Exploits and bugs in fractals
Right now I’m mainly compiling a list of those things people are bringing up so I can appraise what people are saying in a concise area. This thread got a bit distracted (still waiting for a Mod to come in and clean up), so I basically just grabbed things I saw and put them on the list I felt needed to be quickly looked into.
To my relief a vast majority of things people are bringing up are things we have already recognized and have fixes in for.
The literal definition of exploit is to use a bug or glitch and gain something from it.
Generally the small exploits (one which the gain is rather negligible) are just overlooked by ANet/Blizz etc because usually the cost of fixing the bug/glitch is not worth the severity of the exploit. (I am not saying that ANet will not fix any of the “exploits” because I can think of some possible very easy solutions to most of them)
So far, most of the exploits in this game is rather tame (in fractals specifically) and the gain is rather minimal, with most just saving time, with some making the encounter exponentially easier, with nearly all being just oversights with coding/map planning some just being bugs.
A list of exploits that I have found not on previous lists and possible (not obvious) “fixes” to ones that are.
- Ascalon – The jump could be fixed by just adding to the walls by making an invisible wall about 150-200 longer than the visible wall and making it maybe 2k-3k high.
- Asura – First is I’ve heard that an Engineer after the Poison boss can have the group stand in the right place and place a healing turret and boost the group up to the top. (Havent seen this take place but I’ve noticed people talking about it.) (Cant think of an easy way to “Fix” this)
- Asura again – Being a mesmer I know most of the reflectable projectiles during bosses. On the final boss, the agony inflicting projectile can be Mimic’d and sent to one of the golems for full powered agony on the golems. (While the risk of using this is kinda high (you have to get hit by 1 projectile and a few ticks of agony) the rewards are extremely high.) Fixing this is just as easy as giving those golems the “Normal” boss’s agony duration reduction. While I believe that the risk of exploiting this is high enough, it still can make the encounter easier when done correctly thus being an exploit. (And yes the agony scales to the tier)
- Dredge – So you can actually get into the cage 3 ways. The intended way, The extremely known exploit way (which can be “Fixed” by adding a little invisible wall), and the Thieves/Mesmers/anyone with a teleport spell just blinking through the gate that you open at the end. I have not done so myself, but had a thief do so and me going the “Wrong Way” out because of Mes Downed 2 (But those teleport spells generally cause a lot of problems by themselves).
- Colossus – First boss can be easily changed by changing the trigger of the cinematic being within 2k range radius rather than ~1580. And I’m certain you guys have found the solution for the final boss.
This is my thoughts being a Programmer myself, and dont know the viability of any of the “Fixes” that I suggested. They are just the first places where I would look for a “Fix”.
If you jump over barricade in Ascalon do you still get NPC support?
They sometimes bug out but most of the time they just leash and teleport to you on the other side.
Do you honestly think that you’re supposed to down the boss solo, then go mop up the trash back at the spawn point? There’s plenty of space in the room to use whatever unique group tactics you like. Again, it’s an easy fight without cheesing.
Sooooo….
What about Kholer? You know, that boss in AC explore that you pull down to single him away from his two adds? That has been in the game SINCE BWE.
Yeah they were running to go fix that one /roll eye’s.
If you jump over barricade in Ascalon do you still get NPC support?
Yes. Like all NPCs that follow you, they will teleport to you when you get out of range, even if they are dead. If they aggro something they aren’t suppose to, you just have to wait until they die.
Robert if possible, can you tell us when the next patch is coming? This week? Next?
It is God’s decision that i fight.
As knight of honor, as protector of the sin. I sacrifice myself, for the blood of criminals.
Robert added it to the official list of known bugs/exploits above, regardless of you people who lack the critical thinking to realize that it was obviously not intended. So clearly it was not intended. Big surprise. Do you honestly think that you’re supposed to down the boss solo, then go mop up the trash back at the spawn point? There’s plenty of space in the room to use whatever unique group tactics you like. Again, it’s an easy fight without cheesing.
so, let me understand this properly, the way you’re saying that’s “as intended” is to run into a room and fight the boss as is, because pulling is considered as an exploit? Or are you saying for that boss if you pull a group/mob from a bigger group is considered as an exploit, or you mean at any given time?
Right now I’m mainly compiling a list of those things people are bringing up so I can appraise what people are saying in a concise area. This thread got a bit distracted (still waiting for a Mod to come in and clean up), so I basically just grabbed things I saw and put them on the list I felt needed to be quickly looked into.
To my relief a vast majority of things people are bringing up are things we have already recognized and have fixes in for.
Robert, does ANet had a standard definition for an exploit is, as in, what you guys consider as an exploit? Because I don’t think instances like pulling enemies is exploits and walking through wall is an exploit, but everybody thinks differently.
Also, I recall someone told me in the dredge area, after you open the door, you can stand on the wheel and the boss/mobs can’t get you. I don’t know if it only worked for some and not for me, because I still got hit when I tried it.
so, let me understand this properly, the way you’re saying that’s “as intended” is to run into a room and fight the boss as is, because pulling is considered as an exploit? Or are you saying for that boss if you pull a group/mob from a bigger group is considered as an exploit, or you mean at any given time?
Most of the time when you “Pull” a mob/encounter you are doing one of 2 things.
1. Pulling them away from other mobs that are not connected to it so you dont accidentally aggro them too.
2. Pulling the mob to a preferred area to fight (due to preferable terrain, far away from patrols etc.
The “Problem” with Kohler or the Dredge Captain is that the monsters you are pulling them away from are connected to the Lieutenant and Captain respectively.
So you are intended to fight the Ghosts/Dredge with their boss.
Kohler is generally hard enough that the less mobs make the fight manageable but still hard, and at low enough levels, the Dredge captain is easy enough with the extra Dredge (especially if you have excellent AoE), but makes it near mandatory to pull him at higher levels.
(edited by Eyebrows.6852)
Jade Maw Fractal – One of our group members was knocked off the edge during the Jade Maw fight, and he somehow managed to make it to the bottom without dying from fall damage. He then described some sort of area where he could see other fractals but not go to them (Ascalon was one of them). Since the rest of us had wiped on the boss, and there was no way for our group member at the bottom to die, there was no way for us to complete the fractal.
Since I know you’re listening Arenanet, what’s the point of not allowing defeated players to release unless everyone is defeated? If someone gets stuck or glitches out of the instance like in my case, the four other players are completely helpless? Plus if someone dies, you HAVE to go back and revive them or 4-man the rest of the instance. This is especially painful in the colossus fractal where you can land in the starting area by falling off and you wont be teleported back up.
I wanted to add in on the underwater fractal (not sure on the name) where you free the first 3 prisoners, two kraits got stuck above us and we couldn’t free the last prisoner to advance. Ranged attacks weren’t hitting, as they were giving obstructed errors. I believe some team members got some melee attacks on but it seemed to be about 50/50.
There’s another exploit in the Dredge Fractal.
It’s in the room where the miniboss is standing next to the vehicle. You’re entire team can stand on top one of the wheels of the vehicle and kill the boss and all the adds that spawn without anyone taking a single point of damage.
(edited by Calae.1738)
There’s another exploit in the Dredge Fractal.
It’s in the room where the miniboss is standing next to the vehicle. You’re entire team can stand on top one of the wheels of the vehicle and kill the boss and all the adds that spawn without anyone taking a single point of damage.
I’ve tried this out before and I still got hit here and there
In the underwater fractal, the last 2 times I have done it, the second cage will not open after we kill the kraits. We go to the third cage and kill the kraits and go back to the second one. A krait appears out of nowhere and we kill it and the cage opens. This was not happening before when we would do this fractal.
A necro in our pug group feared the Mossman and stuck him into the terrain. The necro purposely did it and said he always does it that way to make it easier. The Mossman was stuck and was still attackable but was not able to run around or stealth. (He was hung up on the little dock thing was what it looked like.)
Also, on more than one occasion, I or a group member has fallen in Colossus and died and not been visible to group mates. That has been mentioned here but wanted to bring it up again that it isn’t a fluke, has happened to us multiple times as well.
In the underwater fractal, the last 2 times I have done it, the second cage will not open after we kill the kraits. We go to the third cage and kill the kraits and go back to the second one. A krait appears out of nowhere and we kill it and the cage opens. This was not happening before when we would do this fractal.
When this happened to us it is because someone knocked a krait through the “ceiling”, he was plainly visible and attackable if you swam up to the top and clipped your camera through, but he couldn’t leash back to spawn. We took him down and it let us open the cage.
thanks for highlighting. cant wait to try out all these tonight!
Volcanic fractal: just jump on the stone on your right, at beginning. The crowd of adds will run down to the door where fractal continue (the part where big lava balls goes down, and you have to run), you can kill them while they run, or just let them go, until the bar is filled.
No damage taken. Then continue. Taking loot before continue, eventually.
As a mesmer in the ice fractal, at the part where you destroy the blizzard machine, summoned illusions targetting the machine only shoot once after being summoned, and do not continue to fire.
Ascalon: Mesmers cant create Illusions with dodging while being a Charr.
Dregde: Bomb path- if you put down several bombs at the same time they only count as one bomb exploding
16. Jade Maw Fractal – One of our group members was knocked off the edge during the Jade Maw fight, and he somehow managed to make it to the bottom without dying from fall damage. He then described some sort of area where he could see other fractals but not go to them (Ascalon was one of them). Since the rest of us had wiped on the boss, and there was no way for our group member at the bottom to die, there was no way for us to complete the fractal.
I got this too,but from Asuran Fractal,but i died.
I could explore the map if i had a revive orb…
I got a screen
http://i.imgur.com/fLWJy.jpg
I think in the background there is some snow\ice,probably Svanir Fractal.
With mesmer blink, you can blink into the cage in the beginning from the back entrance while leaving a portal to portal teammates into the cage.
Was just in a group where they did the trick where you stand on the wheels for Rabsovich. I asked them about it, and they said it eliminates the AoE damage the mobs do, but possibly not the normal damage.
There was a necro in my party that was able to purposefully bug out the Archdiviner multiple times in the Cliffside fractal. He was using minions and, by doing something (I’m not sure what), he could get the boss to not do any attacks. He could do it at the beginning of the fractal as well as at the end with the final seal. The boss would run around a bit, but not do much. He said, “Just don’t fear the boss,” because fearing would break the effect.
Its a great thing that all the fractal bugs are listed in a special thread on official game forums! I suggest you guys stick this thread so it wont get buried! Everyone must know how to exploit exactly!
I loved this game and i enjoyed fractals up to lvl 30, we were doing em with guild group and we had no idea how to exploit things (yes things are getting hard close to 30)
And now whenever im pugging some random people they start teaching me how to exploit colossus, how to exploit dredge etc.. Its disgusting! And if I refuse to exploit with them they tell me to kitten and join the wagon or otherwise they kick me. All the fractal thing became just a pathetic joke.
Honestly you should have closed the dungeon 1 week ago. Most of exploits are just game breaking
-Carlos Castaneda
Skady Valda
I actually don’t care about the exploits as of yet. I will do it if asked and not do it if no one says anything.
I have got to say though, most of these exploits I have only seen people start doing after this thread started. Some of these I have never heard of yet for the past few days every single group has been talking about them.
Got to admit though, I have no intention of blaming them, >_> especially after my disconnect on FotM 10 on the 3rd Fractal boss…
Forgot to mention it in my previous posts:
Grawl fractal: on the shaman event some shamans will instantly teleport to their victim, even if they are dazed, stuned or feared. i dont know how you intended this event, but even if you want them to teleport please make stuns etc work in order to get the extra chest
Collosus Fractal:
If you’re holding Hammer and use your steal(with a skill on it) with thief, hammer disapears(debuff will still continue to tick) and both team members have to die and revive to reset its position to the last checkpoint.
Swamp:
While carrying a wisp, if you use a thief stolen item, your bundle automatically disappears in a way the fractal doesn’t understand. You end up with the “carrying a wisp” buff still on you but no item in your hands. But fear not, you are still eligible to activate a pillar anyway as long as the buff didn’t expire (it lasts around 2 minutes in total).
And that’s the fun part. If you fail the timer, the game removes all carried wisps but will leave you with the buff. This allows you to activate a pillar even before you restart the timerh. This action won’t start the timer either and so you got extra wisps as fail-safes to open the way.
With 3 thieves it becomes impossible to fail this one I guess.
Except that fight is super easy without pulling him, just fight him at the back of the thing and AoE. I have yet to understand why people pull him away, the dredge that spawn aren’t silver ring mobs. They are normal mobs that die in 5 seconds.
It’s not that the mobs are hard, but that they make it so hard to see the boss animation when he charges his attacks.
But no, I don’t see pulling a mob from his location is an exploit. Going through the wall as a shortcut, however, is an exploit.
And I thought we had in-game exploit reporting system and an email with similar purpose.
When a warrior in ascalon instance summons a banner he cannot then pick that banner up to move it..
Now this has been highlighted and officially descriovbed as exploit i think you should suspend accounts of those still using them. just my opinion.
Tis only what you can do for all
(edited by Jezath.7395)
Swamp – Thieves can pick up the wisp, use Steal on the nearest mob (even the white named mosquitoes and such ) and then immediately use the skill they get. Whole process gives you a wisp buff for 1+ minute, meaning you can place your wisp even after the event resets. Basically, 3 thieves could workaround the whole event this way.
Maw – When picking up a crystal and pressing a movement key at the same time you cancel the pick up and get stuck into an autorun bug.
Maw- Holding a crystal during the “final wave” can result into instant killing yourself if you don’t drop it afterwards.
Svanir- Son of Svanir (boss) When you use the skill Ride the Lightning as an Elementalist at the moment that the boss teleports to the top to cast frozen shards, you’ll get stuck into the wall unable to move untill you use an other auto-movement skill (lightning flash, updraft, ride the lightning etc.)
Svanir- Son of Svanir (boss) when your party is leaving you behind and you have to use the banner to get into the boss room, you can get stuck into an ice wall unable to move. The only way out is to wait untill the boss teleports to drop ice shards.
Svanir- During the beginning you can jump off ledges skipping a few campfires.
Grawl- Sometimes a veteran grawl will teleport next to a prisoner instantly pushing it off the cliff (<3 Grawl)
Uncategorized? (the kitty place)- You can jump on the walls at Tom to carry tears to the batteries before aggroing Tom.
Dredge- You can use Ash Legion Spy kits to invis yourself to stand on controllers or activitate the last controller without getting hurt. (Don’t know if this is a bug or just a helpfull tip, please don’t remove these my ele loves them)
^ Some of those seem pretty iffy for exploits. Skipping camp fires, walking on the ~40 degree incline walls at Old Tom, and invisibility kits to stand on plates? Those are a far cry from jumping through walls (Asura/Dredge) and the like.
The term exploit is getting thrown around a bit too much… I see no reason why skipping a camp fire is in any way an exploit. Only thing I even see the point of those were on day one so people knew that being near fire would remove frostbite.
And yeah, no idea how anyone would think not aggro’ing mobs would count as an exploit.
@Humpossaurus
1 – when stuck in ice use an aoe skill and break the ice.
2 – IF you skip the campfires you can´t get achievement for this, and there is always the risk of getting killed from chilling effect or the fall (everytime I do this dungeon I have to go back an ress someone).
3 – The Ash Legion Spy Kit is being used from the beggining of this game and is a useful tip. They took away other items from the beggining because the gamebreaking and leave this because it requires more creativity to use but people insists in only use them in just a dozen ocasions. I can even use them to help ress friends without calling more aggro or wait for mob to kill everybody, go away them i start ressing.
It is becoming almost impossible to run fractals without having to put up with exploiters/hackers/bugabusers on my team. When it gets to the level of people walking through walls (like the increasingly popular dredge fractal exploit) it just starts to become ridiculous.
I’m often having to leave groups because of this, since I like actually playing the game instead of just bugging everything. I have also started to report people seriously abusing obvious bugs (like the dredge fractal walking-through-walls bs). However it seems that anet does not care at all – these kinds of bug should be hotfixed not left in the game for weeks. Soon it will be the case that I wont be able to run fractals anymore because I will just get kicked for not exploiting.
Fix this Anet!
You are like that kid in class who tells the teacher she forgot to collect the homework for the class, thanks for blowing us all in.
What am I supposed to do? Every single group I’m in wants to use every exploit. I try to avoid using as many as possible, but there is no way I will just leave a group on the 3rd fractal because they want to aoe down the seal in the colossus fractal. That is ridiculous and I’d never get anything done.
What am I supposed to do? Every single group I’m in wants to use every exploit. I try to avoid using as many as possible, but there is no way I will just leave a group on the 3rd fractal because they want to aoe down the seal in the colossus fractal. That is ridiculous and I’d never get anything done.
Build your own group and include your ground rules with every invite. You’ll get groups at a slower rate, but that is the price you pay for having a strict code of conduct.
in asura fractal, i was able to activate the three consoles after the stair just by myself. activate first (get immob debuff) —→ infiltrator arrow --→ activate second (immob debuff) —> shadowstep to activate third one. i think u should be stunned or something like that to make at least three ppl needed.
18. Ascalon: Mesmers cant create Illusions with dodging while being a Charr.
I’d like to add something to his one to make it clearer.
The mesmer trait “Deceptive Evasion” that’s supposed to spawn a clone when you dodge doesn’t work when the mesmer is transformed like in the Ascalon Fractal where he’s transformed into a Charr.
It doesn’t work in the third path of AC explo either during the part where the players are transformed into ghosts.
Then again, during the “Grenth event” in Cursed shore, when fighting the high Priest of Grenth, players have to turn into some black form to kill the Shades and Deceptive Evasion doesn’t work in this form either.
I already made two topics in the Game bug forum about this specific bug. Please do something. AC explo p3 and the Charr Fractals are both VERY frustrating because of this.
In the dredge fractal, if you run underneath the platforms to the back wall, there is a spot where players can run through the wall and pull a friendly group of veteran charr from ascalon. If you have a mesmer in the group with you, he/she can use a portal to help you and the veteran group warp back to the main room.
The veterans will follow your group around for the rest of the fractals, unless one of the next fractals is ascalon. In that case, they will stop following when ascalon is completed.
I was curious so went into dredge and found the fake wall after 15 minutes of looking. Ran over to Ascalon map, got inside, but didn’t see the vets that normally follow you. I ran all over too, killed whatever I could, even killed dulfy.
Oh and to add to the bugs:
Dredge Fractal: If you jump on to the ice in the middle of the boss room as your group is teleporting to the next fractal, you will be left behind (similar to holding hammer as your group teleports out of cliffside fractal). Reviving at checkpoint puts you back into the correct fractal.
(edited by havoc.8569)
Reroll until you get the underwater fractal. Near the second captive villager (off to the right as you approach) there is a hole in the roof allowing you to get above the fractal and onto dry ground. From there you can find your way to the Ascalonian fractal and pick up some char npc support which you can then lead back to the underwater fractal. They wont help you much with the jellyfish (they don’t appear to have underwater skills) but when you finish the fractal they’ll follow you to the next fractal where they will help you on the trash (Agony from the final boss still kills them quick of course)
Jade Maw – there is a spot where he will never target you with that icon attack. The entire group can stand there and shoot tentacles / lure colossi as they please and only have one member go out with a crystal to throw at maw
-harpies shoots on the respawn…
This cannot be intended i hope -.- also their target is bigger than tiles often making impossible to see the attack coming (with even slight lag its impossible dodging after seeing the projectile).
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
5 days ago since the last reply. Would be nice to have a daily update on what the status is on fixing these and other bugs.
Anyway here are some more bugs:
- Ascalon fractal Can’t pick up bundles
- Ascalon fractal- Climb the wall to skip the first 2 groups
- Kitty fractal – You can lure the asura between pillars negating his attacks.
- Dredge fractal – The boss with all the adds (before the last boss) his “shockwave” attack hits always, even if you have utillities like Arcane Shield/Mist Form activated.
- Dredge fractal – Bomb part, too many mobs will spawn which results into:
run to the door → plant a bomb → run back/die → lose aggro → wait till bomb respawns → repeat.
- Collussus → Arm part; if you stand on one side that side will not regen. So on higher lvl fractals you leave 1 add on a side and kill the other side.
- Collussus First boss fight; use 1200 range for an easy win. Boss won’t aggro
5 days ago since the last reply. Would be nice to have a daily update on what the status is on fixing these and other bugs.
Anyway here are some more bugs:
- Ascalon fractal Can’t pick up bundles
- Ascalon fractal- Climb the wall to skip the first 2 groups
- Kitty fractal – You can lure the asura between pillars negating his attacks.
- Dredge fractal – The boss with all the adds (before the last boss) his “shockwave” attack hits always, even if you have utillities like Arcane Shield/Mist Form activated.
- Dredge fractal – Bomb part, too many mobs will spawn which results into:
run to the door -> plant a bomb -> run back/die -> lose aggro -> wait till bomb respawns -> repeat.
- Collussus -> Arm part; if you stand on one side that side will not regen. So on higher lvl fractals you leave 1 add on a side and kill the other side.
- Collussus First boss fight; use 1200 range for an easy win. Boss won’t aggro
Kitty fractal – You can lure the asura between pillars negating his attacks.
wait, how is that bugs or exploits? isn’t that more like you’re using the pillars as a shield, more like a tactic?
wait, how is that bugs or exploits? isn’t that more like you’re using the pillars as a shield, more like a tactic?
That’s exactly what it is. People just like to throw around the word exploit on these forums the same way Bioware made people throw around the world entitled.