Emergence Day was supposed to be a celebration. A celebration of chainsaws, headshots, and curb stomping. It looks like it was a celebration of something else entirely: cheating. Remember the hubbub about not having friends in ranked matches of Gears? It looks like it was all for naught, as getting into ranked matches with your friends is easy as hell. All you have to do is host a game and your friends find your name in the host list. So, in pursuit of points and prizes, there were plenty of stacked teams yesterday. Gamer Andy tells of a particularly nefarious exploit using 5 people. "But GOW uses teams of four," you say, and right you are. The fifth person is actually on the opposite team, a saboteur for whatever clan is trying to rise to the top of the leaderboards.That not cheatery enough for you? How about the fact that the host has the power to start the match at any time, whether all members have clicked "Ready" or not? This makes it easy to stack games with uneven teams of 4v3 or even 4v2. Easy, ranked pickings for anyone.
But wait, there's more. Another nasty exploit can be employed during execution matches. In execution, players can only be killed via curb stomp or execution. After a predetermined amount of "bleed out" time, a downed player will simply revive. So, cheaters start by stacking a 4v3 game, execute 2 opposing players, and leave a third alive. The third player is then shot down, but not executed. Why? Because downing a player is worth more points than executing them. Once the player revives, cheaters shoot him down again, wait for him to revive, rinse, repeat. This continues for the duration of the round. This also leaves the victims with an unfortunate choice: quit a ranked match and risk negative feedback from cheaters, or stay and endure fruitless minutes of death and rebirth.
We'd like to believe that all this cheating was merely for the sake of winning some of the Emergence Day prizes, but we know better. Sure, cheaters may have hoped for a prize, but they would have cheated regardless. The unfortunate truth is that some people are just jerks (especially Pod 6).
A lot of these problems could be solved simply by tweaking the lobby system -- not displaying host names, not letting hosts force start matches, etc. Hopefully, this will be addressed in the upcoming patch. Has anyone experienced these exploits online?
[Via Inner Angst]





Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-13-2006 @ 12:37PM
NEO1X said...
I am not surprized at all they need to fix the lobby system give us clan support so that we take on teams of four instead of just random people that don't ever speak or don't have mics.
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11-13-2006 @ 12:37PM
BG916 said...
This game is buggy as hell online. I have seen some crazy shit like people getting chainsawed from like 10 feet away and then not dying. Fix it Epic, or I will be forced to play Viva Pinata!
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11-13-2006 @ 12:42PM
for HIS glory said...
Very disappointing given the amount of boasting of the TrueSkill ranking system. Have we learned nothing from the obvious team stacking problems in GRAW? Why can't other games see the strengths of a Halo2 style matchmaking system?
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11-13-2006 @ 12:42PM
LunarDuality said...
I already got a patch of some sort yesterday in the evevening but that was the first time I played the game. There's another one coming out already? Well, at least Epic is on top of things.
And BG916...I'll be playing Viva Pinata regardless of the patch situation. Why choose only one game when you can play two?
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11-13-2006 @ 12:48PM
Les Doodis said...
It's unfortunate that this stuff has to happen. Personally, I prefer the player matches. I know my rank is never going to be very high anyway, and the games/people in player matches just seem much more relaxed. Makes for a better online experience.
I do hope they fix the match entry problem. I can only connect about one out of every five tries.
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11-13-2006 @ 12:55PM
drunkenshaolin said...
no offence... but this game not even out in europe yet so shame on you!!! people in the states..where ever u go there will be cheaters. just have to be honest and play fair. its a shame but there u go!!
they will get there karma!!
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11-13-2006 @ 12:59PM
juicebytim said...
It's obvious the fix should be to not allow chosing of ranked games from a list (or at least hide the host's name), not to let games begin with out even teams, get rid of the ready button, and develop a party system where the max is 4 players to a party and are only aloud to be on the same team in ranked matches.
So basically, the way Halo 2 worked, because that's the only game that has gotten ranked console matches right.
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11-13-2006 @ 1:06PM
Franky Digital said...
Frankly, I'm not really opposed to people playing with their clan-mates in a ranked match: if four friends or clan-members want to join into a ranked match, they should be able to - that kind of functionality should not be considered "cheating".
However, the team stacking and revive-whoring is definately not pleasant. Force-starting can't really be removed, but a ranked match should simply require 8 players rather than 6 - I've yet to see any 3-on-3 matches actually pan out. That's an easy fix.
But really, the solution that could have ended all this was to make the achievements unlockable in player matches. I gaurentee the main reason perpetuating this cheating is achievement-whoring (well, and the event last night - but that was a one-shot deal).
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11-13-2006 @ 1:20PM
Did said...
I hate those jerks in Pod 6, I heard they were getting cake again today. Why do we even have a Pod 6? Where is the pro shop?
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11-13-2006 @ 1:21PM
Grant said...
I've noticed these and absolutly HATE the cheaters...they dont even try to hide it...we were in a lobby and a group of friends were hanging out talking about what they were doing, but its so hard to not get bounced from a game due to "connection lost" that it wasn't even worth trying to find a different game.
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11-13-2006 @ 1:50PM
KingOfGods said...
Give your 360 a static IP,add it to the DMZ on your router and that should fix your connection problems.
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11-13-2006 @ 1:52PM
DrunkPenguin said...
As soon as I hear the other team referring to each other by their real names or I see two gamertags that start with xXx| or some such nonsense, I leave the game before it even starts. Either allow parties of 4 outright or get rid of the host's name.
That should be an easy fix... right?
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11-13-2006 @ 1:53PM
Jeff said...
Halo 2 anyone? Not excatly the same problems, but lets not beat around the bush. Epic better come through or there will be a lot of pissed off people.
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11-13-2006 @ 2:01PM
ThweeSiddy said...
all of these are simple exploits that can be patched up easily and avoided by not playing with random jerks. let's hope they dont hack the console enough that people are able to have wallhacks/aimbots/etc.
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11-13-2006 @ 2:08PM
ThweeSiddy said...
another thing. the idea of the ranking system is to match you up with people that are at the same skill level as you. so these people cheating and beefing up their ranking are only screwing themselves when they want to play a legit game. also let them cheat so much into uber status they i dont have to even deal with them in my slightly better-than-average status.
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11-13-2006 @ 2:23PM
Dark Tuba said...
Every next-gen game should use the halo 2 lobby system as a model. The lobby system was not only about playing with friends or other players that you meet along the way, but it also kept the action pretty seemless. The system found games for you to play automatically and was pretty easy to use. With GOW, a player has to leave games, go back into the multiplayer menu, search through games and hope they find one that doesn't "lose the connection". I really enjoy GOW, but these little things are keeping it from becoming the next Halo.
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11-13-2006 @ 2:30PM
NotOfThisEarth said...
MS needs to crack down on this shit HARD. As in, get caught doing this, Live account, gamer score, and all achivements ERASED, gone, history. how to do it? I don't know but take away what cheaters covet most, and it'll stop soon enough. Goddamn game's not even a week old yet and I've already run into this crap which sadly means, once SP is finished, Gears of War goes into the the "to be traded in" pile. Worst part is that none of them think it's cheating, They call it strategy because "if it's in the game, then it means they want you to use it." Oh well, I'd at least hoped for a couple of months enjoyment from it, but I guess not 3 days is all we're gonna get. I wonder how idiots like this fare in life, not real good I'd imagine.
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11-13-2006 @ 2:39PM
Richard DeV said...
Almost EVERY DAMN GAME I joined online yesterday of a ranked match I would get kicked or forced to move teams for some assclown and his pals. Emergence day was miserable. I played one or two fun games out of like 15. Hosting a game for just me and my friends only is a blast though.
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11-13-2006 @ 2:48PM
Scott said...
I agree Tuba. The lobby in Halo 2 makes it much more enjoyable to get into a game. How does truskill have any effect if I am allowed to select the server I want to play on anyway???
And seriously why show the host's name on the server list? or even let players select their teams in ranked matches??? Any idiot can see that people will exploit this as much as they can.
I don't really care about the ranked matches anyway, but they should at least implement a party system like halo 2 for the player matches.... Its hard as hell to get a group of 3 of your friends playing together against different people all night.
Epic: I want to get three of my buddies together in a lobby and then jump from match to match. All without any kind of displayed rank or leaderboards. Just use the HIDDEN truskill system to match us up. I just want to play the damn game with my friends!!!!
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11-13-2006 @ 2:55PM
Mikeawesome said...
I'm going to be completely honest, I used the Host Lobby system exploit, but not for cheating, but, rather, to avoid it.
Early in Emergence Day I found a great party where the host had set the match to 13 rounds (to allow for a lot of points to be allotted) and whose teams were pretty evenly matched, and we had a solid group even when people who weren't with us originally would join and then leave after 5-6 matches.
I think that some of these "exploits" can also be used to make the online more fun for the players and still allow for ranked matches. I don't know about you, but when I'm in matches against my friends, we can get pretty competitive, so why should that be weeded out in the Ranked matches? We aren't trying to stack our teams, we are simply trying to get points in a, still, competitive manner.
I will say, however, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the game that should be addressed, most notably the Chainsaw-lock and Curbstomp/Chainsaw animations. The Chainsaw lock is absolutely too loose, roughly a .2 second time frame for you to react and defend yourself (the easiest I find to be is to stick them with a grenade) however, even if you use that time to dodge a lot of times they still lock on to you and you see the blood and gore shoot from their chainsaw while you're 10 feet away rolling into an explosion of body parts. Unacceptable. The Curbstomp/Chainsaw animations, while easily exploitable if you want to kill someone in the open, also presents a problem, you really can't save a downed player without reviving them if there's an enemy near by. I should be able to place a headshot on that guy while he's trying to crush my buddy's skull, or pick off that guy chainsawing my friend from half way across the map.
Another problem I have is that the chainsaw charge seems to be longer/shorter for certain people, and I've seen some VERY strange things happen in these times, such as getting charged at with a charging chainsaw and hear a split second chainsaw sound before exploding. Also, I've seen people run up to a team mate with a 1 second charge on their chainsaw, and still lock on to them. I'm sure a lot of this could be attributed to lag, but I know other people spectating saw it as well. So I'm not sure what to think.
Either way, a patch is welcomed, especially if it adresses some of these issues.
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