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Arrow through wall glitch... unfair?

Discussion in 'Archer' started by Nighthawk, Apr 12, 2012.

?

How fair/unfair is the arrow-through-the-wall glitch to you?

  1. It's totally alright to use it whenever you want.

    1 vote(s)
    2.5%
  2. It's only okay to stop someone else is using a method like entombing.

    6 vote(s)
    15.0%
  3. Its should never be used no matter what.

    33 vote(s)
    82.5%
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  1. Nighthawk

    Nighthawk gaurenteed shitter

    Messages:
    793
    Let me begin this thread with a simple statement:
    I abuse the arrow through the wall glitch.

    Yes. Me. I use it to kill enemies.

    However, this isn't about me apologizing for that. In fact, I refuse to apologize, because I believe that the way I use the glitch is fair.

    I used to use it whenever there was an enemy through a wall that I could kill. Now, I avoid that when I can, seeing that it was in fact unfair, and slap myself when I do accidentally use it out of context. And by out of context, I mean for anything BUT killing entombers.

    An entomber, as I call them, are those ever-so-pesky builders who charge up to the enemy tower, lock themselves against it with stone, and burrow through until it falls. These guys are like termites for castles.

    I have recently decided that using the arrow-through-the-wall glitch is fair if it's being used to counter a builder that's entombing themselves in your castle. This is my personal opinion for several reasons:

    One - The method these guys use is cheap already. I mean, come on. Why do we have kegs if any old guy with a hammer can just waltz up and eat through a wall as if it were candy?
    Two - The arrow-through-wall glitch can be countered in several ways. It can't go through anything more than one block, which means a builder that places themselves well can avoid it, and it can still be blocked by a knight shield. This means that a smart builder could take a knight with him to defend him from those who would try to stop his burrowing attempt.
    Three - It's in the game. Yeah, lots of people will say, "But it's a glitch! Arrows aren't meant to go through walls!" Well, the job of the devs is to remove gamebreaking glitches, and this one has been around for quite a while.

    So there you have it. All my opinion. Some of you may agree, some of you may be completely against this notion, and the server owners may unanimously decide that using the glitch at all is serious offense, (and if they do I will respect that and accept my ban, or avoid using the glitch altogether so I can keep playing KAG) but my decision stands. I will support this claim all the way.

    I just want to know what you guys think.

    Feel free to comment below, leave a vote in the poll, or both. I really want to see what the popular opinion is.

    (Side note: I just realized after posting this that there is a grammar error in the second option of the poll. I apologize for that. It is shameful for one so picky as I to have failed to catch such a mistake.)
     
    inactive_account likes this.
  2. BlueLuigi

    BlueLuigi :^) Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    3,620
    One more for the blacklist?

    One more for the blacklist.
     
  3. Nighthawk

    Nighthawk gaurenteed shitter

    Messages:
    793
    We have our first opinion! :D

    Can't say I'm totally pleased about it, but hey. Opinion is what I wanted.
     
  4. Ostricheggs

    Ostricheggs Shipwright

    Messages:
    120
    Don't let the guy entomb. Countering a valid strategy by abusing a widely known bug is stupid; there is no justification for abusing an avoidable bug. There are many bugs out there, but this one is completely avoidable.

    1. A builder can't just "walk up" to a tower. They're like walking kegs, don't let a builder fuck your shit up like you wouldn't let a keg. It's your teams fault if a builder is able to entomb himself, so now you have to deal with him.

    2. You're telling me that SHOOTING AN ARROW THROUGH A SOLID TILE is more easily countered than an entomber? IIRC you can shoot through more than one tile as well... A "smart builder" doesn't expect a guy to shoot through a wall because IT'S A FUCKING BUG AND IT GETS YOU BANNED. I've never seen an admin not freeze and ban for wall shooting, never.

    3. It is the job of the devs to remove the bug, but it's also your responsibility to not abuse the bugs that are completely avoidable, that are bannable and are no way meant to be a part of the game. I can get infinite gold, switch teams to the enemy and blow their base up with 50 kegs. Is it a part of the game? Yep. but it aint meant to happen.

    You know what you're doing is wrong. If you didn't you would shoot through walls all the time and not just at entombers. Just by that alone you acknowledge that it's bullshit. However, in an attempt to counter a valid strategy, you explicitly abuse a bug. It's not "fair" (lol @ fair abuse of avoidable bugs) since entombers make use of legitimate in-game features. I'm pretty sure the devs don't mean for you to shoot a god damn arrow through a wall to kill someone who is wrecking your tower.

    Fine, you think entombing is BS, join the club and go make a suggestion. Don't abuse bugs. Enjoy your ban(s) if you're stubborn enough to keep doing it.
     
    Rushtime, Beef and BlueLuigi like this.
  5. Tyngn

    Tyngn Ballista Bolt Thrower

    Messages:
    167
    Here's my take on the situation.

    A builder walks up to your wall and "entombs" himself. This can only happen if...
    a) His knight friends came and beat up the opposing army
    b) He tunnels underneath sneakily and takes the tower
    c) Some unlikely occurring events

    For b) he worked hard to take your tower.|
    For c) i don't know what possibly else could have happened
    For a) His team fought off the opposing team fairly

    However you may think that for a) a small battle for tower is not worth it which can be true. However if your tower was well made it would take more than a builder to termite their way to destroy a tower. e.g some sort of support from above. If your team were to try and keep their tower they can simply by placing backwalls and have an archer shoot him once a hole is punctured. Afterwards you can simply take his stone and rebuild. If you still think for some reason that you hate this sort of thing remember that you and your team can use this tactic.

    In your tactic what i find unfair is that the builder gets an unexpected and unpreventable death because naturally you would be safe and not everyone takes precaution to a mechanic that is not allowed. You broke a rule to stop something that was allowed, being unfair to those who actually decide to follow the rules but uses some of the less balanced gameplay elements (like rocket launchers in FPS).
     
    cmblast likes this.
  6. Wyeth

    Wyeth KAG Guard Donator Tester

    Messages:
    375
    If we just compare these two mechanics objectively (placing blocks and shooting arrows).
    Placing blocks : Creates a wall that is hard to destroy (only bombs and enemy builders) instantly. Requires Materials. Pretty much the only way to counter it beforehands or guard against it is to have something in place allready (can't build a block where there is allready a block). Collapses with no support.

    Shooting Arrows: Hurts teammates over a long distance, does a good amount of damage, requires materials (arrows). Is countered by blocks stopping it. Pretty straight forward.

    These are the rules.

    If a builder uses a glitch to rapidly increase his materials (gravel glitch) or making it possible to make "uncollapsable" structures (dirt backwall glitches) actively (as in the glitches can be avoided, but he decides to use them). He effectively disables some of the weaknesses he got from the ruleset of stone blocks (requires materials, can be collapsed). As the nature of the game is some glitches can't be avoided. You can't stop the game from creating some amount of gravel upon collapses and the gravel (and thus stone) will be there and whoever happens to go over it will take it. Same with accidentally creating pieces of dirt backwall in the building process. These can be avoided but if it influences your normal play, I wouldn't. I try not to think about them too much, because otherwise you might give in at some point where you KNOW that it would help you out (no stone around ... you are tempted to glitch some stone since then you would gain an advantage).

    Entombing, albeit making people feel powerless is not a glitch in any way. It is not illegal to case off enemies to rescue yourself or "gain time"... essentially it is simply something people do all the time used in a certain way so that you are completely safe. But is it somehow different from say, "bricking doors"? You instantly stop all enemy knights from going through essentially "entombing" them in their base temporarily. They can get out, but if you are determined and have the materials you can basically encase their whole tower in stone (sealing all the entries and exits). The thing is. They are not using anything weird or surprising they are using the given rules and mechanics to do something that you personally find annoying. But builders do that all the time. Making surprising spike pits is annoying too. Dropping stones down on a builder scaling a tower? Pretty damn annoying.

    There is the argument that something is overpowered. Overpowered mechanics are still mechanics and legal to use. They are in the ruleset but the ruleset failed and created unbalanced parts that are simply BETTER than anything else, thus being "OP".
    In your mind entombing will fall into this category (being "OP"), but if we get right down to it, is it really? Or is it just your feeble mind playing tricks on you?
    Lets make an argument about it. Entombing is a safe slow way to "take" a tower. Its hard to stop an entombers from doing their deed. Knights can't really do anything about it alone (need bomb and the entomber can instantly repair the tiles), Archers can't do a thing about it alone, builders are the only viable choice against it and since builders are evenly matched, it becomes a stalemate with the entomber at least being able to break his way through most of the tower until reaching the outer shell where a friendly builder can counter place bricks or put teambridges ect.
    Main Advantage: Safety and hard to stop. Requiring only a few materials (the wall provides stone itself).
    Main Drawback: Incredibly slow. Puts Builder out of commission completely for the duration.

    Since entombing is essentially a way to "board" a tower or "take" a tower I want to compare it to a different way the builder can do the same (taking a tower): Laddering!
    That most basic way of getting up towers and boarding. So everyone accepts laddering as a "normal" and legitimate way to board a tower. I mean its in the word really... *laddering*. So laddering is cheap and fast, but flimsy. Grants everyone immediatey acess to the top of the tower and beyond. You need to have about 20 wood to have enough ladders for most towers (except if its really high). Its variable, you can ladder around overhangs easily. Ladders will be supported by the enemy walls, making them harder to collapse.
    Obviously while laddering everyone is very vulnerable. Enemy knights can bomb you, fight you outright with deadly drop slashes, or shield bash you down. Archers can hit you with charged shots and make you drop. Enemy builders are not really that useful here, except that they might try to block your acess by making some quick walls or doing block drops downwards to force you off it. In other words a lot can be done. Its risky.
    Main Advantage: Really fast, grants instant access to all your teammates.
    Main Drawback: Really flimsy and risky for the builder and partly for the teammates using it.

    Looking at this comparison you will notice it immediately, they seem theoretically pretty balanced. Now is a question how slow is slow and how fast is fast? While entombing you need to make a "room" for yourself. This will take about the time you would need to make a small ladder tower. Then you start working away on your first block. A block needs 7, slow hits. In this time you could easily place at least 10 ladders. To get through a wall destroying about 6-8 blocks is normal. Meaning you could have attempted to ladder up the place at least maybe 5 times. Once you are through there are no teammates with you except the ones that you took with you. Everyone active on the "entombing" will be out of the game for the next 5-6 minutes. While laddering takes about 20 seconds. To me thats a pretty viable tradeoff. In smaller games especially (if you play 30 vs 30 why would one even argue about balance?).
    There are more ways to scale towers, placing stone steps, making a stairway or similiar things. But this one is the most "basic" for me. Also keep in mind: once the entomber is through and dealed with. Placing 8 stones costs 80 rock and takes about 8 seconds. So the hole he left is not really dangerous (you get the stone from his dead body too).

    So there is actually a downside to entombing. Its not a "kill all" technique. I am not saying it may not be OP, but thats the max that you could feel or say about it. That its OP ... and really annoying, but thats not the point. Things the enemy does to you are allowed to be annoying. Its not supposed to be super great for you looking at some guy eating away at your structure. Its distressing and really annoying to deal with, wasting everyones time.

    Lets look at wallshots... They enable you to shoot through walls. That is it. There is no downside to it. There is no drawback or a balance question. Walls are a natural counter to arrows. Wallshots circumvent this rule to a degree. Sure there are drawbacks internally (just argumenting about the potence of the wallshot, for example, that it only hits close to the wall ect.) but these change nothing about the fact that you can cheat the basic rule that walls stop arrows. Feeling justified in any case to use this against a technique you deem "OP" is simply tricking yourself into seeing yourself as the "good guy". You are someone using an exploit because something the enemy does annoys you. Thats in no way different than making walls uncollapsable. It shouldn't be in the game and if it should be it should be clear that its supposed to be in it. Exploites like that are not really illegal, just frowned upon, because they in fact make people feel like you "cheated them". Which you did in a way. Just know that most everyone (except other users of this little trick) will frown upon you doing it and don't get me wrong, people frown upon entombers too, but for different reasons, they frown upon you for breaking the games rules, they frown at entombers because they are friggin annoying.

    Btw: I never banned or kicked anyone from servers or even frozen them for doing wallshots, heck I seen guards use it against me or others. Exploits are something that any game has to deal with. Punishing everyone for using them helps nothing. It needs to be fixed on the root (the game's code).

    As always have fun. :)
     
  7. Nighthawk

    Nighthawk gaurenteed shitter

    Messages:
    793
    Some particular answers.
    For one, I do not acknowledge that it is "bullshit." I do acknowledge that it is "abuse of a glitch" as I said in the original post. I'm not so naive that I would say it's meant to be in the game. But I also wonder if the devs meant for builders to emtomb themselves against castles, ya know? I can give up using the arrow glitch. But I can't avoid being annoyed at the fact that builders can stick themselves in walls and cause so much trouble just by holding down right click (all the while spamming smiley-face emotes because they know they're going to get away with it).

    This argument is convincing, but stopping an entomber slows your team as well.
    There are several ways to stop an entomber:
    1) Catch up to him with two or more builders. This takes a while and is not likely to succeed without seriously crippling your tower.
    2) Place backwall to support the part of the tower that would fall, and wait for him to finish digging through. This allow him free reign, with which he could possibly escape further into your base, or dig out more of the tower, perhaps moving upward and settling in, even backwalling what he just dug so that he can't be seen, which could pose a serious threat.
    2.5) Do both of the above. This helps, but takes more time, and the entomber will likely still cause a lot of damage.
    3) Stop him before he reaches the tower. This seems like the easiest way, but a committed emtomber will just pick a time when the enemy is distracted and slip in. It's impossible to stop them every time.
    4) Shoot him through a wall. Simple, efficient, and glitch abuse. However, the entomber can avoid this if he gets deep enough into the structure (more than 1 block).

    Just look at what the options are. If there was already a builder 1 tile deep in your wall, what would you do, given these options? If number four was a feature, you'd pick that one right away, correct? That's the issue. The path of least resistance is in fact abuse of a glitch.

    Final Statement (Read this if you want to cut to the chase)

    The majority opinion is obviously "glitch should never be abused" so from this day forth, I will never purposefully use the glitch again. Thank you all for participating in this.

    P.S. I'd really be thankful if you guys could avoid posting and getting pissy with me for trying to counter your arguments. It just makes me continue the argument, which is clearly pointless now, since I won't be using the glitch again. Thank you.

    P.P.S. If you REALLY want to continue to argue with me, please create a private conversation where we may continue.
     
  8. Raron

    Raron KAG Guard Tester

    Messages:
    543
  9. BlueLuigi

    BlueLuigi :^) Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    3,620
    The problem isn't 'A glitch should never be abused', rules for the sake of rules are fucking stupid and I'd never lock myself into one.

    It's stupid because archers are already OP and the actual act itself is way too far out into bullshit territory.
     
  10. Nighthawk

    Nighthawk gaurenteed shitter

    Messages:
    793
    Just like Knight Zeppelin, right? That's the only other glitch that became a cause for ban (although MM thought it was hilarious).
     
    BlueLuigi likes this.
  11. BlueLuigi

    BlueLuigi :^) Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    3,620
    Knight Zeppelin was interesting, very similar yes, I'd agree.

    Was fun but also a bit heh.
     
  12. Drok

    Drok Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    155
    Using a glitch to counter any aspect of gameplay is not right, regardless of whether entombing is fair or not. Extending the same logic, you could say that when a class becomes overpowered for some reason, it is completely reasonable to use hacks to counter it.
    Personally, I agree entombing is annoying. You practically can't counter it because you can't prevent the digger from repairing the wall he left behind him. I'd fix this by removing the repair feature (placing one block over another damaged for half the price). Anyways, for what concerns the use of glitchs, I think there is no justification for using them, and this should be resolved by balance updates, not abusing bugs.
     
    Wyeth likes this.
  13. Mellian-Quar-Xililix

    Mellian-Quar-Xililix Haxor

    Messages:
    177
    I only shoot a guy through the wall when its the end of the game and the builder entombed himself underground to prolong the game needlessly.
     
    Brandon816, Rushtime and Maverick like this.
  14. Maverick

    Maverick Haxor

    Messages:
    352
    Same... I only use it when we've already won and when I'm near the sole enemy builder who decided to completely cover himself with stone.
     
  15. BlueLuigi

    BlueLuigi :^) Forum Moderator Donator Tester

    Messages:
    3,620
    I can finally ban Maverick and be justified, all my yes.
     
  16. thebonesauce

    thebonesauce All life begins and ends with Nu Staff Alumni
    1. MOLEing Over Large Estates - [MOLE]
    2. The Ivory Tower of Grammar-Nazis

    Messages:
    2,554
    Just Saiyan, anyone does this on MOLE, you're out.
     
  17. Spoolooni

    Spoolooni Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    501
    I pretty much use it against entombing players. Why? Probably because it's fucking hilarious that's why.
     
  18. killatron46

    killatron46 Cata Whore Donator
    1. MOLEing Over Large Estates - [MOLE]

    Messages:
    808
    Well, goodbye arrow through wall glitch, it was nice not nice knowing you!
     
    Chinizz likes this.
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