Hi,
I was wondering if anyone could help me out here, someone on an official server has apparently reported me today for building in what they have called a rathole.
My understanding of ratholes is that you need to place a sleeping bag to be able to get into them.
They did not say specifically where it was but all of my places where I have stashed stuff can be climbed into and out of,no need for a sleeping bag.
I have taken screenshots of where I think she meant so I thought I would upload the creenshots here and hopefully get clarification on whether this is classed as a rathole and what exactly is a rathole.
The player that has filed this report is part of a clan that wipe any newcomers so I have been going nomad and they have not been able to find where I have been building.
Not sure the motive but quite happily warned me today for my own good but pictures sent!
This would be my second suspension if suspended for unknowingly building where game allows, but I can see there is no real clarification from Funcom,maybe @Dana could contribute here
If you can walk, climb or crawl into a spot, it’s a legit building area. If Funcom doesn’t want people to build there they can seal off every nook and cranny and fix the map.
Until then, tell those that reported you to pound sand.
I would suggest that ratholing is simply hiding in small cracks, crags, etc.,… it’s also the act of being semi-nomadic, never building a real base that you inhabit. Stealing and grubbing. Even living out of chests.
Unlikely you’ll get clarification from staff in this manner.
The community is divided on this. Some on the side of use it while its available and others who believe that it is an exploit.
I’m on the side of exploit and here’s why: if I cannot determine who lives in there, raid it without extreme, if not exploitative, measures -or- only possible to get into it via bedroll bracelet pulling or pushing into with mechanisms, it’s cheating.
If I can shimmy myself in there via climbing, dropping in or walking: legit. This itself can come with some issues though, there are known undermeshes where you can shimmy in and you are absolutely not supposed to be there. Using sound judgment is best.
Yes they found a stash I had built as a celing base and then proceeded to land claim the crevice to prevent others from building there, the keyhole is their main.
Why is this? Is this not the official forum?
How then should I get clarification on this issue as too whether it is an exploit or not as there is no information regarding this on the official TOC and as you say the community is divided.
I just do not want to get suspended again for something I was unaware of as there is no official guidance on these things, where as I can see from the TOC regarding land claim and such the only time I would get to know is when I am suspended and even then it wont say exactly how and why?
Should I ask Funcom through zen desk report?
Different people have different definitions of what they think rathole means, so rather than trying to discuss definitions there’s only one question that needs to be asked.
Did your location involve meshing (taking advantage of a glitch in the mesh)? It doesn’t matter whether you can place a sleeping bag or build a giant base under the mesh, anything that’s under the top layer of mesh, that takes advantage of meshing in any way, is cheating.
If your location was completely above the mesh, no matter how small it is, then you should have been ok, but any trick that involves taking advantage of mesh issues is a problem.
I am not sure what size my character was I leave it at default settings so it would be the default size.
To enter you climb up to the left then across, and to exit it is the same path but you climb down instead of up, the way to exit is when climbing down use the natural roof and just drop.
I checked the default size for my character and it is midway, I will try different sizes of characters and update you as to whether this has made a difference.
I was looking for places where I could place a few items for when raided to help get me started again.
I just happened one day to pass this and I thought it looked a good spot, I climbed up and across and tried to see if I could build sure enough I could place a pillar then a triangle ceiling, it enabled me to place 3 chest’s, I then retraced my steps out, it was not easy at first but then when I found that all I had to do was climb across and climb down then out it became easy then.
I have no intention of cheating as I have never felt the need to cheat in anything for me it is not worth playing or doing anything if it involves cheating.
I was very suprised when the player seemed to delight in saying pictures gone as I was puzzled as to what they were implying, as to me it was a crack in the natural rock that I could climb in and build.
There are a few other places in the exiles map like this that I have found that enable me to log off in a safe space as no matter what or where I built the offline raiders were always an issue, but this may change now as the last update has nerfed the bombs which is good news for pvp players and very costly for raiders, they have to rethink their whole plan of boom boom.
Understood. My only intent was to communicate the idea of when a rathole really matters because even reasonable people can have different personal definitions of what a rathole is.
People might still report you even if you’re doing things legit, because of course there are always numbskulls who think that it’s fair game to use reporting as a weapon in PvP. But as long as you aren’t doing anything that takes advantage of the mesh, you will still know that you’re doing things honestly.
I guess this is to my point also, everyone has an opionion on this and is divded which is why I feel it would be a good idea if Funcom updated the TOC to demostrate this as to what is and what is not a rathole, and as to whether it is legit to build in these or not, if not as someone mentioned they should close these or make it so that noone can place anything in these spots.
As with the rollback when enough of the community call for something Funcom listen, and from reading alot of the posts on here regarding suspension and bans and the lack of clarity from Funcom regarding the how’s and the why’s a suspension or ban has been enforced maybe they could update the TOC demonstrations to show what is exactly permissable within the spirit of the game.
The examples that they demostrate within the guidelines were published sometime ago and as with all things people find a way of not using as intended maybe by accident or with the intent of cheating, so if Funcom could take some of the examples that they have from the reporting and demonstrate these in an updated TOC and guidelines we would all be clearer in what is allowed and what is not allowed rather than guided by opinions one way or another.
And it always will be, which is part of my point. No matter what FC does with the TOC, including publishing pictures, there will still be different opinions among players about what constitutes a rathole. And no amount of clarification from FC will prevent people from using reporting as a weapon, that happens in every PvP game (and in some games even in PvE). I agree that more clarity is better, at least in theory, but it still won’t stop players from attempting to use the reporting system for shenanigans.
Well… the short version is that none of them are intended, they are all unintentionally created as a result of how the mesh system works in the game engine.
If it’s not obviously a space that was clearly designed by a person to be large enough for players to build then it wasn’t intended to be a place where players can build. A huge part of why this happens is that the way the mesh functions is complicated and it’s quite difficult to make it work everywhere. This happens in other games (like ARK) too, it’s not just FunCom that has to constantly fight this issue. Essentially, all ratholes are an accidental side affect of how the game engine mesh works (or doesn’t work, if you prefer to think of it that way).
There are tens of thousands of spots in the game where the mesh of different objects interacts in ways that can be unpredictable and can cause ratholes to happen in spite of them not being intended. If it was easy, they would have done it a long time ago. It’s simply not possible for the devs to spot them all so they have to depend on player reports to find out where they exist and patch them as they are discovered.
If FC wanted ratholes to exist they wouldn’t keep closing them off.
Thank you for clearing this up regarding ratholes, so essentially they are holes between the mesh, object and texture and not intended for building in.
So I guess if I see these ratholes in future would you suggest I report them using the zendesk feature, would this be the appropiate way to inform Funcom then?
Report them. Look I would tell you that you are in a winning situation here if I was going to lie to you but it appears these a grievers and they probably have multiple alt accounts so even when you win, they will just come in on the alter account. But if you feel up to a fight, report their illegal tactics. Take screenshots of the offense in clouding the name of the clan using the repair hammer and provide screenshots of the map locations. In the report itself, explain the offense and detail the exact TOC line it violates. Make it as airtight as possible. Good luck
many of us solo’s use ratholes like yours to survive. we don’t use the spots you have to place a bedroll in to get into. my guess is you are holding your own against them and they don’t like it so they are threatening you. they found one rathole of yours and now they are scared that you have them all over the map. they are scared that you will pop up every day, blow up something of theirs then disappear until the next day. in the long run a salty solo that knows the map, has a bunch of little stashes, can farm up 100 or so dp a day for hit and run bombing will drive the biggest clans crazy.
but pictures sent!