Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Cerious101
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Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by Cerious101 »

Is this a new tool or option?
I've noticed over a space of several weeks CMW servers showing 10-15 players more then it really has.
Now I know what you are thinking it is joins that have not shown up yet, this is not the case.

The real numbers can be found here http://www.cmwadmin.com/dashboard

The inflated numbers are shown on Battlelog--http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/se ... mc-max=500

Please look for yourself, and not just once look over a long time and you can see that there servers are befitting from these inflated numbers. They start and fill faster because of it, especially with the ddoses and regular Blaze drops.
Is this a violation of EA's ranked servers TOS?
If not, please share the trick.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by Cerious101 »

BTW This not seeders using a chrome addon, it some other kind of exploit.
When other servers a starting up even with seeder they are at a disadvantage. CMW has 6-8 people seeding, so with that the server they are concentrating on has 16-18 players right off the bat, all there other servers show 10 players so traffic gos to them.
So all other HC servers are screwed till later in the day.
I never contacted them but, IAF has to be wondering what happened to there AM server traffic. I can show them what happened and prove it.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by TacTicToe »

Whether it is an exploit or not, is irrelevant. EA has done nothing to enforce their own TOS and RoC since as far back as BF2. So if you are hoping they will do something, don't hold your breath.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by kraze »

We looked into this and it appears to be a game bug. I imagine it's something we'll pass along to Dice.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by FAST »

There is nothing violating about what these servers do. This has been available and common since BF2.

We've also done this in BF2/2142

The trick? It's script to put your characters in the server without the need to actually click mouse button. They are real players and real accounts. If you know coding it shouldn't be a problem
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by Cerious101 »

FAST wrote:There is nothing violating about what these servers do. This has been available and common since BF2.

We've also done this in BF2/2142

The trick? It's script to put your characters in the server without the need to actually click mouse button. They are real players and real accounts. If you know coding it shouldn't be a problem

.

"BTW This not seeders using a chrome addon, it some other kind of exploit.
When other servers a starting up even with seeder they are at a disadvantage. CMW has 6-8 people seeding, so with that the server they are concentrating on has 16-18 players right off the bat, all there other servers show 10 players so traffic gos to them.
"

We've used and still use those types of scripts, hell when OscarMikes stop supporting what is now a Chrome extension, we coded our own. We have more then one member in the top 1% of "rounds played" that haven't fired more then a shot in months. We even seed another Communities servers as a kind of on going "Thank you" for the help and support they have shown us.
Seeding we understand and believe in. It is one of the advantages of a Community and a way for our members to contribute.

This is not what I'm talking about at all. It's not a bug either, at lest not in the conventional way. To say it is a bug almost seems to imply it is incidental, or even passive. This is not, it is a deliberate and concerted effort.

I'm not saying they are necessarily malicious about it either, they are just populating there servers. It just so happens to impact other servers.

I'm saying they are using an exploit that causes "serverinfo" to return the wrong information.

Instead of showing 10 players , it is showing 20 player on the Server Browsers. That may not seem like a big difference, but that is huge when Battlelog (and in turn Blaze) is coming back on line after maintenance.
After down time is huge, but it is nothing compared to the daily effect.
When servers begin to wind down in the early AM the end of round drops get bigger and bigger, this is normal. New players tend to join the more populated servers, so it's kind of a roll of the dice more or less. One bad round and your the low population server, come AM your server is empty. Like I said this is natural with some servers.
I should also reiterate that these are Hardcore servers and the pool of players is smaller. Being in a smaller pool means it easier to see and know your competition.

We have one 24/7 map server that runs nearly 24/7 and so does the competition, same basic rule set and settings. But like I said "nearly 24/7", in the AM when the server begins to populate it is either them or us that fill up. Once and awhile we split the players, but usually it is "them or us". That is natural, and it's just health competition.

Our primary BF4 server runs full 24/7 with few exceptions since the game was released, there are a only a handful of servers that compare. Same rules, maps and setting, apples to apples. The cycles of our servers are pretty consistent. So when that starts to change, at lest in our case, I notice and try to figure out why.

In some cases, it's a rouge/new/bad admin, trolls, balancer issue or map rotation. Maybe it's need "repair" on the server or a PROCON plug-in gone screwy. Or the dreaded hack, ddos, etc. But one way or another you can usually find a cause if look hard enough.

In the case of our primary server we began to notice a small drop in population during the mornings once and a while. Not empty by any means, just off from its pattern of being full 24/7 since BF4 came out. And not all at once like one of our DLC servers that dropped straight off a cliff. So with that and the usual issues I didn't really look into what was going on with our primary server at first. It wasn't the biggest fire I had and I was trying to figure out what was wrong with the DLC server. Little did I know they were related.

Once I did it became very clear that what ever was effecting it was also devastating IAF's #2's AM server traffic. Instead of starting up 8ish- 9ish daily it was not getting started till 1PM to maybe 3, one hell of a difference in the space of a month. Our regulars, size and the fact that is our number one priority insulated our server so it was still filling, IAF's #2 server wasn't so lucky.

It is not an easy thing to catch at first, you have to catch them when the servers are low in population and stable. That is usually in the early AM or after a EA/Dice maintenance or massive Blaze event, once again usually in the early AM. Once the flow of new players has slowed it becomes clear. This is not seeders, I can account for them, it's not players joining the server, it something else. Plus they do it on 5-6 servers at once, that would take 50-60 seeders to do that, they have 8 tops.
I've been watching it for over two weeks, a couple of days ago had some good examples to provide so I put in a Ticket to NFO.
Charlie was able to catch it and replied "I will pass this information along to our CEO. It appears that the player slot numbers are returning correctly, but the number reported by the "serverInfo" command is incorrect."

I have not heard back from John yet, but hell I know he's a busy man. I myself have two replies to him that are weeks old that I have not yet finished, so I get it. Also if you have run EA/Dice ranked servers for any amount of time you know that getting them to anything can be "problematic at best".

This maybe a thorn in our side and hurt our over all traffic but in no way will it kill our servers. Nor will it kill the enjoyment we get from the game. We've been around since 2006 and are easily 250+ active members we will be fine. Smaller outfits, or ones that don't have the resources to combat this (or even know what is going on for that matter) probably won't fair so well.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by FAST »

They are real accounts, paid to EA, opened up brand new origin accounts and using a script to autojoin.

They paid EA a lot of money by doing this buying BF4 multiple times.

I understand what you are saying but they aren't breaking any rules. If you run a good server you will do just fine.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by Cerious101 »

FAST wrote:They are real accounts, paid to EA, opened up brand new origin accounts and using a script to autojoin.

They paid EA a lot of money by doing this buying BF4 multiple times.

I understand what you are saying but they aren't breaking any rules. If you run a good server you will do just fine.

No they are not.

NFO Staff stated.... "I will pass this information along to our CEO. It appears that the player slot numbers are returning correctly, but the number reported by the "serverInfo" command is incorrect."

I'm not trying to be rude, I understand and have read what you have posted, please don't troll this thread. This is not about seeders.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by FAST »

Not trolling. I am well familiar with it's use.

Yes it isn't reporting correctly because their idlers never actually join in game so it reports incorrect data. They are stuck on the loading screen in battlelog, rinse and repeat with a script. This is how battlelog authentication works and so does BF3. When you click join server it automatically puts a player count in there but you actually never join until a minute later.

Clearly you should be dealing with this via support ticket like you said and you did. So I am not sure why a thread was created. I really doubt EA will do anything about this. This approach was very common in bf2/2142 for years. They were well aware of it.

This thread should be locked in my opinion.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by Cerious101 »

FAST wrote:Not trolling. I am well familiar with it's use.

Yes it isn't reporting correctly because their idlers never actually join in game so it reports incorrect data. They are stuck on the loading screen in battlelog, rinse and repeat with a script. This is how battlelog authentication works and so does BF3. When you click join server it automatically puts a player count in there but you actually never join until a minute later.

Clearly you should be dealing with this via support ticket like you said and you did. So I am not sure why a thread was created. I really doubt EA will do anything about this. This approach was very common in bf2/2142 for years. They were well aware of it.

This thread should be locked in my opinion.

I acknowledge you don't agree with my assessment. I believe your wrong, but thank you for your opinion.
We used those type of scripts in BF2 and 3 I know what they are and how they work, this is not the same.
Just because you don't like this being discussed doesn't make the conversation invalid. If you believe the conversation should be locked, I assume you have no more reason to post in this thread.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by FAST »

Let me get this straight
You claimed you used the same type of concept (same objective) they are using in bf2 and bf3.

Now that you dont have access to it, you start to complain?
Okay buddy


And the server you mentioned appear normal to me I just checked.
I'm done with this good luck with EA
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by Cerious101 »

FAST wrote:Let me get this straight
You claimed you used the same type of concept (same objective) they are using in bf2 and bf3.

Now that you dont have access to it, you start to complain?
Okay buddy


And the server you mentioned appear normal to me I just checked.
I'm done with this good luck with EA

Wow, your getting mad about this. It was clear as day 20 mins ago, so if you just checked you don't know what you are looking for or what you are talking about.
Just let it go and let the rest of us discuss it, we don't need the drama and you are not offering anything but your own confusion and conflict.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by ADKGamers »

So I know I'm late to this party but enjoyed reading this topic.

I have to say that this isn't violating anything, rather just using Battlelog to their advantage. You have to connect to battlelog in order to get into the server. Since you connect through battlelog it puts you in the server even when you aren't there yet.

As much as you think FAST is trolling you, he actually isn't. He is correct that they are just using a script and unless EA/DICE changes the way they call the number of players in a server it's still going to be there. And honestly, I think that'd be last on the plate for EA/DICE right now.

So let's focus on things that mean something to the entire community like a better Blaze backend, memory leak fixes, a game that isn't in Beta (although this last patch fixed a lot of things), and just better communication from EA/DICE about what goes on in server patches. Preferably like right when they release a patch.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by FAST »

Hey Adk, hope all is well.

I decided not to "troll" anymore because this guy just doesn't get it and I could not convince him. He admitted to having similar in bf2 but all pissy because he doesn't have it now. Funny thing is, it is not a violation. Legal

Thanks for your feedback.

Like I said before, I can guarantee you, they actually paid for these accounts. There is no other workaround. Get some knowledge in coding/scripting buy some Bf4 accounts cost you in 100+ $. Problem solved. Hint: BF4 was briefly free for the weekend right? Bf4 was on sale for cheaper price? Perfect time to get accounts.

This is normal authentication protocol for battelog. Nothing anyone can do. They would have to rewrite the entire authentication process for battlelog which they will not do.
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Re: Inflating player count on Ranked servers.

Post by Cerious101 »

FAST wrote:Hey Adk, hope all is well.

I decided not to "troll" anymore because this guy just doesn't get it and I could not convince him. He admitted to having similar in bf2 but all pissy because he doesn't have it now. Funny thing is, it is not a violation. Legal

Thanks for your feedback.

Like I said before, I can guarantee you, they actually paid for these accounts. There is no other workaround. Get some knowledge in coding/scripting buy some Bf4 accounts cost you in 100+ $. Problem solved. Hint: BF4 was briefly free for the weekend right? Bf4 was on sale for cheaper price? Perfect time to get accounts.

This is normal authentication protocol for battelog. Nothing anyone can do. They would have to rewrite the entire authentication process for battlelog which they will not do.
I NEVER said we had "similar in bf2 but all pissy because he doesn't have it now". I said we have used seeders since then. And being "pissy" [sic] is you own interpretation and inflection.
It is funny how anytime anyone refutes what another says, or is passionate about the issue they are "pissy" or mad. That is just a technique use to nullify another point of view. Good luck.

And really why did you even drop in on this thread FAST? You added input and then continued to espouse things you know nothing about. Do you even run a BF4 server? Do players frequent it or is it empty 23hrs a day?
If so, I don't think your "opinion" hold any water.



It's all just semantics anyway.

Yes, it is a script or a service running some type of script that causes the "serverinfo" command to return the WRONG information.

No, it is not player accounts.

No, it is not done with seeders, those are real accounts and show up on battlelog.

No it is not "joins" in the neutral section.

And yes, this why EA continues to ignore us, we shit all over anything of relevance that we don't understand and squabble till the subject is completely off track.

Like I said, "This maybe a thorn in our side and hurt our over all traffic but in no way will it kill our servers. Nor will it kill the enjoyment we get from the game. We've been around since 2006 and are easily 250+ active members we will be fine. Smaller outfits, or ones that don't have the resources to combat this (or even know what is going on for that matter) probably won't fair so well."

Oh well, think what you will, I tried, it's not killing us.
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