The latest exploit with animation clipping

Shunravi

Varicite wrote: »

Lykurgis wrote: »

There's a video guide on animation canceling. It's ruled legal by ZOS because they can't really fix it, lazy, but ya...it's all good.

It's not that they can't fix it, it's that there's nothing to "fix" about it. The alternatives are not better than what we have, in their opinion.

Again, it is the intended interaction of skill usage and it has nothing to do w/ ZOS not being able to fix it, they don't feel the need to fix it because of a couple different factors.

1) Every skill / attack is capped by a GCD, meaning that there is already a hard-coded limit in the game to how fast a player will be able to attack. Animation cancelling does not allow you to bypass this GCD.

2) The alternatives are worse than what they have currently for their idea of fluid combat.

3) They already did "fix it" by adjusting most animations accordingly to accomodate animation cancelling better.

It seems like when people say "they don't know how to fix it", what they really mean is "ZOS didn't get rid of it entirely like I wanted them to, so clearly they must be incompetent".

That's not really the case, they just don't agree w/ those who feel that it's a problem. Why? Mostly for the reasons I just listed.

Not only did they streamline animations to acomodate it, but the new Nightblade skill 'grim focus' is designed to benifit from it.

Lykurgis

Varicite wrote: »

Lykurgis wrote: »

There's a video guide on animation canceling. It's ruled legal by ZOS because they can't really fix it, lazy, but ya...it's all good.

It's not that they can't fix it, it's that there's nothing to "fix" about it. The alternatives are not better than what we have, in their opinion.

Again, it is the intended interaction of skill usage and it has nothing to do w/ ZOS not being able to fix it, they don't feel the need to fix it because of a couple different factors.

1) Every skill / attack is capped by a GCD, meaning that there is already a hard-coded limit in the game to how fast a player will be able to attack. Animation cancelling does not allow you to bypass this GCD.

2) The alternatives are worse than what they have currently for their idea of fluid combat.

3) They already did "fix it" by adjusting most animations accordingly to accomodate animation cancelling better.

It seems like when people say "they don't know how to fix it", what they really mean is "ZOS didn't get rid of it entirely like I wanted them to, so clearly they must be incompetent".

That's not really the case, they just don't agree w/ those who feel that it's a problem. Why? Mostly for the reasons I just listed.

Ya, lazy typing by me, "fix" was probably better replaced by "unsuitable animation alternatives". It is the way they want it, and i don't care really. I'm good at it so /shrug.

Cody

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.

no, exploiting is not against the TOS. Calling someone a hurtful name on the forums, however, is worse than capital murder

MisterBigglesworth

NadiusMaximus

You know what.

I'd laugh my ass off if you could get a dev , mod, ZOS janitor, to comment on the subject with more than the same canned-responses. I'd laugh even more if they found out it really was the feature of animation cancelling causing lag.

You start an attack, don't finish but start another, don't finish but hey the hit, do an amity, cancel get hit etc.etc I'd bet the server gets confused and it shows down to figure out how this guy just hit for 85k with eight abilities in less than two seconds when every ability has basically a. 25 cast time.

In fact, why is this still an issue. It's a feature of the game. Learn to exploit this feature, or don't, don't matter because it's never going away.

Varicite

Yeah, you clearly don't have any idea how it works or what you're talking about...

But that's okay, you aren't alone. MOST people don't seem to have any clue what they're talking about when it comes to this mechanic either.

Fortunately, I'm here to educate you all. ; )

technohic

Hmm. I think I better go back to the office and see if any of my servers are confused.

Suru

Armitas wrote: »

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.

yea honestly this doesnt seem like exploituing, he cloaked, wrecking blowed you, use his ult and weaved a light attack impale. Its not somthing umfamiliar with PvE's, its skill being effecient with his time to kill.

There is a global CD when it comes to spamming your skills to prevent it casting at your click rate. This picture just proves innocence. .5 s CD.

Medium weaving is effecient because it is not affected by our Global CD and is why PvE'rs attain higher DPS with weaving.

6869 Wrecking -.5
11757 Strike- .5

the 13 second

4024 Light - .5
Killers blade- .5

you die at the end of the 14 second

Total time two seconds. from 18.29.13->14

badmojo

Erock25 wrote: »

Macros alone have no shot of doing what some people are describing in this thread. Macros are a hindrance more than anything in PVP because of the horrible input lag.

What? The? Sigh.

If people like Bull claim they can weave all these attacks to hit within a couple seconds, why exactly would a macro have trouble?

If what you say is true, nobody would be able to animation cancel because of the horrible input lag. Yet, here we are.

Why make baseless assumptions about peoples claims? Obviously threads like this are going to include a lot of uninformed posts from people jumping on the bandwagon, that shouldn't discredit the claims of everybody. Just because you haven't witnessed an abundance of macro exploitation first hand, doesn't mean it never happens and you need to look for alternative reasons for why people complain about it.

Should I look for alternative reasons why you are trying to blame the complainers? Should I make baseless assumptions that you are in fact a macro hacker and are desperately trying to squash any discussion that brings it up? No, I shouldn't, because baseless assumptions are a waste of everyones time.

Varicite

badmojo wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

Macros alone have no shot of doing what some people are describing in this thread. Macros are a hindrance more than anything in PVP because of the horrible input lag.

What? The? Sigh.

If people like Bull claim they can weave all these attacks to hit within a couple seconds, why exactly would a macro have trouble?

If what you say is true, nobody would be able to animation cancel because of the horrible input lag. Yet, here we are.

Why make baseless assumptions about peoples claims? Obviously threads like this are going to include a lot of uninformed posts from people jumping on the bandwagon, that shouldn't discredit the claims of everybody. Just because you haven't witnessed an abundance of macro exploitation first hand, doesn't mean it never happens and you need to look for alternative reasons for why people complain about it.

Should I look for alternative reasons why you are trying to blame the complainers? Should I make baseless assumptions that you are in fact a macro hacker and are desperately trying to squash any discussion that brings it up? No, I shouldn't, because baseless assumptions are a waste of everyones time.

If Bull or anyone else posts proof of himself using animation cancelling OR macros (or both) to achieve more attacks than the game is hard-coded to allow in a span of time, then I will stop blaming the ignorant.

I'm talking about 4-5 attacks in under 1 second. Because it's been well-established that you can easily achieve 2 attacks per second via normal game mechanics.

That has ALWAYS been the case.

There's nothing baseless about explaining to the masses that what's being claimed by the OP and many others in this thread is simply not possible using the mechanics that they are blaming.

@Erock25 is stating fact. You can NOT do this w/ macros alone. You can NOT do this w/ animation cancelling.

C0pp3rhead

I did not know that starting a heavy attack then an ability mid-chargeup would land at the same time. I withdraw my previous remarks until I know for sure what is happening.

LegacyDM

This is an exploit that has been around since launch and it has nothing to do with macros. You can't speed up the timing system with macros. You can animation cancel up to a point but that's it. Macros don't give the player an instant godlike speed boost to allow the player to land multiple hits at once even with animation canceling and I'll tell you why.

Macros have to follow a timing rhythm or else the skills in the middle macro are skipped due to the macro trying to execute faster than the game code will allow. In order for the timing rythm to work, you have to put in timing delays or sleep delays between skills, this includes animation canceling. If you do, the macro is slowed down to the equivalent of a normal player. If you don''t, the rotation gets f---ed, which is why the pros say using macros is self defeating and gimps more than it helps. The other problem with macroing is if you macro a long sequence of events your stuck and can't change course until the macro is finished. Player opponents are unpredictable, so if you execute a macro and then need to quickly cast a heal spell, you can't change course because your stuck executing the macro.

Macros can only executed as fast as the game code can register the attacks which in the case of eso is no different than a human player button mashing his keyboard. I would argue a Human player can animation cancel and cast skills more efficiently than a macro due to the reasons cited above.

What's is going on here is either an exploit, lag, or a flaw in combat engine where the player doesn't see the attacks and ends up dead. A macro is not capable of increasing the speed of the combat engine to allow multiple hits occurring at once.

BuggeX

Varicite wrote: »

Lykurgis wrote: »

There's a video guide on animation canceling. It's ruled legal by ZOS because they can't really fix it, lazy, but ya...it's all good.

It's not that they can't fix it, it's that there's nothing to "fix" about it. The alternatives are not better than what we have, in their opinion.

Again, it is the intended interaction of skill usage and it has nothing to do w/ ZOS not being able to fix it, they don't feel the need to fix it because of a couple different factors.

1) Every skill / attack is capped by a GCD, meaning that there is already a hard-coded limit in the game to how fast a player will be able to attack. Animation cancelling does not allow you to bypass this GCD.

2) The alternatives are worse than what they have currently for their idea of fluid combat.

3) They already did "fix it" by adjusting most animations accordingly to accomodate animation cancelling better.

It seems like when people say "they don't know how to fix it", what they really mean is "ZOS didn't get rid of it entirely like I wanted them to, so clearly they must be incompetent".

That's not really the case, they just don't agree w/ those who feel that it's a problem. Why? Mostly for the reasons I just listed.

Still think you dont get the real Problem, animmation cancelling itself is fine, i also dont want to die because i cant block and have to w8 until my annimation from skill 1 is finished.

lets look at a "stupid" case: 1v1 Stamina dds. one is using (abusing) animmation canc. the other not

both initiat with WB, Player 1 cancelle the annimation and block instead. so wath is happening now? Right, Player 2 get [snip] up that hard becaus he cant block.

No matter if there is a gcd of 10sec or wathever. thats a broken mechanic wich Needs to be fixed.
it would be a simple fix, if a skill has a casttime from 1sec, then you should have to cast this skill 1 sec, and not cancelle the animmation and still deal dmg. It would a simple [snip] IF

if (casttime != neccesary_casttime)
do_[snip]_nothing;

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

Armitas

Lykurgis wrote: »

There's a video guide on animation canceling. It's ruled legal by ZOS because they can't really fix it, lazy, but ya...it's all good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTb2YpuRsP4

About macros, they told people at the guild summit (and I believe here on the forums as well as ESO live) that programs like Razors Synapse, Logitech G15 keyboards ect were ok to use. Obviously botting is not so if a macro leads to that, well then thats another matter.
I have seen people trading Macros in zone/guild chat since the game launch and have yet to hear of a single person banned for it.
Using a "weave" macro is a pretty common practice and i seriously doubt that many (if any) high leader board guilds/groups abstain from using them in some form or fashion.

Did they say "Ok to use machines that can use macros" or "Ok to use those machines and their macros"? (I use a n52 speed pad)

Varicite

BuggeX wrote: »

Varicite wrote: »

Lykurgis wrote: »

There's a video guide on animation canceling. It's ruled legal by ZOS because they can't really fix it, lazy, but ya...it's all good.

It's not that they can't fix it, it's that there's nothing to "fix" about it. The alternatives are not better than what we have, in their opinion.

Again, it is the intended interaction of skill usage and it has nothing to do w/ ZOS not being able to fix it, they don't feel the need to fix it because of a couple different factors.

1) Every skill / attack is capped by a GCD, meaning that there is already a hard-coded limit in the game to how fast a player will be able to attack. Animation cancelling does not allow you to bypass this GCD.

2) The alternatives are worse than what they have currently for their idea of fluid combat.

3) They already did "fix it" by adjusting most animations accordingly to accomodate animation cancelling better.

It seems like when people say "they don't know how to fix it", what they really mean is "ZOS didn't get rid of it entirely like I wanted them to, so clearly they must be incompetent".

That's not really the case, they just don't agree w/ those who feel that it's a problem. Why? Mostly for the reasons I just listed.

Still think you dont get the real Problem, animmation cancelling itself is fine, i also dont want to die because i cant block and have to w8 until my annimation from skill 1 is finished.

lets look at a "stupid" case: 1v1 Stamina dds. one is using (abusing) animmation canc. the other not

both initiat with WB, Player 1 cancelle the annimation and block instead. so wath is happening now? Right, Player 2 get [snip] up that hard becaus he cant block.

No matter if there is a gcd of 10sec or wathever. thats a broken mechanic wich Needs to be fixed.
it would be a simple fix, if a skill has a casttime from 1sec, then you should have to cast this skill 1 sec, and not cancelle the animmation and still deal dmg. It would a simple [snip] IF

if (casttime != neccesary_casttime)
do_[snip]_nothing;

I don't "get the problem" because I don't believe that it IS a problem.

If you are animation cancelling, you aren't blocking anyway. You just have to know WHEN to be able to weave attacks (generally when your opponent is out of stam and CC'd) and when to think more defensively.

It's not something that people just run around doing all the time if they have any idea what they're doing.

PS) If you block out of WB, it won't fire, so this was a pretty poor analogy. :P

[Moderator Note: Edited quote to match moderated version]

Sureshawt

The answer is a combination of two things, animation clipping(macro) and a lag switch

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/consumerelectronicsnetworks/f/lag_switches.htm

"When the lag switch timer expires, the local game device will re-synchronize with the online game, which appears to opponents in a sudden burst."

Sportsmanlike online gamers do not use lag switches.

So when you die to this crap just laugh to yourself and realize that only a wussy gamer needs a crutch like this and they had to cheat to beat you.Then avoid fighting them as much as you can.

You could also report them but that would require ZoS to monitor the player in question and monitor their net connection for a pattern of what will appear as quick lag blips.

RinaldoGandolphi

A lot of these wonkey kill screens are lag. Network latency is not static, you can go from 60ms ping to 380ms ping and back very quickly, the in game display isn't accurate because it does not update often enough for one to see this.

The latency on the servers has degraded in the last 3 months or so, I don't know why, but I would chalk up to that more so then some kinds of exploit.

Sureshawt

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

A lot of these wonkey kill screens are lag. Network latency is not static, you can go from 60ms ping to 380ms ping and back very quickly, the in game display isn't accurate because it does not update often enough for one to see this.

The latency on the servers has degraded in the last 3 months or so, I don't know why, but I would chalk up to that more so then some kinds of exploit.

Not saying it doesn't happen randomly because it does, however, there are certain players where you experience this consistently and only during an attack. Once might be random, however, multiple occurrences involving the same player right during an attack is more then coincidental. Poor server performance just provides a bit of cover for their cheating but for somebody that understands the difference between a pattern and a random anomaly it becomes quite obvious.

These players know who they are and what they are doing. Over time the playerbase will get to know them as well. The lag switches I mentioned above have been around for a long time but as I said only pitifully crappy players need that kind of crutch.

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

It is just WAY past time for a 0.3 second global cooldown. Maybe that makes me a horrible person, but them's the breaks.

Sureshawt

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

It is just WAY past time for a 0.3 second global cooldown. Maybe that makes me a horrible person, but them's the breaks.

GCDs is the only way I know of to defeat lag switches, however the GCD would have to be far greater than 0.3 second in order to force the timing of the switch to be far greater then the player wants to risk being lagged out.

With a 0.3 GCD a player using a lag switch could burst chain 5 attacks (5*0.3=1.5) while only being lagged out for 1.5 seconds. The GCD on all skills needs to be greater then 3 seconds and preferably even more to ensure that leaving themselves vulnerable (lagged out) negates the benefit of the switch and bursting their DPS.

Sylvyr

badmojo wrote: »

I don't know why people think this is so difficult for ZOS to track and punish people for. Sure, they might not be able to program in some code that will detect these people and ban them, but that's like saying we can't prosecute people for murder simply because there isn't a record of them doing it, despite there being lots of evidence, and witnesses.

A GM for ZOS could easily ban a few of these a day. Wait for multiple reports of macro'ing to come in on the same player, wait for that player to enter Cyrodiil and then simply observe them from their angle. It should be obvious really quick if the player is doing things that are not humanly possible.

If for some stupid reason the GMs don't have the power to spectate players from their angle, just teleport yourself to the player and engage them as a test to see what they do. But, really, if the GMs can't spectate, then maybe forget about banning people and put those man hours into implementing that.

There are GMs in this game?

Sylvyr

badmojo wrote: »

Deheart wrote: »

Macroing....... Using macros to exploit game mechanics faster and or better than a human can - Is ESO getting paid extra to let you do macros, like for dual boxing and paying for extra accounts? If so you are ok, if not, then you are cheating. That is the way most mmo's essentially look at macros and how they allow them. Is a making money thing.

The way I look at it, is how much money are they in position to lose if they let the problem get out of hand? If they continue to let obvious problems continue without action, how long before there's a mass exodus of paying customers? Ban one or two customers, to keep another 10 or 20 happy, seems like the smart thing to do.

Don't matter, console is coming.

Sylvyr

LucyferLightbringer wrote: »

Its prolly just another unintended feature they didn't anounce yet or just extension of current unintended feature aka animation cancelling. I know in any other MMO ran by an actual professional company it would be called exploit and fixed, but here its a feature. Nothing to see move a long and look forward to new content requiring you to hit enemy 4 times per second to go through dps phase.

Enjoy the feature and don't forget to buy more crown store stuff. NEW BLACK PANTHER!!!!! OH OH!!!!!

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

Sureshawt wrote: »

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

It is just WAY past time for a 0.3 second global cooldown. Maybe that makes me a horrible person, but them's the breaks.

GCDs is the only way I know of to defeat lag switches, however the GCD would have to be far greater than 0.3 second in order to force the timing of the switch to be far greater then the player wants to risk being lagged out.

With a 0.3 GCD a player using a lag switch could burst chain 5 attacks (5*0.3=1.5) while only being lagged out for 1.5 seconds. The GCD on all skills needs to be greater then 3 seconds and preferably even more to ensure that leaving themselves vulnerable (lagged out) negates the benefit of the switch and bursting their DPS.

So something closer to a full second would be better? Thanks for the input, Bud!

Varicite

There already is a 1.3 second GCD on all abilities.

Animation cancelling is possible because light attacks, heavy attacks, and dodge rolls are on their OWN GCD timer, whereas abilities (skills) are on a separate 1.3 second GCD timer.

IcyDeadPeople

mtwiggz wrote: »

The average human being types at 35-50 WPM, which means roughly 228 characters a minute - in standardized typing. This works out to 4 keystrokes a second.

There is a significant difference in the speed the average person can type up a document without spelling mistakes vs. repetitively pressing the light attack key / ability button etc..

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO

Varicite wrote: »

There already is a 1.3 second GCD on all abilities.

Animation cancelling is possible because light attacks, heavy attacks, and dodge rolls are on their OWN GCD timer, whereas abilities (skills) are on a separate 1.3 second GCD timer.

Ah, I didn't know that.

So, is there a reason they don't put LA, HA, and DRs on the GCD? It seems like a simple fix, from my uneducated perspective.

Varicite

milesrodneymcneely2_ESO wrote: »

Varicite wrote: »

There already is a 1.3 second GCD on all abilities.

Animation cancelling is possible because light attacks, heavy attacks, and dodge rolls are on their OWN GCD timer, whereas abilities (skills) are on a separate 1.3 second GCD timer.

Ah, I didn't know that.

So, is there a reason they don't put LA, HA, and DRs on the GCD? It seems like a simple fix, from my uneducated perspective.

Now, I don't know the exact reasoning 100%, but my assumption is that they wish for the combat to feel more fluid. If there were a shared GCD behind every action, the combat would feel a lot less "snappy", which was something that was complained about heavily during beta.

The devs have spent a lot of time reiterating on the combat and animations in order to make the fights feel more visceral. They are pretty happy w/ what they have now, and due to the GCDs limiting the number of actions that players can take already, don't seem to really mind players utilizing animation cancelling in normal gameplay.

After all, there are already limiting measures in place that curb how fast a player can attack anyway.

Naivefanboi

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?

Last i heard all that stuff is "intended ", they just forgot it in the tutorial in the game lol

Varicite

Naivefanboi 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?

Last i heard all that stuff is "intended ", they just forgot it in the tutorial in the game lol

Hitting somebody "6 times in 1 second" is never intended. But there hasn't been a single post actually showing this yet, soooo.

Not that it doesn't happen through some means, but it's clearly not due to animation cancelling.