Slippery slope - identifying and observing some SvS glitches

[Edward Edgemenace]

I used to think glitches were moderately amusing. But for privateering, knowing everything there is to know about every sort of glitch is just basic survival.

This makes playing the game bad.

Easter eggs are one thing. Cute little extras are, well, cute. Sometimes being able to walk into a wall is cute. Floating on the clouds behind faithful bride is cute. (Well, hard to call anything about a tavern or a bar "cute" but there ya go.) Doing so doesn't affect the game's economy, doesn't upset the flow of gameplay, doesn't give anyone unusual abilities.

PvP? Let's see - pretty much EVERY special weapon gives a preposterously unfair advantage in PvP. It is as artless as one might imagine. Knowing the various wall glitches puts one at an obvious advantage. Knowing glitches like "unattune me" put some people at wild advantages (where they keep you attuned but get out of range of your "equal" attunement.) Any what are you supposed to do the rest of the time, where the game automatically redirects you to a match with someone ten or twenty levels lower than you? Yuck.

In SvS it is a bit worse though. Any basic members are guaranteed to be slaughtered based on the ship class limitations and cannon skill limitations. Plus, their unlimited counterparts get to relax and take their time, knowing you are locked up for 5-30 seconds any time their special ammo lands anywhere near you (like thunder on the ship next to you.)

Some other SvS glitches:

* Invincible ship glitch (effect can be broken by hitting the invincible ship with ramming speed.)
* Infinite repair glitch (repair much faster than a frigate can harm you.)
* Repair indefinitely (repair while underway.)
* Special Ammo glitch - lag your victims into complete immobility for 5 to 30 seconds, by using firebrand, thunder or fury. (Explosive doesn't work?) All attacks from victim ship neutralized, all victim ship movement stopped.
* Plunder ship health (beyond bizarre - just should not ever happen.)
* Assassinate captain glitch (glitch off your hidden boat, walk to their island, board a boat and attack & kill the captain. Take wheel and sail away.)
* Hide inside rock glitch - annoying.
* No way to IGNORE nor REPORT individuals in the privateering channel. Perfect troll: "Anyone need a gunner?" All naive ships respond...the would-be "gunner" of course, goes to none. Bonus troll points for playing 20 questions..."what kind of boat u got?"
* Damage your ship glitch - Saboteur boards enemy ship - when close to rocks, shoot rocks - rock fragments hit boat and can sink it.
* Running away (beyond out of bounds) - ok, this one is kind of neat. But the "lost bounty" penalty should be explained somewhere. Do the ships chasing get any of the lost bounty or not? Do the ships that previously caused damage get any of the lost bounty?
* Repair the wrong section glitch (presumably repairs other ships of your fleet?)
* Grape shot and round shot can be used for assassination, but pistol can't?
* Switch side glitch (is a glitch to be able to switch sides, on the same server.)
* Designated driver glitch (someone other than the driver can steal the wheel while normal non-glitch repairs are being performed.)
* Espionage glitch - crews can have members in more than one boat. Sometimes, can have crew members at sea on both sides of the war.
* PvP/Treasure map glitch - opponents can be harrassed by PvP challenging them and/or Boss Battle invitations. Neither should pop up at all, during SvS.
* Unwanted visitors glitch - opponents can join crew, leave crew, join crew, leave crew, etc., until you turn off crew matching, even though they already ARE sailing on the opposite team...and indeed HAVE declared their allegiance to your enemy.
* Wanted visitors glitch. "Come to me" does not put my visitors on the same server, on Ile D'Etable de Porc where they can be added to crew. Doesn't tell me WHO tried to visit, just makes the shhh-snik sound.
* Search for privateering crew - never finds crew. Often will find me a crew on opposition side, but very rare to find a crew on my side. (Gee, what Island am I standing on? ) Let's see - I was just talking to Silver about crew matching in Privateering chat - he/she said they just reset it again...still finding only an enemy privateering crew.
* Sail backwards. This is itself, impossible. Maybe if oars came out to row backwards or something...but even then, it would be a slow transition and really slow movement.
* Hyper-backwards glitch - Move your boat backwards, twice the speed that some other boat is going forward.
* Turning while stopped glitch. Fun on the very first day, but impossible in a real boat (and unthinkable in a sail boat.)
* Hyper-tacking glitch. Know someone with mastered sailing who is proud of their tacking passive skill rank? Watch them turn purple when you start turning faster than they can, even when they do a COME ABOUT. Caution: you will hear them using profane language like a real sailor (not safe for Disney terms of service!)
* Sail Invisibility glitch. Have a friend shoot off your sails. Repair them. Your sails are now invisible to everyone else.
* Full invisible glitch - ship is completely invisible. Boat name appears above space where boat should be, but isn't.
* Compass invisible glitch - ship can be seen, but not on compass. Such boats are also invulnerable.
* Ship teleportation glitch - hop from one side of the compass to the other. Shoot victim from both sides - if you are lucky, they will be on cannon and see you first on one side, then on the other.
* Land while under fire glitch - rules say you can't be under attack when you land - but who needs rules when we have glitches?
* Zero damage from broadsides glich - shoot captain dead while his broadsides are firing - if he is "OFF THE WHEEL" when the broadsides hit - zero damage.
* Zero damage from cannonballs glitch - same as above.
* Anonymity glitch - can't report BOATS that are clearly glitch masters, without somehow finding out who is driving it.
* Disappearing boats glitch - boats vanish without a trace - Can't go to that island and click on "Recent Privateers" roster or anything...just gone.
* Grenades work in SvS glitch - no cutlass, no pistol, no voodoo doll, but grenades do? Not siege charge mind you, but regular grenades? Nice.
* Boats can launch on busy servers without full crew, while others just wait.
* Boat launches aren't even FIFO (first in line, first out to sea.)
* Crew matching isn't automatically turned on for each ship, when launched with less than a full crew.
* Crew matches are not YES/NO approved by the crew head.
* Visits from crew members, friends and guild members are not YES/NO approved by the ship's captain.
* Quadruple repair glitch / Infinite repair glitch (repair much faster than a frigate can harm you.)

Because you have to know about all of these glitches just for the most simplistic survival on SvS, it means the SvS is more about knowing the glitches than about playing the game. I've gone too far down that path already, thank you very much. It just isn't fun...and not what the game is about, in the first place.

I'm sad. Every time I get a little hope that the game might work with some particular settings or configuration changes, information surfaces about another glitch the Spanish have been using all week, or I see evidence of another glitch that isn't as widely known, yet. Enough already. Only the bad guys - the cheaters - can win on Pirates Online. One out of five voyages being OK is not OK overall.

[Rackat]

Until I read this, I was only a little frustrated with the griefing glitchers. Now I am just mad. I had no idea there were so many glitches in SvS that has been out for 2 weeks. Jeeze, can't these pukes win on their own? Are they such sorry players that the only way they can "win" is to cheat? If Disney needs one thing, it is a way to catch the people that are cheating in PvP or SvS. They need to ban their hard drive, IP, and lock their account permanently (without refund if they are paid members).

[Silver Locket]

WOW, I had no idea there were so many glitches in the SvS! No wonder I didn't have too much of a chance when I went out alone, lol. Yesterday was only my third time out in SvS and my first time alone and I did end up switching servers as it seemed like some of the other ships had some of these glitches to their advantage. When I'm shooting at them over and over again and they aren't taking ANY damage at all, well, yeah it's not fun and not worth my time. I like a good challenge, and I don't even enjoy going out and seeing mostly small ships on the opposing team. I know it's part of the "the game" I just don't feel like it's much of an accomplishment to take down a light frigate from my war frigate. Well, I guess once those people who are so gung ho to finish their quests they are using glitches actually finish their quests they might just get bored and move on to something else. We might eventually find some fair competitions going on out there.....I can hope anyway!

[Dr. Zeppers]

Careful Edward, they'll think your a glitch hater... lol

I was not aware of the multitude of glitchs in SvS either. I'd heard of some obviously.

I hope the devs can clean some of that up!

I also think they need to expand the SvS playground. Just not enough water.. I think this is contributing to the camping a little bit. Maybe it was just the tactics of the captain of the ship I was crewed on.

[Sassy]

I knew people were cheating us..

I noted dates, times, servers, approximate locations, ship names, and type of ship, posted them in my bug reports, and sent emails to Disney, per the 1-800 operator, from Disney.

She said they can recreate some things and that's how they fix them, so note all you can, and report them.

I am still taking notes, as I don't think it's fair to use the cheats, especially ones that DO hurt other users!!



I'm prolly in the records for being sunk the most..

Can I get some gold for the lost ammo I paid for, since I have to ammo up each time? LOL..

[Chris]

Originally Posted by OFxZeppers

Careful Edward, they'll think your a glitch hater... lol

I was not aware of the multitude of glitchs in SvS either. I'd heard of some obviously.

I hope the devs can clean some of that up!

I also think they need to expand the SvS playground. Just not enough water.. I think this is contributing to the camping a little bit. Maybe it was just the tactics of the captain of the ship I was crewed on.

ARRRRG YE GLTICH HATER! lol jk but yea its true alot of those are annoying .-. maybe send them into disney

[Swash]

one new update one thousand new glitches

[mlratto]

Wow that was quite a list. I took the liberty of trying to categorize your list into a couple different categories. These are only my opinions so you may or may not agree.

This is going to take a while so i'll do one category at a time...gotta actually fit in some work today lol

so, the first category

Glitch or unfair advantage (high priority fix)

* Invincible ship glitch (effect can be broken by hitting the invincible ship with ramming speed.)
* Infinite repair glitch (repair much faster than a frigate can harm you.)
* Repair indefinitely (repair while underway.)
* Plunder ship health (beyond bizarre - just should not ever happen.)
* Assassinate captain glitch (glitch off your hidden boat, walk to their island, board a boat and attack & kill the captain. Take wheel and sail away.)
* Hide inside rock glitch – annoying
* Repair the wrong section glitch (presumably repairs other ships of your fleet?)
* Hyper-backwards glitch - Move your boat backwards, twice the speed that some other boat is going forward.
* Hyper-tacking glitch. Know someone with mastered sailing who is proud of their tacking passive skill rank? Watch them turn purple when you start turning faster than they can, even when they do a COME ABOUT. Caution: you will hear them using profane language like a real sailor (not safe for Disney terms of service!)
* Compass invisible glitch - ship can be seen, but not on compass. Such boats are also invulnerable
* Ship teleportation glitch - hop from one side of the compass to the other. Shoot victim from both sides - if you are lucky, they will be on cannon and see you first on one side, then on the other.
* Quadruple repair glitch / Infinite repair glitch (repair much faster than a frigate can harm you.)


Now none of these i know how to do but when reporting these to disney i'm guessing it may be a good idea to include how these are done...if at all possible.

okay back to work for a bit...next installment


Game bug or performance bug (should be fixed)

I was just reading a suggestion that eliminating special cannon weapons might be a good fix...i'm on the fence with that one. i like using lightning!


Game bug or performance bug (should be fixed)
* Special Ammo glitch - lag your victims into complete immobility for 5 to 30 seconds, by using firebrand, thunder or fury. (Explosive doesn't work?) All attacks from victim ship neutralized, all victim ship movement stopped..
* Switch side glitch (is a glitch to be able to switch sides, on the same server.)
* PvP/Treasure map glitch - opponents can be harrassed by PvP challenging them and/or Boss Battle invitations. Neither should pop up at all, during SvS.
* Wanted visitors glitch. "Come to me" does not put my visitors on the same server, on Ile D'Etable de Porc where they can be added to crew. Doesn't tell me WHO tried to visit, just makes the shhh-snik sound.
* Sail Invisibility glitch. Have a friend shoot off your sails. Repair them. Your sails are now invisible to everyone else.
* Full invisible glitch - ship is completely invisible. Boat name appears above space where boat should be, but isn't.
* Land while under fire glitch - rules say you can't be under attack when you land - but who needs rules when we have glitches?
* Zero damage from broadsides glich - shoot captain dead while his broadsides are firing - if he is "OFF THE WHEEL" when the broadsides hit - zero damage.
* Zero damage from cannonballs glitch - same as above
* Anonymity glitch - can't report BOATS that are clearly glitch masters, without somehow finding out who is driving it.
* Disappearing boats glitch - boats vanish without a trace - Can't go to that island and click on "Recent Privateers" roster or anything...just gone.
* Grenades work in SvS glitch - no cutlass, no pistol, no voodoo doll, but grenades do? Not siege charge mind you, but regular grenades? Nice.
* Boats can launch on busy servers without full crew, while others just wait.
* Boat launches aren't even FIFO (first in line, first out to sea.)


This list seems to more of a list of game bugs and not things people can do intentionally to gain an unfair advantage...except maybe locking up people with fury. I haven't experienced this one yet so i'm inclined to say it's a computer performance issue. It would be hard to know who this glitch/bug would impact when using since everyone's computers and connections are different.

i don't mind grenades being used but i feel if you can use them you should be able to also use the pistol and staff. not sure how you would use the doll or cutlass unless you managed to glitch to an enemy ship.

i think the whole crewing thing needs an overhaul. I feel once you've tp'd to an island you should be committed to that side and can only crew with pirates on that island.

If a friend or guildmate wants to join you they should have to tp to your sides island first then crew with you.

the yes/no thing i feel is a must and i feel you should be able to click on any crew member and have an option to tp them off your boat.


Crewing issues
* No way to IGNORE nor REPORT individuals in the privateering channel. Perfect troll: "Anyone need a gunner?" All naive ships respond...the would-be "gunner" of course, goes to none. Bonus troll points for playing 20 questions..."what kind of boat u got?"
* Damage your ship glitch - Saboteur boards enemy ship - when close to rocks, shoot rocks - rock fragments hit boat and can sink it.
* Designated driver glitch (someone other than the driver can steal the wheel while normal non-glitch repairs are being performed.)
* Espionage glitch - crews can have members in more than one boat. Sometimes, can have crew members at sea on both sides of the war
* Unwanted visitors glitch - opponents can join crew, leave crew, join crew, leave crew, etc., until you turn off crew matching, even though they already ARE sailing on the opposite team...and indeed HAVE declared their allegiance to your enemy
* Wanted visitors glitch. "Come to me" does not put my visitors on the same server, on Ile D'Etable de Porc where they can be added to crew. Doesn't tell me WHO tried to visit, just makes the shhh-snik sound.
* Search for privateering crew - never finds crew. Often will find me a crew on opposition side, but very rare to find a crew on my side. (Gee, what Island am I standing on? ) Let's see - I was just talking to Silver about crew matching in Privateering chat - he/she said they just reset it again...still finding only an enemy privateering crew.
* Crew matching isn't automatically turned on for each ship, when launched with less than a full crew.
* Crew matches are not YES/NO approved by the crew head.
* Visits from crew members, friends and guild members are not YES/NO approved by the ship's captain.

Running away like it or not is a strategy. Establishing a war zone area might be an idea...then set a time limit on how long you can be out of that area. if a boat exceeds that limit then the plunder should go to the last boat that inflicted damage.

the backwards sailing and turning while stopped i think are necessary when you are fighting NPC ships but i really feel these don't add any unfair advantage when doing SvS. Doing either of these makes you a sitting duck in my opinion.


Non Issue
* Running away (beyond out of bounds) - ok, this one is kind of neat. But the "lost bounty" penalty should be explained somewhere. Do the ships chasing get any of the lost bounty or not? Do the ships that previously caused damage get any of the lost bounty?
* Grape shot and round shot can be used for assassination, but pistol can't?..
* Sail backwards. This is itself, impossible. Maybe if oars came out to row backwards or something...but even then, it would be a slow transition and really slow movement.
* Turning while stopped glitch. Fun on the very first day, but impossible in a real boat (and unthinkable in a sail boat.)

well, thats my take on these.

[Edward Edgemenace]

Originally Posted by mlratto

Wow that was quite a list. I took the liberty of trying to categorize your list into a couple different categories. These are only my opinions so you may or may not agree.

Actually, so far, so good. My original rant (ok, I admit it) was just a list of things that I've observed during SvS game play. There was a post here a day or two about how to do the quadruple repair glitch alone - I don't think that thread was killed yet, either.

I dunno - maybe have the people deciding which bugs get fixed, actually try playing SvS on Abassa. Stick them in a light sloop alone with a meduim level character...only people allowed to help them are spies they get from crew matching. Make them keep trying until they sink a ship (even if it takes a week.) Then listen to which bugs they think should be fixed...

Anyhow, thank you for reorganizing my list. What you are doing looks good.

[Sven Niscadae]

* Special Ammo glitch - lag your victims into complete immobility for 5 to 30 seconds, by using firebrand, thunder or fury. (Explosive doesn't work?) All attacks from victim ship neutralized, all victim ship movement stopped..

I'm hesitant on this one. I'm sure it does happen though it's never happened to me. Even with a fleet of ships around me, zapping me back to the dock. My video settings (in the game options dialog) are on the medium settings for most things and my video card is a fairly cruddy integrated Intel card on my laptop that uses shared memory. For those this bug affects, what kind of system specs are you running and what video settings are you using?

The other performance/game bugs seem more like flawed game design, not bugs. Bugs are problems that occur when a certain routine is executed. These, however, are working as designed unfortunately.

the backwards sailing and turning while stopped i think are necessary when you are fighting NPC ships but i really feel these don't add any unfair advantage when doing SvS. Doing either of these makes you a sitting duck in my opinion.

I would think that ships could turn in this fashion. Even giant galleons had long oars to use, usually while in the shallows, but I think the physics are there to be able to turn a ship. Game-wise, I sometimes go backwards just to throw off my opponent whom I'd assume they'd think I would be going forward all of the time. Even though it's a lot slower, they're usually aiming their cannons ahead of me.

[Tuefenhandel]

Just a casual observation (which may have been addressed, but I skipped over).....

I don't think espionage / spying is a glitch. To me, that one falls fair and square into the "things pirates would do" guideline for what should be allowed.

Something tells me that Bartholomew and Morgan would agree.

However, whatever the opposing crew was doing two nights ago that was sinking my frigate with their first volley (my boat was sinking so fast - with green bars on the hud - that it was actually bouncing off the bottom of the ocean) is something that should be punishable by severe beating, lashing, flogging, and then beating the bottoms of their feet with a thick wooden board.

[CrimsonRabbit]

After another long night of privateering, I'm beginning to be too annoyed to try anymore.

LOWLIGHTS:
I had to switch servers 6 times to find a good match where people didn't seem to be glitching (and if so, not on purpose). Ships were sinking for both sides, people were taking damage, their damage meters showed up on the top of my screen. Do you know how ANNOYING IT IS to not know how much health your enemy ship has!?!? Freakin' hate it...the only way I know they're almost dead is when they turn and run away.

Finally had people hide in the rocks from me...wow, is that annoying or what? Had people repairing on the fly too....I can't believe some people are so lame as to resort to such amateur measures.

Got sunk by a light galleon I hit with more than a dozen direct hit broadsides and a crew of 2 consistantly hitting him with fury/lightning....don't get me started on that one.

Ship invincibility is the absolute worst. There was a War Frig (why is it always the War Frigs???) last night that would just glitch to invicible over and over...at least I think he was....or maybe I suck...but I think it's the fore. I was parked across the sea within cannon range of this fella. I hit him (NOT S___IN' YOU) 15 times in a row with lightning, all hitting his boat for 869 to 1084. His ship health never showed up. Took him forever to hit me, but when he did he hit my War Sloop like 3 times and I was already half health...***? So I sailed around behind him and blasted him with broadsides, pulled the basic chase-the-tail, hit him with 4 or 5 more broadsides (5 points in broadsides BTW)....still no health bar. Finally rammed him with ramming speed and HE WASN'T EVEN HURT aside from the ramming damage which was minimal...then he glitched again and I continued to chase...hitting him with broadside after broadside with no avail....never damaged him....ramming speed again worked, but he was at full health again somehow. This went along for awhile because he wasn't a good enough captain to be able to hit me, but his teammates swarmed in for the kill. I sunk and switched servers.

At this point, I wish I would've sunk all my points into Ramming Speed. The glitchers are a horrid bunch of jerks. I hope Disney can get on this. Take the game down for an entire weekend for all I care. This has uber-potential...D just needs to make it happen!

HIGHLIGHTS:
Took the losing side (French), which including me had 3 ships to 7, when I was at dock...my allies were nowhere to be seen, off sailing somewhere hiding/repairing. But in front of me was a mighty gaggle of 3 War Frigs, a War Sloop and a normal Frig....whoa! I was lucky enough to get 2 cannoneers on board. Surveyed the situation...once one of the War ships broke away from the other, we went after it. Started pummeling it...other ships rushed to it's aid, it was sunk before they got there. Then we sank the other two War Frigs...then the War Sloop. Then the same Frigs again after respawn.

It's awesome sailing with people manning the cannons. That Privateering crew matching works pretty well sometimes!!

[mlratto]

This has uber-potential...D just needs to make it happen!

I agree 100%. i LOVE the potential SvS has. even with the annoying abusers i think it's still possible to locate a server where you can have some decent game play. It's a hassle that you have to keep looking for one but i've managed to almost every time.

We do have to remember that despite test server testing SvS is still in its infancy stage on open servers. We can only hope the big D is working to correct the issues.

[Dr. Zeppers]

Originally Posted by Edward Edgemenace

There was a post here a day or two about how to do the quadruple repair glitch alone - I don't think that thread was killed yet, either.

Not asking just Edward here, what do you think should be done, threads with this information killed/deleted?

Here is some thoughts on the subject:
It has been my observation, particularly with Disney,
That they will ignore glitchs that are hard for them to resolve if they dont think its a big enough problem. Publicizing them, helps get them "known", helps those not using them compete now knowing of them, and if the level of abuse rises, it will eventually become known by Disney's developers as something that requires attention.

We could on the other hand kill such threads, making it hard to find figure these things out. Make it so only the cheaters know them, and thusly less likely for Disney to address them. This way there is no chance for most pirates for a fair playing field until the glitchs ARE fixed, which may be never because they werent big enough issues.

Wondering what you'all think about the subject.


Wish everyone would just learn to play fair and not look for ways to take advantage.

As for the spy subject. Tell me what pirates ever existed that could TELEPORT to thier enemies island and immediately board an enemy ship for an immediate impact. (Im fairly certain unless you have the unexistent book of voodoo practicin pirates, that you wont know of ANY).

[Carnage]

* Turning while stopped glitch. Fun on the very first day, but impossible in a real boat (and unthinkable in a sail boat.)

This is NOOOO glitch Sure in the real pirate world we can't but.. we can in POTCO ARRRGGHH!!