Driving out of bounds on Walls... Allowed?

[djlaptop]

Illustrated here: https://youtu.be/gyTjR8eXuug

Without naming any names, this was being done by a whole caravan of veteran players, and when I complained that it was exploitive of map geometry, the majority insisted that it was not against the rules as it can be done by both teams, one even said something along the lines of "if you don't like it, blame Yosh."

Personally I think this should be considered a glitch and hopefully patched to make it technically impossible, and in the meantime it would be nice if the community could come to a consensus as to whether or not it's a kickable offense. If the community collectively decides it's allowed then I guess I'll live with it, but I can't imagine that this is the intent of the map maker as it completely defeats the point of having "walls."

You can make the point that aircraft can overcome the walls, but I'd counter that by saying 1) Aircraft are loud, and 2) Aircraft cost a lot more than 300/350 credits for the privilege.

Thoughts?

[Ryz]

I think you should make the video private. Didn't know this, and I think quite some people don't, so please hide it and send it as a PM once requested?

[Profane Pagan]

Seems like an exploitation. Moreover if Nod hasn't got such a sneaky way into GDI base, this path makes the map rather unbalanced. I have never seen this path. Troublesome.

[djlaptop]

I think you should make the video private. Didn't know this, and I think quite some people don't, so please hide it and send it as a PM once requested?

Made private. PM me for access.

Seems like an exploitation. Moreover if Nod hasn't got such a sneaky way into GDI base, this path makes the map rather unbalanced. I have never seen this path. Troublesome.

Apparently Nod can do this to get into the GDI base as well, although I haven't tried it myself. Can you imagine a bunch of stanks?

[Profane Pagan]

Oh my.

[Idiotas]

Seems like an exploitation. Moreover if Nod hasn't got such a sneaky way into GDI base, this path makes the map rather unbalanced. I have never seen this path. Troublesome.

Apparently Nod can do this to get into the GDI base as well, although I haven't tried it myself. Can you imagine a bunch of stanks?

Can't make it with stanks.

But yeh, personally i see new paths has opened to get into the base. Both GDI and Nod can do it. I don't see it as a problem. It's like a reward system. Aren't fast enough to make it in time? > you get killed and if you do, that's your reward. You either die or make it through those paths.

[kenz3001]

this is what you get for bitching about blocking volumes

... we are thinking about lowing the time to 5-7 secs so this cant be done any more

[Glacious]

I really think the time needs to be lowered, I know of quite a few people that use and abuse this trick/glitch at the moment, and I for one see it has a huge problem/glitch as its totally unfair as hardly anyone knows about it and it totally bypasses the giant concrete walls on the map which are meant to limit the way into the base to only the main entrance.

If the time was lowered I think that would fix it I mean you get a loud sound, flashing screen, and text in middle saying you are out of bounds, if players can see or realise that they are in the wrong place after 5 seconds they deserve to be killed/blown up tbh.

[Canucck]

Just go back to hard boundaries. Games are better when shit is clearly defined. There's enough other work that could be done to maps besides trying to jig them to work with soft boundaries properly, that's just a mess that will take forever to get right.

[Bananas]

Personally I liked the additional use for humvees/buggies. Not like they get used much after the first 3 minutes. I can see how people dislike it though.

Also don't tempt kenz canucck. Next patch there will be invisible walls everywhere. Probably even a blocker rifle that only he can use.

[Agent]

This route was well-known before the patch was pushed; I have no problem with it.

...Especially since if you mess up at all, you're dead! =D

[Henk]

Of course this shouldn't be allowed, it's clearly not what the mappers intended to have. It's an exploit.

Like I said in game yesterday: "screw level design, just walk anywhere you want."

Same thing was happening on Whiteout, which has even more places where you shouldn't be able to get to but now can.

It's all fun when you get to do it and kill a building, but wait until the other team drives their stanks over rocks and walls to your Refinery.. (which I showed Nod how to do after they lost HoN to the same kind of exploits, eye for an eye)

If it's allowed, why not make it visually clear to everyone then, here's the new design for Whiteout:

Ketp some rocks in there for cover, gotta have that..

Or maybe enable ghost mode for everyone?

[Handepsilon]

IMO soft or not, boundaries are boundaries, you're not supposed to walk off of it and use it to ease your advance, whether both team can use it or not.

Just because you can stay out of the game area for awhile doesn't mean you should go out of the game area as a shortcut

If I'm gonna pick a number, make it 3 seconds, referring to when countdown starts (probably about 4-5)

Or just go back to blocking volume. That's honestly not a bad idea. You just need to define informatively where you can and cannot go

[Agent]

If whiteout has major issues, then yes, whiteout needs to be fixed. That doesn't mean invisible blocking volumes.

Also, this thread is about Walls, Henk; nothing about Whiteout is mentioned in the subject line.

[Henk]

@Agent, the situations are quite similar, and then the discussion went on about blocking volumes, that's why I started about Whiteout.

Isn't it possible to put hard block volumes behind those soft blocking volumes? So even if someone tries, he will eventually after a couple of meters walk into an invisible wall. But anyone who doesnt have bad intentions just walks back to the battlefield and never runs into that invisible wall.

[Agent]

It'd be better to put a visible object there, instead of a blocking volume

Edit: Also, the only situation I'm aware of involving Walls is that you can get a humvee or buggy around the boundary, but that's it.

[Handepsilon]

It'd be better to put a visible object there, instead of a blocking volume

Edit: Also, the only situation I'm aware of involving Walls is that you can get a humvee or buggy around the boundary, but that's it.

That'll do, yeah. For ground vehicles at least

Humvee and Buggy can still make differences. Boundaries are supposed to block everything away without exception

[Ryz]

Hmm first I wasn't sure about these boundaries, but:

- Yesterday on whiteout the enemy dropped people over the icerocks near HON and killed it. I spotted it, but offcourse the team didn't react cause they didn't see an orca or someone moving in from the front, so they didn't believe someone was in our base, but those people where... HON gone.

- Later we jumped the wall @ Whiteout with a stank and killed the ref. Eye for an eye, but a lame way to change the game if you ask me...

It's fairly easy, without getting the out of borders message, to get into the enemy base with stanks on Whiteout, didn't really try on Walls. Imo it should be removed, otherwise we could also use the 'see SBH' bug if that's still around. I mean the argument from most people is that it's been created (accidentally) by the developers, so allowed.

I know when we lost HON via that way that people started to ragequit.

[djlaptop]

Also, the only situation I'm aware of involving Walls is that you can get a humvee or buggy around the boundary, but that's it.

APC as well, which can be quite a bit more game-changing.

[Agent]

If an APC or pretty much anything other than a buggy/humvee can get around then yeah that could be an issue. I appreciate the buggy/humvee being able to do so, because it's one of those difficult things to pull off that can be fatally risky if you're not quick enough. Like I said, buggys getting around on Walls were well known, but most of us found it interesting rather than abusive.

Getting around stuff with various types of tanks, however, was definitely not intended.

[RoundShades]

All this is, is the timer having too much time to travel too far too fast in case of humvees and buggys and recon bike, which needs to be turned down to 6 seconds... as well as unfortunate placement of boundaries, which Walls is pretty good and well actually, so Whiteout just needs boundaries brought in a little bit.

To be fair, whatever crazy thing you found with stank climbing wall on Whiteout, existed before, since soft boundaries were literally layed atop previous blocking volumes. Congladurations, you found an ancient bug!

[Henk]

I can sneak around GDI's base with infantry on whiteout and only enter the soft level boundary for 1 second.

[RoundShades]

I can sneak around GDI's base with infantry on whiteout and only enter the soft level boundary for 1 second.

All this is, is [...] unfortunate placement of boundaries, which Walls is pretty good and well actually, so Whiteout just needs boundaries brought in a little bit.

If Whiteout constricted their soft-boundaries, you wouldn't be able to do that now, would you? Alternatively, if Walls stretched their soft boundaries even a bit, you'd be able to do this. You already almost can get atop cliffsides pretty safe at max-time, but lower the time and wala.

[Handepsilon]

I'm still not alright with this little trick though. As I said, it should not be meant as a shortcut or secret passageway. It just sounds wrong and I'm pretty sure not newbie-friendly. Besides, I don't recall us replacing the boundaries so that we can open new unconventional paths. I see it more as glitching because... you just went off the intended playable area, and inserted your transport through ways people would least, if at all expect

I feel that this soft boundaries are starting to break the map design consistency

[djlaptop]

I see it more as glitching because... you just went off the intended playable area, and inserted your transport through ways people would least, if at all expect

There's also not a way to defend this "entrance." You can't place mines there. You can only hope to catch someone in the act.

[Lostalot]

I see it more as glitching because... you just went off the intended playable area, and inserted your transport through ways people would least, if at all expect

There's also not a way to defend this "entrance." You can't place mines there. You can only hope to catch someone in the act.

Actually, you can defend it on walls, it's possible to drive up on to the overhanging rocks and lay in ambush for when someone attempts it. You also get a pretty good vantage point for defending your main entrance. Unfortunately the CT servers (being the main servers these days) have a bad sense of fair play, you can use the glitch to attack a base but defending from there gets you kicked...

[DoctorB0NG]

I see it more as glitching because... you just went off the intended playable area, and inserted your transport through ways people would least, if at all expect

There's also not a way to defend this "entrance." You can't place mines there. You can only hope to catch someone in the act.

Actually, you can defend it on walls, it's possible to drive up on to the overhanging rocks and lay in ambush for when someone attempts it. You also get a pretty good vantage point for defending your main entrance. Unfortunately the CT servers (being the main servers these days) have a bad sense of fair play, you can use the glitch to attack a base but defending from there gets you kicked...

Please do a !modrequest in game or post on our forums if you see unfair behavior happening. We have a very active moderation team and are willing to discuss rules and adapt as per what the community wants to a certain extent.

[CrazyJacan]

Why is this even allowed in CT servers? It is obviously an exploit, there is no argument about it. This was impossible in the older version of Renegade.

[DoctorB0NG]

I talked with our moderation/admin crew before this patch hit and we deemed this as acceptable. Both teams can do it and only a buggy/humvee can do it. Just because it wasn't in old Ren, doesn't mean it shouldn't be in Ren-X. If that were the case, many other strategies would be considered exploits as well.

In the future, if you have questions/issues with our server rules, please post on our community forums.

http://constructivetyranny.com

[Canucck]

Being able to tell where map boundaries are seems like kind of a big deal

[DoctorB0NG]

I've talked to Yosh56 and I think a 5 second timer for ground vehicles and a 10 second timer for air vehicles would fix these out of boundary issues.

[bacon_placed]

How did you came to the conclusion only humvee can get over the hill???

I just started a match in skirmish and tried passing the hill (I never did this before because I personally think doing it is non obvious and lame towards the enemy).

[0] Game Starts!

[~1:00] First try with APC: Success! Hi Airstrip!

[~2:00] First try with Med Tank: Success! ...

[~3:30] First try Mammy: Fail!

Tried mammy another 2 times and failed again. So ok, you cannot pass it with mammy.

[DoctorB0NG]

An official dev response on the issue would be nice. I'm not 100% sure what was intended with the soft world boundaries and it seems many members have differing views (understandably so).

Sorry for any issues this has caused but I need an official word on if this is going to be changed or is intended by a developer/mapper.

[kenz3001]

ok so some things were intended and others not ... a new version of the map is being worked on but right now its at the discretion of the server host

vehicles are not meant to be on the outcrops ether side of the bases

going out the map and back in is intended and as such new paths can be made (at your own risk)

i dont see walls as the biggest problem when it comes to the soft boundary's there are far worse things in some of the other maps that not many people have found yet (again being fixed)

[DoctorB0NG]

After discussing with some of the devs and other CT staff, we have decided that it will be disallowed from here on out. If you see anyone doing this on our server, please do a !modrequest and we will take care of the issue.

Once again, sorry for any inconveniences this has caused.

[yosh56]

After discussing with some of the devs and other CT staff, we have decided that it will be disallowed from here on out. If you see anyone doing this on our server, please do a !modrequest and we will take care of the issue.

Once again, sorry for any inconveniences this has caused.

Tyrant has spoken. Listen or feel the wrath of the hammer.

[djlaptop]

Thank you guys for the clarification. Maybe the "out of bounds" time should be a server-set value so those server owners who want to allow it can.

The infantry bounds in Whiteout I don't think are as bad as it requires some skill and agility to get back into the map in time, and you still have base defenses + mines to contend with. But Humvee/APC on whiteout are pretty bad, maybe worse than on Walls tbh.

[Ryz]

After discussing with some of the devs and other CT staff, we have decided that it will be disallowed from here on out.

Maybe let the IRC bot send this out ingame so people know? We had some discussions on the server and sometimes it was allowed and sometimes not. I can imagine a discussion pops up again. Than it will be finished soon when a mod arrives, but maybe better warn people in advance?