Posted by pixiestixy on Monday, November 9th, 2009 - 13 Comments
Tags: cross-server lfg, douchebaggery, lfg, naxx, naxxramas, patch 3.3, raid id, raids, stealing raid id
Speaking of douchebaggery on the Khaz Modan server, apparently Alliance aren’t the only ones acting up. While on the same Ventrilo server where an enemy player listened in to my raid group’s precious Wintergrasp tactics, another interesting topic came up: the stealing of raid IDs.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard anyone mention stealing raid IDs. I assumed the practice had at least waned a bit ever since a blue post announced last year that the practice is now considered a reportable offense.
For anyone unfamiliar, the stealing of a raid ID is basically when another player (and whoever else he invites along) is able to gain access to the hard work that someone else already has put into a raid.
Let’s use Naxxramas as an example. Say Guild A already has run through the Arachnid, Plague and Military quarters of the instance, leaving only the Construct quarter to finish later in the week before they can unlock the Frostwyrm Lair. (The new Patch 3.3 PTR patch notes state that players will no longer have to unlock the other quarters to get to the lair, but as an example let’s keep this rolling.)
Then, there’s Guild B, who also wants to run Naxx — as quickly as possible. Somehow, through trade chat, whispers or possibly even a planted mole, they find out that Guild A is already 3/4 of the way through the raid. They form a group for a 5-man instance and invite along a member of Guild A. But actually, the other four members are waiting outside of Naxx.
The actual “steal” happens very quickly. Guild A member accepts the group invite, then immediately Guild B changes the group to a Raid and promotes the Guild A member to leader. The other four Guild B members run into Naxx and are asked whether they want to be saved to the group leader’s instance. They all click “yes.” The group is disbanded, and Guild B invites their friends to partake in the last quarter of Naxx. Guild A, on the other hand, loses its progression in the instance and has to start from scratch after the raid lockout period ends.
I explain the practice not so that you can go and use it (please don’t be a douchebag - I’d put this behavior several notches worse than spying on the other side for your own advantage.) Instead, use the information to be smart about who you group with or, in this case, don’t group with, especially when you’re saved to a partially-completed instance. And also don’t go announcing that you’re half-way through an instance when someone may try to take advantage of that. And if, for some reason, you find yourself leader of a raid group that you thought was a 5-man PUG, GTFO. Fast.
Unfortunately, it looks like the practice is alive and kicking, at least on my server. The good news is that everyone who was in on that vent discussion now knows which guild is guilty of the practice. You can’t be a douchebag for long before people spread the word and exclude you from groups.
But all this got me a little worried about the new cross-realm LFG system getting ready to roll out in Patch 3.3. So far, it looks like the cross-realm LFG will only be for 5-man dungeons, and not 10- or 25-man raids. Things could get really sticky if the cross-realm system also is available for raids, introducing a whole host of potential challenges, not in the least being the systematic stealing of raid IDs. Beware!
Has anyone else come across this trickery as of late? Who else things the Raid ID system needs some kind of overhaul to prevent the systematic stealing of others’ progression? With the changes already coming to LFG, perhaps now is the perfect time for Blizz to tackle the issue.
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By Naturàl on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 8:13 am
It really sucks that people do such things
By Rogue4Life on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 8:36 am
wow, i had never heard of that before. thanks the details. the vent trick was a little interesting, i am sure that happens a lot more often. What is funny is that once you all went quiet and started typing that the “spy” happily took your word when you started talking again. /failspy for not seeing that coming.
it is amazing what people will do in this game and how long it is exploited before Blizz does something. Then after a “fix” people look to see how they can continue to “cheat” to get ahead.
the horde on our server like to cheat WG. I don’t know the entire specifics, but it seems they group up, go to WG and log out just before it starts. Wait for it to start (I imagine someone is logged in to tell them when to come in) then they sign on, destroy/capture the spot for vehicles and practically start with all the rides and come storming the gates. Again, I am not sure if this is exactly how it is done, but when the horde take WG within 4 minutes, WG looses interest really fast.
By candy on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 8:53 am
You also have the incidents of the forgetful raid member. They can’t remember they are already saved to your partially completed instance. Or they go and get themselves saved to a partially completed instance and show up for their scheduled raid. The headaches those folks cause are similarly annoying. I wish I could think of a solution to this annoying problem, but I really can’t.
Also, I thought they were planning to have cross-realm LFG extend to raids?
By PatrickD on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Would this work if the Group A member was some lowly newbie who grouped with a Group B member to run Deadmines and was never in the Naxx raid to begin with? If this can be done with ANY guild member regardless of level, this is a HUGE flaw! …because it wouldn’t take much for Group B to join Group A’s guild with a level 10 character and then exploit this without anyone in Group A realizing what’s going on.
By Phanttas on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 9:08 am
A few times when I have been in a group of guildies organizing an Uld 10 group where I am the only one who extended the ID from the previous week, and someone else invited me to their group. If they put me as the leader after we have finished invites, I need to invite everyone to a new group where I start as the leader or they don’t get the opportunity to save to my instance. I had previously thought that this might have been just an annoying thing that Blizzard needed to change, but maybe it was a fix for ID stealing.
Anyone else had this happen? If so, did you actually get any first hand accounts of the incident Pixie, or is there a chance it was a mistake?
If it did happen, those involved really are douches. =\
By Phanttas on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 9:14 am
@ PatrickD that wouldn’t work because of a few reasons.
1. I doubt that a random lvl 10 could get into the guild (it would depend on the guild though)
2. The guild doesn’t get saved, it is only people in the instance, which brings me onto…
3. A level 10 is unable to enter level 80 instances like Naxxramas.
Pixiestixy was just using guilds in the example because they tend to raid together. I’m presuming you are new to the game, because I think most level 80s should know that. If so, good luck on the grind up.
By chimpski on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Great post!
I think its really complicated because the DB’s are exploiting something that has to be in the game. You have to allow players to join an instance in progress, you have save them to that instance, you have to let be able to run it even if the leader isn’t there (you can’t have a whole raid waiting/depending on one player).
The cross realm thing is neat. If they implement it for raids how are you gonna get the same group again to keep going later? I think a good idea would be to make the raid Id’s realm specific, so that a cross realm team only gets saved to their own realms instance.
Neat!
By Gregothegrey on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I didnt realize you play on Khaz Modan. I have heard about it alot there but I have never actually seen it done to me or any of my friends on Khaz Modan.
By Heartbourne on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Back in the day, my progression guild did this. The system was different back then, but we’d be able to run MC multiple times a week.
By Spikolie on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
i would say that there should be a “accept leader position” option in this case. so that the other person would have to accept the lead instead of just automatically changing… also a nice warning would be nice to warn party members that the group was being turned into a raid…
is there an addon that can do this?
By Displace on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I agree with Spikolie. Having to accept raid leader responsiblility would be a great feature.
I have ran in a few raids where someone randomly passes raid lead and the new raid leader is clueless that it happened.
By Ombrenoire on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 7:37 am
This had happened to a friendly if not small raid group a few weeks back. We had formed up to do a qick old world MC run for the achievement, but lost too many gamers to RL on Rag that we disbanded for the night to come back the next day.
We came back only to find the instance completely cleared.
We later found out that a rather impatient and beligerant player from the previous night had swiped out raid and completed it later in the night with another group.
It would be nice for Blizzard to set something up to warn a raid with the same ID that the instance has been cleared somehow. A raid message or something as you come in. It wouls save time.
By cocopuff on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 11:24 am
rogue4life@ thats not exactly how it works the horde actualy log out right before end of the battle or during the battle with their rank and then in 2 adn half hours or so (depending when they log out) at the begging of battle they log on with their rank and charge towards an allready caped workshop and ta da they have 16 vehicles from the begining of the battle and alliance has non