Technicalities of Courier Glitch

[pinheadlarry]

I was recently banned for courier glitch exploit: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=93022&p=369015&hilit=pinheadlarry&sid=c2fd42b855e16d9c84cdb5224d408687#p369015

By no means and I appealing this ban nor am I disputing the ban through this post but am looking for some clarification/discussion.

Here are some questions I am hoping to have clarified for future references for bans:
1. Can a courier be used to scout and collect runes?
2. Can a courier be used to scout and collect runes while knowingly going to cross a patch of mines?
3. Can someone strategically place their hero so that the courier will walk over mines if the "transfer items to hero" button is pressed (How can you prove intent in this case?)

The point of discussion I would like to bring up is, while the courier "glitch" may have never intended to be in this version (not in changelog), I feel it is unfair to make a ban when other glitches are not banned. For example in 6.83 lycan glitches horribly quite often which results in a team going down 4v5 without the benefit of the leaver gold. Technically , playing lycan and having him glitch ruins the game making you a game ruiner for your team, yet it is not banned by ent.

Furthermore, using the courier exploit does not give an unfair advantage against a techies-team in my opinion since you leave your courier vulnerable to being killed while attempting to detonate mines. If a courier is killed, the killing team gets 150g each which is almost as much as a tower and is a huge boost early (normally when land couriers are used anyways before being upgraded).

What do you guys think?

[pinheadlarry]

One more point. In the changelog there was no mention that blademail could no longer return damage from techies mines just like there was no mention of couriers could detonate mines. Doesn't this mean techies mines are actually the root of the glitch and not the courier at which point using techies should be banned by your logic instead of using courier for mines?

[aRt)Y]

> 1. Can a courier be used to scout and collect runes?

Yes.

> 2. Can a courier be used to scout and collect runes while knowingly going to cross a patch of mines?

No. You are purposely exploiting the fact that the courier is immune to mines. Therefore, you abuse a glitch.

> 3. Can someone strategically place their hero so that the courier will walk over mines if the "transfer items to hero" button is pressed (How can you prove intent in this case?)

"strategically" and "intent" kinda mean the same. Moderators arent dumb and can see how you (re)act. However, benefit of the doubt is always given. But (!), I would never recommend gambling ENT's rules as we can make exceptions.

>Technically , playing lycan and having him glitch ruins the game making you a game ruiner for your team, yet it is not banned by ent.

This glitch is unknown to me. Could you please link to the suggestion which was denied to implement a ban for the glitch?

> Furthermore, using the courier exploit does not give an unfair advantage against a techies-team in my opinion since you leave your courier vulnerable to being killed while attempting to detonate mines.

It doesn't matter to ENT whether it is fair or unfair. That judgement is subjective. ENT bans glitches objectively as they were never intended. Whether they are fair or not is really trivial.

> Doesn't this mean techies mines are actually the root of the glitch and not the courier at which point using techies should be banned by your logic instead of using courier for mines?

The missing of information on the changelog (e.g. game mechanics) and actual glitches are two different things. If you can prove to us that the mine code has been altered to allow chickens to be alive, then we can adjust the rule; the result will stay the same tho. Whether techies glitches (fairly) or you exploit it with the chicken (unfairly) makes no difference.

[Hatedmaru]

>Technically , playing lycan and having him glitch ruins the game making you a game ruiner for your team, yet it is not banned by ent.

This glitch is unknown to me. Could you please link to the suggestion which was denied to implement a ban for the glitch?

It's not something that happens frequently, but it's known that sometimes when you die with lycanform active, or even random respawns sometimes (Still not sure what exactly causes the bug, besides dying in lycanform), lycan bugs and you're unable to attack (Attack command gets disabled) - It's not a glitch, but a bug that occurs sometimes, making the team who has lycan, get screwed, cuz lycan won't be able to attack anymore (even if you use manta, bkb or anything, it won't work; so it's gg for lycan when he bugs )

[aRt)Y]

It's not a glitch, but a bug that occurs sometimes, making the team who has lycan, get screwed, cuz lycan won't be able to attack anymore (even if you use manta, bkb or anything, it won't work; so it's gg for lycan when he bugs :P )

Which makes it not ban-able to begin with.

Could be handled as with the bug in Island Defense, the player may appeal and gets appealed if the bug is proven tho by action log.

[pinheadlarry]

Thanks for your clarifications Arty. I kinda disagree with your response to "2. Can a courier be used to scout and collect runes while knowingly going to cross a patch of mines?"

As it basically makes a legal move (collecting a rune with courier) illegal in a techies game which is something I do in almost all of my games with/without techies.

And I am not advocating to ban lycan, I was more trying making a metaphorical counter-argument why the courier gltich just shouldn't be banned.

As for the lycan glitch it's really weird, you lose the ability to go wolf form and once you send a command, you cannot give lycan another command until that command is fully executed. Example would be clicking on a creep, would cause lycan to march and try to kill the creep unit he either kills the creep or the creep dies by something else. Move commands also work the same, if I click on a spot on the map, lycan wont stop until he reaches that point. The "S" and 'H" keys wont stop him either. It happens quite often too, I saw him glitch 3 times last week alone. It only can happen if you die wolf form. I'd say its about a 1/5 chance if die regularly and an 1/2 chance if you die with aegis. If the glitch happens you pretty much have to stay in base or you just march to your death and feed.

Anyways, thanks for responding.

[Larz]

@pinheadlarry easy solution crow the courier and there are no problems.
When a statement is made that you can use the chick to hunt runes you are opening up a can of worms for many players to make excuses on to why the chick was used. As you know we can see everything with our drm. I have had people say it was delivering items a branch per say but the item was never really transferred.

The real problem is in any other dota version the courier does die to mines. So not only can you use the chick to find mines but also tell you where they are not, and to find safe paths which pretty much disables techies.
So to even use a chick to search runes, it becomes up to the mod who reviews the game to make a determination, and any
out of ordinary movements with it will probably end up in a ban.

Now since runes show up every two minutes its kinda hard to use the chick thing as an excuse since you always know when a rune will pop up and it is commonly known that a techies mines runes so this statement.

"> 2. Can a courier be used to scout and collect runes while knowingly going to cross a patch of mines?

No. You are purposely exploiting the fact that the courier is immune to mines. Therefore, you abuse a glitch."
becomes you are technically abusing.

To be safe and not get banned buy wards then you know where the runes are, or crow the chick.
Dont ever leave any rule up to someone else to determine your intentions

[aRt)Y]

@pinheadlarry The entire rules bases on three words "purposely, knowingly and intentionally." If you sent your courier to deliver items or sent the chicken to the rune middle-game without the moderation seeing any pattern of possible exploitation, then you are not guilty and the benefit of the rules yields.

That, however, is judged on a case by case basis.

[balancesheet]

i was banned for this a while back and frankly i still think couriers should be allowed to scout and trigger mines, but ENT disagrees. i think ENT is wrong but my opinion means nothing other than these 2 cents.

[myfirstblood]

If the courier would die when going over mines like it used to, then the play would be perfectly acceptable.

[efko]

Techie is so op here.

[bansheex]

There's no reason to treat courier de-mining as a banworthy exploit. Couriers can be killed for gold, happens all the time. So the risk is self-regulating.

Besides that, it adds another layer of maintenance to ban requests. Admins have enough work banning real problems like griefers and maphackers.

[aRt)Y]

If the courier would die when going over mines like it used to, then the play would be perfectly acceptable.

Correct.

@bansheex So you think buying a courier to counter an entire hero and probably wasting another hero's time for hunting the chicken is fair? I doubt. No one has the time to kill a chicken while the damage it deals far outweights the gain in gold.

[bansheex]

It's difficult for most players to micro a chicken across an entire map without it getting killed. Techies can still control runes for his team and maybe get a chicken kill to boot.

Fact is, it's not some imba counter. It's easy to fail, and if you fail, you're giving the other team more gold than if the trick never existed. It doesn't counter any of his other skills or his ultimate either.

Techies is an annoying SOB, if anything he should be nerfed. I hate how strong his defense is against melee.

[pinheadlarry]

I agree with the point it is easy to kill a land courier. Most heros with boots have no problem catching a land courier if they see a glimpse of it. In the game I lost (which I got banned for), I scouted with my courier to get runes and I had it get killed once in the first 10 mins which gave the other team a huge gold bonus and probably was a major factor as to why we lost that game. It would be just about impossible to try to de-mine a team on their side of the river especially if they ward.

I still really find it frustrating that if I were to ward the river and I see a bounty rune in the river, that I would not be able to collect the rune with my courier if the techies mined under the rune, which normally would be a perfectly legal move in a game without techies. Essentially a game with a techies alters the rules of dota since legal moves (collecting runes) are made illegal.

The bottom line is couriers don't make techies useless. Couriers only void techies first skill which is primarily useful for early-to-mid game. Remote mines are unaffected and they are techies bread-and-butter for the greater part of the game. And as long as the techies mines smartly, even the landmines can still be used effectively by placing them in spots that can be gaurded (close to lanes ect.)