163 replies to this topic

[C E Dwyer]

Well I've been bouncing around for the last two weeks and have become so sick of it I sent off a support ticket.

if it is an exploit, two things come to mind

would it cause other people to end up jumping all over the shop and if this platform wants to be a serious e-sport PGi has to vigerously stop this effect, whether enduced or anying bug

[Lostdragon]

I live in a rural area and I play most online games through a VPN. A few patches ago I actually could not connect to a match unless I connected through my provider's server in Ontario. I was unable to play MWO without using my VPN.

I was curious about how VPNs could be used to game the system a while back when there was a lot of discussion around HSR. I played a number of matches through VPN nodes in the EU and the experience was quite frustrating. My typical ping on a node my provider runs on the east coast is 80-140. Going straight through my ISP I see 100-200. Using EU nodes I was getting anywhere from 250-500 ms pings. In my experience the game was not enjoyable playing at those pings because while it was hard for people to hit me it was also very hard for me to hit them and I could not effectively play any mech moving over ~120 kph.

I imagine the performance benefits of having higher ping are fairly insignificant especially since you can't just tune your ping to the sweet spot (whatever it works out to be). After playing at a lot of different pings I definitely found the breakover point where your ping is too high and hurts you, but below that I never personally felt that I found this "sweet spot" that actually improved my performance, but my ping without the VPN is not great so YMMV.

[Odins Fist]

Packet Loss can produce some strange things...

[Abivard]

If I understand this correctly....

A Lord's player whose ping will widely fluctuate during a match is using VPN to stabilize that fluctuating ping in order to have consistency of gameplay?

If So, I am all for it, That would mean that player would no longer warp on my screen! Once I figured the correct 'lead' to apply against him it would stay the same! yes please!

The optimum or sweet spot is around 120, I take that to mean that is the point where he can get a stable ping with out having the drawbacks of the ping being to high. Makes sense to me, no need to set ping any higher than you have too to get a stable connection.

Joseph? have you been shouting WOLF! again?

No this isn't any kind of cheating. trying to smear those obnoxious Lords as cheaters just because they always stomp you is real low, Joe ;p

[dario03]

^^
That is what it sounds like to me and I agree that seems fine. However people that do the opposite and purposely try to make their ping fluctuate does not seem fine. I've been in games where it seems like some people take damage fine when they are shooting at you but when they start running away they all of a sudden seem to start warping and don't take damage and if they were purposely causing that to happen by increasing their ping or packet loss or whatever then that isn't right. But who knows if they were doing that or if it was just a issue with the game or connection.

[Odins Fist]

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble but Ping Manipulation has been around for years..
Packet loss can lead to some really strange things..
BUT for manipulating your communication with the game server seems strange to me.. JMO
EXAMPLE: pings often go up and down to varying degrees, and unless someone has a constant and consistent ping all the time, which isn't likely, then trying to keep your ping to no lower then 120 would likely be the result.

So we're not talking about a steady 120 to 130 unless that is the result of going through VPN, but I don't see only a change of 10 ping be realistic, maybe it is, maybe that is the result, but making sure your ping never goes below 120 could be productive only if it makes hit registration consistent.. Seeing as most players do not have the ability to acheive completely consistent hit registration, then this is something that should be discussed, and not dismissed since it has been used in the past with other games to acheive some sort of advantage.

With that said, I still find it odd that someone would attempt such a thing to acheive what other players do not, or will not do as well. What is the motivation for this exactly..?? What is the desired goal..??

http://www.reddit.co...cussion_thread/

I saw a comment: "my hit detection is showing a marked improvement"

I believe that is what people are worried about, if indeed that is the case.
Does it matter..?? It's not for us to decide, only discuss, PGI will have to make a ruling on that.

Edited by Odins Fist, 11 April 2014 - 02:30 PM.

[AntharPrime]

Third-Party Scripts, Hacks, Bots, etc. Abuse
Software that gives players an unfair and undue advantage, or otherwise exploits the game, are strictly prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: Bots generated for running any of the above mentioned forms of griefing/exploits, scripts designed to negatively affect network connectivity, mods affecting the game UI, hacks providing information otherwise unavailable to the player, etc...Exceptions to this are made on a case by case basis and currently including chat macros and third-party VoIP. [

Edited by AntharPrime, 11 April 2014 - 03:24 PM.

[Odins Fist]

AntharPrime, on 11 April 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

Third-Party Scripts, Hacks, Bots, etc. Abuse
Software that gives players an unfair and undue advantage, or otherwise exploits the game, are strictly prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: Bots generated for running any of the above mentioned forms of griefing/exploits, scripts designed to negatively affect network connectivity,

Is this an official PGI statement..??

Uh Oh.. Grab your torches and pitch-forks...!!!! LOL
Or is a VPN explicitly used for bringing your ping down negatively, exempt..??

Edited by Odins Fist, 11 April 2014 - 03:29 PM.

[M T]

In all honesty, its really hard to try and seperate people with possibly bad connections and/or using VPN's from people that purposely abusing their own connection or even worse, shape the traffic in some way that it has a favourable effect for them in game. In fact its pretty much impossible to counter.

[Odins Fist]

Marctraider, on 11 April 2014 - 03:36 PM, said:

In all honesty, its really hard to try and seperate people with possibly bad connections and/or using VPN's from people that purposely abusing their own connection or even worse, shape the traffic in some way that it has a favourable effect for them in game. In fact its pretty much impossible to counter.

Unless they admit to it .. LOL

Here is something you should read, all the way down.
http://www.reddit.co...cussion_thread/

[Adiuvo]

AntharPrime, on 11 April 2014 - 03:23 PM, said:

Third-Party Scripts, Hacks, Bots, etc. Abuse
Software that gives players an unfair and undue advantage, or otherwise exploits the game, are strictly prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: Bots generated for running any of the above mentioned forms of griefing/exploits, scripts designed to negatively affect network connectivity, mods affecting the game UI, hacks providing information otherwise unavailable to the player, etc...Exceptions to this are made on a case by case basis and currently including chat macros and third-party VoIP. [

Did you not read the thread, at all?

http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3286744

[heimdelight]

http://www.reddit.co...ly_guys/cgpems4

For anyone to believe what we were doing on my Twitch stream is actually cheating is complete hearsay and should be treated as such. The usage of the VPN was intended to find more consistent hit registration for Ryan Steel, because he had uninstalled the game because of it. We had been theorizing as a group, based on things we had seen in game, how networking mechanics work with MWO and we were absolutely wrong. Ryan Steel has seen improvements in his game, but that may be from other differences in using a VPN other than just raising his ping.

I'm glad PGI and IGP have both communicated to the player-base regarding the topics that VPNs are allowed, and that they don't make any noticeable difference in-game when used. No one is cheating, and to accuse anyone of cheating is adding a whole new dimension to the topic being discussed in the video.

[Eglar]

LOL, someone had to post this.

Edited by Eglar, 11 April 2014 - 06:31 PM.

[Odins Fist]

heimdelight, on 11 April 2014 - 06:28 PM, said:

The usage of the VPN was intended to find more consistent hit registration for Ryan Steel, because he had uninstalled the game because of it. .

So wait a minute, he UNINSTALLED MWO because he had to deal with the same things the rest of us have to deal with.?

WOW

[dario03]

Well it is a valid reason. If a feature or glitch in a game bothers you enough then why keep playing? Its not like you have to play a game or at least not right now, could also just leave until it is fixed. Plus maybe he was getting more hitreg problems than most people, for me hitreg seems fine some times and really bad at others. So yeah everybody has the issue but some just play through and others leave or take a break. And like the posts say, he didn't try to make his ping go crazy he tried to make it steady so it wouldn't really be different than some one with a good but decently far connection playing.

Edited by dario03, 11 April 2014 - 10:34 PM.

[Xtrekker]

In my observations, intentional lagging is most effective when a harasser is doing his job. The times I see this, the warping mech is usually part of a group. Spinning a rabid yoyo off into the middle of the other team results in a fish-in-a-barrel situation while everyone turns to deal with it. I just mention this because several people have noted how hard it is to hit when you have a high ping (and of course why would anyone ever do that?), and I don't think that's always the purpose.

[Chemie]

I ran VPN as an experiment and had a 500 ping (vs 25 normally). Game was unplayable to me and did not seem to "help" with avoiding damage. I don't think a high ping is key, it is a variable ping that would be the goal to cheaters. That is harder to replicate.

[Wispsy]

Odins Fist, on 11 April 2014 - 07:03 PM, said:

So wait a minute, he UNINSTALLED MWO because he had to deal with the same things the rest of us have to deal with.?

WOW

No he unistalled MWO because things were much worse for him then for the rest of us...

Can you really not read? Right from the op question there was never any mention of packet loss, simply stabilizing ping (to an average level in this case). You then keep jumping in with all this packet loss stuff from previous games you played years ago etc. Guy had fluctuating ping, guy runs through separate server not very far away and his ping stabilizes at 120ms enough that the shots he usually hits, actually hit occasionally, the same as the rest of us. That it is...get out of here with your packet loss witch hunt and silly comments...at least read the words that are written on the forums you are responding to instead of picking out the word "ping manipulation" on the first page and going full r*****. His hit registration was clearly worse then average...else putting him at 120ms would not make things better.

[M T]

Odins Fist, on 11 April 2014 - 02:29 PM, said:

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble but Ping Manipulation has been around for years..
Packet loss can lead to some really strange things..
BUT for manipulating your communication with the game server seems strange to me.. JMO
EXAMPLE: pings often go up and down to varying degrees, and unless someone has a constant and consistent ping all the time, which isn't likely, then trying to keep your ping to no lower then 120 would likely be the result.

So we're not talking about a steady 120 to 130 unless that is the result of going through VPN, but I don't see only a change of 10 ping be realistic, maybe it is, maybe that is the result, but making sure your ping never goes below 120 could be productive only if it makes hit registration consistent.. Seeing as most players do not have the ability to acheive completely consistent hit registration, then this is something that should be discussed, and not dismissed since it has been used in the past with other games to acheive some sort of advantage.

With that said, I still find it odd that someone would attempt such a thing to acheive what other players do not, or will not do as well. What is the motivation for this exactly..?? What is the desired goal..??

http://www.reddit.co...cussion_thread/

I saw a comment: "my hit detection is showing a marked improvement"

I believe that is what people are worried about, if indeed that is the case.
Does it matter..?? It's not for us to decide, only discuss, PGI will have to make a ruling on that.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but again you dont need a VPN at all to achieve thse nast tricks. lol

[CJDodo]

Was just reading this out of casual interest, but something stuck out at me that warranted a comment, mainly the fact that Ryan is getting his ping to stabilise at 120 to help HSR work better for him, and the comments saying/implying that this could be unfair against people with lower latency, (despite it being stated that having a lower ping has worse for him).

I play from the UK, and my ping is always around 100-120, varies day to day but is relatively stable otherwise. If, for example the use of VPN's became considered cheating, then, as has been argued before, anyone with a naturally higher latency would therefore have to be banned/kicked from playing as well, as they'd be getting the same 'advantage'. You'd have to not let anyone with pings higher than say, 100 (or lower than something like 70, the arguments seem to split and aren't based on any actual data/testing so these exact numbers mean diddly squat apart from just relating to numbers quoted in this thread), to be able to join the servers, which would unfairly exclude people based on a combination of their location and ISP.

Really it's just minimising a disadvantage, like myself lowering a few graphics settings to get my FPS to not dip stupidly low in a brawl or random parts of certain maps, or not using DX11 as for whatever reason this game, DX11, and my PC don't get on well. Then there's people who need to use the lowest settings to run the game as circumstances mean they cannot upgrade their PC/laptop to something more powerful, which in turn removes certain effects and scenery models/textures, which has also been previously talked about as having an 'unfair' advantage or 'cheating'.

So in the same vein, you'd have to prevent people from playing with anything other than max settings and DX11 regardless of the hardware they are able to use. Which when combined with the ping bans, makes both arguments pretty nonsensical (although really that point has already been made clearly by others) as it'd decimate the player base, as if you're enforcing either you'd have to make no exceptions regardless of artificial or natural causes to either.

As a casual observer I'd put the noise down to anti-Lords sentiment, (mainly due to comments accusing all members of Lords of using VPNs, despite statements otherwise which either get ignored or put down to 'lies'), which to be honest never made any sense to me, 'LORD -name-, ggClose' is no different to any unit recruitment ad in chat or for example a 'Peace of Blake be with you', or even simply the venerable 'gg', as they're all simply personal advertisements/acknowledgements to other players, (although it is amusing/confusing how much anger gets directed to those examples and others as well, especially 'gg' which was just supposed to be a polite thank you for playing against the other team regardless of gameplay or results, but clearly that's changed over time, well about 3 years in my experience), but that whole arguement is a bit off topic, (well sort of, sort of not, but meh).

However, the fact that Adiuvo's comment;

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.

Was mostly ignored, (actually the content of the post was ignored in a post that actually quoted it, asking a question that was answered already in the post being quoted...), sort of reinforces the purpose of the VPN discussions to be more accusatory and less about actually experimenting and finding out what properties of VPNs have what effects on gameplay in a controlled environment, the very thing being talked about by Adiuvo.

I'm sure many people would be interested by the results, (geniunely interested not 'interested cause it may help ban someone I personally don't like' interested), and the competitive teams and players have a good record of finding bugs etc, and testing them and finding out stuff like how easy they are to reproduce etc, (the old Blackjack streak CT bug jumps to mind but can't actually remember who found/tested that), so I'm sure that they will do a good job if such testing goes ahead.

(To be honest I was just browsing reddit Outreach for the predictions of the 6 new phoenix mechs and stumbled over this but hey ^^)

Edited by CJDodo, 12 April 2014 - 06:15 AM.