Proof of exploit

[ringo380]

I started noticing a pattern recently.

About 3 or 4 days ago, I noticed multiple instances where I'd be in a game in which me and my teammate (ranked 2v2 usually) would own 75% of the map, including the majority of fuel points, and about halfway through the game get unusually swarmed by a mass of tanks. Now, occasionally I'll go infantry focus, but most of the time I'm pumping out tanks as fast as possible, and with 75% of the map that's usually not a problem.

But how does the other team, Axis in most of these cases if not all of them (costing more fuel per tank, and yes these are high end, panthers and panzers), repeatedly put out large numbers of tanks and infantry with only 1 or 2 low fuel points and less manpower/munitions points as well, while my team owns more? They don't even turn them back when they're injured, and if they do I've made it a point to chase and kill them.

I finally got the sense to pay attention to the stats screen, and I took a screenshot:


http://www.robworks.com/exploit_small.jpg (http://www.robworks.com/exploit.jpg)
click for a bigger view

You'll notice that the stats are pretty consistently around 21k with me, my teammate, and the other guy's teammate, while the guy in question has a whopping 42k in contrast.

Now, I could be wrong about all this, and maybe the guy was just good (I later checked his stats, and they were 54 wins/97 losses; makes me think he got tired of losing and tracked down alternative methods), who knows. But here's a replay of the game that those stats are from:


Replay (http://www.robworks.com/6p_hill%20331.2006-10-25.21-45-30.rec)


(put it in "My Documents/My Games/Company of Heroes/playback/", and it's called "exploit" in the in-game menu)

Be ready to sit around watching for a while though to see what I'm talking about. Although one of the earlier strange incidents was when a grenadier rapid fired a rocket launcher while he was fired up. And by rapid fire I mean firing a rocket at my tank every half-second. You'll see what I mean; it happens to my first sherman, if I remember correctly. Shit, that could be a part of the game that I had no clue about, but its definitely something I haven't seen before. I play Axis alot, and that's something I need to be using if it's a game feature.

But if you watch through, you'll see it starts out with us at a 3 fuel point-each standoff in the very beginning, until my teammate takes the 4th fuel point fairly early on, and manages to keep it throughout most of the game until the downfall (not to mention the majority of the rest of the res points as well).

About halfway through the game was our peak, where we owned 75% of the map and all 3 victory points. That's about when the madness started. And I'll be the first to admit that me and my teammate no doubt made some mistakes, but that still in no way accounts for the random comeback.

I don't know if chat is displayed in replays, but at one point I said in teamchat, "we got this, unless they pull off some miracle".

I honestly wouldn't have cared if this was a one-time incident. But having the exact same scenario occur 4 times over the course of a few days, when it has never occured before that just puts up a giant red flag in my opinion.

Anyway, I think it pretty much speaks for itself, with or without my biased description. If there is an exploit, I want to make sure it's called to their attention and fixed in the upcoming patch. If it's not, and I'm bullshitting and I actually just got my ass kicked, then that's alright too.

[Jagr]

the rocket grenadier is a known problem. when you use zeal its makes your men shoot faster when they loose men so when 1 grenadier with a shrek is left he will rapidly fire

[ringo380]

I need to start taking advantage of that seeing that I go terror all the time.

That said, from a realism standpoint it doesn't make much sense, despite any morale boost that may occur from any kind of trauma. I understand that this game doesn't exactly focus on being completely realistic, but there's a distinct line between quasi-realism and complete fantasy.

[Bonnet]

The forum doesn't allow URL's in the first post to foil some addbotts, you can edit them in and they should work now. However, this forum does not allow naming of names, so to speak, because of the issues it often causes. Nonetheless this might be left open because it is a valid topic.

Edit: Thanks for editing out the names.

By the way I think it is sad to find such exploits occurring, but often impossible to ignore.

[ringo380]

Fixed the URLs, thanks for the heads up. I'll go ahead and edit the image to blur our the names, just in case. If it turns out that I did just get my ass kicked, then it may not be the best thing to be calling out the guy on a public forum.

[ceejayoz]

Thanks, ringo, that's greatly appreciated.

[Albi]

Maybe I missed something here dude, but what exploit?

Zeal?

[JohnJigsaw]

Maybe I missed something here dude, but what exploit?

Zeal + Inspired Assault. Zeal passively increases the speed (or maybe strength, or maybe even both, i don't know for sure) of which a unit fires if his squadmates died, and Inspired Assault (50 muni) increases firing speed for all of your units. This combo makes a lone panzerschreck-equipped Grenadier a rapid firing maniac on steroids.

Hopefully this receives some attention in later patches.

[simmo]

The rocket grenadier is a known problem. and thats about it sorry dude but that map looks like you own far more of the map than you actualy did as the left and right VP's are big land mass not much else, and he just sat back and waited and also he repiared all there tanks mostly and keep three for half the game that counts for alot it was a close thing and i might be mistken but it looked like you dced at the end?? good replay!

[Exotus]

There are many reasons why you lost that game, exploit isn't one of them.

-2 vs 2 on such a huge map against 2 Blitz players (suicide, tiger is gonna flank you so easily)
-no def on the left side, you didn't have any defence at all
-you didn't continue to bomb his tank depots, communicate with your teammate and tell him to fly over their base. I won several games because me and my friend kept destroying tank depots.
-you gave them too much time and combined with the huge map that was your biggest mistake.
-the player on the right side wasn't.....well sorry but he just wasn't any good....
-and what did those howitzers do?? Totally wasted mp and fuel, and on such a map 2 vs 2 just go for the tank commander

[ringo380]

#7: The zeal rocket launcher was the least of my worries. Not sure how you focused on just that out of everything I wrote.

It was definitely strange to me at the time, but not my mian issue.

#10: I was chin0 in the game, and watching over the replay, it was frustrating to see my teammate make a few strange moves, like having opportunities to capture the 4th fuel point even earlier and bringing his rifleman back just to kill a couple pioneers. My forces got split up between trying to back him up and back myself up on the left.

That's all moot though. If I thought it was just a basic lose then I wouldn't have cared. But are those inhumanly high end-game stats realistic? If you watched, you'll notice that the territory he had (up until the last few minutes) doesn't seem to account for the resources he was using to get those infantry and armor totals at the end.

[Flint]

i watched the replay and dont see the big resource bonus you are talking about. sometimes your side had more sometimes they had more. if they didnt wasted so mutch res on panzer iv you had lost a lot earlyier.
i didnt see any exploit only the drop at the end could be one ^^

if you think this was won by exploit you should look at it more carfully to see your mistakes, like attacking a tiger-ass and a phanter with a single sherman
or your defence on the left vp with 2 sherman and 2 at guns where the 1st sherman was killed before the enmy was in range of the at guns and the at guns where so close togehter that a single firestorm take out both

the only reason you lost this was you and your teammate played bad

[interox]

Ive watched it too and the shrek bug is the only obvious oddity but him having double the stats at the end does not simply add up. At no point is really doing much more than anyone else, he simply keeps what he's got and repairs it for the most. His Tiger ace and couple of panzers coupled with the shrek bug and your lack of AT guns were your downfall utimately.

[Albi]

But there still is not an exploit. Yes Zeal, but not an exploit.
Having watched the replay I see nothing out of the ordinary nor do I see anything out of the ordinary with the Screenshot. I have had games like that.

[Favre]

Its probably just because of his Kill:death ratio

[Exotus]

They had enough recources to pull that off imo (espcially for the tiger).

You know, I've lost a few games like that. We had 70 or more % of the map when they just mowed us down with mass tank spam.
Some people play for that, they give the enemie a hard time going for the resource points and disturb them with rather cheap units.

I know it seems strange but resource points arn't that important. You did a gj for having 2 Blitz as opponents on such a huge map. If you guys would have been equal in skill and gone for tank commander (both or +airborne) you might have won.

[ringo380]

#12: The only point that they had more, excluding the comeback, was at the very beginning because of his initial pioneer rush, which was then progressively taken back when my riflemen were brought out.

#13 & 14: I agree, we definitely made plenty of mistakes on that game. Got 2 AT guns, a paratrooper squad and 2 sherms pretty much demolished by a well placed arty on the left VP, which was devastating at that point in the game. Teammate made some strange, unintuitive moves that didn't make a whole lot of sense. That said, though, I still don't see axis coming up with those statistics. And while they DID repair some of their units, there were plenty of them that they did not keep, and were destroyed.

Albi, I've seen stats like that, but it's generally obvious why they occur. You see them when you're in a game with a pro, in contrast to everyone else generally being newbies. This guy is not a pro, and in fact has horrible playerstats. I'm by no means even close to a pro, but I'm not a newbie at this point either, and was slowly climbing up the axis leaderboard at around a not-great but not-bad 350 as of yesterday (though I'm playing allied in this game, my point is that I have a basic knowledge of what I'm doing, though its definitely my weaker side). You generally see the stats in the end of a game and they make sense with what occured in that game. They just don't add up in this instance.

I'm definitely going to stay a skeptic about it though, I'm not convinced in either direction. If it is an exploit, chances are I'll see it again very soon, and I'll try and build up a larger collection of evidence (screenshots/replays). If I just got a regular beat down instead, then there are some tricks I still need to learn.


Exotis: That's probably the most plausable nonexploit answer. Really the Tigers are what did much of the damage (or at least to me, I had to stop paying attention to my teammate for a while there). I was amazed at their ability to keep a balance of grenadiers and tigers/tanks while I was having difficulty even getting the res for more than 1 AT gun at a time.

[ÜberJumper]

Looking at the stats it looks like you got outplayed.

He had a 2 to 1 kill ratio on you infantry wise, and was probably reinforcing his troops a lot. I'd have to watch the replay, but if he was constantly repeating, and reinforcing, while you were continually making new infantry squads rather than reinforcing, he'd be far more efficient with his resources than you.

I've had games where, as axis, I've killed more than 200 allied infantry, and lost less than 50 myself.

[milkycookie]

I've just watched your replay, there was no exploit, in fact both yourself and your team-mate was flailing wildly at your opponent.

1. You guys never had 75% or 70% of the map. You guys had at most 60% of the map.

2. Failure to cap and OP your points. For example, you forgot to cap the left Munitions point and OP it. That's a medium Munitions point btw. Whilst you might have had slightly more control of the fuel points, you missed out OPing the one right at your base on the right. But fuel for fuel you guys were about right. However for munitions, you guys were totally out resourced by the opponent since you didn't OP any of your munitions points while they did.

3. Your tank micro is horrible, you consistently fight their Tiger Aces ass front like almost all your engagments. Moreover, you even had one sherman engage the Tiger Ace point blank with him shooting you in your side, while you were shooting him at his frontal armor. Furthermore, you hardly ever massed more then 2 pieces of shermans against his tiger ace, PzIVs and lone panther. You also consistently lost more units, tanks then they did per engagement. One big factor was that they consistently used the firestorm on your units, proof enough that they had more munitions then you had

4. Your AT Gun layout was horrible, instead of the staggered formation, you grouped them together, one arty strike would take them out, like it did in-game. You dont need to be so close to engage the enemy tank btw :p

5. Your team-mate was the better player btw.

[ArmoredFury]

#7: The zeal rocket launcher was the least of my worries. Not sure how you focused on just that out of everything I wrote.

It was definitely strange to me at the time, but not my mian issue.

#10: I was chin0 in the game, and watching over the replay, it was frustrating to see my teammate make a few strange moves, like having opportunities to capture the 4th fuel point even earlier and bringing his rifleman back just to kill a couple pioneers. My forces got split up between trying to back him up and back myself up on the left.

That's all moot though. If I thought it was just a basic lose then I wouldn't have cared. But are those inhumanly high end-game stats realistic? If you watched, you'll notice that the territory he had (up until the last few minutes) doesn't seem to account for the resources he was using to get those infantry and armor totals at the end.
Well at the time I did the best I could do with what I had. Having justing started playing Allies, mistakes will be made. I am much better with the Axis as should every player be. As with my team-mate I could just not account for all the Axis armor near the end of the game.

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l74/DesertEagle68/armoredfury.jpg

[ringo380]

!

I just now noticed that you were my teammate in that game, Fury, I had no clue until I actually went back and looked at the screenshot. I didn't mean to criticize you too much and act like I was better or anything, I made some shitty mistakes as well. Axis is my usual thing, too. I was trying to get some practice on the allied side for once.

Milkycookie makes a good point in that we didn't OP as many of the res points as they did.

To be honest, I didn't think it was going to be necessary, as it seemed that it was going to be an easy, no hassle victory like in other similar games. Hence my surprise at the half-way point. I had tagged them as noobs in the first 5-10 minutes and played accordingly, which is probably not the greatest thing to do in any situation.

As for his other points, it's a lot easier to state these things from the perspective of watching the replay. When you get taken off guard by something like this, it throws you off. There's an inherent urge for spite in reponse to any calls of 'exploit', and milkycookie's post reeks of this. The AT gun situation was a quick manuever to counter-attack after the first wave of tanks. The parasquad split up to take the fallen AT gun, then reinforced themselves, then I dropped another AT gun, at which point my goal was to push on to the next capture point. I can't do that if I'm staying in one spot, and the only method of passing through to the point ahead (which was a fuel point btw), was through that narrow gap in the trees. Rather than rush through, I progressed them bit by bit along with the tanks, and the arty was timed perfectly at the point where they were mashed together along with my infantry.

As for micromanaging, I was frequently trying to cover more ground than I can handle, which lead to neglect on many of the units.

I'm going to stop writing excuses for myself on these points though, because I've already said that I made plenty of mistakes, and debating about them is not my goal in this thread. My view was that they just weren't enough mistakes to warrant what happened.

[ArmoredFury]

!
....I just now noticed that you were my teammate in that game, Fury, I had no clue until I actually went back and looked at the screenshot. I didn't mean to criticize you too much and act like I was better or anything, I made some shitty mistakes as well Axis is my usual thing, too. I was trying to get some practice on the allied side for once.......

Do not get me wrong, I did not take any offensive to your post. In fact I like being criticized, I learn from it and it makes me a better player.

I made some errors on capping, one of the reasons I was running around trying to stop them from cutting off resources. I to played thinking victory was just a matter of minutes away...got sloppy and made some mistakes to. I enjoy the Allied Infantry Commander Tree, So each time I play I try to play a little different to see if I can come up with something new.
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http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l74/DesertEagle68/armoredfury.jpg

[MCP]

the stats show the truth.... look at the ammount of kills.

3 players have =points because they basically have equal stats, he has much higher score due to kills. You can control less of the map and with ob-posts on your points you will outrace your opponent by +30-40%

even still they have DOUBLE the kills you have and only a 25% greater overall score.. I think they just spanked you in strats.. it happens.

[GunMetal]

its kinda lame that someone comes to the forums to make a legitimate thread with real concerns about an possible exploit/bug and all he gets is "learn to play" kind of statements.

If you dont have anything productive to say, please dont say anything at all :P

Btw, i <3 zeal :P

[Mistenth]

And from others' viewpoint, there isn't an exploit. And by telling the TS his mistakes, they are being productive by helping him improve. By knowing his mistakes, in future if he encounters this scenario again, he can then determine if it is simply because the opponent is better, or if it's a legitimate exploit.

And end game stats can be dramatically high due to kill ratio. I ended 1 game with 80 000 points and everyone else around 10 000, and my KDR was about 10.

[iamaelephant]

Fury please stop posting that image at the end of your posts and put it in your sig. Some of us have sigs turned off for a reason.

[Flint]

i think the high kill ratio from one of your opponents came from the offmap combat groups fury called in, they are usless against a tiger-ass and gave him a lot free kills

[milkycookie]

i do apologise if my post reeked of spite, as that was not my intention. It's easy to comment on the mistakes of others when you have the benefit of hindsight.

But one thing i find in this game is never let off the pressure and never underestimate your opponent. keep pressing forward and dont forget to cap cap cap cap cap..and OP :p