be Gamebryo), as did DAOC. I have no idea how shared the code base is between the two but if window dragging is still a problem I'd guess there's some sharing going on, though the combat cycle/feedback seems pretty different from DAOC to me.

Bear in mind I haven't been at Mythic since 2005, never worked on Warhammer, and am probably not high on Mark Jacobs' Christmas card list. It's kind of refreshing going back to the role of "whiny player", too!