10.5c and the Party Graceperiod exploit and why it must be removed.

Patch notes add following change:

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Increased the grace period of invulnerability when entering an area (which is cancelled when you perform any action) from 10 seconds to 20.

This increases the abuse of this exploit and trivializes bosses, especially during races.

This isn't taking advantage of mechanics this is clearly exploiting because it's not intended to be used that way.

Introduction:

As you know entering areas from TPs, WPs and Entrances gives you a period of immortality.

The catch are TPs which trivialize harder bosses such as Turbo brutus or more exaggerated lethal brutus but Turbo was the first mode this got exploited.

How does is work:

Party members circle around a boss and create TPs and go town but the ranged damage dealers which are hiding themselves.

They enter the TP of another player to trigger the AI, while damage dealers do their job.

Result a boss fight without any danger. 20 seconds means I can get a coffee during the period.


How to fix it:

Instead of a grace period the first step would be to change it to "Cannot Die" instead of doesn't take damage but this is only a fix for the next patch.


A real fix would change the effect of the Grace period. Instead of giving immortality, players get an ethereal mode. They won't trigger any AI and won't be targetable by any mobs.
Collision checks are removed during the period, so prevent so called Edgeblocking meaning a boss gets lured into an edge and ethereal characters block his path so he can't attack other players.

This way trivial bossfights won't happen anymore, since players entering instances now choose to load themselves into the instance by an action.

Agreed. The AI change (do not target Grace'd players) should hopefully not be too much work, and would be purely code addition.

How about you simply don't zone in until your client has finish loading the area?

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UnderOmerta wrote:

How about you simply don't zone in until your client has finish loading the area?

Yeah, is this difficult to do? I have no idea how game programming works, but surely the best solution is to kind of put your character in limbo until the loading is done? Then, and only then, should you be placed in the new area with maybe a 3sec grace period just in case. I don't see why your character has to be actually in the new area for the entirety of the loading period.

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UnderOmerta wrote:

How about you simply don't zone in until your client has finish loading the area?

This, the netcode in this game is just blowing my mind.

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UnderOmerta wrote:

How about you simply don't zone in until your client has finish loading the area?

The Grace period is intended to prevent unsafe TP PK too besides load rips, that why I am suggesting the "Ethereal Character" solution.


The current grace period would allows you to kill Brutus cruel with level 20 characters(level 1 without restrictions)

The main idea of such an Ethereal/Ghostcharacter is to prevent boss fight exploiting, without having the negative benefits.

An ethereal character will be considered not in area while having the ethereal state so fillerabusing is also not possible.

While you can add this to Grace period too it won't be effective because brutus hook attack will create a hybrid mode. Still immortal but already moved(in area)

If you're worried about getting PK'd by TP trolls, then add a short grace period (a few seconds or until you do something) after you appear on the map but only have you appear on the map once you're finished loading.

There. No real way to exploit, as the player is only targetable/invincible for a few short seconds, and you won't die because the loading screen drags too long.

No matter how long the Grace period is, it stays exploitable.

A player with an SSD loads within some MS even 2 seconds mean he can leave and enter constantly.

I would love to exploit the grace period, but the thing is I'm stuck at a loading screen for 2 minutes each time I enter a new area, praying there are no monsters ambushing me there.

also, sometimes mobs like to just "teleport": first it's way over there, then it's right on me and half of my HP is gone. and I don't mean Flicker Strikers.

I'll just wait for the release to "unfreeze" my Hardcore char, because right now Hardcore is the land of the SSD and the 100 Mb stable connection, ten miles away from the server...

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UnderOmerta wrote:

How about you simply don't zone in until your client has finish loading the area?

This is the best solution because it's the simple one.