Gratulation to Elysium but disappointed of Lucrezia

I ain't gonna debate about this being legit or not, but as someone already pointed out I'd actually be glad if SE greatly reduced the latency. At times I feel the game loses a lot of the fluidity because of this. I find it ironic that the very lag that screwed us over and over allowed them to beat it, though.

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Originally Posted by CGMidlander

The haste would make the High Voltages come too fast to silence. (Pretty big deal pre-nerf and with low ilvl)

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It was possible to pre-silence it. Though you had to know the rotation perfectly and use timers in my case (did it once, died to hasted lasers). Not saying it wasn't hard to do, but the rot just wasn't intended to be a compulsory mechanic. While the Nisi is intended to be compulsory.

If anything people should be happy this exists only because it will force SE to take another look at the game's crappy net code. No one should look down on anyone doing this as SE is entirely to blame for letting it exist in the first place. The fight is still incrdablly difficult fight and everyone who has beaten it deserved it.

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Originally Posted by Metterschlingel

It's called common sense to recognize what is intended and what is an exploit. Remember, AK staying on the tree for first boss? I don't criticize the die strategy, I criticize that it is possible to hit 2 orbs where it is supposed to only hit one, but delay of the game enables you to get two, which seems like a bug/exploit.

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Which will never be fixed since SE does not want to spend the money to have a shorter delay. cie la vie

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

Inb4 comparisons with T2's allagan rot : the rot was NOT a core mechanic. If you wanted to deal with the haste buff, that was up to

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But if you chose the path that would apply rot to last boss it is the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

It was possible to pre-silence it. Though you had to know the rotation perfectly and use timers in my case (did it once, died to hasted lasers). Not saying it wasn't hard to do, but the rot just wasn't intended to be a compulsory mechanic. While the Nisi is intended to be compulsory.

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The issue wasn't known when to silence it. The issue was since it was quicker the rotation was quicker. It would appear way to often to the point most groups wouldn't have a CD for it after a rotation or 2. Plus I found the silence to be a minor issue. The main issue I seen was the amount of damage and that was back when latency was still at like 0.5.

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Originally Posted by Metterschlingel

When you hit the first orb without debuff you get 50k insta kill, but delay and sprint let them the touch the second one before the dmg is applied. Watch the vid plz @8:30. If you do the die strategy, 6 ppl should die.

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So basically they're supposed to sit on their thumbs and wait to die. Got it.

Maybe when SE gets their servers in a decent datacenter this won't be the case.

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Originally Posted by Metterschlingel

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

I watched MrHappies Walkthrough video now (who also is doing sac strat). If anyone says "wait for server tick, hit sprint, and jump to avoid server position updating" is a working as intended strategy you are one beer short of a sixpack. I mean, ok you want the fight to get done and you are too bad to handle it, ok; but claiming this is intended to excuse your inability to handle Royal Pentacle is just ridiculous. Kudos to the only group (one JP group) who did it entirely correct. Hope SE, will foresee this in future raids, I don't expect a fix for this will happen.

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They can fix it by moving the servers.

You know why it doesn't work for JP but does for everyone else? Lag.

Same lag they claim doesn't exist pissing off ninjas everywhere.

Same that that messes with stance switching.

Same lag that messes with my CD macros. Etc.

Edit:

Side note, this is the ONLY application service that I've ever connected to on the east coast of NA that I end up with a 100+ latency to.

There have been days where my connection to EU servers in other games has been better. I had a better latency to my WoW server(located in Los Angeles) from northern Sweden than I do to this game some days, and I'm in California. Average latency to east coast servers is 50-70 ms. This game I get 130 on a good day.

It's hosted in a business cloud. They need to get it off that pile of junk and into a normal data center in a normal place. Preferably west coast, because I'm incredibly afraid of what latency the poor Aussies and Kiwis get. EU is getting a localized server, the least they can do for the Aussies is move it to the west coast.

Well this is not a latency issue, because JP groups can do it as well, it is just the poor positioning update and server tick stuff.

I don't consider the kills legit either with this strat, not even mad but amused that the "top raiders" had to resort to cheap underhanded exploits in order get their wins. Also to be fair one has to wonder just how insanely overtuned the raiding content this patch is for them to try that crap. As well the game still has terible latency issues, even on japanese servers otherwise this wouldnt have worked.

Shamefull on both devs and raiders...

I wouldn't say "shame on raiders". That' just how grossly overtuned the fight is. Can't blame them as they exploit something that shouldn't have been left untouched since 2.0

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Originally Posted by Metterschlingel

Well this is not a latency issue, because JP groups can do it as well, it is just the poor positioning update and server tick stuff.

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Japan's server is local.

Their latency is inherently lower as a result.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

Japan's server is local.

Their latency is inherently lower as a result.

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You missed the point.
The games latency doesn't really have anything to do with server location, it's like a built into the game design decision

It is true japan does get better latency which helps with some things but when the game is outright designed to be more like a series of snapshots instead of fluid things like hitting 2 objects before the first reacts or getting hit by an aoe you easily cleared or moving mid-cast but the spell finishes anyways or repeatedly running through something without it reacting will always just be part of the game

It's sad and hilarious watching people make judgement calls on if this is an exploit or not when they don't even understand the basics of client-server update intervals.

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Originally Posted by Nihility

You missed the point.
The games latency doesn't really have anything to do with server location, it's like a built into the game design decision

It is true japan does get better latency which helps with some things but when the game is outright designed to be more like a series of snapshots instead of fluid things like hitting 2 objects before the first reacts or getting hit by an aoe you easily cleared or moving mid-cast but the spell finishes anyways or repeatedly running through something without it reacting will always just be part of the game

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You missed the point.

All games do snapshot updates like that. However, latency is what causes your computer and the server to be out of sync.

When movement and stuff are done server side(to prevent cheating), if there's high latency, there's going to be a delay.

That delay is what's letting them do it. Shortening the server tick won't do anything to fix it if your latency is high enough.

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

Folk using the infamous pit in T5 to dodge Divebombs isn't necessarily intended either as you're able to move out of the vertical range of said Divebombs by clever use of the terrain.

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It's kinda cute reading all these 'it's not legit posts' when I'm pretty sure you've all done the above strat which was never intended either.

Grats to those who have all cleared A4S and screw all those 'it's not legit' whiners who are probably still stuck on Faust.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

You missed the point.

All games do snapshot updates like that. However, latency is what causes your computer and the server to be out of sync.

When movement and stuff are done server side(to prevent cheating), if there's high latency, there's going to be a delay.

That delay is what's letting them do it. Shortening the server tick won't do anything to fix it if your latency is high enough.

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There's a hard coded delay where your client only attempts to update the server on positioning every server tick OR when you land from a jump.

If you're out of synch by longer than a server tick, yes, that's latency, but even with 0 latency you'd still have the amount of time between ticks.

That said, I have no opinion on the legit/exploitness of this method.

wow, lots of jimmies rustled. :|

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

You missed the point.

All games do snapshot updates like that. However, latency is what causes your computer and the server to be out of sync.

When movement and stuff are done server side(to prevent cheating), if there's high latency, there's going to be a delay.

That delay is what's letting them do it. Shortening the server tick won't do anything to fix it if your latency is high enough.

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The reason people are arguing with you is because you made the insane implication this trick isn't possible on JP, which it very clearly is.

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Originally Posted by Krylo

There's a hard coded delay where your client only attempts to update the server on positioning every server tick OR when you land from a jump.

If you're out of synch by longer than a server tick, yes, that's latency, but even with 0 latency you'd still have the amount of time between ticks.

That said, I have no opinion on the legit/exploitness of this method.

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I know there is. In most games its 2s. In this one it's 3for some asinine reason.

Their server setup causing latecy issues on top of it doesn't help any.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

That being said, sacrificing people for mechanics are pretty valid, I'm not going to knock it.

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As I understand it, no one is saying that it's an exploit to sacrifice a player to bypass a mechanic. That's a perfectly viable strategy, though it's rarely useful in a game like FFXIV. The exploit here is that sacrificing a player should deal with only ONE orb - players were using game latency to get rid of TWO orbs by triggering the second before the server realized that the first had already killed the player. This was most likely not intended by the developers, and that's why folks are claiming it was an exploit.

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

It's kinda cute reading all these 'it's not legit posts' when I'm pretty sure you've all done the above strat which was never intended either.

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That's not necessarily by choice. When SE doesn't patch an exploit, your options are to use the exploit or not do it at all. Good luck finding a group willing to do things the "right" way, when there's a cheap trick to avoid it instead.

I once tried putting together a Turn 2 group with explicit Party Finder comments stating that we would NOT be using the Enrage strategy, but would be playing pass-the-rot instead. I started with three friends that were fine with this; we wanted to see what the fight was like as it was originally designed to be played. After a couple hours, I managed a party of eight. As soon as we got to the boss, two memebers asked why we weren't doing Enrage, and when we reminded them of the comment they admitted they didn't read it, and dropped out of the run. The two other pick-ups got discouraged by this and left as well.

As for Divebombs, I'm not convinced that ANYONE knows how they were meant to be handled. At least, if there's a way other than using the pit, I haven't read it.

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Originally Posted by Bhuni

It's kinda cute reading all these 'it's not legit posts' when I'm pretty sure you've all done the above strat which was never intended either.

Grats to those who have all cleared A4S and screw all those 'it's not legit' whiners who are probably still stuck on Faust.

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There's a pretty big difference between exploiting the game engine and exploiting server net-code. The divebomb pit was exploiting a fault with the effective range on Twintania's targeting. Line of Sighting Rafflesia was exploiting the way her pull and consume targeted the player (Which was pretty much just an invisible pizza slice you walked through.) T2 enrage method was exploiting a bad enrage mechanic.

So what's the difference between these exploits and A4S Sac method?

All of these exploits were created due to oversights in the programming of the mechanic, by an actual person.

I've been playing MMOs in a hardcore fashion for over 8+ years now. Not once have I ever discovered a mechanic to a fight where a player is expected to take a major hit after reaching 0 HP and had someone call that "working as intended." This goes way beyond "Outsmarting the game programmer."

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Originally Posted by HorseBoots

I've been playing MMOs in a hardcore fashion for over 8+ years now. Not once have I ever discovered a mechanic to a fight where a player is expected to take a major hit after reaching 0 HP and had someone call that "working as intended." This goes way beyond "Outsmarting the game programmer."

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You can even cut the "MMO" nonsense completely out of that statement and it should still be true for any online game regardless of platform. To actually defend this as the legitimate way the developers intended people to deal with this mechanic is downright ludicrous. I can't believe that anyone in their right mind would actually defend this as the "intended" way...

However, the problem with this thread in general (other than the fact of it's obvious trolling intents) is that both groups are technically right. Both of these statements are equally true:

1) Using server delay tricks based on the tick timer was not the intended way the developers of this content wanted people to complete the mechanics. If it was, I would be astonished to say the least.
2) Yoshi has already congratulated both Elysium and Lucrezia for completing the final turn of Alex Savage.

So, what can we take from this?

Regardless of whether or not this was an intended way to deal with the mechanic, it has been publicly acknowledged by the lead developer of the game as a quality win. SE has the battle log data for these fights, they would have known how both groups beat this boss before any videos were ever posted. He never would have given credit to these groups if they felt this was against their ToS. Players using this to their advantage may be considered exploiting, but it's impossible for the OP to try and dis-credit anyone's clear when the creator of this game credited them already. Hence, all the sodium and sugar references.

Yeah...I feel like SE will just make sure raid animations that apply damage aren't long and take whatever measures they can in the future to make sure this cheese isn't possible again. Turn 2 Enrage has been brought up multiple times from this thread, along with your other two references. Those should be the sole representative as to learning what may happen here, imo. Turn 2 was not "fixed", but how many hard enrages have we been able to live through since BCoB? The Twin pit wasn't "fixed", but how many non-circular arenas (my god I know!!! A1 is a rectangle....) with different elevation have we fought in since BCoB? LoS'ing Rafflesia wasn't "fixed", but Savage SCoB was dropped and you were specifically not able to cheese Devour in that way any longer. Line of Sighting any type of mechanic in a raid since then has not been possible, either (nothing comes to mind anyway, correct me if I'm wrong).

So there really isn't much point in the two sides bickering over trivialities. Yoshi said Congrats! That's really all that matters. I would put money on this never happening again in a raid setting, though.


And people wonder why there are so many DPS checks in this game. If someone finds a way to cheese a DPS check, you can get rid of them forever!!

What I don't think a lot if people get is that almost any good player is capable of and will utilize slide casting to avoid damage while dpsing, as well as count the server ticks to walk in and out of aoe without harm, these both work on the same principle as was used in the sac strat and we can't exactly ban what is considered vital knowledge already for raiding.

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Originally Posted by JayCommon

Yeah...I feel like SE will just make sure raid animations that apply damage aren't long and take whatever measures they can in the future to make sure this cheese isn't possible again. Turn 2 Enrage has been brought up multiple times from this thread, along with your other two references. Those should be the sole representative as to learning what may happen here, imo. Turn 2 was not "fixed", but how many hard enrages have we been able to live through since BCoB? The Twin pit wasn't "fixed", but how many non-circular arenas (my god I know!!! A1 is a rectangle....) with different elevation have we fought in since BCoB? LoS'ing Rafflesia wasn't "fixed", but Savage SCoB was dropped and you were specifically not able to cheese Devour in that way any longer. Line of Sighting any type of mechanic in a raid since then has not been possible, either (nothing comes to mind anyway, correct me if I'm wrong).

So there really isn't much point in the two sides bickering over trivialities. Yoshi said Congrats! That's really all that matters. I would put money on this never happening again in a raid setting, though.

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Unsurprisingly, inaction has set a terrible precedent. By that logic, the group that got world first on heroic Lich King for using the grenade exploit should have been left alone instead of taken to task for exploiting their way to a world first. That doesn't promote a healthy raiding environment, since it becomes less about execution of mechanics and more about what exploits or weaknesses in the programming/netcode can be found to give you an edge. That's NOT a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Unsurprisingly, inaction has set a terrible precedent. By that logic, the group that got world first on heroic Lich King for using the grenade exploit should have been left alone instead of taken to task for exploiting their way to a world first. That doesn't promote a healthy raiding environment, since it becomes less about execution of mechanics and more about what exploits or weaknesses in the programming/netcode can be found to give you an edge. That's NOT a good thing.

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I completely and 100% agree with you. I didn't set the precedents, I only know how to observe. I am a realist. The paragraph you quoted of mine isn't necessarily what I want to have happen, it's what 2+ years of playing this game has caused me to deduce will happen. And 70+ responses of people bickering back and forth over something that is obviously not going to be changed is utterly pointless. This thread was nothing more than troll bait and, also unsurprisingly, a hefty number of people on this site sunk their teeth in (admittedly, myself included).

I never played WoW longer than a trial demo so the extent of your grenade exploit reference falls on deaf ears. I know that when teams blatantly broke Twintania in early days, those teams got banned(?...punished if not but I think the ban was permanent?) and they completely took the fight out of the game for weeks to fix the exploit. This didn't happen in A4N. Why it didn't happen is irrelevant. The inaction you speak of has a history in this game, as I outlined in my quoted post. That's really all I was getting at.

Pretty soon our raid DPS checks will be measured in decimals, so if you had to itch your nose randomly and clipped .3 seconds off a GCD then you fail the check. I don't mind DPS checks, but this game goes far overboard with them and it seems like they do it because it's the only damn thing people can't break without outright cheating. That's extremely discouraging...

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Originally Posted by JayCommon

Pretty soon our raid DPS checks will be measured in decimals, so if you had to itch your nose randomly and clipped .3 seconds off a GCD then you fail the check. I don't mind DPS checks, but this game goes far overboard with them and it seems like they do it because it's the only damn thing people can't break without outright cheating. That's extremely discouraging...

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that's already what is happening in savage actually. most of the people in this game will never be able to clear it (as it's still relevant. Ofc new ilevel tiers will ease the dps check) simply because they can't break the "90% of your maximum theoretical dps" wall that you MUST break in order to beat A3S, let alone A4S.

I don't know what happened to the sweet words yoshida told us (fights tuned to be doable without any dps from the healers), but they trashed it all with 3.0.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

I don't know what happened to the sweet words yoshida told us (fights tuned to be doable without any dps from the healers), but they trashed it all with 3.0.

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Im pretty sure he said something about how the raid designers didnt tune coil with healer dps in mind and that he was surprised how it impacted coil.Thus he said alex would be tuned with healer dps as a thing

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Originally Posted by JayCommon

I never played WoW longer than a trial demo so the extent of your grenade exploit reference falls on deaf ears. I know that when teams blatantly broke Twintania in early days, those teams got banned(?...punished if not but I think the ban was permanent?) and they completely took the fight out of the game for weeks to fix the exploit. This didn't happen in A4N. Why it didn't happen is irrelevant. The inaction you speak of has a history in this game, as I outlined in my quoted post. That's really all I was getting at.

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Oh, I was simply adding to your post, not exactly trying to argue with you since I agree with you.

As far as the exploit in question, the group that got world first for heroic Lich King used saronite bombs (AKA grenades) to cause the platform in the boss room to respawn at times it wasn't supposed to (the fight had transition phases where the edges of the platform would fall off, and the grenades were used to essentially skip mechanics that involved the smaller platform). The guild that did it got a 3-day suspension, removed loot gained from the clear and revoked that guild's world first clear. More importantly, Blizzard then hotfixed the fight to disable items like grenades while they worked on a permanent fix.

The following explains it much better than I can:

During the Lich King encounter, the platform that you fight on crumbles at the edges, reducing the area in which players have to maneuver on all sides. From then on, Val'kyr mobs (3 in 25-man, 1 in 10-man) will periodically spawn, pick up members of your raid, and fly towards the edges of the platform. If the Val'kyr mobs are not killed before they reach the edge, your raid members will be dropped by the Val'kyr to their deaths. In order to buy yourself as much time as possible to kill the Val'kyr, it makes the most sense to position your raid at the center of the platform. Unfortunately, while this is occurring, the Lich King will periodically target a member of your raid and cast Defile. Defile causes a black pool to form under the feet of the target and deal shadow damage to anyone who comes in contact with it. To make it worse, every time any player touches that pool it will increase in size, and the damage dealt will increase as well. So, if your raid is stacked at the center of the platform when a Defile is cast, everyone has to scramble out quickly to avoid enlarging the pool, while continuing to DPS the Val'kyr. On top of all this, the phase is based on the Lich King's health, so you have to whittle his health down as well, or else the phase will never end.

So where does the bug come in? It's pretty simple: if players can rebuild the Frozen Throne to its original state, you will have more space to avoid the Defile. This might not seem like a big deal if you've watched the 10-man kill video from Blood Legion, but add in 15 more people and it quickly becomes a much more difficult aspect of the fight.

Another advantage to rebuilding the platform comes from the Valkyr. Ensidia has stated openly that by having the platform extension present during the phase, it was unnecessary to DPS the Val'kyr at all. See, the Val'kyr do nothing in the fight but carry players to the edge and drop them, so if the Val'kyr were just dropping raid members off over the rebuilt edge of the platform (as opposed to over a deadly drop) then this mechanic of the fight is completely trivialized. It would simply disable three of your players for a short time. This allows you to rush through the phase, focusing all your DPS on the Lich King.

As I've said earlier, by the logic of certain individuals the above is perfectly fine and acceptable. >.>;

It is a pretty cheesy way to avoid the mechanic, it obviously isn't intended and people comparing this to T2 avoiding rot and thinking they aren't the same are incorrect, you are avoiding a core mechanic happening. That being said it isn't THAT big of a deal, if you aren't in the guilds competing for first kill it has no effect on you. If it was a big deal SE would fix it and they haven't yet.

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Originally Posted by LeeraSorlan

Im pretty sure he said something about how the raid designers didnt tune coil with healer dps in mind and that he was surprised how it impacted coil.Thus he said alex would be tuned with healer dps as a thing

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is that so ? that would explain it. Though the requirement they set up is way overdone...

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Originally Posted by Subucnimorning

That being said it isn't THAT big of a deal, if you aren't in the guilds competing for first kill it has no effect on you. If it was a big deal SE would fix it and they haven't yet.

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It is. Who can say that they'll go for a "legit" (read here, doing all mechanics as they were intended to be done) run when there is an easier, cheesy way acknowledged by the devs as legit ? And even if you do, what of your group ? Will they want to go for the longer, harder option, or try the easiest one, and eventually trying a go on the hardest once they're way better geared ?

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Does it matter, though?

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not really. It's just a pity that just like T2 enrage was the norm, cheesing AS4 will become the expected way to do it. Those like me who would like to do it at least once "as intended" will probably never be able to do it because that cheese was found.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

It is. Who can say that they'll go for a "legit" (read here, doing all mechanics as they were intended to be done) run when there is an easier, cheesy way acknowledged by the devs as legit ? And even if you do, what of your group ? Will they want to go for the longer, harder option, or try the easiest one, and eventually trying a go on the hardest once they're way better geared ?

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Does it matter, though?

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Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

lucrecia had more group dps than elysium (they killed it like 10-20 sec earlier) and spent less days in a4s than elysium

I would declare them to the winnerteam :s


btw, elysium did the same with the 3rd set of balls, so do you want to declare them to "cheaters" too?

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Yes clearly the "winning team" is the one that took longer to clear...

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

not really. It's just a pity that just like T2 enrage was the norm, cheesing AS4 will become the expected way to do it. Those like me who would like to do it at least once "as intended" will probably never be able to do it because that cheese was found.

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This is why I said back when the T2 thing was made public that the devs should at the least patch the encounter. The precedent set would thus be "if something not intended is happening with encounters, we're going to fix it and not give you avenues with which to mess with our design". Instead they turn a blind eye to it, which is cause for concern on several levels.

The only point that makes me laugh is that all these "top raiders" were so pissed off because other players (not on "their" level) were cheesing T2 with enrage and guess what....as soon as a fight it is too hard for them...oh let's try and cheese it and not do it right. These players were outcrying for SE to fix these fights so that players could not do it...now what?? Should it be changed...who cares...it is all just funny to me.

If they fix A4S, they should fix T2, T5 and T6, then. Avoid divebombs during T5 fight without the corners tricks should be funny. I think 90% of the players would be stuck at T5 without it, pre-echoed.

Glad SE doesn't fix any of this. It's nice to see players build their own strategy with tricks. We are smart, not bots, that's why it's not intended but not needed to be fixed.

You said you don't need communication when you do the "death strategy" but it's wrong. You need it.

What I 've seen is YoshiP has admitted the clear, declared the win and praised the REAL RAIDERS officially. ^^;

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

As I understand it, no one is saying that it's an exploit to sacrifice a player to bypass a mechanic. That's a perfectly viable strategy, though it's rarely useful in a game like FFXIV. The exploit here is that sacrificing a player should deal with only ONE orb - players were using game latency to get rid of TWO orbs by triggering the second before the server realized that the first had already killed the player. This was most likely not intended by the developers, and that's why folks are claiming it was an exploit.

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Except the devs congratulated them for finding a different solution.

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Originally Posted by ckc22

Yes clearly the "winning team" is the one that took longer to clear...

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they spent less time in a4 and killed it faster

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Originally Posted by Khyan

If they fix A4S, they should fix T2, T5 and T6, then. Avoid divebombs during T5 fight without the corners tricks should be funny.

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The arena is a circle. There are no corners.

bruh whats lag