Guild Wars 2

There are certain hacks and certain builds being used in structured sPvP. Joined multiple games today just to experiment and witnessed people run through walls and hoping across the map. Speed hacks are continuing to be used to give certain players an advantage. Also there continues to be just a very narrow set of builds dominating be it sPvP or what the community has dubbed tPvP (the later I have done much less of).

If you take the competitive side of the game even a little bit serious it’s really impossible to get enjoyment out of this side of the game, unless you indulge in the same tactics everyone else is. using and cheat.

What was the most fun aspect of the game in beta has become complete garbage and I hate ArenaNet for it. This is their failure. They have created all the ingredients to make something that could be the best action-oriented esport in history but it appears the internal talent to make that happen is gone or simply was never there. Perhaps they are there and they are just being funneled down different paths to try and sell more copies of the game.

Here we are almost four months from launch and sPvP has only degraded. The cracks in the foundation grow wider and the company’s response is to just build new structures on top of it (e.g. pay tournaments going live prior to some of these balance problems and exploits being properly repaired). By putting quality a distant second to new features I think I can qualify my statement that ArenaNet has become a second rate company. They don’t have a handle on the their product which is why it’s loosing players and failing.

As someone who has followed this game since its announcement, it angers me a a great deal. The game deserves better ownership, it deserves a better staff. Not a bunch of clowns who just want to have new content they can advertise to lure in new players. I have zero respect left for ArenaNet as a company. I have deep respect for the talented artist, but the company is garbage. The game deserves the shaft I expect it will get when game of the year awards are handed out, because it’s simply not anywhere near what it could have been. Garbage maintained by passionless people who either can’t or won’t put fixing the this sloppy mess they launched too early as a priority. Instead it’s lipstick on the a pig every month it seems.

I’m writing a passion filled letter to NCSoft (not NCSoft West but to their office in Korea) I am going to ask them to do whatever is necessary to save this game. Perhaps they need to fly some talent in or perhaps someone to baby sit. Going to let the people who own ArenaNet know as a player in the west I think they have done a horrible job. I encourage each of you to do the same.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

I’m writing a passion filled letter to NCSoft (not NCSoft West but to their office in Korea) I am going to ask them to do whatever is necessary to save this game.

Please do tell us how it goes.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

and witnessed people run through walls and hoping across the map.

I’m guilty of hoping in every spvp game I enter.

You can’t take my hope.

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

Going to agree here, over 400 hours in sPvP and tPvP combined and never seen a speed hacker, so it must be a rare apperance or I am just lucky to have not seen one.

Speed/teleport though walls hack was the primary reason Power Orbs were removed for WvW. Instead of dealing with the problems properly, after months of abuse ArenaNet finally just removed the Orbs from the game. This is documented. If you haven’t observed someone using speed hacks in WvW or sPvP then you simply do not know what to look for. It is a huge problem and ArenaNet simply can not deal with it… As a software developer I assume the performance hit they would incur from the additional auditing needed to stop these sort of hacks makes it impossible.

As it is, their graphics engine struggles to pump out 45-50 FPS on my system which far exceed minimum spec and can glide with 65+ FPS on Skyrim max detail no problem. Just months before release they licensed Umbra (third-party culling 3D technology) and this resulted in boosted frame rates but it also made it so you can’t see other players until they are very close. This is a problem that continues to this day in WvW. If their graphics engine (which was designed in-house for GW2) was worth a kitten this would be a non issue. I see the last minute license of Umbra as the failure of the GW2 software engineers behind the graphics engine. The words “not good enough” come to mind. I am making some strong assumptions, but some of this is easy to infer. Patching these security holes is such a nightmare for them they went in and changed their play mechanics (again, Power Orbs) to make it so the speed hackers wouldn’t so obviously destroy the balance.

Well it may not be obvious but it’s still happening. They (ArenaNet) hope the community will not find out and that those who do know will simply turn their head the other way and forgive it as a common thing that happens with these sort of games.

Well, it absolutely destroys WvW (still) and any form of competitive play in the game. In PvE it is a mild annoyance. I mean, you have large groups of players who are just cheating every day and ArenaNet is completely crippled from doing anything about it. Again, they are a second rate company.

When NCSoft brought AION to the west, although AION lacked innovative play mechanics it was a very solid release. It had a mild bot problem, but not game-breaking hacks. GW2 as a release quality product is a distant second to AION. Where is the company that put out the amazing first line of Guild Wars games? As a customer I had faith their quality and that has absolutely been destroyed.

At this stage I think calling ArenaNet’s delivery of GW2 anything less that a catastrophic failure is being too kind. Sure it has two milliom plus box sells thanks to their amazing marketing department and bench mark setting PR with the press, but that’s long past now and their game remains a broken, unfinished mess in many areas.

I have a few friends I managed to lure over from WoW in the first few weeks of GW2s release. They have since all returned to WoW. When they ask me how GW2 is doing they burst into laughter in a “I told you so” kind of way. That’s the reality of GW2 today. You still have a percentage of those two million who flooded the gates end of August still believing, but they are for the most part the fan-boy biased crowd who refuses to admit all the faults the game has and the fact that too much time has past for ArenaNet to realistically bring people back in. For the rest of the world the game is either just another garbage MMO that failed to make a dent in WoW’s kingdom or (just as common) it’s a laughingstock. When people find out you still play you get the slow-awkward-fat-kid-with-glasses-on-the-playground look. This is not a game for the cool kids. If I worked for ArenaNet I would probably hate myself.

ArenaNet won’t talk numbers. In the REDDIT Q&A multiple people ask for Mike O’Brien to discuss numbers or simply comment on how the game is doing, he refused to address those questions.

A few weeks earlier one of the lead programmers was speaking in Austin and he had altered slides so that numbers were not shown to the audience. He prefaced this by simply stating “our numbers are confidential”. Well, this is a no-brainier. Companies that have numbers to boast amount will do so. Companies that have numbers that shame them will hide them.

If I could say one thing to Mike O’Brien I would ask to address the entie company. I would say ArenaNet this game will fail because as a studio you have failed us. You showed a level of pretension unmatched in this industry with your lofty manifesto video and you simply failed to deliver that experience in a solid, production ready product in the time you choose to do so. For that you should be called out, you should be shammed and ultimately you should fail. You can infract me, but you can’t alter reality. This is YOUR FAILURE not ours. Own it kittens.

i bet most of these “speedhacks” are just thieves using shortbow5 to teleport onto platforms. never seen an actual speedhacker, in spvp and in tpvp sure it happened in wvw. in terms of builds being pigeon holded. yes that somewhat true, most classes only have 1-2 decent builds with a little variation between skills. this happens in every game, obviously certain combinations are gonna work better than others. doesnt mean u cant come up with your own build which is similarly effective, but one of the thing the anet balancing team are working on is more build variation. update i think is 6th of december?

You hate Anet for this?! Really, you hate a company that made a game that you voluntarily bought? Wow…

Gintoki.6405:

i bet most of these “speedhacks” are just thieves using shortbow5 to teleport onto platforms. never seen an actual speedhacker, in spvp and in tpvp sure it happened in wvw. in terms of builds being pigeon holded. yes that somewhat true, most classes only have 1-2 decent builds with a little variation between skills. this happens in every game, obviously certain combinations are gonna work better than others. doesnt mean u cant come up with your own build which is similarly effective, but one of the thing the anet balancing team are working on is more build variation. update i think is 6th of december?

It’s irresponsible to provide links to proof here. Google and Youtube are all you need to provide the proof you’re looking for in terms of hacks being very common place in this game. The whole incident with the power orbs proves A.) How serious the problem is B.) How out of control it is for ArenaNet (again, they had to alter core play mechanics of WvW because they could not deal with the hack).

bow.6179:

You hate Anet for this?! Really, you hate a company that made a game that you voluntarily bought? Wow…

Yes I bought it. Yes I’ve invested several hundred hours it. Yes I still play it, but I play it in a very niche way. It’s perhaps 10% of the game it was advertised to be. It does not meet the vision the company positioned.

i hope they infract this message. I’ve already copied it. ArenaNet has rubbed some of the press the wrong way too in all of this. A few of them would probably love to work with me to help get my words out there.

Everything I’ve said is true. Where I have made inferences have stated so. So if they want to infract this post and open the gates of PR hell I challenge them to do that. Early December would be a fantastic time for some bad PR (like GW2 is flying off the shelves anyway, lol)

If there is one thing I will credit ArenaNet for it’s understanding the importance of the press and how to position a product for a successful launch. They appear to be excellent at manipulation, smoke and mirrors. A company of Mesmers no doubt.

I never saw a hack or a cheat in this game.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Gintoki.6405:

i bet most of these “speedhacks” are just thieves using shortbow5 to teleport onto platforms. never seen an actual speedhacker, in spvp and in tpvp sure it happened in wvw. in terms of builds being pigeon holded. yes that somewhat true, most classes only have 1-2 decent builds with a little variation between skills. this happens in every game, obviously certain combinations are gonna work better than others. doesnt mean u cant come up with your own build which is similarly effective, but one of the thing the anet balancing team are working on is more build variation. update i think is 6th of december?

It’s irresponsible to provide links to proof here. Google and Youtube are all you need to provide the proof you’re looking for in terms of hacks being very common place in this game. The whole incident with the power orbs proves A.) How serious the problem is B.) How out of control it is for ArenaNet (again, they had to alter core play mechanics of WvW because they could not deal with the hack).

Hacker’s will get where ever they want, and no one can stop them, just slow them down, and the fact this game got hackers so fast was how popular it became. At any rate, hacker’s weren’t the only reason, they were mainly the result of how sought after the orbs were. Not that they should have been doing that. The Orbs had another problem too being that they were usually captured by the stronger world, just adding to that world’s power.

Anyways I haven’t noticed a “rampant” Hacker problem in my experience. Or really seen any hacker other then bots in PvE if that counts. And I’ve played games with hacker problems (S4 League, NA Lost Saga after the indos got IP banned from Korean Lost Saga.)

So you claim that speed hacking and wall warping is “rampant” but your proof is “just go look it up somewhere else yourself.”

At first i thought this post was going to be about some noob complaining about thief w/ max run speed+short bow, but after reading i completely agree.

They must of hired some drop out coders and programmers, the sheer amount of bugs in the skills alone have been there since beta.

And more recently the endless loading screen bug [a bug that has been fixed before] is back now and it seems like their OWN patch broke their own game client. It has been 15 days since the start of the SECOND endless loading screen bug and has not given an ETA on a fix of a GAME BRAKING bug.

And they show lazyness server side as well, if this game was so revolutionary they should of done a super server design like the upcoming elder scrolls online or ATLEAST make a districting system like in gw1 [at least for spvp anyways, seems like most of the NA HotM are empty except for anvil].

Dual.8953:

Hacker’s will get where ever they want, and no one can stop them, just slow them down, and the fact this game got hackers so fast was how popular it became. At any rate, hacker’s weren’t the only reason, they were mainly the result of how sought after the orbs were. Not that they should have been doing that. The Orbs had another problem too being that they were usually captured by the stronger world, just adding to that world’s power.

When ArenaNet stated why they had removed the Orbs they stated it was because hacks were causing a problem. I can’t stop some people from continuing to ignore how bad some of these issues are. How do you feel about devoting 5,10,25 hours a week to WvW trying to play by the rules only to see many players on an opposing server (who is beating your server) utilizing these sort of hacks.

You can say “well it will balance its self out because I’m sure people on our server are doing that as well”. You can try to justify it a million ways, but it comes done to your contribution playing by the rules and others playing above the rules. It simply doesn’t work. The game studio has failed their community when they can’t get these things under control.

And most studios absolutely do have this under control. Well, not all of them, but then again that’s probably why it’s just that one game (cough WoW) that dominates because delivering a secure experience is pretty important. All games have their security incidents, the difference is ArenaNet does not have this under control. The doors to the bank remain wide open and they can not seem to control it.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

When ArenaNet stated why they had removed the Orbs they stated it was because hacks were causing a problem.

Habib Loew

After a careful reevaluation of orbs of power we have decided to remove them from WvW in an upcoming build. As implemented, orbs tend to strengthen teams who are already winning and make it even more difficult for underdog teams to fight back.

Link

Yes, it was mentioned that players had also been utilizing exploits to capture them, but the stated reason for removing them was because they strengthened teams which were already in the lead, which is the opposite behavior they’re interested in in WvW.

Syeria.4812:

So you claim that speed hacking and wall warping is “rampant” but your proof is “just go look it up somewhere else yourself.”

Or go spend thirty minutes in WvW and pay attention. It does help if you know what to look for so you can at least report (not sure how much good that does)

@SamtheGuardian: Lol, Wow has a secure experience? I never even went anywhere near a gold selling site and my account was hacked 3 times in the same month no less. I eventually quit because of it. Anyways what server are you? I’m on Yak’s and as I’ve said, I don’t see any hackers.

Syeria.4812:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

When ArenaNet stated why they had removed the Orbs they stated it was because hacks were causing a problem.

Habib Loew

After a careful reevaluation of orbs of power we have decided to remove them from WvW in an upcoming build. As implemented, orbs tend to strengthen teams who are already winning and make it even more difficult for underdog teams to fight back.

Link

Yes, it was mentioned that players had also been utilizing exploits to capture them, but the stated reason for removing them was because they strengthened teams which were already in the lead, which is the opposite behavior they’re interested in in WvW.

It was because of the hacks. The game spent over a year in combined alpha and beta testing. The power orb mechanic had been proven. The unexpected hacking behavior (and their inability to control it) is what caused their removal. It happened on my sever multiple times. Using the hacks the other team would keep the Orb which would in turn “strengthen the team already winning”. Again, everything ArenaNet publishes has gone through several layers of editing to spin it just right.

Remember how long it took for Jonathan ‘Chaplin’ Sharp’s article on PvP to get “localized” and finally published from the time he mentioned he had finished writing it? It was weeks.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Syeria.4812:

So you claim that speed hacking and wall warping is “rampant” but your proof is “just go look it up somewhere else yourself.”

Or go spend thirty minutes in WvW and pay attention. It does help if you know what to look for so you can at least report (not sure how much good that does)

Again “I have absolutely no evidence to show you, go look yourself.” No one will just take your word for it. Also, this is the sPvP forum, where we really don’t care about exploits in WvW.

Dual.8953:

@SamtheGuardian: Lol, Wow has a secure experience? I never even went anywhere near a gold selling site and my account was hacked 3 times in the same month no less. I eventually quit because of it. Anyways what server are you? I’m on Yak’s and as I’ve said, I don’t see any hackers.

Ignorance is bliss. Not really an issue if you just focus on PvE. I mean they are still there, but not impacting you. Since the game funnels most to PvP for end-game that’s really where this becomes an issue. Because your effort is kind of pointless when others get to use special rules that give them an advantage and there is no one to police it.

Suzu.4193:

At first i thought this post was going to be about some noob complaining about thief w/ max run speed+short bow, but after reading i completely agree.

They must of hired some drop out coders and programmers, the sheer amount of bugs in the skills alone have been there since beta.

And more recently the endless loading screen bug [a bug that has been fixed before] is back now and it seems like their OWN patch broke their own game client. It has been 15 days since the start of the SECOND endless loading screen bug and has not given an ETA on a fix of a GAME BRAKING bug.

And they show lazyness server side as well, if this game was so revolutionary they should of done a super server design like the upcoming elder scrolls online or ATLEAST make a districting system like in gw1 [at least for spvp anyways, seems like most of the NA HotM are empty except for anvil].

Thank you. See the details of my second (lengthy) post in this thread. On two very recent occasions they dodged talking about numbers when it comes to active players. Anyone not playing with biased blinders on realizes the insanely sharp decline the population has taken.

Also for those who buy gems, we’ve seen the value of gems increase and the value of in game coin decrease. This has long been speculated to be a metric of how strong the population is. The theory is when the active players numbers are high ArenaNet is selling plenty of gems, when the player base is low ArenaNet raises the value of gems to entice more people to purchase them (ArenaNet does not hide that the gem to coin conversion is not a free market system and that it is controlled by confidential algorithms… they are pretty up front about the gem store being a core part of their business model and how they keep revenue streaming in)

In currency exchange 100 gems today will buy you about 1.25 gold coin. This means in the coin to gem conversion, in game coin is about 4.5x less valuable today than it was at launch. I am very confident the game is going though a very sharp decline, possibly dying. As my original position states, if this is the case it’s simple justice and proof that the public is smart enough to spot the wizard behind the curtain.

I imagine sales of GW2 are not so hot right now. The MMO community is pretty tight, friends don’t let friends waste money.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Dual.8953:

@SamtheGuardian: Lol, Wow has a secure experience? I never even went anywhere near a gold selling site and my account was hacked 3 times in the same month no less. I eventually quit because of it. Anyways what server are you? I’m on Yak’s and as I’ve said, I don’t see any hackers.

Ignorance is bliss. Not really an issue if you just focus on PvE. I mean they are still there, but not impacting you. Since the game funnels most to PvP for end-game that’s really where this becomes an issue. Because your effort is kind of pointless when others get to use special rules that give them an advantage and there is no one to police it.

You misunderstand. I mainly WvW, and get around quite a lot looking for enemy activity to report. And those games I mentioned, S4 League and Lost Saga, they’re both mostly PvP, so I’ve know how hackers effect games. (They completely ruined Chaser mode for me in S4, been stun locked to death in LS)

Orzwark.2431:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

I’m writing a passion filled letter to NCSoft (not NCSoft West but to their office in Korea) I am going to ask them to do whatever is necessary to save this game.

Please do tell us how it goes.

Don’t assume that they don’t care. Keep in mind NCSoft launched their Koream MMO Blade & Soul this year. Unlike ArenaNet that seems to (shamefully) hide numbers, NCSoft has boasted about Blade & Soul gaining momentum since launch.

If NCSoft East was hands off during development as reported, then you have to realize they were putting their faith in ArenaNet just like we were. The difference is they assumed all risk. If GW2 is failing and the much less expensive to produce Blade & Sould is thriving and increasing active players then I’m sure some very powerful people are not happy. If GW2 is under performing against expectations (evidence points there, see OP) then I think NCSoft will be more curious to hear from us western games than you may think. If for no other reason to help try and make it a better game.

The cost to develop games in the US is astronomically higher than in Korea. Wages are just a lot different. On the books I would imagine NCSoft is always questioning why they bother to fund talent in the US. The obvious answer is because they need a western based studio they can trust who understands the culture here and can deliver a winning product here. When that talent promises an industry shaker and delivers what proves a few months after launch to be a dud I would imagine there would be a price to pay. There should be anyway. Again, I would talking about state of the game December 1st 2012. Obviously GW2 had a very successful launch, but in a free-to-play model keeping active players in game and spending money is the life blood that keeps revenue flowing.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Suzu.4193:

At first i thought this post was going to be about some noob complaining about thief w/ max run speed+short bow, but after reading i completely agree.

They must of hired some drop out coders and programmers, the sheer amount of bugs in the skills alone have been there since beta.

And more recently the endless loading screen bug [a bug that has been fixed before] is back now and it seems like their OWN patch broke their own game client. It has been 15 days since the start of the SECOND endless loading screen bug and has not given an ETA on a fix of a GAME BRAKING bug.

And they show lazyness server side as well, if this game was so revolutionary they should of done a super server design like the upcoming elder scrolls online or ATLEAST make a districting system like in gw1 [at least for spvp anyways, seems like most of the NA HotM are empty except for anvil].

Thank you. See the details of my second (lengthy) post in this thread. On two very recent occasions they dodged talking about numbers when it comes to active players. Anyone not playing with biased blinders on realizes the insanely sharp decline the population has taken.

Also for those who buy gems, we’ve seen the value of gems increase and the value of in game coin decrease. This has long been speculated to be a metric of how strong the population is. The theory is when the active players numbers are high ArenaNet is selling plenty of gems, when the player base is low ArenaNet raises the value of gems to entice more people to purchase them (ArenaNet does not hide that the gem to coin conversion is not a free market system and that it is controlled by confidential algorithms… they are pretty up front about the gem store being a core part of their business model and how they keep revenue streaming in)

In currency exchange 100 gems today will buy you about 1.25 gold coin. This means in the coin to gem conversion, in game coin is about 4.5x less valuable today than it was at launch. I am very confident the game is going though a very sharp decline, possibly dying. As my original position states, if this is the case it’s simple justice and proof that the public is smart enough to spot the wizard behind the curtain.

I imagine sales of GW2 are not so hot right now. The MMO community is pretty tight, friends don’t let friends waste money.

Yea the games dying no doubt about it, cant talk for PvE numbers but the Spvp side has been dying since launch [and anyone who says to the contrary are delusional]

Lets talk some numbers, GW 2 had a little over 2 million in sales at launch, of those 2 million the spvp population has dwindled to barley populate any of the spvp servers [usually only 10-70 out of 325 servers are populated usually] but I am not one to do hotjoin it is a mess, no structure and a complete zerg fest.

So lets look at tournys, paid only pops during prime time 6-9 pm ish for NA, if its not within that time frame forget about it, paids are totally dead. And even if paids pop the wait times are incredibly long, free’s even take its sweet time now if its not prime time, and too me that is totally unacceptable for a new game…imagine playing Halo 4 or cod or even WoW for that matter and had to wait 30min to an hour to get ONE game…Ridiculous.

Rampant bugs, no structure in hot join pvp, no ladder, no matchmaking, ONE game mode [and a very stagnant game mode at that (cap points)], no customization of games….the list goes on why pvp is dying.

Don’t get me wrong i love this game, but the lack of BASIC pvp infrastructure is mindblowing.

To add to the numerous amounts of people here… I have NEVER seen a hack used in SPvP (I even youtubed hacks and found that all of them did not use it in SPvP and even advised against it, meaning their anti-hack system for SPvP is fine).

Secondly, relating this to WvW is incredibly off topic in terms of discussing hacks and how it affects the game (See… SPvP forum at the top).

The game is dwindling in terms of the SPvP community, but its not just because of the devs. There has been such little community effort to do anything the past months, no one has attempted any small tournaments, even on a 1v1 or 2v2 or heck, even a 3v3 scale. I started attempting to change that today by announcing my 2v2 tournament. There has been almost no guides, and I don’t see that many people watching streams and supporting the teams that play this game to a professional level. Granted, the PvP team probably is not being given as much funding (a lot more people (and therefore money) play pve), but that does not excuse the outright lack of anything the SPvP community has been trying to do.

Tl;Dr Stop moping around about about the lack of SPvP support and give it some support!

I gotta agree with the OP. If you go back and watch the trailers for it they advertise this game as “being for the player; hey I swung a sword hey I swung it again gj” (referencing the arbitrary killing of NPCS to acomplish objectives). The whole game is a grind to lvl 80 by filling a series of water buckets or slaying enough wurms and then you have a handful of dungons to pick from with a repetetive process to acquire Armor.

The PvP community has been seemingly wittled down to nothing; the player from team paradigm in the Guru interview asked about this to which Anet replied “no, they are just localizing on servers” – Which servers? I quit this game back in october from the stale unstimulating gameplay that comes from lack of a universal pvp lobby to chat and recruit players from. Given the sights of thins its only gotten worse. The game blatently has the potential to be something but its not being acomplished.

Global PvP lobbies, not server dependant lobbies are needed so that the entire PVP community can meet and play with one another. The original intent was to create “niche pvp communities” but I would rather be in a large room full of strangers than sit in the dead Mists as it is now. Additionally that ladder system is needed for people to give a kitten about winning. Fancy armor is not enough an incentive.

BLU.8961:

To add to the numerous amounts of people here… I have NEVER seen a hack used in SPvP (I even youtubed hacks and found that all of them did not use it in SPvP and even advised against it, meaning their anti-hack system for SPvP is fine).

Secondly, relating this to WvW is incredibly off topic in terms of discussing hacks and how it affects the game (See… SPvP forum at the top).

The game is dwindling in terms of the SPvP community, but its not just because of the devs. There has been such little community effort to do anything the past months, no one has attempted any small tournaments, even on a 1v1 or 2v2 or heck, even a 3v3 scale. I started attempting to change that today by announcing my 2v2 tournament. There has been almost no guides, and I don’t see that many people watching streams and supporting the teams that play this game to a professional level. Granted, the PvP team probably is not being given as much funding (a lot more people (and therefore money) play pve), but that does not excuse the outright lack of anything the SPvP community has been trying to do.

Tl;Dr Stop moping around about about the lack of SPvP support and give it some support!

Hacks are absolutely occurring in sPvP too. I’m not going to get into specifics for the same reason someone reporting grand teft auto doesn’t post links to how-do articles, but the same widely available tools used to perform hacks in PvE can be applied to WvW and sPvP.

No I do not know this first hand. I’m a software engineer by trade with over 10 years experience. Similar to how a forensic expert can observe something and often make a call, I can see how the tool works, its technique would be universal to all aspects of the game. Also the type of exploit being used tells me just how little control ArenaNet actually has over their game. It would be like building a bank and expecting customer to put their money in and then having no real way to guard that bank.

If you think about it the time you invest in an MMO is an investment in the game (sort of like a bank). Based on what I see going on with these hacks I would say it’s a bad product to invest large amounts of time in and to take too seriously.

To those following this thread, bear in mind sPvP is by nature very competitive. If someone were using a hack it makes sense they would try to silence this information from getting out. They would not other players to know this sort of leverage exist and is being commonly used by “winning” teams. My advise to you is to do your own research. I will not post specifics here, the information is not that hard to track down. if you love this game it will make you sick.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

BLU.8961:

To add to the numerous amounts of people here… I have NEVER seen a hack used in SPvP (I even youtubed hacks and found that all of them did not use it in SPvP and even advised against it, meaning their anti-hack system for SPvP is fine).

Secondly, relating this to WvW is incredibly off topic in terms of discussing hacks and how it affects the game (See… SPvP forum at the top).

The game is dwindling in terms of the SPvP community, but its not just because of the devs. There has been such little community effort to do anything the past months, no one has attempted any small tournaments, even on a 1v1 or 2v2 or heck, even a 3v3 scale. I started attempting to change that today by announcing my 2v2 tournament. There has been almost no guides, and I don’t see that many people watching streams and supporting the teams that play this game to a professional level. Granted, the PvP team probably is not being given as much funding (a lot more people (and therefore money) play pve), but that does not excuse the outright lack of anything the SPvP community has been trying to do.

Tl;Dr Stop moping around about about the lack of SPvP support and give it some support!

Hacks are absolutely occurring in sPvP too. I’m not going to get into specifics for the same reason someone reporting grand teft auto doesn’t post links to how-do articles, but the same widely available tools used to perform hacks in PvE can be applied to WvW and sPvP.

No I do not know this first hand. I’m a software engineer by trade with over 10 years experience. Similar to how a forensic expert can observe something and often make a call, I can see how the tool works, its technique would be universal to all aspects of the game. Also the type of exploit being used tells me just how little control ArenaNet actually has over their game. It would be like building a bank and expecting customer to put their money in and then having no real way to guard that bank.

If you think about it the time you invest in an MMO is an investment in the game (sort of like a bank). Based on what I see going on with these hacks I would say it’s a bad product to invest large amounts of time in and to take too seriously.

You talk as if this is rare, hacks are in every single game. But no I have never seen this and I believe I have around 500 ish hours. So it must not be a huge problem.

Gintoki.6405:

i bet most of these “speedhacks” are just thieves using shortbow5 to teleport onto platforms. never seen an actual speedhacker, in spvp and in tpvp sure it happened in wvw. in terms of builds being pigeon holded. yes that somewhat true, most classes only have 1-2 decent builds with a little variation between skills. this happens in every game, obviously certain combinations are gonna work better than others. doesnt mean u cant come up with your own build which is similarly effective, but one of the thing the anet balancing team are working on is more build variation. update i think is 6th of december?

The fact that only a few build (and worst only a few professions) dominate sPvP show how horrible of a job they did when designing the game. Keep in mind ArenaNet made some bold statements early on in development about how they would be reducing number of skills from GW1. One of the main reasons driving that decision was that they were having to spend too much time balancing and they had discovered players would just gravitate to a handful of builds anyway.

So again it’s a case of where we got a lot of talk from ArenaNet, but their execution was a complete failure. They couldn’t even balance this greatly reduced set of skills.

It seems the entire development process was probably a very long, bitter struggle across the finish line where the frankenstein of a game was plopped out for release. There is definitely a lot of untold story about the hardship of this games development. Two of the three ArenaNet co-founders left during the development of GW2. When you’re at co-founder level you don’t go off to pursue other things just for the money. You don’t leave the company you co-founded unless you are truly very unhappy. They have done a great job at keeping the dirty laundry behind closed doors so no need to speculate on it other than to state the obvious, there is kitten that went down we’ll never know about.

Another question that was asked and dodged during the Reddit Q&A was over lead game designer Eric Flannum’s whereabouts. It seems the lead behind the game quietly (probably enraged) left the company shortly after launch. If he did who can blame him. I only have respect left at this point for people leaving the company to move on to more successful projects.

All i can say is that i agree with u Sam but lets keep a little the pressure down,dont be mean,no need,give them time to fix and if not so…well then thank god thare are too many mmo’s too pick.

More of the same doom and gloom from everyone and yet you people still here, got to love it.

Don’t like the game no one is stopping you from leaving, but please stop with all the doom and gloom stuff jesus.

sam, maybe u have a point there, but spaming your own thread is just making you look like a rager. no need to respond to every single post in here. you are loosing credibility.

i’ve read all of this thread and i didnt find any example of hacks. it is only making conclusions out of anets statement that they removed the orbs because of hacking. i agree though, that there are a lot of exploits in spvp that need to be addressed asap. unfortunately we are gonna have to wait until January to get the 1st pvp patch. i hope it will be fixing bugs first, spectator mode and everything else second.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

sam, maybe u have a point there, but spaming your own thread is just making you look like a rager. no need to respond to every single post in here. you are loosing credibility.

i’ve read all of this thread and i didnt find any example of hacks. it is only making conclusions out of anets statement that they removed the orbs because of hacking. i agree though, that there are a lot of exploits in spvp that need to be addressed asap. unfortunately we are gonna have to wait until January to get the 1st pvp patch. i hope it will be fixing bugs first, spectator mode and everything else second.

Here is one of many videos demonstrating hacks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5G4Yp_he4

I’m sorry to inform you that there is no integrity server-side to support fair and balanced sPvP play. If you’ve been playing by the rules and taken it seriously, yes others are cheating to win.

You could have saved your self a lot of grief and just showed that from the beginning, and yeah it sucks but putting on countless threads is not going to help makes stuff come faster.

P.S Thiefs are not abusive rendering issue, you makes it sound like they do it on purpose.

again not one is stopping you from leaving even someone in the comment said as much.

That video is over a month old (there have been 10 patches since it was uploaded, and who knows how long before that it was recorded), and half the things (both thief attacks at the end) have absolutely no abnormal behaviors in them.

I totally agree with the poster, in these days i finally decide to drop the game. Ascended gear gave me the final blow.
Spvp is a very failure. Cheater are everywhere with damage boost and reduction. I’ve made dozens of test spending hours with guldmates in Spvp and a lot of the damage received and done can’t be explained.

More than this, there are some basic aspects telling us how is the thought of developers about a FULL skill based PvP like Spvp:

-different downed skills are a shame
-different races are a shame (human is fine for spvp)
-too much damage..TOO MUCH for a 5vs5. In Spvp dmg should be halve
-no casting skill bar. I can’t see what ppl are doing, there is no skill in this
-i have to know what is hitting me when i’m ALIVE
-too many istant skills. Istant unblockable skills are for WoW noobs players, let them the shiny animations and skill spam.
-there is no daily balance, do you remember Gw?
-Spvp capture point mechanic is a total fail. This is why there are always the same builds.
-You can exchange skills during a match, no word for this. Player builds must be an accurate decision.

An ex PvP disappointed player who left the game

SamTheGuardian.2938:

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

sam, maybe u have a point there, but spaming your own thread is just making you look like a rager. no need to respond to every single post in here. you are loosing credibility.

i’ve read all of this thread and i didnt find any example of hacks. it is only making conclusions out of anets statement that they removed the orbs because of hacking. i agree though, that there are a lot of exploits in spvp that need to be addressed asap. unfortunately we are gonna have to wait until January to get the 1st pvp patch. i hope it will be fixing bugs first, spectator mode and everything else second.

Here is one of many videos demonstrating hacks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5G4Yp_he4

I’m sorry to inform you that there is no integrity server-side to support fair and balanced sPvP play. If you’ve been playing by the rules and taken it seriously, yes others are cheating to win.

Theres maybe one good example in that whole video. The rest have been fixed or are just not hacks to begin with. Since you feel it is occuring so often I ask of you to give us some examples from your own Point of View, because with 613 hours played I have NEVER seen a hack in SPvP

Yourtube search “Guild Wars 2 zoom hack”. Video posted Oct 9th which demonstrates game-breaking techniques. I have been told by a player who tried a few days ago that most of what you see in that video is still working even with the latest patch from ANet.

You are some paranoid idiot rly, i have 1000+ hours of pve/pvp WvW gameplay and i have not seen a hacker yet. Yet you by such proclamations and giving directions where to go and so on which might spread such hacks.

You should proly think that, you have some problems posting month + old videos and claiming hacking works. If you realy want to help go send a tickt with way to hack and so on for them to fix it. Yet you come to forums and whine here like some rage kid, not helping the situation a tiny bit.

Obviously my words and the words of everyone else in this forum are falling on your deaf ears, so Ill continue to ignore this thread now…

#Gw2Conspriacy

There’s hackers in every game and its apparently hardly an issue in this one as no one is having this much problems with hackers as much as you are.
(But yes if there is actually hacking going on they should be patched)

/thread

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

There are some horrible hacks in spvp, Ive seen a video where a thief pulled 3 pistol whips without appearing in screen, and this was not from culling as you can still see the wisp of smoke usually. The rendering is still horrible and needs to be fixed.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

Yes. The difference is when an exploit is found the respected studios will deliver a patch within weeks (often days) of the exploit being uncovered to solve the problem. The hacks demonstrated in some of the links I’ve provided have been an issue since launch of GW2. In fact, research shows that some of these tools were actually created while the game was in beta pre August 25th launch! So this is different. It’s a case of the game studio having a foundation that has cracks so large they are unable to secure their product. I believe their programmers can’t do it because of the game engines design flaws. If they could, they would have by now. If GW2 were an car it would be a shinny new Ferrari with a bent frame and a cracked engine block. It was delivered this way, but the defects have mostly been under the hood. The new content before fix (e.g. Lost Shores) prioritization shows their inability to deal with the problems. Instead it’s the attitude of ignore/pretend the problems don’t exist and move forward for the player base willing to turn their head the other direction.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

NaturalPortman.9562:

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

Yes. The difference is when an exploit is found the respected studios will deliver a patch within weeks (often days) of the exploit being uncovered to solve the problem. The hacks demonstrated in some of the links I’ve provided have been an issue since launch of GW2. In fact, research shows that some of these tools were actually created while the game was in beta pre August 25th launch! So this is different. It’s a case of the game studio having a foundation that has cracks so large they are unable to secure their product. If GW2 were an car it would be a Shinny new Ferrari with a bent frame and a cracked engine block. It was delivered this way, but the defects are under the hood. Garbage.

I don’t see where you’re getting this from, “research” ? Where and how are you researching this. And also not true about the fact that companies patch hacks in days. Do some coding work yourself and you will find that patching out a hack or exploit isn’t as simple as taking a eraser and erasing a mark on a piece of paper.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

NaturalPortman.9562:

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

Yes. The difference is when an exploit is found the respected studios will deliver a patch within weeks (often days) of the exploit being uncovered to solve the problem. The hacks demonstrated in some of the links I’ve provided have been an issue since launch of GW2. In fact, research shows that some of these tools were actually created while the game was in beta pre August 25th launch! So this is different. It’s a case of the game studio having a foundation that has cracks so large they are unable to secure their product. If GW2 were an car it would be a shinny new Ferrari with a bent frame and a cracked engine block. It was delivered this way, but the defects are under the hood. Garbage.

You really don’t understand how Hackers work do you. If the hacker’s hack get patched, they don’t just call it a day, they examine the patch and make a work around. It’s an endless cycle of patching and finding work arounds. No matter what, if something on a network that can be accessed remotely, (eg, the internet) someone can hack it, and if it’s high profile they likely will. If you want to play games without hackers, the only thing you can do is get rid of your internet.

Dual.8953:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

NaturalPortman.9562:

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

Yes. The difference is when an exploit is found the respected studios will deliver a patch within weeks (often days) of the exploit being uncovered to solve the problem. The hacks demonstrated in some of the links I’ve provided have been an issue since launch of GW2. In fact, research shows that some of these tools were actually created while the game was in beta pre August 25th launch! So this is different. It’s a case of the game studio having a foundation that has cracks so large they are unable to secure their product. If GW2 were an car it would be a shinny new Ferrari with a bent frame and a cracked engine block. It was delivered this way, but the defects are under the hood. Garbage.

You really don’t understand how Hackers work do you. If the hacker’s hack get patched, they don’t just call it a day, they examine the patch and make a work around. It’s an endless cycle of patching and finding work arounds. No matter what, if something on a network that can be accessed remotely, (eg, the internet) someone can hack it, and if it’s high profile they likely will. If you want to play games without hackers, the only thing you can do is get rid of your internet.

You are trying to water down the argument. After a patch, hackers will begin working on breaking through again but with a game studio that knows what they are doing (e.g. Valve or Blizzard) the hackers work is cut out for them. It may take them weeks to create a new exploit and when they do develop one it likely stays very low-profile. When one goes “mainsteam” and is easily downloadable and all over youtube, the companies mention have proven time and time again they are capable of taking action and securing their product.

ArenaNet has proven they can not.

If you want to continue to play GW2 competitively and it makes you feel better to think ArenaNet is no better or worse than any other company at taking care of these things then you can do so, but you are wrong.

Mike O’Brien should really resign over all the problems. I would be ashamed to be him right now. He made a very arrogant remark prior to launch in an interview stating how he would only be happy when GW2 became the #1 MMORPG. I guess he put too much confidence in his team and failed to deliver leadership and management. Regardless the buck should always stop at the top.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Dual.8953:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

NaturalPortman.9562:

Kline.9561:

NaturalPortman.9562:

I have never seen speed hacks or any kind of hacks in pvp yet but okay.

i have

on top of wall clipping and insta stacking conditions to 25 and one shot hacks

Fair enough, but you talk as if this happens only to gw2. Hacks will exist in EVERY single game.

Yes. The difference is when an exploit is found the respected studios will deliver a patch within weeks (often days) of the exploit being uncovered to solve the problem. The hacks demonstrated in some of the links I’ve provided have been an issue since launch of GW2. In fact, research shows that some of these tools were actually created while the game was in beta pre August 25th launch! So this is different. It’s a case of the game studio having a foundation that has cracks so large they are unable to secure their product. If GW2 were an car it would be a shinny new Ferrari with a bent frame and a cracked engine block. It was delivered this way, but the defects are under the hood. Garbage.

You really don’t understand how Hackers work do you. If the hacker’s hack get patched, they don’t just call it a day, they examine the patch and make a work around. It’s an endless cycle of patching and finding work arounds. No matter what, if something on a network that can be accessed remotely, (eg, the internet) someone can hack it, and if it’s high profile they likely will. If you want to play games without hackers, the only thing you can do is get rid of your internet.

You are trying to water down the argument. After a patch, hackers will begin working on breaking through again but with a game studio that knows what they are doing (e.g. Valve or Blizzard) the hackers work is cut out for them. It may take them weeks to create a new exploit and when they do develop one it likely stays very low-profile. When one goes “mainsteam” and is easily downloadable and all over youtube, the companies mention have proven time and time again they are capable of taking action and securing their product.

ArenaNet has proven they can not.

If you want to continue to play GW2 competitively and it makes you feel better to think ArenaNet is no better or worse than any other company at taking care of these things then you can do so, but you are wrong.

Not sure if serious, or just kissing kitten on Valve and Blizzard. There’s so many hackers on Valve games and Blizzard games rofl. I could literally google a valve game right now and write “hacks” after the name and I will be supplied with all the hacks I ever dreamed of, it’s that simple for Valve games.