Attention C&C 3 community,
The 242nd Suicide Kings, (led by me, TheGunrun, creator of Zero Hour Retarded) would like to inform you all of an exploit in the game that threatens to render the multiplayer portion of the game almost unplayable. The exploit was used on us by a malicious player named {SGAW}_Orion in a ranked game, directly turning our probable victory into an overwhelming defeat (see replay here Moddb.com and pay attention how buildings such as power plants and cranes popped up in locations other than where the affected players were looking at the time – thereby proving foul play. You can open the replay file with notepad to verify the names of the replay’s participants). After the game my clan mates (MaximumNewbage and Yuriman18) and I experimented with the game to try and figure out the parameters of it and the extent to which it can be employed. We have collectively drafted this post to describe in detail what we know so far:
What sort of exploit is it? – It is a glitch in the game that allows spectators to build buildings for any player in-game
What are the implications of the exploit?
You can have a observer join the game with you and either spam useless buildings for the enemy, thereby tying up his build que, making him underpowered, AND totally destroying his economy
OR
You can have the spectator build your base for you while you are off commanding a battle (less of an advantage but an unfair one nonetheless)
No big deal right? I mean you can always just refuse to ready-up if there’s an observer in the game right? Wrong my friends. The reason for this is because YOU BECOME AN OBSERVER WHEN YOU ARE DEFEATED. In this way, people can turn the tides of team battles and completely alter the game’s balance and mechanics even without especially joining the game as an observer..
Mechanics of this exploit (as discovered so far):
Essentially, as an observer, one changes perspective to that of the desired player (i.e. so that the fog of war only shows what that one player sees to the exclusion of the rest of the map).
Then simply open the construction tab and USE THE F-KEYS to control the build queues of that person (It only works on buildings, not units).
The person can build multiple cranes (using the f keys to select and build and the mouse to place the structure) and then use the same method in conjunction with the tab key to cycle between construction queues and reap even more econ damage.
The buildings can be placed anywhere within the player’s build radii regardless of where the player is actually looking at the time. If the player tries to cancel a building to try to build one of his own choice, the observer can simply spam the fkeys to withhold control of the queue from him. Unless he feels like wrestling for build queue control for the entire game, the only way for him to prevent the economic damage is to sell his building construction capabilities (needless to say that is a highly unfavorable option).
have you posted on the official forums?
There are foul play! can you counter this problem by changing hotkey?