163 replies to this topic

[Adiuvo]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 April 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

The other team could use the same program AND the free server PGI/IGP maintain... or is it NG:NG that maintain the US and EU servers?

NGNG has absolutely nothing to do with the game's servers, administration, or development. The only ties they have to PGI are essentially PR related.

Joseph Mallan, on 11 April 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

on't know if its to improve HSR or to cause Lag shielding to overcome it, but the Lords are trying to break it in a hour long video.

I am a Lord. I'm aware of the situation. If you want an up to date thread, read this. Ryan Steel and Eglar are the only people who use a VPN in House of Lords, and Eglar does so because he lives in China. Ryan outlined why he uses it in this post. As a summary of that, the only thing he does is set it to route to LA, which increases his ping to around 120 and *stabilizes it, versus his normal 20-40 hops. This is essentially the same as if someone actually *lived* in LA.

Edited by Adiuvo, 11 April 2014 - 11:07 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Ordellus, on 11 April 2014 - 10:36 AM, said:

*You mean like lowering the graphics so that trees, smoke, shaders, and lighting aren't in the way......

*Or downloading a program that isn't related to the game at all so that you and friends can communicate in real time while the enemy team can't.....

*Or spending money to get a weapon that doesn't actually shoot out of any mech, that has infinity range, and can do damage without you aiming or being at any real risk what-so-ever....

Spoiler: This game caters to ******** that aren't good enough to win a fair fight.

Exploit the hell out of it, b/c that's apparently PGIs business model

That is so weak dude.

You would force everyone to use one graphic level, Highest, despite their current hardware? Please (I have yet to see a Tree, Smoke or Shader stop a well placed AC round...

Not downloading something that is both Free and easy to use, makes everyone else a cheater? Please.

They are purchasable with in game currency, known as CBills. Please.

Spoiler: That post stinks to high heaven as coming from someone who has a bone to pick but no idea how to properly go about it. Please.

[Trauglodyte]

cSand, on 11 April 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:

You know you suck when you have to start manipulating your ping to believe you have a chance! On the other hand, I remember exploiting a wacky bug in UO back in 99 or 2000 that made me a millionaire in that game You had to walk around this specific house in a circle and open these boxes (or stack them, I can't remember exactly) in the right order, and every now and then a rare statue would materialize in one of the boxes. Did that for a few hours and sold the statues for like 200k gold each. Bought a house with the money, got he house stolen from me in a shady real estate deal which also resulted in my death Ah the good old days

I have only one thing to say about this:

CORP POR!!!

I do, of course, remember the days of sitting in the city at the bank only to hear "Guards! Guards! Guards" get spammed over and over again and seeing mass mounts of bodies. I thought that I'd be slick for a while and combine pick pocketing with alchemy to drop chemical bombs in peoples' pockets. It did not always turn out so beneficial for me.

Joseph Mallan, on 10 April 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

So I have this question after listening to some U-Tube... Is purposely inflating your Ping (VPN) fair to playing the game?

This harkens back to the days of people window dragging to cause their toon to warp a few feet in front of them while not showing any real movement on their end. Basically, douche bags will do anything and everything in games to get an edge. Hell, people used to grapple gun in corners where there was no actual environment back in Quake just so that they could more easily kill people. Hacks exist but we will endure.

PGI just needs to take a harder stance on this.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 11 April 2014 - 10:59 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Adiuvo, on 11 April 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

NGNG has absolutely nothing to do with the game's servers, administration, or development. The only ties they have to PGI are essentially PR related.


I am a Lord. I'm aware of the situation. If you want an up to date thread, read this. Ryan Steel and Eglar are the only people who use a VPN in House of Lords, and Eglar does so because he lives in China. Ryan outlined why he uses it in this post. As a summary of that, the only thing he does is set it to route to LA, which increases his ping to around 120 and stabalizes it, versus his normal 20-40 hops. This is essentially the same as if someone actually *lived* in LA.

Ok I welcome your imput to the discussion. However your group is artificiality stabilizing your Ping at a sweetspot. Will you be sharing your results with the community so others can benefit from your trials?

Also... the NG:NG is a bit of a poke since there is such talk as they are in be with MW:O...

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 11 April 2014 - 11:17 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

Adiuvo, on 11 April 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

I am a Lord. I'm aware of the situation. If you want an up to date thread, read this. Ryan Steel and Eglar are the only people who use a VPN in House of Lords, and Eglar does so because he lives in China. Ryan outlined why he uses it in this post. As a summary of that, the only thing he does is set it to route to LA, which increases his ping to around 120 and stabalizes it, versus his normal 20-40 hops. This is essentially the same as if someone actually *lived* in LA.

I can't imagine using VPN to play this game. It freaking sucks when I work from home and use VPN to connect to work and that is from Atlanta to Atlanta. Playing this game over that connection? Oye!



PS> Tell Ryan that he's a bandwagon Hunchy driver now that the P is a trial

Edited by Trauglodyte, 11 April 2014 - 11:01 AM.

[Adiuvo]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 April 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

Ok I welcome your imput to the discussion. However our group is artificiality stabilizing your Ping at a sweetspot. Will you be sharing your results with the community so others can benefit from your trials?

Also... the NG:NG is a bit of a poke since there is such talk as they are in be with MW:O...

Well really it's just Ryan doing it... the rest of us don't really have any interest since we're mostly all around 80-100ish ping anyways, not 19 like Ryan was. VPNs also cost money and I don't feel like spending it.

However, there is a bit of talk going around between various units of putting together two 12mans and testing out hit reg at various pings. If that does actually happen I'm sure there'll be a post here, and if not I'll make one.

[Joseph Mallan]

Trauglodyte, on 11 April 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

I have only one thing to say about this:

CORP POR!!!

I do, of course, remember the days of sitting in the city at the bank only to hear "Guards! Guards! Guards" get spammed over and over again and seeing mass mounts of bodies. I thought that I'd be slick for a while and combine pick pocketing with alchemy to drop chemical bombs in peoples' pockets. It did not always turn out so beneficial for me.



This harkens back to the days of people window dragging to cause their toon to warp a few feet in front of them while not showing any real movement on their end. Basically, douche bags will do anything and everything in games to get an edge. Hell, people used to grapple gun in corners where there was no actual environment back in Quake just so that they could more easily kill people. Hacks exist but we will endure.

PGI just needs to take a harder stance on this.

But are they legal an more importantly approved by the game developers. PGI says they won't stop it but won't fix your game if you jack it up doing it... That is ALMOST an approval.

Trauglodyte, on 11 April 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

I can't imagine using VPN to play this game. It freaking sucks when I work from home and use VPN to connect to work and that is from Atlanta to Atlanta. Playing this game over that connection? Oye!



PS> Tell Ryan that he's a bandwagon Hunchy driver now that the P is a trial

Apparently Seattle is the route that gave the best results which may have been for westerly use. Chicago was Bad if I remember correctly as it spiked ping over 250 IIRC.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 11 April 2014 - 11:05 AM.

[Suko]

On the issue of pings in game. I used to get ~80 ping in the evenings when I played. Now it's in the ~150 range. After doing speed tests, my ping and upload/download speeds seem to remain the same. The only thing I can think of is that my ISP is throttling access to this game for some reason (BF4 and TitanFall seem fine). Any thoughts on what could be causing this?

Edited by ShadowVFX, 11 April 2014 - 11:08 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 April 2014 - 11:05 AM, said:

But are they legal an more importantly approved by the game developers. PGI says they won't stop it but won't fix your game if you jack it up doing it... That is ALMOST an approval.


Apparently Seattle is the route that gave the best results which may have been for westerly use. Chicago was Bad if I remember correctly as it spiked ping over 250 IIRC.

I think what the GM was saying is that it isn't suggested but not in violation of the game code. It isn't any different in their eyes than using mouse/keyboard macros or adjusting that one file to increase your field of view (or now allowing you to use the mouse wheel up/down to do things). Short of you actually hacking the code or using a 3rd party program to get around crucial and critical in game features, PGI is taking a hands off approach.

[Joseph Mallan]

ShadowVFX, on 11 April 2014 - 11:07 AM, said:

On the issue of pings in game. I used to get ~80 ping in the evenings when I played. Now it's in the ~150 range. After doing speed tests, my ping and upload/download speeds seem to remain the same. The only thing I can think of is that my ISP is throttling access to this game for some reason (BF4 and TitanFall seem fine). Any thoughts on what could be causing this?

not me... but the sweet spot the Lords' player found was around 120-130.

Trauglodyte, on 11 April 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

I think what the GM was saying is that it isn't suggested but not in violation of the game code. It isn't any different in their eyes than using mouse/keyboard macros or adjusting that one file to increase your field of view (or now allowing you to use the mouse wheel up/down to do things). Short of you actually hacking the code or using a 3rd party program to get around crucial and critical in game features, PGI is taking a hands off approach.

Understood. I look forward to seeing how I play against those trying to manipulate this.

[Odins Fist]

Joseph Mallan, on 10 April 2014 - 01:59 PM, said:

"So Is Artificially Increasing Ping Cheating?"

ANSWER: YES

This started long ago, it's been years since "Ping Interruption" has been used by cheap, petty, no talent scrubs to gain an advantage in certain gaming situations, and for the servers that I ran admin tools for, I would see this used often.

High pings for those rented-dedicated servers "ALWAYS" created a worse gaming experience for our regulars and members, and were actively culled-booted from the server ASAP. Also certain Countries that had players with very high pings were also denied by default, the result was a server that people using things like this and other cheats/hacks avoided like the plague.

We had times when other organizations/Clans would show up, their members Country of origin was identified through the admin tool and pings monitored, when huge variances were found a simple question was asked, "where are you from".

I remember a Clan that answered "Chicago, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Atlanta Georgia" it was funny because the guy from Georgia had the best and most stable ping. It was really funny since our servers were located in Chicago Illinois, and after members saying "he's teleporting" or "I just put a full mag into him and he took no damage, then appeared somewhere else and dropped me", well you can imagine what happened next.

Paying attention and doing a little admining kept our server running without issue for the most part, oh we still had cheaters/hackers show up once in a blue moon, but I can tell you this, a couple of dozen successful GLOBAL BANS on people through punkbuster and the admining got way easier. Word spreads when you police your servers. Also we had a ping limit set, anyone that had a ping over a certain amount for a certain time period was automatically booted.

Zero Tolerance and Automatic BAN for LIFE is the only way to run a server when a cheater/hacker is indentified, spectated and screenshots taken. It was real easy to submit screenshots of people with hacks running, or my favorite a the hack that only showed a black screenshot when a sreenie was taken.

So what if they create a new account and try again, just BAN again.
It used to be they would loose their key code and have to get another one through whatever means, but I think in MWO it would mean more, you know if they had MC and money wrapped up into the account.

Anyone that uses an AimBot, WallHack, or Ping Interruption is pure slime. Anyone caught using any of these should have their names posted on the forums, and have their account deleted forever, PERIOD

Edited by Odins Fist, 11 April 2014 - 11:19 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

Well, if I interpret what Adiuvo (I always want to type it as "ui" and not "iu") is saying is that they've got several players of varying Pings, one of which lives in China so who knows how much that ping varies. If you've got a team that is working to remove any and every anomoly from their gaming experience which may detract from their ability to win, then it needs to go. Using VPN, if it works properly, could be used to stabalize the entire team's ping so that, when they fire, they're all firing under the same conditions and, as such, would land their shots with the same reliability as everyone else on their team. It would be like everyone buying the exact same computer so that all 12 people are playing under the same conditions only this is a means by which to apply that methodology to their ISP conditions.

[Joseph Mallan]

Adiuvo, on 11 April 2014 - 11:02 AM, said:

Well really it's just Ryan doing it... the rest of us don't really have any interest since we're mostly all around 80-100ish ping anyways, not 19 like Ryan was. VPNs also cost money and I don't feel like spending it.

However, there is a bit of talk going around between various units of putting together two 12mans and testing out hit reg at various pings. If that does actually happen I'm sure there'll be a post here, and if not I'll make one.

And many of the guys he dropped with in the video. But again will your group share Ryan's findings with the community?

Trauglodyte, on 11 April 2014 - 11:18 AM, said:

Well, if I interpret what Adiuvo (I always want to type it as "ui" and not "iu") is saying is that they've got several players of varying Pings, one of which lives in China so who knows how much that ping varies. If you've got a team that is working to remove any and every anomoly from their gaming experience which may detract from their ability to win, then it needs to go. Using VPN, if it works properly, could be used to stabalize the entire team's ping so that, when they fire, they're all firing under the same conditions and, as such, would land their shots with the same reliability as everyone else on their team. It would be like everyone buying the exact same computer so that all 12 people are playing under the same conditions only this is a means by which to apply that methodology to their ISP conditions.

Will they share the knowledge with others to allow a level playing field between friendly rivals if this is the case??? allowing everyone to use the same trick?


I really need a new keyboard at work!

Thank You Odin... Please try to restrain your emotions on this topic if you can. I would like to stay a reasonable discussion if we can.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 11 April 2014 - 11:25 AM.

[cSand]

Trauglodyte, on 11 April 2014 - 10:57 AM, said:

I have only one thing to say about this:

CORP POR!!!

I do, of course, remember the days of sitting in the city at the bank only to hear "Guards! Guards! Guards" get spammed over and over again and seeing mass mounts of bodies. I thought that I'd be slick for a while and combine pick pocketing with alchemy to drop chemical bombs in peoples' pockets. It did not always turn out so beneficial for me.

Arrrrrrgh Deathbolt!

[Adiuvo]

Joseph Mallan, on 11 April 2014 - 11:22 AM, said:

And many of the guys he dropped with in the video. But again will your group share Ryan's findings with the community?


Will they share the knowledge with others to allow a level playing field between friendly rivals if this is the case??? allowing everyone to use the same trick?

No, it's only Ryan using a VPN in that video. I was even in the videos...

I already said that I would make a post on the forums if the 12man hit detection test actually happened. As for Ryan's personal findings, they're already public.

http://www.reddit.co...pta04?context=3

^^Doing that makes his hit reg better. Whether it's a placebo or not we really have no way of knowing, but I'll take his word for it.

Edited by Adiuvo, 11 April 2014 - 11:30 AM.

[Almond Brown]

120-130 does not sound high or inflated really. I regularly see higher pings in game and stuttering has not been an issue for a long time. I do have a good ping myself but if it "stabilizes" a highly fluctuating Ping, I can't see that as being a blatant "cheat" but more a smoothing effect. Akin to finding your graphics cards sweet spot for best performance, using the on-board sliders etc etc.

Anyways, as noted, from my understanding and use of VPN, they are not the best method to game with.

[Odins Fist]

Almond Brown, on 11 April 2014 - 11:28 AM, said:

120-130 does not sound high or inflated really.

When you have players that are 30 -70 Ping normally then the story maybe different.
I would have to look into what kind of HSR change happens within what ranges.

Mine is usually between 30 - 100 depending what hours i'm on, and the level of MWO's server traffic.
More often between 30 -70 ping.

Whether or not a 120 -130 ping confers any advantage at all is debatable.

Edited by Odins Fist, 11 April 2014 - 11:38 AM.

[M T]

Interesting thread. Im just wondering if using a VPN wouldnt both upstream and downstream latency be higher? Wouldnt that mean that you hitting another mech will also be flukey?

Though I could see how easily you can manipulate your down/upstream latency to the PGI servers by some simple software solutions. This really doesnt necessarily need a VPN at all or whatever's being suggested here.

Also, On the contrary to what people often believe, someone with a high ping doesnt necessarily have an advantage over others, nor does it always mean someone would stutter and glitch all over the place. That has more to do with the dataflow stability itself.

In any case, yes. Its possible to manipulate the upstream towards about any MMO server to introduce upstream 'lag' or however you classify it, thats the main problem with how the whole network structure is handled. Some form of cloud based networking would possibly solve this as all clients have to verify data for a specific person together i suppose. But this goes way above my league so I could be wrong with all this

Edited by Marctraider, 11 April 2014 - 11:45 AM.

[100mile]

I've been in matches with people doing the Lag effect..and I've watched a Spider jump all over the place and kill 3 or 4 other mechs because he popped in behind them fired off his weapons and skipped around and did it again over and over...so don't tell me nobody is doing it...been the victim...of the pathetic attempt of some people to make themselves feel better....

[Odins Fist]

100mile, on 11 April 2014 - 11:48 AM, said:

I've been in matches with people doing the Lag effect..and I've watched a Spider jump all over the place

I had a match a while back where an entire lance magically appeared, two at a time, just warped right into position and started attacking.

Even saw a Raven on top of another Mech get a teleport ride, but that was a long while back.

Edited by Odins Fist, 11 April 2014 - 11:53 AM.