Abilities triggered by movement possibly bugged/exploited/working as intended?

[Skullgrin]

Ok, this may open a whole can of worms, however I've run into a few situations over the past couple of days that have me wondering about how some game mechanics are intended to work. I have three main situations that I have encountered, and as the subject states, was wondering what category each would fall under and what can be done to report if they are considered to be an exploit.

1. The first situation seems to happen most often in Thunder Mountain, due to the prevalence of cliff tops being the dominant landscape. Often during fights against opponents that have a self-punt ability I have found that they are positioning themselves near a cliff edge, and using the punt to launch themselves off the cliff if they start losing the fight. They take no falling damage (is this a bug?) and escape the fight. To my mind this is exploiting game mechanics to their gain, and wonder if this is a punishable (if minor) offense. If it is a bug is there a possible fix for it, or are we just stuck with it for the time being?

2. The second situation I've encountered recently involves the White Lion abilities Fetch & Pounce. There used to be a problem where Fetch could be used to basically pop the target straight up in the air, taking the target out of the fight for a few seconds, while still being able to be damaged (giving the White Lion an advantage in the fight). I thought that it was patched a while back by adding a minimum range to fetch. However in the last two days I have had what looks like the old bug used against me on three separate occasions, all by the same White Lion. When we are in combat he moves away from me, and at a certain distance he pounces toward me at the same time that Fetch seems to be triggered - popping me straight up in the air. The first time it happened I thought it was a visual bug - the server had been acting wonky that evening. I encountered the same White Lion later that evening and he performed the same move with the same result. I tried to contact a GM, however none were on. The next night I encountered the same White Lion several times, once solo and several times in groups. The one solo encounter I had he did the same maneuver (with the same result) but when he was in a group he never tried using it. So my question is, is this an exploit (since I haven't seen any other Lions using it), a bug with the abilities, or a server lag problem? Please note that this is not a complaint against White Lions, as I defeated him 2 out of the 3 times we met in solo combat.

3. My final situation involves the Chosen ability Touch of Palsy (A DoT that damages the target every half second they are moving). I found recently that if you have Touch of Palsy applied and the punt your target away, it damages them while they are flying through the air. Is this the intended behavior of the ability or a bug? Or even worse an exploit? I first discovered it when punting an Engineer away from his healing keg, however can see that it could be used in other situations that might be considered a borderline exploit.

So, there are the situations I have found myself wondering about. Any thoughts, GM rulings or discussion about whether these are bugs or not would be welcome, because I really don't know how they should be classified.

[Foomy44]

I think you're being pretty loose with the term exploit here.

For 1, if that was an exploit you'd have to ban half the players in the game with a self punt. It's also insanely easy to predict and avoid, just don't get in melee range with someone who's losing a fight and standing on the edge of a cliff. Far as I know all self punts require an enemy target to be in melee range.

For 2 I'm not sure what the benefit of that combo is. If I'm reading correctly, he is walking out of melee range so that he can pounce back into melee range? What's exploity about that? He's putting his gap closer and his pull on CD, blowing AP on moves that do no/subpar damage for their AP compared to others, losing at least an autoattack or more by running out of melee range when he's already on you, granting immunity, all for 2-3 more seconds of CC? Maybe I'm not understanding this one correctly or fully seeing the benefit.

For 3 honestly so what, a few extra ticks of palsy is not a huge deal. I think that's a pretty clever combo to extend the duration of it on someone smart enough to stand still but it still gives them immunity and forces you to punt them outta your melee range which is not something you're always gonna wanna do when you just palsy'd them during a chase. If devs wanna change the way that works I see no problem either way, but doesn't really seem powerful enough or so obviously unintented as to be a bannable exploit IMO.

I'd like to believe self punt fall damage is gonna get fixed come client control, but as is that's just the way they work, no point in punishing people for playing their class smart. The rest I really don't see an issue with at all.

[Coma]

Ok, this may open a whole can of worms, however I've run into a few situations over the past couple of days that have me wondering about how some game mechanics are intended to work. I have three main situations that I have encountered, and as the subject states, was wondering what category each would fall under and what can be done to report if they are considered to be an exploit.

1. The first situation seems to happen most often in Thunder Mountain, due to the prevalence of cliff tops being the dominant landscape. Often during fights against opponents that have a self-punt ability I have found that they are positioning themselves near a cliff edge, and using the punt to launch themselves off the cliff if they start losing the fight. They take no falling damage (is this a bug?) and escape the fight. To my mind this is exploiting game mechanics to their gain, and wonder if this is a punishable (if minor) offense. If it is a bug is there a possible fix for it, or are we just stuck with it for the time being?

2. The second situation I've encountered recently involves the White Lion abilities Fetch & Pounce. There used to be a problem where Fetch could be used to basically pop the target straight up in the air, taking the target out of the fight for a few seconds, while still being able to be damaged (giving the White Lion an advantage in the fight). I thought that it was patched a while back by adding a minimum range to fetch. However in the last two days I have had what looks like the old bug used against me on three separate occasions, all by the same White Lion. When we are in combat he moves away from me, and at a certain distance he pounces toward me at the same time that Fetch seems to be triggered - popping me straight up in the air. The first time it happened I thought it was a visual bug - the server had been acting wonky that evening. I encountered the same White Lion later that evening and he performed the same move with the same result. I tried to contact a GM, however none were on. The next night I encountered the same White Lion several times, once solo and several times in groups. The one solo encounter I had he did the same maneuver (with the same result) but when he was in a group he never tried using it. So my question is, is this an exploit (since I haven't seen any other Lions using it), a bug with the abilities, or a server lag problem? Please note that this is not a complaint against White Lions, as I defeated him 2 out of the 3 times we met in solo combat.

3. My final situation involves the Chosen ability Touch of Palsy (A DoT that damages the target every half second they are moving). I found recently that if you have Touch of Palsy applied and the punt your target away, it damages them while they are flying through the air. Is this the intended behavior of the ability or a bug? Or even worse an exploit? I first discovered it when punting an Engineer away from his healing keg, however can see that it could be used in other situations that might be considered a borderline exploit.

So, there are the situations I have found myself wondering about. Any thoughts, GM rulings or discussion about whether these are bugs or not would be welcome, because I really don't know how they should be classified.

1) been like that since live... punt and pull (from other or self) don' cause fall damage (mostly done in order to avoid tank oneshotting people by punting them down a cliff ^^')... as for positioning yourself on a cliff in order to self punt for an easy escape... I wouldn't consider it an exploit as much as I woulnd't consider an exploit a tank pushing an healer down from a cliff simply to put him out of healing range of his party ^^

2) id I understand it well, this WL is using the slight server lag+punce to avoid the restriction on fetch minimum range in order to recreate the KD+Fetch 6 sec CC... is fo than yes... it should be accounted as an exploit since he is (voluntary based on the fact that the same player have done it multiple time and there is really no other reason to step back and pounch) exploiting the server lag to to circunvent a minimum range implemented to avoid that exact skill behavior

3) not sure about this... I wouldn't consider it an exploit... but rather a bug (based on skill destription I can't see forced movement as "intended" to proc the damage)... except I don't think is a bug that can easily be fixed, at the same time formibidding a simple skill chain (touch of palsy+ push) that is actualy quite usefull aside from this specific behavior (pushing away the healer from the guard and having him take damage to get back) by calling it bug abusing (and thus exploit) seem wrong...


PS: I actualy have a fun memory of the push/pull mechanics and cliff from live... a magus got pushed from the bridge to PE in DW... while in air the magus used rift (on live you could cast whil in air without problem), the result was that the magus landed without problem due to the no fall damage from push... the order players pulled by the rift on the other end died due to fall damage becaous the effect of the forced movement finished the moment they reached the magus position in midair... from there to the ground it was just a normal fall ^^'

[darude83]

WP to the WL i say. He must have a blast reading this

[Toldavf]

I have noticed number one. It kinda works both ways some times you take nothing some times you just instantly die from the slightest fall.

[dansari]

1. Intended, not bug/exploit
2. Intentional workaround
3. Potential bug

[Darosh]

3. Potential bug

You can perceive a similar behaviour on NPCs ~ even though it seems to be a 50/50 chance and in these instances more or less intended, movement-dependent abilities tick through (more often than not faster than they would normally) if a NPC stands still; e.g.: IB's Punishing Blow basically completly obliberates NPCs.

So... I'd personally scrap 'potential'.

Abbd.:
Note: I do equate 'forced movement' (as per OP) and ticks on it to ticks on still-standing NPCs here. Its a major stretch, yes, but meh, you get the point.

[Smellybelly]

ToP hit for what..70 dmg per proc if you have 700+ strenght?

[dansari]

ToP hit for what..70 dmg per proc if you have 700+ strenght?

Doesn't mean it's not a bug.

[Darosh]

ToP hit for what..70 dmg per proc if you have 700+ strenght?

Gork Sez Stop + Superpunt off a cliff, as Dan' said: a bug is a bug.