Exploiting for the win

[johnypilgrim]

As a VS CR5 on Emerald I played all weekend long and never saw one global about this exploit. I didn't even know what it was until I read these forums.

What I do know is I've never ever seen the kind of cooperation and planning among the CR5s that happened this weekend. Once a continent was locked, outfits were directed to the next continent where upon defences were placed, AMSes set-up and the wait for the earthquake and meteor shower was begun.

We'd have entire bases covered in mines and spitfires as soon as it went neutral and 3-5 AMSes within the soi of every subcap we needed.

I didn't see that kind of perpartion in the NC or TR when I would drop on one of their recently hacked subcaps.

Its a shame that it appears there was a mechanism that could allow more people on a continent at once, but if you think that every single battle was one because there were more VS on than TR or NC then you are fooling yourself.

JP

[Black]

Originally Posted by johnypilgrim

if you think that every single battle was one because there were more VS on than TR or NC then you are fooling yourself.

JP

Why are we fooling ourselves might i ask?

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Rei

But the TR definately had 50% pop on Forseral to the VS 32% (poplock) and the NC 31%.

I believe your numbers are incorrect. I doubt we could get a 50% population, as we were almost always either even with or outnumbered by the VS and NC before (why would we just exploit there?), and 50% + 63% is 13% too much. Maybe you meant 37% TR, 32% VS and 31% NC, which is ironically what the TR were up against fighting the VS virtually every time a monolith spawned, in favor of the VS of course.

[johnypilgrim]

Originally Posted by Black

Why are we fooling ourselves might i ask?

As a guy that works in dev for another gaming company, I see this type of crying foul all too often when one side wins and another loses. There may well have been an exploit but the only evidence I've seen of it saw for are a couple screenshots that could just have been easily doctored in any imaging program.

As a CR 5 I was constantly checking the map and never saw those out of whack percentages. Maybe it just happened Friday (I didn't play Friday until very, very late) but I played almost all Saturday and Sunday on Emerald.

But why only the VS and why only on Emerald (which are the only complaint I've heard about so far). That's what makes it seem so fishy (ie poeple trying to point fingers at a coding problem rather than themselves).

Looking for answers myself,

JP

[Firefly]

Originally Posted by johnypilgrim

I didn't see that kind of perpartion in the NC or TR when I would drop on one of their recently hacked subcaps.

I can only speak for the ULTRA Alliance, not the rest of TR, because that's who I was working with.

We limited our targets to NC-held areas, mainly, because the VS were already far ahead of us and we could only attempt to maintaint a strong second, and then attempt to catch up. I know that of the many fights I took part in, a majority of them were versus the NC (that's right girls, you got trashed). And the funny thing was, despite all this griping and complaining, the TR's "high command" was seemingly unified, working together for once. It did much to restore many peoples's'e's'es' faith in the TR CR5s.

Although, I think I do recall a battle on Hossin against the VS, and I clearly recall the enemy losing after a vicious fight. I know during that fight, the alliance was fielding three platoons and we focused on Naum, Bitol, and Ixtab, getting there before the neutrality set in. From there we CE'd the crap out of the base, and when it went neutral we had our three subcapitols. By the time you ladies got around to coming for our bases, we'd all migrated the majority of our forces to the capitol, securing it before you could get a completed hack on the subs.

From there, it was simply a matter of holding the capital while we retrieved the monolith.

Coordinated TR Armor for teh win!!

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by johnypilgrim

There may well have been an exploit but the only evidence I've seen of it saw for are a couple screenshots that could just have been easily doctored in any imaging program.

This wasn't doctored. I took it myself, and was meaning to post it on the Official Forums to ask why this kind of population imbalance was going on so much this weekend (Friday/Saturday at the time), but then I read Samhayne's post about the rampant cheating going on and their attempt to quell some of it, at which point I got my answer.

That picture was taken on Saturday, by the way, so no, it wasn't just Friday, it was the entire weekend, although I'm not sure how common it was Sunday, as unlike Friday and Saturday I didn't play much then, but I remember, at least, the populations being 29% TR, 29% NC, 42% VS, so even if the individual continents weren't still being flooded by VS as much on Sunday, they certainly had way more people than either the TR or NC, which helped a lot with the more commong monolith spawns, I'm sure.

[NeoPhoenixTE]

It had stopped about halfway through Saturday. Last overpop I saw was around 10-11pm EST Saturday night. Sunday, it was gone.

And at the risk of calling someone a liar (I would rather say "mistaken"), I had gotten word from two VS contacts stating that there were globals on how to use the bind exploit. However, I had received one of these confirmations on friday (which makes johnypilgrim's story check out), but I had also gotten word of it going on Saturday as well. These conflicting stories worry me.

johnypilgrim, is there a chance you missed a global, or ever had your command chat off for a second? Like I said, I don't wanna call anyone a liar here, but simply mistaken.

We have the NC/TR accusing the VS of exploiting, and VS deny it up and down. At first glance, this is exactly what's expected given the results. However, there are many people (myself and the rest of the TR CR5s, as well as many members of my former NC outfit) that witnessed this population exploit. It did happen, there is no denying that. The guilty parties are refusing the step forward on this one, and are thus leading to fingers pointing at the VS as a whole, which I think is unfounded and pretty unfair. Like I said earlier, there were VS that were there legitmately and early. It is these parties that used the bind exploit that showed up after the cont was locked. The VS as a whole is not to blame, and I want the people who did this to step forward and take responsibility so all this finger-pointing crap can stop.


Also, I would like to add as a side note here: My reason for saying it was the bind exploit, and not the use of modules, is that I saw little to no module activity during the event on the continents and during the times in question. Plus, modules only work for a single person. Had the amount of people that slipped in had used modules, there would have been witnesses stating that there was a mod pile at the geowarp. I myself never saw one. If someone saw something like 10 or 20 modules sitting in a geowarp, speak up so we an clarify this.

[johnypilgrim]

Originally Posted by NeoPhoenixTE

johnypilgrim, is there a chance you missed a global, or ever had your command chat off for a second? Like I said, I don't wanna call anyone a liar here, but simply mistaken.

I always keep command chat on (no matter how painful somedays), but there were the food and bio breaks, so I could have definitely missed a global like that.

What makes it weirder, there were multiple CR5's saying "What is this exploit people are talking about on the forums?" In other words, they had no clue what it was (me included).

So, I take this that if there was a way to increase pop (baring it being a reporting error) only a few outfits new about it and used it.

As I mentioned before, Isaw unheardof cooperation and coordination between all CR5s and outfits - which makes it sad that there is this dark cloud of possible cheating overshadowing it. It just tarnishes the best play I've ever seen in almost a year and a half of playing Planetside.

JP

[Warborn]

I've had VS players that I know through other forums saying that the CR5's were telling people over Global to exploit it. Whether you or some other CR5's saw it or not, it was happening. As was said, the entirety of the VS wasn't exploiting, but some were, and by trying to make it as if none of the VS were doing any exploiting at all, you just make your entire side look bad.

[kcirreda]

I was TR on Saturday and VS on Sunday. TR was going on "Ohhh VS exploiting!" when we was on Cery that night, tho I told them it was because of **read last post**. But when I played VS on Sunday I did not see any exploit msgs from CR5s or sanct. But I did hear alot of GREAT tactics from "Ghosts Of The Revolution" chat. See, when a cont is locked, I use a standard WG and wait. I thought it was 1 for 1 as allways as I waited in that WG for over 7 mins. But sure enough, EVERY1 in that WG warped at once. I was clueless 2 it, so I used it by acident.

Oh BTW, VS on Esamir yesterday (sunday) did a AWESOME job on getting that mono to Eisa (capital) with NO sub-caps. It was a 20+ mag column with AIR support bringing that LLU home. KUDOS to all VS crewing a mag!

Edit: Oh TR did great too, especialy on conts they allready owned B4 it went neut. They was organized better than VS most of the time if they could get there. I was in a Ultra Platoon (Hell's Rangers 4 teh win!) and we each covered 3 sub-caps blah blah blah, it went very well.

No Punishment for VS. If they were truely "cheating" they would have got ALL monos.

[NeoPhoenixTE]

Just as one more little quip before I log for awhile, I jsut gotta say that this is turning into the Auraxis Witch Trials with all this.

I am also disappointed with the latest dev activites post. (link) Spork speaks of how well the event went, but constantly beats around the bush as far as all this speculation goes. Seeking to improve the next one, discussing it inernally. Wish he would just come out and say "we're working the resolve the continental overpop issue that came up during the event" or something to that effect. Sickens me that we can't get someone high up in SoE to at least admit that something went wrong and it came out in a very bad way this weekend.

This "ignore it and it'll go away" stance just frustrates me is all. The event is over, I'm not expecting a recall of the results (as it seems SoE has thrown out ALL chances of that happenning), but at least a serious look at what happenned, as well as the truth, along with a solution ot this problem. If not for the sake of fairness ("truth, justice, and the Auraxian way"), but for the sake of server stability. Those continents were excessively laggy for my only having a 103 ping. It felt like 56k all over again (oh the horror) with how many people were on that one continent. The fix in place was effective, it just simply needs to be fixed, and the issue that spawned it acknowledged and labelled as resolved.

...wont be resolved until those responsible come forth and confess. Then we can return to our regularly scheduled game. I don't see the VS hearing the end of this until someone comes forward.


(....that was a really long "final quip" now that I look at it >_>)

[Mango]

All is fair in love and war

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Mango

All is fair in love and war

Which is why we play games, because love and war both suck.

[Tssha]

Originally Posted by Warborn

I've had VS players that I know through other forums saying that the CR5's were telling people over Global to exploit it. Whether you or some other CR5's saw it or not, it was happening. As was said, the entirety of the VS wasn't exploiting, but some were, and by trying to make it as if none of the VS were doing any exploiting at all, you just make your entire side look bad.

Or maybe, we just don't know about it and don't want to lie about it. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but a lot of VS were genuinely oblivious to it. Particularily because all we get in the pop screen is "empire pop lock", not "over empire pop lock". Also, as a cr 5 on Friday (I played with my alts Sunday, and slept through Saturday), I never once saw a global or item on command chat about any exploits. Of course, it was busier than usual.

However, VS cr 5's did a great job leading over this. They globalled the next continent well ahead of time, and did a lot of leading on cont-all when they got there. CE was laid and AMSes were put up. Honestly, they never worked together the way they worked that day, and the whole empire benefited.

Course, globalling the cont early might have brought all those people to the linked WG's, people who didn't know they were exploiting before or even after the fact. Like I said, you can't tell your empire is over its pop lock by looking at the population percentages. Because of that, and the fact that all it would take is one guy going linkdead (a common occurance), and you've got a recipe for an unbalancing bug. THAT'S what the devs are refering to by not punishing people that just wanted to play.

Hell, I didn't even know about the bug before I read this thread.

Lastly, I can vouch for each and every one of the people in my outfit. Not one of them exploited or enabled exploiting of pop lock bugs. If they did, they'd be out of the outfit in a very short measure. Hell, most of the time we'd have squads on different continents, and we're usually very strict about that (i.e. stick with the group, recall when we tell you, or get out of the squad ). Exploiters there may be, but I refuse to let my outfit's name get dragged through the mud with the rest of my empire.

Also, I hope the devs close these exploit holes before the next event.

[Magnus49]

if im not mistaken i thought that the devs allowed people with mods to enter a cont. so they could get the mod in......