Curse

Cale Roughstar · Apr 28, 2008, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Top 100 is and always has been about upgrades at the right time, and the luck to not get KD'd at inopportune times. I win 60-70% of my races, but am still a full 3 seconds short of the top 100 (468k) as my high score. The guys who make top 100 know all the tricks of the trade, while I am still lacking.

The things that really need to be fixed are dishonour after resigning and multiples in the top 100. Roughly 8/10 slots in the top 10 are occupied by the same two people and that is retarded. More chances for the mini pl0x. As for dishonourable, it is just stupid. I get owned at the beginning of the race, why should I spend the next 2-3 minutes of my life playing catchup? 3-5 victory tokens? Not a chance. I don't play to win small races, I play to win BIG!

That being said, I need to take a break from the beetles for a bit. I am starting to rage every time I get knocked down. If you need me, I'll be fraggin noobs in CS:S.

Martin Alvito · Apr 28, 2008, 06:23 AM // 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeff7878

Actually i think some of the people getting in the top 100 list are useing helpers, If you go too the asian dis1 korean language. You will find some of them there counting down too try and get in at the same time. It seems they go too a empty dis with hardly any people and count down together too try and get in at the same time. I was in there earlier today and seen some doing it next thing i know that same names where on the top 100 list. I should have take some screenies..But i was kinda pissed has this may be a reason why the ones on the top list have such high scores and it always seems too be the same people at the top. Of course i may be wrong too.

Screenie or it's a baseless accusation. There's no excuse for slander.

I've heard the same via PMs...but it's all hearsay until you prove your case.

manitoba1073 · Apr 28, 2008, 07:06 AM // 07:06

Martin I hate to say it but I think I say the same guild doing it. [BAR] i believe was there tag.

And yea I saw you there also in korean district. Im not saying you was but that you was just happen to be there also.

Bront · Apr 28, 2008, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

If you used it for 90% of your victories or races, you were exploiting a bug. Problem solved.

How was anyone to know that that wasn't how the skill was intended to be used?

If I gather what has been said by the racers here, it's a combination of knowing exactly where to go when you race, and getting lucky in the boxes.

Not all the box skills are equal. I know I always looked for Superbeetle, and had significantly better times if I got one.

Of course, I wanted to race because it looked like fun. Actually getting points for it is just a bonus.

Martin Alvito · Apr 28, 2008, 08:54 AM // 08:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

Martin I hate to say it but I think I say the same guild doing it. [BAR] i believe was there tag.

And yea I saw you there also in korean district. Im not saying you was but that you was just happen to be there also.

Pffft. You're making stuff up. I play out of International sometimes, and American sometimes.

Go crawl back under your bridge.

beren kat jollie · Apr 28, 2008, 09:16 AM // 09:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Screenie or it's a baseless accusation. There's no excuse for slander.

I've heard the same via PMs...but it's all hearsay until you prove your case.

screen 1:

screen 2:

5 hours ago

P.D. thnx a lot Bobrath :d

Lain Akazukin · Apr 28, 2008, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeff7878

Actually i think some of the people getting in the top 100 list are useing helpers, If you go too the asian dis1 korean language. You will find some of them there counting down too try and get in at the same time. It seems they go too a empty dis with hardly any people and count down together too try and get in at the same time. I was in there earlier today and seen some doing it next thing i know that same names where on the top 100 list. I should have take some screenies..But i was kinda pissed has this may be a reason why the ones on the top list have such high scores and it always seems too be the same people at the top. Of course i may be wrong too.

It could have been me trying to sync with someone who wanted to show me something on the track, he started counting down in local chat. It didn't work though, we tried several times but there seems to be some kind of anti-sync code now which prevents players from entering the same race.

Martin Alvito · Apr 28, 2008, 09:33 AM // 09:33

In legal terms:

If you're trying to prove 'cheating' the pics would likely stand up as probable cause. It's suspicious, all right.

It ain't proof. Who are you accusing of syncing with whom here? I have no idea who the [Bar] guys are. Neither does the top 100 list. Same for Chilling Memento.

TBH, if they can't post a top time, I don't care if [Bar] syncs as a guild. So they win more matches than they should and screw me out of 2 gamer points once every four or five hours when I run across them. Big deal.

If you're accusing all of these people of taking a dive for Roflcopter (or Mr Fantanastic), that annoys me a little more if it's true. Since there's nothing on the line but pride this weekend for posting a top time, it still doesn't annoy me all that much.

Other people may feel differently, but that's the way I see it.

Martin Alvito · Apr 28, 2008, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lain Akazukin

It could have been me trying to sync with someone who wanted to show me something on the track, he started counting down in local chat. It didn't work though, we tried several times but there seems to be some kind of anti-sync code now which prevents players from entering the same race.

Out of internationals tonight, it seemed to be the case that if you matched up against a player, you'd be very likely to see that player again for four or five matches (probably due to a shortage of players). So this may be (marginally) more effective than you'd think. If several syncers managed to get into the same match, they would be likely to be able to keep it going for three or four matches.

Kashrlyyk · Apr 28, 2008, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bront

How was anyone to know that that wasn't how the skill was intended to be used?....

Remember the duping exploit and that players got banned for buying armbraces cheap? Why did they do that? Right: "They should have known!" That was the explaination ANet/Gaile Gray used. Tom Swift and strcpy both gave a good explaination, why that reasoning is bullshit.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...5&postcount=59

and

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...5&postcount=73

The same with the 50000XP bug! It is very easy to never realize and be confronted with the fact that the XP bonus for completing a mission is only given to you once!
Even worse that bug had no influence on the game! You get enough skill points anyway, the levels are capped at 20 and a cheap survivor title is not that important. Still they banned people!

So basically in the past it didn´t matter to ANet, if you knew about the bug when you exploited it or if it had any effect on the game. So why should they care now?? ANet should be consistent. So either ban the Ram exploiters or unban all those that got banned for similar things in the past.

Hengis · Apr 28, 2008, 09:49 AM // 09:49

I haven't got anywhere near the top 100 this time. Put it this way I have earned 1000 gamer points and haven't got the SRB/Echo combination once! LOL My best time is only around 465K.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that over the weekend I was randomly grouped with Yuri a few times and with Lain a couple of times.

I these races neither Yuri or Lain posted particularly good times and in fact didn't even win all the races. However in these races I saw NO evidence of cheating or sync-ing or any other suspicious play.

I must say though that Lain is BLINDINGLY fast over the second half of the course. In one race I must have been 10+ seconds ahead of him and he infact seemed to wait until everyone was way out of sight. He then won the race beating me by a fraction of a second. I guess he was practising his skills for that part of the course.

I really wish I knew how they did it.

I know I am not slow, but I really can't compete with those guys.

Personally I would like the Roller Beetle arena left in the game permanently. After all, we are just killing time now until GW2, and having the arenas and the games etc would help people work on their titles and give you something else to do.

Lain Akazukin · Apr 28, 2008, 10:13 AM // 10:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Out of internationals tonight, it seemed to be the case that if you matched up against a player, you'd be very likely to see that player again for four or five matches (probably due to a shortage of players). So this may be (marginally) more effective than you'd think. If several syncers managed to get into the same match, they would be likely to be able to keep it going for three or four matches.

Well I can't sync with anyone at least, tried it four or five times and then gave up because one of our timers would always restart after 0.

Martin Alvito · Apr 28, 2008, 10:42 AM // 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

So basically in the past it didn´t matter to ANet, if you knew about the bug when you exploited it or if it had any effect on the game. So why should they care now?? ANet should be consistent. So either ban the Ram exploiters or unban all those that got banned for similar things in the past.

Counterargument:

Rollerbeetle racing is a RACING game. The idea is to post the best time possible given the course design. The general objective is to keep the RRPM bar as full as possible at all times. There are guidelines for good play. Example: you try not to hit Dash when the RRPM bar is less than half full, because of the way Dash works.

However, there are no big red flashing "FEATURE" and "BUG" signs at the different points on the course where it is possible to gain speed. Nobody fully understands the mechanics of the RRPM bar. Arguably, if the mechanics were a known quantity then the race becomes trivial, as it becomes a simple math problem.

The RRPM bar is just plain glitchy. Why is it that it stutters up and down a bit as you go down the first hill from the starting gate? The whole thing is a downslope; generally on downslopes you do not lose RRPM. Sometimes you gain it going down, sometimes you don't (eg: hill right before checkpoint 3).

Explain to me how I am supposed to tell whether an unexpected increase in the RRPM bar due to the use of a speed buff at a specific point/place is unambiguously an exploit. If the RRPM bar were a nice, consistent function, I would know. But it isn't. More importantly, if it were that predictable, Rollerbeetle Racing would become boring quickly, because there wouldn't be that extra half-second of hidden time in the course design still out there for racers to uncover.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

Remember the duping exploit and that players got banned for buying armbraces cheap? Why did they do that? Right: "They should have known!"

These examples have clear reference points for expectations. In the case of armbraces, they were worth X yesterday, and today they become worth Y, where Y < X by a wide margin. It's suspicious that today they are worth Y, when yesterday they were worth X.

Similarly, the "you should have known" argument works with the Doppelganger. It should be "obvious" that you should only get XP from mission completion once, since you only get XP once from completing all other missions in the game.

It doesn't work that way in Rollerbeetle Racing, as discussed above. Further, this demonstrates clearly how the ANet "you should have known" policy relies on the unstated assumption that there is a clear reference point for expectations. I can quote a long list of borderline "exploits" in this game where such reference points did not exist. These situations did not result in bans. Nor should they have.

Your argument doesn't hold water.

Further, the policy you quote is just flawed. It implicitly assumes that subjectivity does not exist. But clearly it does. Otherwise, we would not need civil courts to tell us what the law says about a given contract; different parties can reasonably hold different interpretations of what the law says.

ANet's use of this policy is rooted in classical deterrence theory. They like the policy because it creates uncertainty in players' minds about the outcome of doing "bad" things they don't like, which should (at the margin) deter "bad" behavior. But it also decreases players' enjoyment of the game, because the black-and-white "IF WE DECIDE IT IS AN EXPLOIT, WE SHALL SMITE YOU" policy creates uncertainty about engaging in what would likely be interpreted as perfectly legitimate actions.

Example: Tons of threads about transferring money between different accounts and such are out there. If I want to take $20 out of my pocket and give it to my wife, I should be able to do that without worrying about whether a regulatory agency will get upset about the transfer, right? Yet I know that every time I do that in the game, some probability greater than zero exists that ANet's automated ban hammer will ban and/or destroy the cash that was transferred. This makes me unhappy. It deters me from making legitimate transfers of funds between accounts we bought and paid for.

In sum: bad argument and the policy you quote is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Lain Akazukin · Apr 28, 2008, 11:31 AM // 11:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hengis Stone

I must say though that Lain is BLINDINGLY fast over the second half of the course. In one race I must have been 10+ seconds ahead of him and he infact seemed to wait until everyone was way out of sight. He then won the race beating me by a fraction of a second. I guess he was practising his skills for that part of the course.

Yeah the second part of the race I got pretty much under control, it's the first part where my weakness lies. Sayuri told me he could get to the first two boxes in the water at 36.5 seconds, and during my best times I got there at about 38-39 so that's where I'm currently trying to improve myself. Problem is that it takes some time to adjust and change your strategy, so you will be doing worse for a while until you got your new strat under control.

beren kat jollie · Apr 28, 2008, 11:39 AM // 11:39

sorry Martin but all what u say is bla bla bla.

I cant believe that only 10 persons, or 20, between ALL THE WHOLE GUILWARS players, discover how to win these races and to gain these 10-12 seconds.
i cant, seriously.

dont know is an exploit or bug or whatever cuz i cant prove, but my mind says its.

SilverSlave · Apr 28, 2008, 12:11 PM // 12:11

This was my second weekend racing and I didn't get as much chance this time as I would have liked but I was determined to make top 100. Alas I was a few seconds off it BUT my times have improved immeasurably. I had my best scores recorded from last time and I'd managed 456k back then. Bless.

I've had the pleasure of racing a few of the top racers this weekend and (when I could keep up) trying to learn from them and they are all astonishingly quick. I can absolutely believe that there are a select few of the elite that are just that good. A single run behind Aeris Sephira basically mimicking everything she did and I was up to 468k with room for improvement.

If double ram was not working as intended then I'm happy to see the fix but I know it's not necessary to post top times. The biggest problem I had was everyone ganking the leader early on (sound tactics if your racing mind you hehe). Especially if you stretch the field out early. The brief coverage of Harden Shell fails in the face of a sustained attack from everyone! An unluckily timed Distracting Lunge was also devastating to a good time.

I love Rollerbeetle racing regardless and I'm gonna come back next time ready to break into the 470k time bracket! FYI my IGN was Nightmare Strike for those I raced against

Martin Alvito · Apr 28, 2008, 12:57 PM // 12:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by beren kat jollie

sorry Martin but all what u say is bla bla bla.

I cant believe that only 10 persons, or 20, between ALL THE WHOLE GUILWARS players, discover how to win these races and to gain these 10-12 seconds. i cant, seriously.

dont know is an exploit or bug or whatever cuz i cant prove, but my mind says its.

This is the best example of why people don't understand what's going on that I've seen. You make assumptions based on what you already believe you know about play in Guild Wars. Then you act surprised when those of us that know the actual facts tell you the world doesn't work the way you assumed it did.

Are you also unable to believe that there is a VERY limited group of monks out there that can keep a group alive to the standards of winning a monthly AT? That's definitely the case, and it's analagous to the races. Those monks get much better results with the same skills as everyone else. All of them play a lot and have a very specific skill set that is hard to define: the ability to miraculously keep people alive.

It's the last four or five seconds of extra time that define the quarterly high score list in the races. The range is something like 478k to 482k. Tons of people out there can toss up a 472+; all you have to do to verify that is look at the daily board. When you narrow it down to finding four or five extra seconds of time by playing just a LITTLE bit better in different spots all over the course, it starts to make sense that only a limited number of players have had the patience to put in the effort to find all those little spots.

Additionally, you have to have made the run a sufficient number of times to not choke and screw it up when all the pieces fall into place. I repeat: small mistakes get magnified a lot. Precision matters.

jeff7878 · Apr 28, 2008, 04:30 PM // 16:30

You know im looking at that screen shot a few post up and i noticed that guy in the pic mr fantastic. He was one of the ones i seen counting down in the dis, He was also in the top 100 3 times after i noticed this and checked the list. But like everyone said you cant prove shit, With out the actual proof. I also heard players like the more empty dis, Because they say there is less lag, That could be the case has well.

dunky_g · Apr 28, 2008, 04:36 PM // 16:36

... said before, Games are for fun, Mini games are free games that are there for amusment!

I mean if they were giving away pets this time..

.. but still...

bobrath · Apr 28, 2008, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Having managed a 760,968 last night (suprised myself even) and had numerous races against Martin - I'd have to agree that its a combination of getting lucky on crate pops as well as the racers you've got going against you as well as skill in knowing how to use your beetle.

Its unfortunate that some folks out there resort to sync joining (even more unfortunate when they all rank emote at the end to show you their leetness). I would like to see only each racer's "best account time" be counted on the top 100 - if only to keep the hopes alive for the masses. Its discouraging to see a small set of people dominating the top 100. Yes, they did indeed have a bunch of fast times and I'm not taking away from that.

(lastly, beren kat jollie if you host those images from imageshack, it has a resize option for you - it would make this page far more enjoyable to read)