Warzone EXPLOIT 8 vs 10 players

[AcerLerxt]

Whenever this happens the warzone usually ends in 120 seconds due to imbalance, at least the few dozen times I've seen it.

 

120 seconds is plenty of time to pick up a win.

[falconduder]

http://i39.tinypic.com/2ly6hp0.jpg

 

Here's the shot I promised earlier.

 

As you can see (with the exception of the 10th player who obviously has 0's across the board), all 9 Republic players clearly participated for what appears to be the entire duration of the match, which can be concluded based on the fact that all 9 players have some combination of damage/healing/objective points suggesting such; combinations greater than 60k and beyond, and you can be sure that the only reason those totals aren't higher is because having that extra person makes it much easier for them to stand around doing nothing at a node.

 

I'm pretty sure nobody needs the proof at this point, but just in case there's still lingering doubts or denial, there you go. The only thing that would be more convincing would be a shot where every player involved in the exploit had an MVP vote, proving they were all there at the end of the match, but good luck getting that!

[LanceUpercutt]

i hang around these forums most of the time, never have i seen a topic describing such an exploit and ive never ever seen a topic claiming that there were more then 10 players on a team with any actual proof.claming there were 14 people on enemy team is hyperbole imo.

 

the 10-man thing i encountered myself 3 times or so, each time with a mixed pug so its safe to assume its a bug.

 

nope it can be done consistently if you follow the instructions posted on the forums earlier

[falconduder]

Oh also, I didn't realize I had a shot of this, but here's one of the bug as it was happening to me:

 

http://i41.tinypic.com/i5xl4p.jpg

 

I was in a group with a couple other people and didn't know what accepting the queue would do. At the time I thought it would yank me into a different WZ, so I closed it.

 

I have absolutely no idea what prompted it, and quite frankly I'm a lot more comfortable not knowing until this garbage gets fixed.

[Shimakaze]

This is an exploit, as it is easily and consistently reproducible, and can be used for your benefit. Most of the time when this exploit is used, the game aborts after 120 seconds due to team imbalance. To get an easy win from this, all you have to do is make sure your team has a lead in the score, or your team satisfies the tie-breaker conditions for that particular warzone before the 120 second countdown is up. E.g. In Huttball, make sure your team has at least one goal in 120 seconds, or in the case of a tie, hold on to the ball before game is aborted. This is easily achievable when you outnumber the opposing team 10 or 11 to 8.

[jockomoron]

I've been seeing this happen from time to time. I group for pvp so I've always thought it had something to do with the way it counted the groups, and I thought we were breaking it somehow. I'm really surprised this hasn't gotten as much attention. It ruins the game for both sides. Queues are bad enough as is on my server, and the last thing I need is for the other team (empire or rep) to quit because they are discouraged.

[FourTwent]

I've seen this. Not specifically 8vs10, but I have seen 9 or 10 people on the republic side(I never counted their side).

 

I assumed it was due to a very popular warzone queue at the time(aka lots of people queuing up at the same time) and I assumed the other team got extra people as well.

[ZenBones]

I'm going to start looking more closely at some of my matches. I know occasionally the scoreboard has had a much longer list than usual, but I always assumed it was due to a lot of player attrition. This may still be true, but it would help explain why some enemy teams seem able to respond with 5+ toons at more than one turret simultaneously.

[Jestunhi]

Dear BioWare

 

Please FIX THE EXPLOIT which is used by players to invite more then proper number of players to WARZONE.

 

I just played 8 reps vs 10 emps. It wasnt first time.

 

And why topics with this exploit are delated and nothing is happening to fix it!

 

Bump this topic!

 

Perhaps because it should be reported to BW, not advertised, including specifying how to do it, on a publicly accessible forum?

[Elyree]

Is a bug when one group leader dissconects or gets kicked out of the wz.

 

The servers counts it as the whole group left intesad of one player.

 

Group of 4 in 8 ops wz, leader dcs the server thinks it's the group ... 7 still in ... one is not in group so the group is of 3 ... server invites 3 .... 8 vs 10 warzone starts.

 

Something like that ... at least it was reported by many people that was in the groups the leader got kicked, or stuck in loading screen.

 

It's not an exploit.

 

When you can do it at will it's called an exploit. Yes it's a bug that allows it to happen but willfully using it is exploiting.

[Battlemind]

Every once in a while my ***. This issue has made pvp for me not fun anymore. What's the fun in getting zerged by 5 players at once every match. This problem is rampant on the server I play on. Imo should have fixed this prob before the voidstar problem or better yet fixed both at the same time.

[ihateyouall]

I made a post a few hours ago explaining how to use this exploit. The post was removed, and I was told it was against the forum rules.

 

I have to believe that since they removed it and took the time to actually send me a private message, not just a typical warning or infraction, that they would have sent this to the bioware team (although I have to believe they already knew about it).

 

For those saying it's not an exploit, it's easy to reproduce and abuse. It's definitely an exploit and I hope it gets hotfixed

Edited February 1, 2012 by ihateyouall

[EternalFinality]

Other developers would temporarily disable warzones and rush out a hotfix to prevent people from exploiting this.

 

Not Bioware!

[EternalFinality]

Bioware's response:

 

If an exploit is discovered that threatens players’ experience in the game or the in-game economy, we will usually try to create an Emergency Patch to fix that exploit. Before we declare something an emergency though, we have to validate the issue with our internal Quality Assurance, or QA team. They gather data working with our Customer Service, analytics, and development teams to determine the extent of the exploit and the steps needed to reproduce it. Once we have the steps, we work on a plan to fix the issue. Depending how long the issue will take to fix and how risky it is, we will decide if we need to temporarily disable the cause of the exploit in the game.

 

Ha ha ha, yeah right.

[Aroidan]

That sounds like a reasonable response from BioWare. The game has only been out for 7 weeks now. It is also clear to see on the boards how many people do not understand the software life cycle and what all needs to happen to fix the issue.

 

For instance Fixing the voidstar exploit is a MUCH easier fix than fixing whatever the root cause of this issue is. The reason being this is obviously a code fix and the other simply required the update of a model. The severity of both issues is relatively the same as they both cause unfair PvP experiences. They also were both being exploited at relatively the same frequency, however the Model fix is much easier and therefore it will get a higher priority in triage and fix.

 

There are generally 3 things that determine the priority of a fix. The severity of the issue, the frequency of recurrence, and the complexity of the fix. Because of this Bugs that have a high severity but a low recurrence are likely to get fixed later then bugs that have a low severity and a high recurrence. Also if an issue is going to take 2 months to fix and another issue is only going to take 1 month chances are the easier fix will be made first.

 

If BioWare took less than a month to make any fix to code I would be amazed and worried. Seriously there are a lot of things that need to happen before a fix is made to code.

 

Here is a general overview of the process to make a code update in a typical software life cycle. This may not be exactly what BioWare is using/doing because all companies vary. However, this should give you an idea of what might seem to be a simple "just change this line of code to do this instead" has to go through before you ever get to see it.

 

1) Investigate issue and determine consistent repro steps

2) Determine frequency and severity of bug

3) Triage bug against other bugs

4) Determine root cause of issue

5) Develop a Fix for the issue

6) Run Unit testing against code

7) Check-In a fix to source control

8) Create a build of the code with the fix

9) Test Regresses the Fix and verifies (Also need to regress against other sections of game that may rely on the same section of code, this should be identified durring the creation of the fix)

10) Roll up signed off updates for a hot fix/patch

11) Run testing against a build with just the signed off fixes

12) Roll out patch

 

Also I am developer and have been in Software development for almost 10 years now. I just wanted to shed some light on why things don't get fixed right away or as fast as a Player may want it to get fixed. The BioWare devs are fixing things at a good pace from what I have observed so far.

[Skrewloose]

Yep I counted our players in a WZ last night before we started, and we had 1 too many. I also didnt get credit for the win. . . .

 

I'm wondering if these 2 issues are interlinked. Maybe the WZ's where people are group exploiting are making other people not in the group lose credit for the wins?

Edited February 1, 2012 by Skrewloose

[Elarion]

I made a post a few hours ago explaining how to use this exploit. The post was removed, and I was told it was against the forum rules.

 

I have to believe that since they removed it and took the time to actually send me a private message, not just a typical warning or infraction, that they would have sent this to the bioware team (although I have to believe they already knew about it).

 

For those saying it's not an exploit, it's easy to reproduce and abuse. It's definitely an exploit and I hope it gets hotfixed

 

And what did you hope to achieve by posting how to do this on an open forum other than rampant abuse of it? Seriously all you achieved was to make the matter much worse.

[Mogsters]

its a bug, have been in teams with 10-12 sometimes.

 

but since its pvp i guess it will be looked into in the near future.

[EternalFinality]

That sounds like a reasonable response from BioWare. The game has only been out for 7 weeks now. It is also clear to see on the boards how many people do not understand the software life cycle and what all needs to happen to fix the issue.

 

For instance Fixing the voidstar exploit is a MUCH easier fix than fixing whatever the root cause of this issue is. The reason being this is obviously a code fix and the other simply required the update of a model. The severity of both issues is relatively the same as they both cause unfair PvP experiences. They also were both being exploited at relatively the same frequency, however the Model fix is much easier and therefore it will get a higher priority in triage and fix.

 

There are generally 3 things that determine the priority of a fix. The severity of the issue, the frequency of recurrence, and the complexity of the fix. Because of this Bugs that have a high severity but a low recurrence are likely to get fixed later then bugs that have a low severity and a high recurrence. Also if an issue is going to take 2 months to fix and another issue is only going to take 1 month chances are the easier fix will be made first.

 

If BioWare took less than a month to make any fix to code I would be amazed and worried. Seriously there are a lot of things that need to happen before a fix is made to code.

 

Here is a general overview of the process to make a code update in a typical software life cycle. This may not be exactly what BioWare is using/doing because all companies vary. However, this should give you an idea of what might seem to be a simple "just change this line of code to do this instead" has to go through before you ever get to see it.

 

1) Investigate issue and determine consistent repro steps

2) Determine frequency and severity of bug

3) Triage bug against other bugs

4) Determine root cause of issue

5) Develop a Fix for the issue

6) Run Unit testing against code

7) Check-In a fix to source control

8) Create a build of the code with the fix

9) Test Regresses the Fix and verifies (Also need to regress against other sections of game that may rely on the same section of code, this should be identified durring the creation of the fix)

10) Roll up signed off updates for a hot fix/patch

11) Run testing against a build with just the signed off fixes

12) Roll out patch

 

Also I am developer and have been in Software development for almost 10 years now. I just wanted to shed some light on why things don't get fixed right away or as fast as a Player may want it to get fixed. The BioWare devs are fixing things at a good pace from what I have observed so far.

 

Yes yes that's what you do when your release is in 3 months from now. Not when there's a problem on production that is time critical and you just got on-called.

 

You figure out what the problem is, you make a very fast workaround fix, and you shove it onto production once you've done some quick tests that it works. Then you have people do all that stuff with a long term fix.

 

If Bioware follows the process you described every time there's a critical issue on their servers then this game is toast. This is what killed Warhammer - devs responding too slow to major problems and balance issues.

 

Case and point - Ilum valor farming on the first day. Servers should have been SHUT DOWN immediately once they discovered the spawn camping "exploit," and Ilum should have been disabled in a hotfix, and the servers brought back up after rolling them back to the state of when they deployed the patch to remove all valor gains. Then they could have worked on their long term "death zone" fix, and re-enabled Ilum.

 

Instead, they were slow, and the game suffered permanent damage as a result.

 

An easily repeatable exploit like Voidstar wall jumping and now the >8 people on a side warzone exploit are HIGH SEVERITY issues that Bioware treats as anything but.

Edited February 2, 2012 by EternalFinality

[Delavager]

Yes yes that's what you do when your release is in 3 months from now. Not when there's a problem on production that is time critical and you just got on-called.

 

You figure out what the problem is, you make a very fast workaround fix, and you shove it onto production once you've done some quick tests that it works. Then you have people do all that stuff with a long term fix.

 

If Bioware follows the process you described every time there's a critical issue on their servers then this game is toast. This is what killed Warhammer - devs responding too slow to major problems and balance issues.

 

Case and point - Ilum valor farming on the first day. Servers should have been SHUT DOWN immediately once they discovered the spawn camping "exploit," and Ilum should have been disabled in a hotfix, and the servers brought back up after rolling them back to the state of when they deployed the patch to remove all valor gains. Then they could have worked on their long term "death zone" fix, and re-enabled Ilum.

 

Instead, they were slow, and the game suffered permanent damage as a result.

 

An easily repeatable exploit like Voidstar wall jumping and now the >8 people on a side warzone exploit are HIGH SEVERITY issues that Bioware treats as anything but.

 

I too am a Software Developer for many years and sorry but you do actually have to go through all those steps even for a Hotfix.

 

I don't agree that it takes a month to do all that, maybe a LONG day at most depending on the source of the issue...but you do have to do all those steps to roll out a fix on a massive application such as SWTOR. A hotfix can result in many more issues if it's not tested correctly.

[Cpt_Wraith]

Hi guys

 

I made this topic at 02.01.2012

 

We have 02.14.2012 now.

What's changed? NOTHING.

 

Last fixes only changed that we can see the FRAMES of all 10-11 ppl in our team. It's kinda better to exploit this now couse you can HEAL all the ops members at once, not just try to click on them on the screen...

 

BioWare - please repair this ASAP or say your working on it!

Edited February 14, 2012 by Cpt_Wraith

[Lances]

It's an exploit, and alot ppl are doing it...... but bw close their eyes like they close to the ones that exploit ilum

[Ellvaan]

Greetings everyone!

 

Since we have a thread that is discussing this topic and in order to consolidate feedback, we are going to close this thread and ask that you please continue this discussion here:

 

Continuing epidemic in Warzones (with image) Fix this please asap

 

We would also like to refer you to the response from Lead Principal Combat Designer, Georg Zoeller, regarding this topic:

 

This is known and a fix for it is on the way. Thanks.

 

As a reminder, please know you can keep up to date on latest posts using our Developer Tracker, which lists the latest posts from developers, as well as our Community Managers and Coordinators.

 

Secondly, our new Community Blog hosts news, maintenance reminders, and in-depth posts from developers as well.

 

Thank you!