The latest exploit with animation clipping

psufan5

Noticed this heavily the last few nights in PVP. You attack someone, they turn and instantly kill you. They hit you upwards of 6 times in a half a second. I believe this has something to do with macros and blocking to clip the animations. A simple form of this can be tested with the light attacks with the bow - perform a light attack, the immediately block. Do this rapidly and you become a machine gun. Add in a macro program, and you have a built in exploit.

Now some people in PVP have figured out a way to do this with heavy attacks, surprise attack (nightblade power), and dawn breaker. You literally die in less than half a second while being hit 5+ times almost instantly.

I thought maybe it was lag but it was the same few players doing it over and over again. They killed 3 people who happened upon them in a matter of seconds and there was no lag.

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

Rook_Master

Some people are definitely using macros.

QuadroTony

its game mechanics - not an exploit
alot ppl using it too

if you report them ZOS will not react because animation cancelling are allowed, macro too(partially)

psufan5

QuadroTony wrote: »

its game mechanics - not an exploit
alot ppl using it too

if you report them ZOS will not react because animation cancelling are allowed, macro too(partially)

I am pretty sure they did not mean to have this the way of life in PVP. It needs to be addressed.

KerinKor

psufan5 wrote: »

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

ZOS ENDORSE ANIMATION CANCELING,. they said so, publicly, until they accept it's a broken mechanic they'll ignore reports and the problem will not go away.

psufan5

KerinKor wrote: »

psufan5 wrote: »

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

ZOS ENDORSE ANIMATION CANCELING,. they said so, publicly, until they accept it's a broken mechanic they'll ignore reports and the problem will not go away.

Guess they really want us to move to console. 1 more month! Tired of the exploits.

QuadroTony

consoles have a more space for different exploits than PC
FYI

Cherryblossom

psufan5 wrote: »

KerinKor wrote: »

psufan5 wrote: »

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

ZOS ENDORSE ANIMATION CANCELING,. they said so, publicly, until they accept it's a broken mechanic they'll ignore reports and the problem will not go away.

Guess they really want us to move to console. 1 more month! Tired of the exploits.

Confused, they are using the same game, Cancelling will still be in the Console version....

Flaminir

KerinKor wrote: »

psufan5 wrote: »

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

ZOS ENDORSE ANIMATION CANCELING,. they said so, publicly, until they accept it's a broken mechanic they'll ignore reports and the problem will not go away.

They also said at the same time that use of macro's or any other 3rd party programs are banned.

You can animation cancel manually, but as soon as you use a macro to do it then its not allowed.

No idea how they can measure this though.

emre.as.aslanb16_ESO

The bow exploit has been fixed with 2.0.8

Tallowby

Cherryblossom wrote: »

psufan5 wrote: »

KerinKor wrote: »

psufan5 wrote: »

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

ZOS ENDORSE ANIMATION CANCELING,. they said so, publicly, until they accept it's a broken mechanic they'll ignore reports and the problem will not go away.

Guess they really want us to move to console. 1 more month! Tired of the exploits.

Confused, they are using the same game, Cancelling will still be in the Console version....

I'm confused, yes the cancelling will be there but without addons there are no macros... Am I missing something?

Cuyler

QuadroTony wrote: »

its game mechanics - not an exploit
alot ppl using it too

if you report them ZOS will not react because animation cancelling are allowed, macro too(partially)

Yes, animation canceling is not an exploit...but when you take to using macros to accomplish it in less than 1 second then it IS an exploit and specifically against the TOS. Stop trollin.

Preyfar

QuadroTony wrote: »

its game mechanics - not an exploit
alot ppl using it too

if you report them ZOS will not react because animation cancelling are allowed, macro too(partially)

This isn't animation cancelling. I've had it happen where some people (and the same people over and over) hit you once, and you die. You look at the post mortem, and you've got 5-6 hits from them, some of which (like Wrecking Blow) have a wind up. But they somehow can skip the wind-up. Animation cancelling only applies to light/heavy attacks, but some people have figured out a way to seemingly skip all of them.

Maybe it's one-sided lag, but... it's definitely one of those cases where you sit there like "What the..." and just can't figure it out. Then you get to play the "ride across Cyrodiil" game to get back to where you were.

psufan5

emre.as.aslanb16_ESO wrote: »

The bow exploit has been fixed with 2.0.8

Bow was never really the problem only the example. The issue is with the 2hander, surprise attack, dawnbreaker, etc. All can be fired at the exact same time basically.

LameoveR

Tallowby wrote: »

I'm confused, yes the cancelling will be there but without addons there are no macros... Am I missing something?

You've missed hardware macroses.
When you click one button it sends a pack of commands in 1 sec like "click 1, 2, 3, 4, 5"

psufan5

Preyfar wrote: »

QuadroTony wrote: »

its game mechanics - not an exploit
alot ppl using it too

if you report them ZOS will not react because animation cancelling are allowed, macro too(partially)

This isn't animation cancelling. I've had it happen where some people (and the same people over and over) hit you once, and you die. You look at the post mortem, and you've got 5-6 hits from them, some of which (like Wrecking Blow) have a wind up. But they somehow can skip the wind-up. Animation cancelling only applies to light/heavy attacks, but some people have figured out a way to seemingly skip all of them.

Maybe it's one-sided lag, but... it's definitely one of those cases where you sit there like "What the..." and just can't figure it out. Then you get to play the "ride across Cyrodiil" game to get back to where you were.

Right but when the same guys are doing it over and over again and you never experience lag with anything else...

kevlarto_ESO

Yea I have seen some crazy numbers and watched this guy charge me, never seen a weapon, died in like a second, (I rarely die that fast) looked at the recap and how you pull of multiple back to back heavy attacks in such a short time is crazy, at the end I never seen his weapon drawn it only looked like his shoulders shifted back and forth a couple of times, heck if I want to kill that fast or be killed that fast might as well go play battle field, this does not feel like mmo combat.. /sigh

SoulScream

I've been seeing this more and more as well. A good example is somehow they do several wrecking blows quickly. I had a 1v1 vs someone doing this with no lag and I was hit by 3 wrecking blows before my character fell back to ground from the first one. NB are also using this exploit the most in my experience. I'll be hit by 5-6 skills in one second before I can even break free from the first stun. With this and all the lag in pvp I do not play much anymore.

Lord_Kreegan

Yes, there are people using macros and exploits, etc.

HOWEVER...

When you see a recap of damage done to your character, you aren't necessarily seeing what was JUST DONE to you.

You're seeing what has JUST BEEN REPORTED to you.

If you pay attention and you have been paying attention from Beta, ZOS has a "few problems" with its netcode.

In order to reduce the number of messages being sent, it is pretty obvious that they're collecting information and then sending a consolidated message in a burst. So, when you see a recap that shows several attacks that appear to have happened all at once, you're actually seeing what has occurred over several seconds of time.

After collecting a lot of data and doing a lot of analyses, I'm pretty sure of this. Actually, I have no doubts whatsoever

Unfortunately, what this means is that your client doesn't show you the animations for all of the various attacks... and you die without even knowing that you've been attacked.

Welcome to ESO... flim-flam extraordinaire.

technohic

OK; I am sitting here thinking about how I could test this and yes; run a macro to see if it would even work; but I am not sure how you get the heavy to hit. Seems like it still takes at least part of the animation to go through before it is counted as a heavy attack, no?

psufan5

technohic wrote: »

OK; I am sitting here thinking about how I could test this and yes; run a macro to see if it would even work; but I am not sure how you get the heavy to hit. Seems like it still takes at least part of the animation to go through before it is counted as a heavy attack, no?

pick something like dual wield which has a quick heavy animation that is easily clipped.

Davadin

Lord_Kreegan wrote: »

Yes, there are people using macros and exploits, etc.

HOWEVER...

When you see a recap of damage done to your character, you aren't necessarily seeing what was JUST DONE to you.

You're seeing what has JUST BEEN REPORTED to you.

If you pay attention and you have been paying attention from Beta, ZOS has a "few problems" with its netcode.

In order to reduce the number of messages being sent, it is pretty obvious that they're collecting information and then sending a consolidated message in a burst. So, when you see a recap that shows several attacks that appear to have happened all at once, you're actually seeing what has occurred over several seconds of time.

After collecting a lot of data and doing a lot of analyses, I'm pretty sure of this. Actually, I have no doubts whatsoever

Unfortunately, what this means is that your client doesn't show you the animations for all of the various attacks... and you die without even knowing that you've been attacked.

Welcome to ESO... flim-flam extraordinaire.

There's that, yes, but there's a LOT of macro-ing too. At least in NA.

I could be OUT OF COMBAT for... forever... then I spot a guy, he goes on stealth. I turned around, and POW. Dead. 4-5 in less than half a sec.

This is macro. ZOS should try to figure that out.

I use animation cancelling a lot, and we got it officially, is OK.

But when you get 3-5 hits in less than half a second - literally, it looks like I used the /die command or something. It just pops. Then we got an issue.

Ex: 2-H skill, Executioner will pretty much cancels anything. And block (right click hold) will too. And if u use a fast Light Attack (to cancel, say, block's unblock animation), mix-n-matching those 3 will allow you to be a machine gun.

I don't have a prog keyboard so I can't test, but if I just go as fast as my fingers go, then yeah, it's possible.


Bigger problem is when people macro with a HUGE damage (like Bow's Snipe), n instead of a machine gun, you get a nuke. I don't know how that works, but yes, Snipe can be macro'd to cancel the animation and spammed.


Nothing to do with lag or netcode, although yes, those happens a lot too on some nights.

technohic

psufan5 wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

OK; I am sitting here thinking about how I could test this and yes; run a macro to see if it would even work; but I am not sure how you get the heavy to hit. Seems like it still takes at least part of the animation to go through before it is counted as a heavy attack, no?

pick something like dual wield which has a quick heavy animation that is easily clipped.

Alright. Might take me a couple of days to get a chance to try it. If I can reproduce it, I will...not say anything and start running around Cyrodiil ganking with it.

I kid, I kid. I will record it if I can duplicate and submit it to ZOS.

Emma_Overload

psufan5 wrote: »

Noticed this heavily the last few nights in PVP. You attack someone, they turn and instantly kill you. They hit you upwards of 6 times in a half a second. I believe this has something to do with macros and blocking to clip the animations. A simple form of this can be tested with the light attacks with the bow - perform a light attack, the immediately block. Do this rapidly and you become a machine gun. Add in a macro program, and you have a built in exploit.

Now some people in PVP have figured out a way to do this with heavy attacks, surprise attack (nightblade power), and dawn breaker. You literally die in less than half a second while being hit 5+ times almost instantly.

I thought maybe it was lag but it was the same few players doing it over and over again. They killed 3 people who happened upon them in a matter of seconds and there was no lag.

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

Your complaint would be a lot more convincing if you included a VIDEO of the supposed exploit taking place. Yet, no one griping about animation canceling ever seems to produce such proof...

I've tested all kinds of attack combos over and over and OVER, and my experience has been that it's simply impossible for the player to bypass the cooldowns on light/heavy attacks, ability attacks or ultimates. Blocking or interrupting in the middle of the attack may make the animation finish faster, but it does not actually let you make attacks faster.

There WAS a bug on the PTS that allowed Bow attacks to rapid fire like a machine gun, but that was supposedly fixed a long time ago. If you have PROOF of any other bugs or exploits, then by all means present it!

psufan5

Emma_Eunjung wrote: »

psufan5 wrote: »

Noticed this heavily the last few nights in PVP. You attack someone, they turn and instantly kill you. They hit you upwards of 6 times in a half a second. I believe this has something to do with macros and blocking to clip the animations. A simple form of this can be tested with the light attacks with the bow - perform a light attack, the immediately block. Do this rapidly and you become a machine gun. Add in a macro program, and you have a built in exploit.

Now some people in PVP have figured out a way to do this with heavy attacks, surprise attack (nightblade power), and dawn breaker. You literally die in less than half a second while being hit 5+ times almost instantly.

I thought maybe it was lag but it was the same few players doing it over and over again. They killed 3 people who happened upon them in a matter of seconds and there was no lag.

These exploits are growing tiresome . All we can do is report the people using them I guess?

Your complaint would be a lot more convincing if you included a VIDEO of the supposed exploit taking place. Yet, no one griping about animation canceling ever seems to produce such proof...

I've tested all kinds of attack combos over and over and OVER, and my experience has been that it's simply impossible for the player to bypass the cooldowns on light/heavy attacks, ability attacks or ultimates. Blocking or interrupting in the middle of the attack may make the animation finish faster, but it does not actually let you make attacks faster.

There WAS a bug on the PTS that allowed Bow attacks to rapid fire like a machine gun, but that was supposedly fixed a long time ago. If you have PROOF of any other bugs or exploits, then by all means present it!

Hit dawnbreaker, tap block, come back and report with your video. That animation is supposed to take 1.5 or so seconds, but can be done instantly with simply tapping block. This may not seem like much but after a critical charge coupled with a heavy attack, its instant death. The macroing needs to stop, and i don't need to video tape anything so obviously being exploited.

Many people see it on a nightly basis, sorry you are in denial.

Leeric

Dude, thank you, I honestly had no idea, and that explains all the weird things going on when I last played PVP.

QuadroTony

Cuyler wrote: »

QuadroTony wrote: »

its game mechanics - not an exploit
alot ppl using it too

if you report them ZOS will not react because animation cancelling are allowed, macro too(partially)

Yes, animation canceling is not an exploit...but when you take to using macros to accomplish it in less than 1 second then it IS an exploit and specifically against the TOS. Stop trollin.

im not trolling

simple macro to push few buttons are not detectable
iy actually bhaviour like people push the same buttons on keyboard

im playing more than year now and i dont know any cases when ppl was banned for macroses
its simple

no matter macros from your mouse driver or from additional soft
ZOS will start to recognize them only ifthey add special warden to track processes on your PC
and they will not do this because its not allowed by many laws in many countries

Robbmrp

IMO that's an exploit. Game mechanics are not designed to hit 5 + times within 1 second. Any adaptation that modifies game mechanics to work other than intended shouldn't be allowed to be used by players. Seriously, if someone has that little skill that they have to resort to this tactic to kill another player is just sad. If they have to cheat to win, maybe they shouldn't be playing this game.

Those people should be reported and @zos should do something about it. Not saying they will, but is sure as h*ll should be....

technohic

Would be nice if there was times in the death recaps to where a screenshot of that would help determine how quickly you were actually hit. There's just too much that can happen than to just take it at word. Like health desyncs and exaggeration. Nothing against anyone, but its the internet and particularly in a video game forum, we need to be skeptical. That's why I want to test it and see if I can reproduce doing it. With everything that gets reported on here, I find it necessary to actually see it.

Armitas

I don't know whether it's macro or manual, but the TTL is too short with the current allowable/capable game mechanics. The picture below shows my death log while falling off a resource tower from the initial wrecking blow that you see. You can check my chat log to see the time stamps for each skill. 4 attacks occurring in 2 seconds I died before I reached the ground.

I had to remove the name due to naming/shaming policy, but it is all from one person.

psufan5

technohic wrote: »

Would be nice if there was times in the death recaps to where a screenshot of that would help determine how quickly you were actually hit. There's just too much that can happen than to just take it at word. Like health desyncs and exaggeration. Nothing against anyone, but its the internet and particularly in a video game forum, we need to be skeptical. That's why I want to test it and see if I can reproduce doing it. With everything that gets reported on here, I find it necessary to actually see it.

Example from last night - Guy with a childish name appears in front of me running around unstealthed - nightblade. Given that most players aren't stupid enough to run around unstealthed, I figured something was up. I hit with ambush, surprise attack, marked him, hit with soul harvest. He was at 10% or so and rolled away from me popping vigor (self heal from assault tree). After that I died... Instantly... Kill report said heavy attack, surprise attack, surprise attack, surprise attack, dawnbreaker.

All of that happened before I could even hit him with a light attack or another ability to finish him off.