The end of ITH items

Subject:
From:
Date:
Simple fixes to outlandish hacks. Be calm.
SilverDeth-II
Thu Oct 3 13:46:32


Ok yes, people are making crazy sh*t at the moment. About a week
ago, some of the cheaters I spy on started poping up with
swordguard belts, absurd charms, and shaftstop boots. Blizzard has
the method they are using to pull this item bugging off, I was one
of the people that sent it to them so calm down. The universe is
not ending. This junk can be very easily controlled.

How?

Again, before you burst an artery, all they have to do is assign a
maximum integer value to the global buffs that a character recieves
from equipment, and also cap how much one specific object can
contribute towards that final hard caps based on the best legit
gear in the game - problem solved, and not very difficult to do
within the existing game archetecture. Righ now you already get
diminishing returns off most magical item properties. They simply
have to add a hard cap. You already canot go over a few set
integers, like physical resistance, and magical resistance. Faster
hit recovery and faster attack speed and magic find already get
nailed by such sever diminishing returns that after a point it's
simply does nothing to have "more of it."

Fixing this is very simple, and can easily be integreated into
1.10.

- Introduce an absolute maximum to every attribute - energy,
vitality, strength and dextarity. Perhaps 300 or so.

- Introduce an absolute maximum that a single item can add to each
attribute - based on the best real legit item of tha class. For
example, no ring will be able to add more than resistance, mana, or
plus to skills than the best prefixes or suffixes (or uniques) that
occure naturally. The description may READ 255% resist all,
but the ring will only provide the equivelent of 15% resist
all, because of the hard caps on what a single item can add.

-Introduce a maximum hard cap, based on character class, and also
capped on a per item basis, to the following mods:
A: + to skills
B: + to life
C: + to mana
D: FHR
E: IAS
F: Deadly strike
G: Crushing Blow
H: Magic Find
I: Elemental damage.
J: % to Maximum Damage.
K: % to Minimum Damage.
L: + to max damage
M: + to minimum damage.
O: A hard cap on # if suffixes.
P: A hard cap on the # of prefixes.
Q: A had cap on absorbtion.

So, it is a relatively simple matter to make these things pretty
pointless - you simply examine what the best sets of unique gear
can accomplish, and set the specific item caps, as well as the stat
hard caps at what can legitly be accomplished.

End result - they are no better off than the person using the best
legit stuff. So simply setting a maximum value to every mod in the
game - based on item, (it can be done globally, so not so
difficult), and suddenly all the cheaters are just waisting their
time.

Another solution is to roll this back 2 weeks. It's been going on
for about that long, but of course, we never saw a serious problem
until our grease monkey cheaters, in an effort to garner some badly
needed attention - released the method they are uysing to create
these item publically - along with a new dupe method. So you are
seeing a double whammy here. You have both items being created,
and less technically adept cheaters duping them like crazy to fuel
ebay stock piles.

So, by changing a few global varibles, and introducing an absolute
maximum value, based on each item, this value of these cheats can
be negated - why go tot he trouble and expense of buying a cheat,
when you will not be able to exceed the hardcaps based of what
already exists?

It's that, or two less palitable options - i.e. clearing the item
database of everything generated in the last two weeks, or a
character rollback 2 weeks.

The latter two would be by far the the easiest to implement, but
the least palitable to the playerbase.

Frankly, any of the three options would be acceptable to me, even
though it would cost my wirt's leg the cham I just got in it. (Yes
you heard me correctly - the leg has zod, cham, and will soon have
jah - consider it my "political" statement.)

So everybody... breath deeply. Calm down. Not the end of the
world. Has the status quo drastically changed? Can someone using
non dupes, non iths beat a cheater in a duel now? Rarely if at
all.

I see nothing as having changed. They are already to the point
the hardest monsers in the game melt in front of them. People not
using ITH's and dupes get clubbed stupid in dueling and pk
situations right now - nothing drastic will change with this new
crap. Just the same old same old - the good players will continue
to look down on the less skilled in cheated gear, (rightly so), the
cheaters with thier amusing little inferiority complexes will still
continue to delude themselves into thinking they are skilled
because th3y @r3 008er.

Just another day on the battle.net.

Vai Victus


No that isn't me. But he is right, all the happy godly crap can be removed, BUT, there are some drawbacks to what he said. It is indeed possible to get over 300 of a stat without cheating (druids can easily get over 300 strength np), but most of all, thanks to the pinheads who created this last mess, ITH and all the insane stat items will be rendered useless.

BTW, did I mention I want to stab the people in the l337 hacking forum? You evil people hogging the method, and then causing the rest of us to lose our nice bugged items. Screw you all to hell! Ahem, anyways just wanted to let you guys know this.