Game Mechanics: Game breaking exploit necro heal

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Nirgon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How is telling you that there was a spell revamp during that time trolling?

If I can find the link to the live necro botb somewhere, you'll see the necros do not and cannot dispel the recourse from themselves but DID use it to heal their pet while tapping the enemy's.


------------------------------
January 9, 2003
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- Pact of Shadow and Shadow Compact will once again heal player
characters.


Sup? Make this not heal players ever on this server? Clearly a change for 2003.

Apparently your reading comprehension has abandoned you. That patch note clearly states that they will once again heal player characters. As such, it must be understood that they had healed player characters prior to January 9, 2003, as well. Once again, your research is deficient. You have found the date at which they resumed healing player characters; still a mystery is the date at which these spells first ceased to heal player characters. Find that date, then come back.

On the contrary, Koros' patch note reads: "The Shadowbond series of spells can no longer be dispelled by the Necromancer". Within that patch note, there is absolutely no reason to believe that there ever existed a time, prior to that patch, during which the necromancer could not dispell the Shadowbond series of spells. Dentalplan's patch note reads: "Spells that transfer hit points over time from the caster to a target will no longer take effect on the target (the hit point gainer) if the caster (the hit point giver) isn't also affected by the spell." That did not take effect until July 24, 2002, and again, there is nothing within that patch note to suggest that there had ever been a previous period during which the transfer of hit points would not take effect even if the caster isn't also affected by the spell.

If your contention is that the recourse did not appear as a buff and thus was not eligible to be dispelled, then you are welcome to find evidence of that -- but you haven't provided any. "Common sense" is not a suitable substitute for evidence, nor is your memory. Many aspects of Classic EQ wouldn't work as they did if left to the dictates of "common sense". Finally, absence of evidence doesn't constitute evidence of absence, either. The fact that you have links which make no mention of a certain ability doesn't mean the ability didn't exist.

Hth, please stop bumping a repeat topic without any new evidence to justify new consideration.

[Nirgon]

There was an obvious change to the spell system which caused this spell for malfunction for a time. Both patch notes prove this.

These 2 patch notes conclude that not only did this spell system change take effect, but also that this spell was faulty for a time. Nothing about them can ever, in any way, be taken to indicate that these spells should have a dispellable recourse. Using this as evidence or using it to try to imply it was dispellable in classic only builds great strength in my argument that an exploit is being desperately defended.

Here's how this went:
You suggest that because of the patch note you linked, the spell could be dispelled up until the point that note is listed as "can once again dispel".

I then posted mine to make a proof against your defense by absurdity... that I clearly recall this spell's heal component working in classic but absolutely broke and required a fix as part of the spell system change. Why in my right mind would I ever try to say that this spell did not heal up until the date listed? To that same degree, why are you trying to do the same saying it should be dispellable? You are pinned here.

The broken heal and the non dispellable factor are both unintended and in no way reflect the classic time line, nor do they suggest anything in regards to how it worked on live vanilla through Velious.

Stop defending broken server mechanics : /. Something broke with the recourse mechanic as a result of a spell system change and was fixed.... not something went unnoticed until then. The patch note you are currently using as a defense means: its correct functionality was restored (the correct and classic mechanic -- it must hurt the necro!).

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

nor is your memory

My memory, apparently, is pretty damned good and I have proof of playing during this era =).

I've PM'd Zyrino (boards: Zyrin) here who won the Rallos Zek necromancer best of the best (and got pretty damned far against the overgeared bluebies) to drop his knowledge hard upon this thread. You can tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about instead, /popcorn.

[Daldolma]

More words to skim through, no evidence to evaluate. You also seem incapable of comprehending the difference between a patch note that includes the word "again" and one that does not. Your example refers to a reversion to a previous state, with Shadowbond "again" healing player characters. Neither of the other patch notes include any such language. It's not an appropriate parallel.

Please tell us all more about what you remember, it's fascinating. Surely a server of 1000+ pop should be responsive to your uncorroborated recollections.

[Nirgon]

I've disproved your attempt to make unrelated patch notes valid.

Check out my dispel thread if you've got such a memory of dispell mechanics =), I could use a hand!

[Daldolma]

They're clearly not unrelated as they address the topic in question. They are evidence that previous to the addressed patch, the Shadowbond spell line operated in the manner currently seen on Project 1999. You are making the totally unsupported claim that at some unidentified point prior to these patches, there was another change in gameplay (the appearance of recourse as a buff icon) that necessitated these later patches. You have not provided even a shred of evidence to suggest that any of what you say is accurate. As such, there's no reason for this issue to be discussed again.

If you want to dismiss the patch notes posted by Dentalplan and Koros as irrelevant, that's fine. That makes this entire thread a discussion of irrelevant patch notes and your irrelevant memory -- which means there is nothing to see here, and the thread should mercifully die.

[Nirgon]

So I can't point out something broken? And the project manager shouldn't be like "yep missed it!"?

You realize if it wasn't broken at any point during classic, there won't be patch notes. There's probably a number of other things that happened in development that should be obvious that they couldn't quite prove.

Maybe you can PM Zyrin and see what he thinks. I'd consider him to be a classic EQ necro guru. Not to mention on PvP servers, we were made or broken on our ability to dispel and know about game mechanics like these. We'd surely have tried to do something like dispel any visible recourse.

You guys came cluelessly running with these patch notes that are now disproven. Consider this along with the ones I've posted to show you that using these 2003 changes as a defense exposes what you're really trying to do here. You guys seemed pretty sure.. heh.

It's silly for this to be in the game right now, a 10 mana heal for 500 health.. yeah it was definitely like that in classic, sure, especially when Treats who also agrees with me recently had pick pocket fixes go in that no one else here seemed to recall. I've proved there's a spell system change and this spell was a mess and was fixed as a result, now that your champion patch notes have fallen, we result to "well there's nothing then keep it". Crazy.

[hijinks]

Greetings,

My pal Nirgon brought this to my attention few hours ago. Nice to see people still fighting the good fight.

Before I even give my opinion on this, although ya'll probably don't care I feel my history might persuade you into thinking I might know what I'm talking about.

I played on Rallos Zek for 3 years, 2 of them were playing the Necromancer class, from classic to well into Velious. Rallos Zek as you may or may not know, was a PvP server. Knowing and testing these kind of things meant life or death on that server. Furthermore, not only did I play on Rallos for 3 years, I also won the Necro Best of the Best on Rallos, and placed 3rd server-wide on test. Now, with that being established:

A necromancer COULD NOT I repeat, COULD NOT dispel this DEBUFF from their player character after they have the Pact line on a pet or PC. The very first time I saw this on Red99 I was truly like WTF, but was too lazy to even mention it.

I remember on many accounts thinking "wow let me try to dispel this, why even bother lifetapping a mob when I don't have to lose health to heal my pet by dispelling it?" NEVER WORKED. Not only that, but participating in a BotB with many other necros both on my server and the test server not once did anybody attempt this, because it did not work. And trust me when I say, if it did, people would have used it, because the very strat I used to win the tournament was to UNDEAD DD their pet, that strat would be nullified if they could pact their pet and dispell the debuff by losing 25 mana or whatever Pact+Dispel magic came out to be it just wasn't possible, at least on PvP servers. Another thing to further illustrate my point: One of the favorite items Necro's were after was the Holgresh Elder Beads, which was a right click Eye of Zomm or some shit like that you could cast on.. for the very purpose of Vexing (or Bonds of Death) this NPC clickly to get your health back from healing your pet, and other people. They would not have been so wanted by necros if Necros could just dispell the DEBUFF Pact of Shadow puts on the necro.

Hope that helps.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Ambrotos [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If anyone has facts through links feel free to post them. Just posting blocks of words from your memory won't cut it to argue.

For reference.

[Nirgon]

Hey look the necro who won the rallos zek best of the best (and who killed many many others) is telling you how it works

If they want to fix this? Fix. Otherwise, its a sad broken mess.

Originally Posted by hijinks [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Greetings,

My pal Nirgon brought this to my attention few hours ago. Nice to see people still fighting the good fight.

Before I even give my opinion on this, although ya'll probably don't care I feel my history might persuade you into thinking I might know what I'm talking about.

I played on Rallos Zek for 3 years, 2 of them were playing the Necromancer class, from classic to well into Velious. Rallos Zek as you may or may not know, was a PvP server. Knowing and testing these kind of things meant life or death on that server. Furthermore, not only did I play on Rallos for 3 years, I also won the Necro Best of the Best on Rallos, and placed 3rd server-wide on test. Now, with that being established:

A necromancer COULD NOT I repeat, COULD NOT dispel this DEBUFF from their player character after they have the Pact line on a pet or PC. The very first time I saw this on Red99 I was truly like WTF, but was too lazy to even mention it.

I remember on many accounts thinking "wow let me try to dispel this, why even bother lifetapping a mob when I don't have to lose health to heal my pet by dispelling it?" NEVER WORKED. Not only that, but participating in a BotB with many other necros both on my server and the test server not once did anybody attempt this, because it did not work. And trust me when I say, if it did, people would have used it, because the very strat I used to win the tournament was to UNDEAD DD their pet, that strat would be nullified if they could pact their pet and dispell the debuff by losing 25 mana or whatever Pact+Dispel magic came out to be it just wasn't possible, at least on PvP servers. Another thing to further illustrate my point: One of the favorite items Necro's were after was the Holgresh Elder Beads, which was a right click Eye of Zomm or some shit like that you could cast on.. for the very purpose of Vexing (or Bonds of Death) this NPC clickly to get your health back from healing your pet, and other people. They would not have been so wanted by necros if Necros could just dispell the DEBUFF Pact of Shadow puts on the necro.

Hope that helps.

Pics from necro botb, Zyrino defs up in there doing work:
http://home.arcor.de/neric/BoTB%20Finals/



The prosecution rests its case.

[Treats]

Just so you guys know, doing the research on this stuff is absolutely fucking daunting.

It takes much more time than some of you that post your paragraphs of how you remember it.

Anyway here is what I have found:

Recourses were not added until this patch here where they revamped spell stacking etc:

http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20020904.html

Shadowknight and Necromancer Drain type spells can now be clicked off by the recipient of the beneficial portion of the spell. For example; Shadowknights and their group members can now click off the effects of spells such as Torrent of Hate. While the target of spells such as Shadowbond can click it off if they so choose.

These types of spells were dispellable for some time, how long I do not know:

http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20020605a.html

The Shadowbond series of spells can no longer be dispelled by the Necromancer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now from the beginning it is difficult to figure out how these types of spells actually worked.

There are no Recourses listed in either the Kunark or Velious spdat.

Going off of this it seems the spells used the same icons whether being positive or negative.

Example:

Necro casts Pact of Shadow on Cleric
Cleric receives Pact of Shadow icon on Buff bar (positive)
Necro receives Pact of Shadow icon on Buff bar (negative)

Shadow Vortex showing an icon in 1999:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fro...st/F3F5QTqIO08

Greetings. I recently hit level 20 and purchased this spell, but I've not
had much luck determining what it does. One thing that is apparent is that
its not a damaging spell. I was testing it out in E.Commons, and cast it on
a moss snake. The thing attacked me, and I watched its health (all 10
points of it), and its obvious this isn't a damaging spell. Also, a spell
icon appeared in the upper corner like a buff spell or something. Being its
a 20th level spell, I would expect it to do *something*.
Also, when I tried to cast it on myself it said "you can't drain
yourself!". Ok...if it doesn't drain heath, what *does* it drain?

I heard this too. Only curiousity...if its like just another offensive
spell, why does it leave a "buff" icon on your screen, which lasts about 2
minutes? Is this showing how long the spell effect is taking place? If so,
why is it still there after I kill the mob?

What is weird about this though is that Shadow Vortex was changed to a drain when Plane of Sky was released, 6 months after this post. Siphon Strength was also changed to stack with other buffs and debuffs. I could not find any information of a buff icon with Siphon Strength, only some people stating that it was permanent once it was cast:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fro...st/JnDyJE1SdRs

*Spell Changes*

- Shadow Vortex is now a "drain" spell.
- Siphon Strength will now stack with strength buffs and debuffs

Another comment here about Shadowbound overwriting SLN/SLK (on the recipient of course, not the Necro) so it was not a recourse. I assume it was overwriting because of the regen component on these two spells:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fro...st/qiz4uHww0dE

Shadowbond. Awesome heal. 660ish in 4 ticks. Too bad Verant cant code
jack shit and it overwrites SLN/SLK.

Conclusions

Two theories basically on how this worked.

FIRST

Any type of "DRAIN" would only give the buff icon to the player receiving the positive effects of the spell. There would be no way for this to be dispelled. This would explain why Shadow Vortex was giving an icon (was not a drain at the time of that post). However it does not explain why for some time the Shadowbond line of spells were dispellable. It could have been when they were testing the new spell system, I have no idea.

SECOND

Any type of spell with positive and negative effects for two different players would show icons for both. The spell icon on both players buff bars would be the same. Shadowbond would show "Shadowbond" on the player casted upon and "Shadowbond" on the Necromancer as well. There are no dispel lines in the spdat showing whether it could be or not. If it did work this way and showed a buff icon for the negative effects, I would assume it would have been dispelable if it was in the top slot because the spell has no Poison or Disease counters.

EDIT--

Another possible scenario:

Buff Icon is only shown for positive effects of the spell (This way they can be clicked off)

Necro casts Shadowbond
Cleric receives buff icon for positive effect
Necro receives no buff but still receives negative effects of spell

Necro casts Shadow Vortex
Necro receives buff icon for positive effect (AC)