The Truth about Cheating

[Knowmercy]

theres been a lift on RNF restrictions for Awakened. a few players have asked in game about cheating and the suspension. below is my knowledge of whats occurred

alt tabbing out of the game cuts the framerate way down to near 15. FTE racers believe lower frame rates allow you to move faster when strafe running and jumping. the same effect can be achieved by adjusting your FPS slider in the in game options while moving and jumping. a player was reported and his guild was suspended from raiding. he was rapidly changing frame rate during jumps in an FTE race to get an advantage in a YouTube video, by cycling the game and desktop (alt tab).

when the suspension was decided for this behavior, other FTE racers' YouTube videos were removed or made private. I don't race, or know if changing frame rate rapidly or statically gives an advantage (probably so, albeit negligible), or do I think the decision was right or wrong. this is simply an indifferent account of what Ive gathered. the only information regarding this Ive seen is the official post from Sirken, and discussions on exploits/cheating in game and on the forums.

this reminds me of the sandbox survival game Rust. during one build of the game, players could adjust the gamma (basically screen brightness) to see enemies during night time. This was not how the game was intended, therefore considered a bug or exploit, and was patched out. the only way to know if a player was doing it or not, would be to watch a screen capture video, or an actual video of them adjusting the gamma brightness on their monitor.

Ive heard of runners setting their frame rate anywhere from 20-40 or any sweet spot they feel helps them feel more comfortable running and faster. Ive heard people from all walks of p99 debate this. It did not appear to me to be discussed or regarded as an exploit or cheating at the time, but more of a tweak, or personal preference with the competitive meta.

I understand why most rules are left purposely ambiguous, and are done in "the spirit of" or to the best of your judgment to avoid tedium, confusion, and to allow players to work together. If adjusting frame rate in however form is an exploitation (be that forcing it down and up again via alt tabbing, an older computer that cant run the game at X frames, or adjusting your slider while your run and jump to your personal preference) then by what means can we counter and handle this given that frame rate seems to be something that cannot be monitored or regulated.

I don't know anything about video game code or whatever else it would take but the only idea or theory that comes to my mind would be for the development side of things to lock a specific frame rate on this version of the game or game client if something like that is even possible. I don't think its realistic or appropriate to expect players to not manipulate frame rate, or to deem it as an exploitation or unfair advantage with all things above considered.

Cheers,

[Tankdan]

Didn't read.

[Boptop]

Didn't read.

[Knowmercy]

Didn't read.

good response to the title, at least its not TL :P. take the time to read the body of the thread, you may find it insightful

bump

Cheers,

[Skew]

Didn't read.

[Swish]

You forgot to add your citations/references/footnotes.

Well intended post but maybe a bit too cryptic/wordy for the average RNFer.

TL;DR (as I interpreted it): People gonna cheat regardless of rules however they can.

[Knowmercy]

lol yeah, you can tell i frequent here. i said my piece, was more for the hell of it. tldr: stir a little thought

[Valura]

I don't think its realistic or appropriate to expect players to not manipulate frame rate, or to deem it as an exploitation or unfair advantage with all things above considered.

lul

[HalasHermit]

lul

So everyone that's ever lev hopped up to level 2 CoM or to get in to PoM castle should be banned too?

[kotton05]

:(

[Bubbles]

So everyone that's ever lev hopped up to level 2 CoM or to get in to PoM castle should be banned too?

If they were directly racing someone else for the best loot available on the server, of course.

You see.. There is so many guilds on this server who haven't spent months to years on the forums demanding the world recognizes that bat phones and mobilizations and racing and grabbing FTEs is the only way to play on the server, and the part you enjoy the most.

So we get to giggle when the same voices gets banned a few times for taking any shortcut necessary. The same people who claim the only reason they log in and race is for the thrill of competition.

So either they love unfair competition.. Or they don't love competition at all. And they desperately want us to agree to the former.

[HalasHermit]

So either they love unfair competition.. Or they don't love competition at all. And they desperately want us to agree to the former.

Consider both A's were doing it, I'd say the ones doing it on both sides considered it "fair". That said, if a server rule exists then make it public and it can be followed, don't use back channel screen shots to try and spin things in favor of your party getting more pixels.

As I believe Nemce said, he or anyone else can't be the mouth piece for server rules just because Sirken told him a ruling on skype or whatever chat program is used until the same information is posted on the forums.

Then again could just have Sirken say what he says on those is to be taken as official server rules and then no need with official posting.

Honestly, it just makes sense to have all agreed rules posted publicly.

Anyway, the meeting at work I'm sitting in that's in a language I don't speak is over so this concludes my first and probably only foray into RNF.

[Leiker]

I don't think its realistic or appropriate to expect players to not manipulate frame rate, or to deem it as an exploitation or unfair advantage with all things above considered. ,

Sounds to me like the punishment for getting caught is not hard enough then.

[kotton05]

youre the nerd who memblurs others dragons. Your rant means nada and I'm under the impression there is more to come for all the shit you guys have pulled.

[Swish]

youre the nerd who memblurs others dragons. Your rant means nada and I'm under the impression there is more to come for all the shit you guys have pulled.

Are you calling Europa out for underhanded tactics? Is there a youtube link?

[kotton05]

Are you calling Europa out for underhanded tactics? Is there a youtube link?

Lol nooooooooo the op.

[Rang]

Didn't read.

ITT: awakened warm bodies bellyaching about their precious pixels

[Prismaticshop]

TL;DR Awakened are cheating cunts

[arsenalpow]

This is why Awakened is suspended and why we do not need more rules. When you start to codify things, people stop thinking about whether a thing is right or wrong and only consider whether it is premissable. Gray areas force people to use common sense. More grey = more common sense ^^

Except the grey areas aren't uniformly enforced as evidenced by both guilds using this tactic and one being suspended. Firm codified rules prevent bias from infecting things.

[Niroz]

"Awakened is under Raid Suspension for the next 10 days for breaking the posted rules that are in place for ToV when on 12/19 an Awakened member (Hjial) was manipulating his game to increase his running speed to levels faster than SoW during an FTE race in Temple of Veeshan to secure an FTE on Vulak."

I assume the rule being broken is:

"Spirit of Wolf is the only movement speed buff that is allowed during the FTE race."

Of course, alt tabbing isn't a buff, but we'll go ahead and lump it under this category since clearly, that's what was done to warrant the raid suspension (judging by the words used in the ruling and what is posted for ToV FTE racing). Of course, the problem with this is, doesn't strafing buffed with SoW move you faster than just SoW? Yes, yes it does. So do we now suspend everyone who has ever strafed during a FTE run?

Moving forward, let's talk about why alt-tabbing during jumping is advantageous. This will be redundant, but will expand a bit on what is actually happening and why the actual outcome of it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to reasonably enforce.

When you are in the jumping forward state, you move slightly faster than simply running. When your frame rate is lower, you stay in the jumping state longer than you do at higher frame rates. When the game client is not focused, resources normally allocated to the client are significantly reduced, thus lowering the frame rate of the game to single and teen digits.

So what kind of ruling and enforcement can you put into place to prevent this advantage? I suppose you could force FTE runners to Fraps their runs to prove they are not alt tabbing or unfocusing their client. However, that only proves that they are not using either of those methods to achieve low FPS during jumps. What about those who simply FTE at lower FPS using the built in max FPS settings for example? You could force FTE runners to Fraps their runs with their "Max FPS client settings" shown. That of course would not only be silly, but would only prove that they are not using the built in client settings to manipulate their FPS. One can simply underclock their GPU/CPU or have multiple processes running in the background to get the desired lowered FPS. This also means that disabling Windowed Mode is not a solution.

Now you can argue that having significantly lowered FPS only during the jump is much more advantageous than permanently running at low FPS. In fact, I'd reckon it is nearly impossible to competitively run a FTE race at single to teen digits FPS. However, I can see running a race at 20-30FPS being much more manageable while still providing nearly the same benefit as jumping in the alt tab state.

I suppose you could try enforcing some sort of FPS minimum requirement, but now you are dipping into hardware requirements to compete (otherwise, runners can state they're utilizing less than desirable hardware). You then have to come up with a system to enforce this rule - such as again, runners recording their runs with FPS being displayed or having other runners submit recordings of the accused. I don't see the volunteer staff wanting to allocate - or hell, even having the resources to reviewing a multitude FTE videos every time there's a ToV race. Not to mention dealing with the excuses (desyncing, low FPS spike due to x, etc).

You could ban jumping on these FTE runs, but then you put small races at a significant disadvantage when it comes to many of the routes in ToV with uneven terrain. I suppose a smarter solution if you were to go this route is to only allow jumping when there is an obstacle. However, that just pushes the door back open to low FPS jumping not to mention the amount of lawyering on what is considered an obstacle.

In the end, I really don't see a reasonable solution to this. Without a way to reasonably enforce a rule to prevent low fps jumping, there will most likely be racers continuing to utilize this method to gain an edge.

[Argentate]

This sounds familiar.

Awakened = Patriots
Hyjal = Tom Brady
Breaken = Bill Belichick ?

[manguard]

If you think something might be racist, it's probably racist. Same thing applies here. If you think something might be cheating, it's probably cheating. If you can't tell something might be cheating by manipulating underlying factors of race mechanics, I don't know what to tell you.

Time to move onto the next few stages of grief already.

[kotton05]

It's funny to see the assholes who petition tracker FTE on a guy who zoned out and was simply pulling an uncontested mob cry about technicalities. Oh and the old class r to class c thing long ago which was like a second or two away from being a ffa mob. List goes on. It's just karma for being shitty people. There is more karma coming too.

[nhdjoseywales]

I am 100 percent sure none of you shitbags would be competitive on phinny. you cant play without cheating

[RedXIII]

So either they love unfair competition.. Or they don't love competition at all. And they desperately want us to agree to the former.

It is not unfair when AM starts it, Hjial from AW perfects it and both guilds had players doing it. More on Aftermath side, since their guildleader (Detoxx) despite doing the alt+tab jump he still petition it saying its against the rules. Shocking... the bullshit is strong. Atleast we from AW never thought it was a big deal since no 3rd party program or anything was been used. After Sirken clarification, we all stoped doing it. This last cycle noone (atleast in AW) did it.

[arsenalpow]

You are a retard if you didn't think this was an exploit no matter what guild you from

It's not for him to decide if it's an exploit, its up to the whim of dumbdumb sirken. I felt like screensharing was an exploit and I didnt want to do it, but Aftermath did it for every VP dragon they contested against us. Sirken didn't do shit about it, we were forced to keep up with the jones'. If we didn't screen share we were at a massive disadvantage.

Now take that same anecdote and replace screensharing with alt+tab jumping. Only this time BDA gets suspended at the end on a whim.

[arsenalpow]

I get what you saying, Chest. Altering frame rates is exploiting game mechanics though because it is utilizing the software itself to achieve an unintended result. Screen sharing is something beyond the game and doesn't directly interact with the game.

Whether screen sharing is or is not an exploit though, I honestly do not see how anyone can believe that EQ developers intended for people to be able to move more quickly through the environment by manipulating game frame rates. That's what you arguing if you say it not an exploit and it just silly ^^ that is the point I was making ^^

But screen sharing violates one of the pillar rules of p99, one human per account. Screen sharing allows a guild to crowdsource visual tracking duties by giving multiple people access to a single account simultaneously. So now we have this grey area, my interpretation versus the staff interpretation. Not to mention this is something that isn't logged anywhere. Again you can take this idea and apply it to alt+tab jumping.

The p99 raid scene is an arms race and each new tactic is universally adopted and then one upped if possible. To ban awakened and not Aftermath when they both do the same crap reeeeeeks of bias and that's the real shame.

[arsenalpow]

Ok, ok, ok sorry, you just talking about rule violations in general. Gotcha ^^ I hadn't thought about screen sharing as violating the one player one account rule, I thought you were saying it an exploit. I do t know that it violates the one player one account rule though because, you not controlling the account.

But then if screensharing is ok then it should be ok if your friend logs in and parks somewhere so you can watch for a spawn on their screen while they sleep. I agree it does diminish social interaction a bit, but not to the extent that controlling another character does.

I would assume that Sirken views screen sharing simply as watching someone else playing, whether they doing anything or not since you cannot control the character.

One single bard playing bind sight song while screensharing allows dozens of people to share the tracking burden. Total circumvention of the one human per account concept. Now what if suddenly Sirken decided to agree with my line of thought about screen sharing and then suspended only Aftermath. Both guilds currently do it, both guilds have admitted to using the tactic in the past. Doesn't that sound absurd??

Now imagine she's white... (https://youtu.be/xLeIYl5vm90)
Now replace screensharing with alt+tab jumping

[Niroz]

A reasonable solution is for players to agree to stop doing it.

How does an agreement prove someone wasn't intentionally lowering their FPS to gain an advantage while jumping? It doesn't. Without a way to prove someone was breaking this agreement, it really has no weight, and is no solution.

Every professional athletes signs a contract stating they wont break the rules instated by the organization they play in. Yet there are those who still break the rules, despite agreeing that they wouldn't. How do we know they cheated? It wasn't the agreement - it was a method put in place to detect that they cheated - a drug test for example.

In our scenario, there is currently no reasonable method to detect if someone is intentionally lowering their FPS to gain an advantage while jumping. So how do we know that racers are honoring the agreement? If you think no one will cheat because they agreed they wouldn't, well :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

[arsenalpow]

I get what you are saying but correct me if I'm wrong, isn't it the same as streaming, and isn't the lead GM doing it?
And haven't you and most of the server been one of the many people looking at that stream ?, and haven't most guild leaders been part of that stream setup? (you included).
We will prolly have better luck with trying to figure out a few easy to follow rules that are black and white, then saying you can not do this and that about stuff that can't be tracked.

I understand that the staff want to leave room for "onsite" calls so they can decide not to enforce something but as long as there is room for it, people will push the limits and as long as the rulings are not the same each time, if you do this, it will cost you xx time of suspension, personal and raid, we will have a RnF section with people posting look what they did etc etc.

But then again it's very clear that the RnF section seem to attract people that don't even play on the server anymore, and that might be a way to make sure p99 have alot of visitors each day.

A twitch stream has a delay, it wouldn't be useful for tracking unless it was some lazy uncontested target. When fractions of a second matter (enter why alt+tab jumping mattered) you need a real time feed which is why Skype and other programs like that are used. Also, a stream doesn't have the same intent as the idea of screensharing.

[nyclin]

The p99 raid scene is an arms race and each new tactic is universally adopted and then one upped if possible. To ban awakened and not Aftermath when they both do the same crap reeeeeeks of bias and that's the real shame.

yep, one person's "cheating" or "unfair competitive tactics" is another's emergent gameplay

raid scene will continue to be shit as long as raid petitions are private & rules are made via skype conversation

gonna be pretty suspicious if AM doesn't eat a suspension for the same, considering detoxx himself admitted that his guild was using the tactic "just to keep up"

[mefdinkins]

You can hit Ctrl+O to change your FPS. My default setting was at 100 FPS. At 100 FPS I could not physically jump over the little pillar in 4Way of NTOV, I would barely pop off the ground and crash down in a millisecond. Someone told me to check my FPS, after testing it and changing it down to 45 FPS, I could jump over the pillar. Anything less just made the jump easier. I guess that change would also allow me to stay in the air longer while jumping towards FTE targets?

If Alt+Tabbing to change your FPS is now illegal, is changing your FPS to FTE run illegal? Can you change it as long as you don't adjust it mid-run? Can you change it with the little tab button in Ctrl+O as long as you don't change it through alt+tabbing? Will people now just choose the lowest possible FPS to also be able to navigate smoothly?

[Niroz]

If Alt+Tabbing to change your FPS is now illegal, is changing your FPS to FTE run illegal? Can you change it as long as you don't adjust it mid-run? Can you change it with the little tab button in Ctrl+O as long as you don't change it through alt+tabbing? Will people now just choose the lowest possible FPS to also be able to navigate smoothly?

"Awakened is under Raid Suspension for the next 10 days for breaking the posted rules that are in place for ToV when on 12/19 an Awakened member (Hjial) was manipulating his game to increase his running speed to levels faster than SoW during an FTE race in Temple of Veeshan to secure an FTE on Vulak."

I would assume so...but I guess we won't know until a guild gets banned for it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[nyclin]

gonna be pretty suspicious if AM doesn't eat a suspension for the same, considering detoxx himself admitted that his guild was using the tactic "just to keep up"

[BallzDeep]

youre the nerd who memblurs others dragons. Your rant means nada and I'm under the impression there is more to come for all the shit you guys have pulled.

Hello bandwagoner number #20.

[Swish]

I am 100 percent sure none of you shitbags would be competitive on phinny. you cant play without cheating

How are you competitive in instanced raiding? yikes

[BallzDeep]

I get what you saying, Chest. Altering frame rates is exploiting game mechanics though because it is utilizing the software itself to achieve an unintended result. Screen sharing is something beyond the game and doesn't directly interact with the game.

Whether screen sharing is or is not an exploit though, I honestly do not see how anyone can believe that EQ developers intended for people to be able to move more quickly through the environment by manipulating game frame rates. That's what you arguing if you say it not an exploit and it just silly ^^ that is the point I was making ^^

You could say the same about screen sharing. I honestly doubt the dev's expected half this shit the neckbeards do, but they do it. People already stated you don't necessarily have to alt+tab to get this effect.

[BallzDeep]

How are you competitive in instanced raiding? yikes

I found that statement funny since he's in OGC. Ask Dima how the SK army is?

[Secrets]

OP doesn't know what he's talking about. Framerate has nothing to do with runspeed, only falling speed due to EQ's physics engine in the Titanium era.

However, using a program to adjust your runspeed should be and is bannable, which the accused clearly did with a third party trainer application.

[Secrets]

If this was targeted at me on Slyk(the accused Hjial) I can assure you I run no 3rd party programs. These runs if you search under " Hjial " in YouTube was done all by simply launching cheat engine and modifying an address constant for speed

[khanable]

the plot thickens

[Hevie]

OP doesn't know what he's talking about. Framerate has nothing to do with runspeed, only falling speed due to EQ's physics engine in the Titanium era.

However, using a program to adjust your runspeed should be and is bannable, which the accused clearly did with a third party trainer application.

I'm curious, is altering your falling speed illegal?

[kotton05]

If you're not guilty. This isn't the place or the people to talk to.

[Knowmercy]

some decent discussion here. boiled down point is changing your frame rate. I adjust it to get onto the ledge to click into portal orbs in skyshrine on a smaller race toon.

When i started '99 made it a point to experience most of the content via the different guild and content tiers. through leveling and gearing up it was commonplace to despise the end game guilds, and hold strong opinions about that which we were infact completely oblivious to. we naturally and collectively villainize the best to feel pertinent and fill an information void.

flame, feud, and troll aside cant consider a game function cheating as theres no method to regulate or monitor it. adjusting frame rate is and always will be a thing, and this relatively niche trick has been highlighted now. suspension is to appease, entertain a display of power, ignorance, and a ban on posting racing videos. have to appreciate the evil genius

[tifakjata]

I am 100 percent sure none of you shitbags would be competitive on phinny. you cant play without cheating

They would need jobs to play on Phinny DBG dont take EBT LOL

[Burrito]

You don't know how much this means to me bro 'Secrets'. To be accused of hacking my run speed when I know damn well I did it within all means designed. This is the biggest compliment ever. To be accused of hacking because I'm so good. Lmfao.

It's like when you get kicked off the counterstrike server for dominating.

[Vianna]

It's like when you get kicked off the counterstrike server for dominating.

Or for cheating. Which he was doing. Don't let his excuses delude that. He is making excuses because he is a cheater.

[Prismaticshop]

It had posted limits : SoW.

You got caught speeding.

You got rekt

You're now guildless and alone in RnF showing how toxic some AW (ex AW wtv) are.

You got rekt like an anal queen and AW is the target of RnF's current golden shower. gg

[Prismaticshop]

So you "taught" alt tab running and you're wondering why your guild is the only one banned lol ?

You're not really helping your ex Guildies plead their case, talk about a useful idiot for AM, did you app to them yet ?

[Prismaticshop]

Seems that it's not only FTEing that was adderal fueled, your posts are dumb as fuck, keep crying in RnF like a bitch ass guidless doink lol

[Prismaticshop]

Well,

I'm not the one banned that has been spamming every thread ever since they got guildkicked and rekt server wide lol

[Eroqa]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpqxi_V3jfQ

In case you're wondering what an ass kicking looks like. It looks like this, when nobody is in your rear view mirror and they're "cheating" just as hard. #GetGood. Biproduct of being bad, basically when you're holding a gun to someone's head and I happened to shoot first, so since you didn't get the chance to kill them, you lash out and tell on me angry that you couldn't pop your gun off first. Hipocrite much?

the sweeni beep beeps are so good

[Tycoon]

I love the Sweeni horn

[Suwu]

I am 100 percent sure none of you shitbags would be competitive on phinny. you cant play without cheating

how can you be competitive, it is instanced?

you compete with yourself foolio, and you would be surprised the guild invites waiting for most of us over there

[Caiu]

There are open world spawns for neckbeards to compete over as well as instances. Little bit of bearding for everyone.

[Daldaen]

how can you be competitive, it is instanced?

you compete with yourself foolio, and you would be surprised the guild invites waiting for most of us over there

The competition on Live was always to beat the content before the other guilds. Even though it was largely/entirely instanced.

Being able to say "we beat Tacvi before your guild because we executed strategies better, because our healers are more on the ball, because our tanks switch and alternate effectively, because our debuffers get debuffs in to assist Tanks, Healers and DPS quickly, our DPS knows how to use it's discs and abilities/their stacking to the best of their ability, our Raid leader knows how to create groups that synergize well allowing ADPS to provide maximum benefit to the raid and to keep everyone alive".

Rather than "we beat you because we ran off the line earlier, jumped at the right spots, strafed at the right spots, DA'd at the right spots, used voiddance at the right spots, and use Slowstone clicks to get maximum range."

The nerds on TLP servers that race though, and even live, because of the way expansions and raid content are now designed, it's not the first description anymore. It just turns into a "who can log in at Noon on a Wednesday afternoon to raid". Which is very retarded.

If P99 released some hard raid content. Like Vulak Ring Event. You could have some true competition. Cause there are 4-5 entities right now that can kill Vulak no problem. But the number that could deal with 2 Flurry Drake and 1 Wurm in camp simultaneousl or 5 Drake adds or drakelings spawning on deaths etc. I don't think any guild could do it to be honest. They just aren't disciplined enough to deal with multiple ToV adds in camp on a regular basis. Most of them abort a pull or QQ about a train if a single add comes into their camp during a dragon. Can't imagine how they'd deal with multiple flurries and other mobs simultaneously.

[Suwu]

The competition on Live was always to beat the content before the other guilds. Even though it was largely/entirely instanced.

Being able to say "we beat Tacvi before your guild because we executed strategies better, because our healers are more on the ball, because our tanks switch and alternate effectively, because our debuffers get debuffs in to assist Tanks, Healers and DPS quickly, our DPS knows how to use it's discs and abilities/their stacking to the best of their ability, our Raid leader knows how to create groups that synergize well allowing ADPS to provide maximum benefit to the raid and to keep everyone alive".

Rather than "we beat you because we ran off the line earlier, jumped at the right spots, strafed at the right spots, DA'd at the right spots, used voiddance at the right spots, and use Slowstone clicks to get maximum range."

The nerds on TLP servers that race though, and even live, because of the way expansions and raid content are now designed, it's not the first description anymore. It just turns into a "who can log in at Noon on a Wednesday afternoon to raid". Which is very retarded.

If P99 released some hard raid content. Like Vulak Ring Event. You could have some true competition. Cause there are 4-5 entities right now that can kill Vulak no problem. But the number that could deal with 2 Flurry Drake and 1 Wurm in camp simultaneousl or 5 Drake adds or drakelings spawning on deaths etc. I don't think any guild could do it to be honest. They just aren't disciplined enough to deal with multiple ToV adds in camp on a regular basis. Most of them abort a pull or QQ about a train if a single add comes into their camp during a dragon. Can't imagine how they'd deal with multiple flurries and other mobs simultaneously.

That sounds like a blast, ring wars are the best encounters.

The competition of killing better/faster/smarter/longer seems healthy. :)

@Daldaen, as somebody that had to choose a guild on Phinny, can you say that the competition between the guilds was much of a factor? I feel like the instanced raiding and the progression that everybody will get there relatively quickly makes the top guild less meaningful.

[Rygar]

If P99 released some hard raid content. Like Vulak Ring Event. You could have some true competition. Cause there are 4-5 entities right now that can kill Vulak no problem. But the number that could deal with 2 Flurry Drake and 1 Wurm in camp simultaneousl or 5 Drake adds or drakelings spawning on deaths etc. I don't think any guild could do it to be honest. They just aren't disciplined enough to deal with multiple ToV adds in camp on a regular basis. Most of them abort a pull or QQ about a train if a single add comes into their camp during a dragon. Can't imagine how they'd deal with multiple flurries and other mobs simultaneously.

This would be cool to do seasonally. Say every 4th month, all month long, Ring event is active. Would allow you to experience a classic server most of the year, but get custom p99 flavor the rest of the time. You could basically do this for any kind of custom content.

I agree tho, more challenging encounters sound very intriguing, and I don't even raid much.

[Daldaen]

That sounds like a blast, ring wars are the best encounters.

The competition of killing better/faster/smarter/longer seems healthy. :)

@Daldaen, as somebody that had to choose a guild on Phinny, can you say that the competition between the guilds was much of a factor? I feel like the instanced raiding and the progression that everybody will get there relatively quickly makes the top guild less meaningful.

There's basically 4 groups of nerds.

1: AoS - They neckbeard hard, take weeks off work (lol what job) and try to clear the content immediately. Then after that they commitment themselves to killing all the open world spawns. Every 2-3 days they're clearing all of the content in an expansion.
2: OGC - They neckbeard hard, take weeks off work (lol what job) and try to clear the content immediately. They don't really care about open world spawns.
3: Darkwind/EoE/IVAS - They have pretty strong neckbeards but they likely aren't raiding at 9 AM when PoP launches like the other two guilds. They raid hard, are scumbaggy and will try to knock out content as quickly as possible. Though they won't be on suicide watch if they don't clear it fastest.
4: Everyone else - *Puff puff pass*. We just like, want to raid content man. Whatever happens will happen.

For me it was just all "what guild isn't full a retards, actually knows what they're doing, won't be raiding at 9AM on a Tuesday". Mostly I just had 4-5 pals go to EoE which is why I ended up there. The other guilds in this tier all seem pretty similar from what I've discerned.

[Suwu]

That is some good information right there daldaen.

Seems my old live progression locked guild Wrathful Inquisition split themselves between AoS, OGC, and a few other guilds. They are def some min maxers.

Too many adventures not enough time :(

[burkemi5]

Christ, that race video. What has p99 come to? That is a new level of pathetic.

[Holyhawk]

This thread is insane...go outside people.

[Whirled]

This thread is insane...go outside people.

The twisted part is - they see nothing wrong with it.
Hopefully, Trump will put them to work fixing up the wall and they wont be home 24/7 playing pixel jack with each other.

[Sirban]

Didn't read.

[karkaroth]

"Awakened is under Raid Suspension for the next 10 days for breaking the posted rules that are in place for ToV when on 12/19 an Awakened member (Hjial) was manipulating his game to increase his running speed to levels faster than SoW during an FTE race in Temple of Veeshan to secure an FTE on Vulak."

I assume the rule being broken is:

"Spirit of Wolf is the only movement speed buff that is allowed during the FTE race."

Of course, alt tabbing isn't a buff, but we'll go ahead and lump it under this category since clearly, that's what was done to warrant the raid suspension (judging by the words used in the ruling and what is posted for ToV FTE racing). Of course, the problem with this is, doesn't strafing buffed with SoW move you faster than just SoW? Yes, yes it does. So do we now suspend everyone who has ever strafed during a FTE run?

Moving forward, let's talk about why alt-tabbing during jumping is advantageous. This will be redundant, but will expand a bit on what is actually happening and why the actual outcome of it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to reasonably enforce.

When you are in the jumping forward state, you move slightly faster than simply running. When your frame rate is lower, you stay in the jumping state longer than you do at higher frame rates. When the game client is not focused, resources normally allocated to the client are significantly reduced, thus lowering the frame rate of the game to single and teen digits.

So what kind of ruling and enforcement can you put into place to prevent this advantage? I suppose you could force FTE runners to Fraps their runs to prove they are not alt tabbing or unfocusing their client. However, that only proves that they are not using either of those methods to achieve low FPS during jumps. What about those who simply FTE at lower FPS using the built in max FPS settings for example? You could force FTE runners to Fraps their runs with their "Max FPS client settings" shown. That of course would not only be silly, but would only prove that they are not using the built in client settings to manipulate their FPS. One can simply underclock their GPU/CPU or have multiple processes running in the background to get the desired lowered FPS. This also means that disabling Windowed Mode is not a solution.

Now you can argue that having significantly lowered FPS only during the jump is much more advantageous than permanently running at low FPS. In fact, I'd reckon it is nearly impossible to competitively run a FTE race at single to teen digits FPS. However, I can see running a race at 20-30FPS being much more manageable while still providing nearly the same benefit as jumping in the alt tab state.

I suppose you could try enforcing some sort of FPS minimum requirement, but now you are dipping into hardware requirements to compete (otherwise, runners can state they're utilizing less than desirable hardware). You then have to come up with a system to enforce this rule - such as again, runners recording their runs with FPS being displayed or having other runners submit recordings of the accused. I don't see the volunteer staff wanting to allocate - or hell, even having the resources to reviewing a multitude FTE videos every time there's a ToV race. Not to mention dealing with the excuses (desyncing, low FPS spike due to x, etc).

You could ban jumping on these FTE runs, but then you put small races at a significant disadvantage when it comes to many of the routes in ToV with uneven terrain. I suppose a smarter solution if you were to go this route is to only allow jumping when there is an obstacle. However, that just pushes the door back open to low FPS jumping not to mention the amount of lawyering on what is considered an obstacle.

In the end, I really don't see a reasonable solution to this. Without a way to reasonably enforce a rule to prevent low fps jumping, there will most likely be racers continuing to utilize this method to gain an edge.

How bout don't make alt-jumping cheating, no need to police, all are allowed to do it so it's fair ? Am I missing something ?

[Kowalski]

;P

[Hevie]

Well, we've all insisted for sometime that another exploit is valid, so why not this one too I guess.

Are you referring to sneak pulling?

[Ravager]

For those with the balls to train for P99 Raiding:http://www.abandonwaredos.com/public/aban_img_splash/jumpman-splash.jpg

[Skew]

I taught your leader Detoxx how to do it because he plead/cried in tells for me to teach him, which I did because I didn't see anything wrong with it. So he used it also and happened to still suck.


Yikes.
Beast-mode engaged.

[Knowmercy]

How bout don't make alt-jumping cheating, no need to police, all are allowed to do it so it's fair ? Am I missing something ?

Well, we've all insisted for sometime that another exploit is valid, so why not this one too I guess.

[Niroz]

How bout don't make alt-jumping cheating, no need to police, all are allowed to do it so it's fair ? Am I missing something ?

Well they already controversially ruled against it and suspended an entire guild. To then just be like "just kidding!!!" and make it legal...wow.

[Knowmercy]

Well they already controversially ruled against it and suspended an entire guild. To then just be like "just kidding!!!" and make it legal...wow.

agreed, would be as half-baked and short sighted as the ruling itself (given the explanation of, and the actual offense) since you cant police this. Official wording is ambiguous and misleading

Not saying that perhaps this did not deserve attention or acknowledgment, just was very poorly handled. Moving forward, we should not share video of, or talk about alt tabbing or changing frame rates

[Suwu]

Well they already controversially ruled against it and suspended an entire guild. To then just be like "just kidding!!!" and make it legal...wow.

Too bad we had to go through 10 pages to find the real answer...

Good players find mechanics to win games, mediocre players replicate strategies to keep themselves afloat.

If we are racing, let's race, can't fault somebody for pushing limits, ask any profesional player; maybe that guy named Pudge Rod?; even hall of famers now.

Do you remember classic and gread guilds breaking the game with mechanics?? Cmom classic sons, this is what makes the game better even if new rules need to be implemented to handicap.

If not, let's go with Daldaen's idea about vulak ring wars. We can field tanks with ramps and chains, boot up the real everquest of best team killers.

[Mythanor]

TL;DR - If you aren't cheating , you aren't trying... to sum that up for everyone.

Too bad we had to go through 10 pages to find the real answer...

Good players find mechanics to win games, mediocre players replicate strategies to keep themselves afloat.

If we are racing, let's race, can't fault somebody for pushing limits, ask any profesional player; maybe that guy named Pudge Rod?; even hall of famers now.

Do you remember classic and gread guilds breaking the game with mechanics?? Cmom classic sons, this is what makes the game better even if new rules need to be implemented to handicap.

If not, let's go with Daldaen's idea about vulak ring wars. We can field tanks with ramps and chains, boot up the real everquest of best team killers.

[shtampy]

maybe that guy named Pudge Rod?; even hall of famers now.

Who the hell ever called him Pudge Rod? That's some thick dick 80s porn star name. It was only ever Pudge, maybe I-Rod, and his only "link" to cheating was hearsay through Jose Canseco, whose life is a garbage fire.

Seriously though, Pudge Rod. Fuck sake.

[Xanaxx]

Some of you are either idiots or just blind. This has been said many times yet some of you dont listen.
Multiple guilds alt+tab jumped. No one is denying this. Even the guild leaders on the other side. When the issue was brought up to Sirken about alt+tab (not in a petition btw), Sirken told everyone to stop doing it. AT THIS POINT, everyone choose to stop EXCEPT AWAKEN. Awaken said fuck you and continued to alt+tab run. THIS IS WHY they were banned and not Aftermath. How fucking hard is this to comprehend?

[Hevie]

Some of you are either idiots or just blind. This has been said many times yet some of you dont listen.
Multiple guilds alt+tab jumped. No one is denying this. Even the guild leaders on the other side. When the issue was brought up to Sirken about alt+tab (not in a petition btw), Sirken told everyone to stop doing it. AT THIS POINT, everyone choose to stop EXCEPT AWAKEN. Awaken said fuck you and continued to alt+tab run. THIS IS WHY they were banned and not Aftermath. How fucking hard is this to comprehend?

What makes you think Awakened didn't stop when Sirken declared to? You know the Vulak in question was from a month ago, right?

[khanable]

Some of you are either idiots or just blind. This has been said many times yet some of you dont listen.
Multiple guilds alt+tab jumped. No one is denying this. Even the guild leaders on the other side. When the issue was brought up to Sirken about alt+tab (not in a petition btw), Sirken told everyone to stop doing it. AT THIS POINT, everyone choose to stop EXCEPT AWAKEN. Awaken said fuck you and continued to alt+tab run. THIS IS WHY they were banned and not Aftermath. How fucking hard is this to comprehend?

It actually goes even deeper than this. I read right here in RnF (the definitive source of factual information) that Awakened was going beyond alt-tabbing and actually speed hacking the client by injected specific values into the client via cheat engine. This was known at the leadership level and trickled down.

Unfortunate, really.

[RedXIII]

It actually goes even deeper than this. I read right here in RnF (the definitive source of factual information) that Awakened was going beyond alt-tabbing and actually speed hacking the client by injected specific values into the client via cheat engine. This was known at the leadership level and trickled down.

Unfortunate, really.

Yeah man, i dont even watch CNN or Fox news... i go to RnF to read about all the correct information we have in the world. good shit ;)

[kotton05]

Yeah man, i dont even watch CNN or Fox news... i go to RnF to read about all the correct information we have in the world. good shit ;)

The men in black used tabloids to hunt aliens down as well.

Suck y'all was cheating.