Instance "Exploit"

[Ruvanal]

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx...nt=29#post37432

Warning, only the first 9 posts have any real content. The rest of the thread devolved into trolling and mud slinging.

This was the first that I heard of this for getting more than 5 characters into an instance at the same time. Since the development team is working on a way to link parties together in the future, they do not see a problem with this method being used for now to achieve this result.

1. The group leader stays out side of the instance
2. Then he adds people to the group and disbands them from the group after the person jumps into the instance.
3. The group leader then keeps doing this until they they have everyone in the instance.

Ogre:

There is nothing wrong with this. We are planning to implement a group linking mechanism to make it easier to do this at some point. Until then, feel free to use the invite-disband method to get more then 5 people into an instance.

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I'll Crush You!

Nebu:

Yeah we've (my guild) has been doing that for a long time. We're just waiting until the group linking is in.

Too bad there is not a working search feature on those forums to make finding this sort of thing easier.

[--Pete]

Hi,

It's customary to start a discussion by actually saying something. Or do you want us to beat that horse some more? It was pretty well glue-ified on the official forums.

--Pete

[Ruvanal]

It is not on a sticky in the official forums nor has it been at any time that I have visited them in the past couple of weeks (almost daily and sometimes more than once per day). Depending on when you end up viewing those forums will set what is at the first page or pushed back multiple pages. Without indicators to show what has and has not been read, it is possible the realatively active threads could consitently be pushed back some and not viewed on the first page many times, even if it is a fairly active thread. I do not go digging much in those threads due to the large amount of drivel that is usually in 90+% of them.

[--Pete]

Hi,

You've given a link to a situation. You've posted that the official forums may or may not show you this situation on page one.

What you haven't done is say *why* you thought this particular link was necessary. To show that some people are "exploiting" the beta? Fine, since some of them are actually Blizzard people, there isn't much we can do about it. To show that this is going to be a game for wankers? That remains to be seen, but Blizzard's stance on a lot of things, from content, to mechanics, to PvP all show that is to be the case, why is this issue different/more important?

So, what do you have to say? Is there a rant you want to vent? Is there a discussion you need to start? Just why did you take the time to put that link on this board?

--Pete

[FenrisWulf]

To venture a guess, I would wager that Ruvanal was just trying to get word out that this neat little (legitimized) loophole was out there, in case Lurkers weren't aware of it. A parallel post from the realm of Diablo, for comparison, would have been the revelation that Druids could use Bows and XBows as melee weapons while Shifted. No rant, no judgement; just a heads up.

Of course, Ruvanal will undoubtedly speak for himself in short order.

[MongoJerry]

Too bad there is not a working search feature on those forums to make finding this sort of thing easier.

It's not exactly a search feature, but I've found that World of Warcraft.net's forum shredeer to be very helpful in filtering out the noise. It goes through the forums and only displays posts made by Blizzard personel. Check it out: http://worldofwar.net/shredder/

[Ruvanal]

Thank you FenrisWulf for a quick summary of why I posted it.

Just why did you take the time to put that link on this board?

For primarily what Fenris listed. While a couple like Bolty may not feel any problem about exploiting the method of climbing mountains to see areas that Blizzard did not want them to see, many would still draw the line if they thought it was giving an "unfair" advantage against some of the actual playing situations. But if you had looked over the material describing how they were planning on having the instances work from their site prior to the launch of the beta, you might have seen were they had mentioned having linked parties to go into them.

Pete, why do you feel that having a larger party going into the instance is "wanking"? Because the user interface that Blizzard designed would only comfortably handle showing four other party members on the screen without crwding at its lowest resolution? I have seen what some of the interface mods do when trying to squeeze those parts of the graphics down to make a more viewable area. On my system they look like crap; not something that I would have wanted to play with or put up with if I was paying for the game.

I would hazard to say that most likely that is the reason that party size was set at five instead of some other higher value. Not necessarily a case of "the game is only designed to have no more than five character doing some parts of it". I know that you started fairly late in the first push, did you get to the point of doing the Defias Traitor quest in Westfall? The best cases that I have seen of getting that open area quest done is when there are a few others outside of the party getting the quest that are also assisting in clearing the way. This is particularly true if the ones doing the quest are of level that is indicated for doing the quest.

I also am hearing a similar thing from others concerning the quests in the instances. How many of the Lurkers have completed the various parts Wailing Caverns when they are still able to get the experience for the mobs in it. Or are they having to finally complete it at a level that most of the mobs no longer give them any experience? Would it have worked better for them to have been in a position of doing the Wailing Caverns at say level 17 or 18 if they could have been working in a party of 8 to 10? Better able to sustain a speed through parts of it or able more easily ressurect many fallen characters in a pinch? As it is, if you are ending up having to try to do something like this at a somewhat higher level, then that is like the level 45+ character coming back to help do Diablo in normal difficulty in D2.

If you have a group of more than five that want to try to paly together as a team like your orc team in the other thread, they you start running into how to get a couple of odd members through some of the quests that are restricted to giving credit for only one group. It sound like the method of linking groups that they are planning on would allow both groups to be able to get credit for something like Van Cleef at the same time if needed. For now the "exploit" would give a feel of how parts of this would end up working in an instance even though only one group can get credit for parts of the quest at one time (taking out the unique bosses). This would be a way to see just how balanced these quests are for when the more advanced form of grouping is introduced. That may be more of why some quests are labeled as 'elite' than just that it would require a party to do the quest; but rather that the quest is one that many should group together on to avoid having to wait for situations like a delayed respawning (defias traitor in the early beta with his ~30 min respawn or the prospector run in Darkshore with his still current 30 min respawn).

Personally the group size of 5 has to me always appeared to have been for interface design considerations, not a point of the game is 'intended' to balnced for that at a maximum. Consider this example from the other end of the specturum. One of my latest characters has been working through the alliance areas (some interesting changes so far), but when I got the quest to find the missing soldiers in east Elwynn Forest. For those familar with it, this is generally reguarded as a quest that needs a group to complete due to the number of murlocs surrounding one of the quest points (that normally requires 2 quest dialogs to do the scroll down dispaly before you can get out of there). There was no one else around when I got to that point so I soloed it at level 8 (or was I level 7? it was a few weeks ago).

With a game like this, you make part of the challange yourself. Do not count on it being forced on you by the designers. If it is forced, then most likely a hard setting will only result in product that fails in the marketplace due to driving away the bulk of the potential audience. I have played game like this (non-computer) because they could afford to target a small audience, but they were not generally well know outside of the minority that participated in them.

[--Pete]

Hi,

It makes it a lot easier to keep track of what the Blizz folks are saying and have said.

--Pete

[Ruvanal]

I found Thottbot's listing of this to be better displayed.
http://www.thottbot.com/?authors=-117&sidebars=Bliz

Though they are still somewhat lacking in real information in most cases. It also is not that hard to just look for the tiny Blizzard symbol on the left hand column to know which threads that they posted in.

The problem is if informtion is needed on something that is not the frequently or might have an answer buried in a non-obvious thread. For Example, I had a problem with a quest earlier today, so I '/bugged' it and needed to tend to some real life concerns. Checking through the forums when I came back to see if there were others having the same problem or not could be near useless to know if my problem had been just a temporary situation, chronic problem with a workaround or if it was near permanent (like the Black Fathom Relics; works once per server reset). Most of these situations might have only been reponded to weeks ago or only by a GM in the game. Lots of luck in finding an answer about it then. P.S. I did get lucky and saw the answer on front page thread that was only marginally on the same topic, the quest looks SOL til the next reset.

This is the type of matter that could really benefit from some sort of search feature.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Pete, why do you feel that having a larger party going into the instance is "wanking"?

Go back, reread my post. I didn't say anything of the kind, I asked you if that was a reason for *you* to make the post you did. Posting a link to an inflammatory topic that ended up as a flame war should have some explanatory text with it. That was all I was looking for.

I would hazard to say that most likely that (a graphics limitation) is the reason that party size was set at five instead of some other higher value.

Exactly -- another instance of where the graphics drives the game rather than the other way around.

This particular issue does not distress me. The five character limit for the parties is, I think, pretty foolish. The party of parties concept is a way around it, but again it doesn't matter. There are more important issues than just how many people can gang up on an instance.

As to doing quests, we'll have to see how things balance out. Right now my paladin has soloed most of the quests, partnering on the occasional one when the occasion arose. By soloing and with the occasional extra kills, she's leveling faster than she can keep up with quests. So, I'd say there are still many balance issues.

With a game like this, you make part of the challange yourself.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll mention that to the creator of the classic Diablo Immortal Heroes. :)

I'm not sure that Blizzard is leaving in enough potential to even make the game challenging. To do that, the game has to have some "spread" in it. So far, I've seen very little spread -- things either are easily doable or not really doable at all. But, as I said in the post you misquoted, "That remains to be seen."

--Pete

[Ruvanal]

As for misquoting, take note of what I stated in the first post.

Warning, only the first 9 posts have any real content. The rest of the thread devolved into trolling and mud slinging.

Added extra emphasis since you seen to based your queries and replies based on the parts of the thread that I was refering to as junk. The real content as it were, was the portion that I quoted directly. But since "I" could have typed anything I wanted to and said it was a quote of others, I provided a link to show that this was not some 'made up information just being attributed to an offical source'. I have seen that done before and they could not then provide any 'proof' of their statements.

[--Pete]

Hi,

On second thought, since a private discussion is more likely to lead to a peaceful resolution, took it to PM. Post deleted from here.

--Pete