Saying "exploit" is FotM

[Umbrarg]

Not to ruffle any feathers here - but how would peeps feel in the hypothetical situation that Wargs could Pounce with no cooldown, Slow, and and then Bleed with no cooldown?

We'd have pretty much the same effect, although it would take longer to achieve.

I am sure the forums would light ablaze.

All I am saying is, some things need looked at further, considered more, and then maybe some form of balance reached. Skills working as intended is one thing, but skills working as not researched is entirelly another.

Love & Hugs

Fluffy Hithy

[borges_maze]

As I understand it, the skill in question, Improved Essay of Fire, removes cooldowns from all Wrath of Fire skills. Two WoF skills have no cooldowns, and one, Fiery Ridicule, has a very short animation, which allows it to be spammed like crazy while IEoF is active. If while being spammed, the Fiery animation is being interrupted (like the current burg exploit), then I would agree it's an exploit. If it's not interrupting animation and RKs are legitimately firing off a ridiculous number of of attacks in 5 seconds, then it's not an exploit. Unfair? Yes. Exploit? No. Either way, it should be fixed, and I do understand how annoying it must be for creepside.

[Anarionadama]

All I know is that it takes the "ZOMG OP" cries off the minstrels.

[shilow7]

It is mystifying flame and there is nothing breaking the animation, it just has a faster animation then other fire skills.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-or-not-please

^^

[Reichpapers]

If I wasn't off playing BF3 day in day out, I still wouldn't use the Counter Defense thing...seems kind of lame to change your whole class makeup for a gimick.

[TheBigMenace]

The burg bug is definitely an exploit, the fact that a burglar can kill you from a range is clearly broken. Moreover people have been banned for merely discussing how to do it.

The RK matter is different, it's all over the forums and there is no exploit involved merely using the proper setup for your character. I believe that Mystifying Flame has the same animation as a fast skill so it's not affected by attack duration. This is similar to the burg crit chain, except you have to press 1 button repeatedly instead of three (or w.e it is).

As for it not being WAI, I can't say for certain but it seems to have a risk vs. reward that you would expect from something like this. It drains a substantial amount of power to output a substantial amount of dps. So from a design standpoint it seems WAI. Moreover you can easily counter it, it's not like once an RK uses it you have no options. I know that in this game people who get bested in combat will QQ about it to no end rather than try and come up with a way to counter something. But the bottom line is, is that YOU got outplayed so suck it up, take it like a man (or woman) and try to come up with a way to win the next time rather than cry OP, or EXPLOIT, or BAN PLX on the forums.

Justice has been served.

[Beerpong]

The burg bug is definitely an exploit, the fact that a burglar can kill you from a range is clearly broken. Moreover people have been banned for merely discussing how to do it.

The RK matter is different, it's all over the forums and there is no exploit involved merely using the proper setup for your character. I believe that Mystifying Flame has the same animation as a fast skill so it's not affected by attack duration. This is similar to the burg crit chain, except you have to press 1 button repeatedly instead of three (or w.e it is).

As for it not being WAI, I can't say for certain but it seems to have a risk vs. reward that you would expect from something like this. It drains a substantial amount of power to output a substantial amount of dps. So from a design standpoint it seems WAI. Moreover you can easily counter it, it's not like once an RK uses it you have no options. I know that in this game people who get bested in combat will QQ about it to no end rather than try and come up with a way to counter something. But the bottom line is, is that YOU got outplayed so suck it up, take it like a man (or woman) and try to come up with a way to win the next time rather than cry OP, or EXPLOIT, or BAN PLX on the forums.

Justice has been served.

Evidently Justice hasn't been served because 2 different GM's have stated they are investigating the skill because I opened a ticket asking this exact question. Clearly something is not working correctly. I provided turbine a screenshot of my combat log showing the skill firing over 14 times in under 5 seconds (which with latency is obviously not possible) under normal circumstances. Both GM's said they will make a determination on whether or not there is an exploit involved with the skill being used in this manner. I'm sure a dev is gonna be very busy the next few days. Til then the whole cry OP, EXPLOIT, or BAN PLX isn't what's happening here.

Creeps simply want a definitive answer on the skill and if it can be used to such extremes.



~Cheers

[TheBigMenace]

Evidently Justice hasn't been served because 2 different GM's have stated they are investigating the skill because I opened a ticket asking this exact question. Clearly something is not working correctly. I provided turbine a screenshot of my combat log showing the skill firing over 14 times in under 5 seconds (which with latency is obviously not possible) under normal circumstances. Both GM's said they will make a determination on whether or not there is an exploit involved with the skill being used in this manner. I'm sure a dev is gonna be very busy the next few days. Til then the whole cry OP, EXPLOIT, or BAN PLX isn't what's happening here.

Creeps simply want a definitive answer on the skill and if it can be used to such extremes.



~Cheers

A GM saying they investigating is auto-response #334451 in their handbook to handle player QQ. If something is considered an exploit turbine does whatever it can to shut down forum posts about it in an effort to stop word spreading. Since this has not occurred it's safe to say that it's not considered exploiting.

Moreover it's 100% possible to execute the skill 14 times (in fact this is actually quite low, some RK's claim 35 is pretty easy). The reason being that MF follows the same behavior as a "Fast" skill, you obviously didn't understand this the first time I said it so I'll go into more detail.

Lotro Combat uses a system called attack duration to limit skill use and to ensure you can't just press 1-9 on your keyboard and fire 9 skills off at the same time. Basically skill use is limited by how long it takes for an animation to execute. If you have ever played a reaver you will know this, when you spam sudden strikes, your character will complete the first SS animation before you can execute it again.

This is how normal skills work, and pre-mirkwood all skills followed this rule. However with Mirkwood came Immediate skills and a revamp of fast skills. Immediate skills allowed you to use them despite whatever animation you are currently in. Contrary to popular belief this does not "interrupt" an animation as many people think. They are used on-top of current animations, so the current animation your character is executing will still be running in the background while the Immediate skill is going off. This essentially gives you an extra hit in where you wouldn't usually be able to get one resulting in a DPS increase. You will see this with a reaver's ravage-gutpunch, warg's scratch and snip, Champions Ferocious-Clobber, etc.

Now fast skills are different from immediate skills in that they wait for the previous animation to complete, but have no animation of their own. So if you are able to use more than one in quick succession they are limited by how fast you jam buttons rather than attack duration. Usually they are given cooldowns to keep them in check, however MF does not have a cooldown. So for 5 seconds you can jam that button and however many times you hit it in those 5 seconds is how many executions of the skill you will get. There is absolutely nothing fishy here if you understand what is going on. Granted the majority of Lotro's player base is oblivious to what I just explained (especially here on landroval), however now YOU know...

I hope this clears things up. As I said before this should be easily countered by wargs, reavers and defilers. WL's and BA's may have a bit more trouble but all it really means is that they are going to have to be smart about where they choose to engage a Solo RK. Looking at how squishy RK's are atm this burst is 100% warranted imo, they ARE a glass canon after all. I think its actually quite refreshing to see fire as a viable PVP and PVE spec, also it means they can't kite you, since they're fire so definitely less frustrating to play against.

Again I bring justice.

[Gillianrial]

however MF does not have a cooldown. So for 5 seconds you can jam that button and however many times you hit it in those 5 seconds is how many executions of the skill you will get. There is absolutely nothing fishy here if you understand what is going on. Granted the majority of Lotro's player base is oblivious to what I just explained (especially here on landroval), however now YOU know...

I hope this clears things up. As I said before this should be easily countered by wargs, reavers and defilers.

Just FYI since you're the expert and all...MF does have a CD (unlike FR which has 0 but has an aftercast animation). Now, since everyone began talking about this, how many more RKs added the legacy to their LIs to get 0 CD? lol.

If you're so sure you can "easily counter" this on your "warg, reaver or defiler," then I have to wonder what kind of RKs you're even fighting. In other words, once the (good) RK gets IEoF off, their target is toast.

It's not en exploit as it was designed and seems working as intended. But really poor implementation? Obviously.

[TheBigMenace]

Just FYI since you're the expert and all...MF does have a CD (unlike FR which has 0 but has an aftercast animation). Now, since everyone began talking about this, how many more RKs added the legacy to their LIs to get 0 CD? lol.

If you're so sure you can "easily counter" this on your "warg, reaver or defiler," then I have to wonder what kind of RKs you're even fighting. In other words, once the (good) RK gets IEoF off, their target is toast.

It's not en exploit as it was designed and seems working as intended. But really poor implementation? Obviously.

My post was under the assumption that the RK is already specced correctly... I don't understand why you would bring that up.

Anyways the simply answer is to cc them as soon as you see the T3 WoF on your character bar.

As a reaver you save Disarm for this moment
As a defiler you save Fear for this moment
As a warg you FM them
I forgot to mention spiders but the same rule applies (although you may sit in the induction and just die LOL)

As a BA/WL you are going to need to break LoS, hence choosing your engage wisely. I thought any avid pvper would be able to think this up, evidently not...

[Jamers]

Usually they are given cooldowns to keep them in check, however MF does not have a cooldown. So for 5 seconds you can jam that button and however many times you hit it in those 5 seconds is how many executions of the skill you will get. There is absolutely nothing fishy here if you understand what is going on. Granted the majority of Lotro's player base is oblivious to what I just explained (especially here on landroval), however now YOU know...

I hope this clears things up. As I said before this should be easily countered by wargs, reavers and defilers.

Not really. Wargs can disappear, sure, but they'll take some damage before they can actually do it. Reavers? If they're in melee range and Disarm, sure. If not, they're toast. Defilers sure, again, if in range. Given that RKs are a dominantly ranged class, this isn't as easy as you portray, and all will be taking some damage as the RK in question is busily spamming that one skill to high heaven before they can react.

But you're correct in that the mechanics are working as intended and it's not an exploit. Hilariously bad design for PvP though.

[Gillianrial]

I just find it funny that apparently the RKs he's sparring are actually getting interrupted, heh. lol.

[TheBigMenace]

It's not going to negate 100% of their damage, it will however stem the flow of damage long enough for the 5 seconds of insta-cast to run out. Once the 5 seconds are up a fire RK is reduced to using inductions again, which gives any melee creep (especially reavers) a large advantage. Now obviously if an RK gets the jump on you then yes, you will probably die. If you let an RK hit 35 MF's at 400-500 damage each you are going to get hit for 16k of damage, which is more or less an insta-gib. However it can be countered and it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

However I'm surprised about the QQ, freeps (RK's especially after the Moria Buff) have always been imbalanced in the moors this is nothing new...

[Beerpong]

A GM saying they investigating is auto-response #334451 in their handbook to handle player QQ. If something is considered an exploit turbine does whatever it can to shut down forum posts about it in an effort to stop word spreading. Since this has not occurred it's safe to say that it's not considered exploiting.

Actually myself and some other creeps have been speaking to turbine directly via emails in order to get a definitive answer. We know better than to wait for an auto-response from a ticket system and we already know how the skill works. One post has already been shutdown that was showing the combat log and it was removed yesterday afternoon fyi.

Ending your posts with "Again I bring Justice" doesn't add any more weight to your opinion. Here allow me to show you.

Again I bring Bacon.

[TheBigMenace]

Actually myself and some other creeps have been speaking to turbine directly via emails in order to get a definitive answer. We know better than to wait for an auto-response from a ticket system and we already know how the skill works. One post has already been shutdown that was showing the combat log and it was removed yesterday afternoon fyi.

Ending your posts with "Again I bring Justice" doesn't add any more weight to your opinion. Here allow me to show you.

Again I bring Bacon.

That's because the post was calling a specific player out on the forums, which is a direct violation of the CoC. The CoC is your friend, witness the CoC, embrace the CoC, love the CoC...

[Beerpong]

That's because the post was calling a specific player out on the forums, which is a direct violation of the CoC. The CoC is your friend, witness the CoC, embrace the CoC, love the CoC...

Not the post I'm referring to

[Starkraft]

I just find it funny that apparently the RKs he's sparring are actually getting interrupted, heh. lol.

....rks you know are better than rks we know... *clap clap* Gilli....wanna bring something on topic to this discussion?

Topic being: saying the word exploit is the flavor of the month, on both sides, creepside more-so. Something only slightly off topic is if this rk stuff is an exploit. Then we have your topic, which you have mentioned twice now, about rk's not being good enough, and you dont even know which rk's you could be insulting....

So yeah, people are dropping the word exploit pretty often, and in this game that word has heavy implications, so maybe people should check to see if its an exploit before fueling the fire of this flavor of the month and getting people unwarrantably banned, ie minis.

[TheBigMenace]

Not the post I'm referring to

I know the post you are referring to, I personally reported it. Good try though.

Edit: Back on topic, I hope that we are clear now on the RK Mystifying Flame spam and the actual game mechanics behind it. It's not an exploit but as some have pointed out perhaps a lapse in judgment from a pvp point of view.

I would actually like to discuss this because if the devs did plan for this to be used then I think it WAS for pvp. Realistically this can't be viably used for pve if you want to pull any sort of sustained rotation, if you've witnessed it you've also seen the insane power cost. So where else could it be applied other than pvp where burst is king?

[Moejo]

Like some other mmo's have done, the way to fix it is a global cooldown. Only interrupts would off this gcd, about 1 second, it would have no impact on induction skills, as it the gcd would be finished before the induction finished. There already is sort of one, it's done through after-animations, it just needs to be made a hard 1s gcd for everything.

Also, saying something is fotm is totally fotm.

[Thane9]

....rks you know are better than rks we know... *clap clap* Gilli....wanna bring something on topic to this discussion?

Topic being: saying the word exploit is the flavor of the month, on both sides, creepside more-so. Something only slightly off topic is if this rk stuff is an exploit. Then we have your topic, which you have mentioned twice now, about rk's not being good enough, and you dont even know which rk's you could be insulting....

So yeah, people are dropping the word exploit pretty often, and in this game that word has heavy implications, so maybe people should check to see if its an exploit before fueling the fire of this flavor of the month and getting people unwarrantably banned, ie minis.

Just curious...why did you pick Gilli's post out to be snide about? Why not any of the numerous others that are off topic banter?

Just wondering if it's personal, or you have some sort of random methodology at work that I don't understand.

Not to mention your post was just as off topic until the end, where you must have realized that you needed to say something on topic to remove that as a posible call out.

SO...

Yeah, people say exploit alot, sometimes with legitimate reason, sometimes just because they feel cheated by poorly written game mechanics. I think Turbine needs to do a better job communicating what is and is not currently considered an exploit once bug reports have been made and digested by the Devs.

However, we've RARELY seen actual enforced action inside the Ettenmoors for almost everything. So my guess is they'd rather just keep it quiet and it'll be fixed in the next book.

[TheBigMenace]

Like some other mmo's have done, the way to fix it is a global cooldown. Only interrupts would off this gcd, about 1 second, it would have no impact on induction skills, as it the gcd would be finished before the induction finished. There already is sort of one, it's done through after-animations, it just needs to be made a hard 1s gcd for everything.

Also, saying something is fotm is totally fotm.

As you already mentioned attack duration is already a form of GCD, and no I don't think LOTRO would do well with an actual gcd system. It would require a massive revamp to the entire combat system and based on Turbine's track record the ETA would be 10 years from now.

[Beerpong]

I know the post you are referring to, I personally reported it. Good try though.

Again, that's not the post I am referring to. There was another discussion in the Runekeeper section that got nuked.

[Gillianrial]

....rks you know are better than rks we know... *clap clap* Gilli....wanna bring something on topic to this discussion?

Topic being: saying the word exploit is the flavor of the month, on both sides, creepside more-so. Something only slightly off topic is if this rk stuff is an exploit. Then we have your topic, which you have mentioned twice now, about rk's not being good enough, and you dont even know which rk's you could be insulting....

So yeah, people are dropping the word exploit pretty often, and in this game that word has heavy implications, so maybe people should check to see if its an exploit before fueling the fire of this flavor of the month and getting people unwarrantably banned, ie minis.

I thought I was on topic when I was responding to another poster who claims that it's incredibly easy to disrupt the damage after IEoF has been cast. I also said I thought the skill was WAI (not an exploit) as designed, although obviously badly thought through for PvP. *shrug*

Also, I am not really worried about insulting some anonymous RKs (not that I actually think any RK has any real problem killing their targets in the Moors with this method given all the crying about it but whatevs)...given the poster I was responding to apparently thinks its appropriate to insult the entire server, but yet that's ok right?

And yes, I agree with everything you said about "exploit" being overused.

[TheBigMenace]

Just curious...why did you pick Gilli's post out to be snide about? Why not any of the numerous others that are off topic banter?

Just wondering if it's personal, or you have some sort of random methodology at work that I don't understand.

Not to mention your post was just as off topic until the end, where you must have realized that you needed to say something on topic to remove that as a posible call out.

SO...

Yeah, people say exploit alot, sometimes with legitimate reason, sometimes just because they feel cheated by poorly written game mechanics. I think Turbine needs to do a better job communicating what is and is not currently considered an exploit once bug reports have been made and digested by the Devs.

However, we've RARELY seen actual enforced action inside the Ettenmoors for almost everything. So my guess is they'd rather just keep it quiet and it'll be fixed in the next book.

Just curious...why did you pick Star's post out to be snide about? Why not any of the numerous others that are off topic banter?

Just wondering if it's personal, or you have some sort of random methodology at work that I don't understand.

Not to mention your post was just as off topic until the end, where you must have realized that you needed to say something on topic to remove that as a posible call out.

SO...

Wow this post seems so familiar! But I have just realized that I need to stay on topic too! All joking aside I agree that exploits need to be listed in the known issues part of the patch notes. That way there is no confusion between players and people can avoid being banned much easier.

[Beerpong]

Until we get an official response from turbine on the skill in PvMP let me ask all of you a question.

Do you think being able to spam Mystifying Flame in PvMP more than 14 times (as an example) in under 5 seconds is completely acceptable? How about spamming it more than 20 times? 30?

Most creeps from my experience aren't upset that RK's have such a skill only that some players use it to such extremes.

~Cheers