Tree of Savior Forum

Repercussions of the Telsiai/Varena Merger: The Timing Bug

Ever since the Telsiai/Varena server merge, the Telsiai server has been plagued with a bug that remains unresolved for 2 years, constantly screwing with dailies and events in Telsiai. It has also recently caused a major incident with the “2020 IS HERE” event bug, continuing to screw with Telsiai even to this day with no resolution.

As a player of Telsiai, I write this post to clarify the information and circumstances regarding the timing bug with relevance to the current “2020 IS HERE” bug so players can better understand how this all came about. I’m not trying to justify bug abuses or actions of IMC and related parties and I do feel that abusers should be punished proportionally to the abuse done. However, clarified information regarding the circumstances, especially with this recent event is important to take into account with regards to the outcomes of the situation. The event bug stems from an unresolved problem left from way before the start of the event.

Before the “2020 IS HERE” event:

  • The timing bug, or the source of the problem causing this event bug dates back to the merger of Telsiai and Varena back on 13 March 2018 (yes, the problem dates back 2 years ago). Basically, the merger caused a timing bug that caused a 12-hour inconsistency in timing with server events such as dailies and server announcements that is still plaguing the server even now. Some examples include (using server time):
    • Saalus instance reset timing is at 6 PM but Saalus additional rewards reset timing is at 6 AM
    • Gemstone Feud starts at 9 AM but Gemstone Feud announcement starts at 9 PM.
    • Boruta Rankings announced at 9 AM but the latter half of the Boruta announcement informing players about taking GTW to fight Boruta is announced at 9 PM
  • This bug has also screwed up many events for Telsiai, and while most events were eventually fixed, the source of the problem causing these issues was never resolved at any point. Incidents include:
    • [Re:Build] Power of the Goddess : The timing bug caused a crucial flaw with the day where Transcendence cost was 50% off, and IMC simply cancelled the transcendence event for Telsiai only as they were unable to fix the issue.
    • Sunfish Attacks! : IMC screwed up the timing of the event not taking into account the timing bug, and made the event start at basically during working hours and during sleeping hours. The event times were eventually fixed
    • Back when Boruta wasn’t limited to GTW winners , IMC made Boruta spawn at 6 PM server time, which is basically the morning where players are either not awake yet or are at work for most Telsiai players. The Boruta timings had been fixed since then .
  • This bug has been widely reported to IMC for 2 years but the bug remains unresolved (bug still around even now). Players eventually gave up and treated this timing bug as a “feature” specific to Telsiai due to IMC’s inaction. Even to this day, Telsiai players play the game with this bug by default like its a normal feature and with the understanding that time-based events are bugged, and that IMC will fix it without resolving the timing bug as always. IMC’s lack of clarification and insufficient Ticket Support further worsened this problem as well.

The start of the “2020 IS HERE” Event:

  • Players played the game as per normal and realized that the event was giving coins and megaphones with any kind of content in the game. By the time players understand that it is indeed a bug, what kind of bug it is and whether it is something they misunderstood about the event, the hands of most players in Telsiai are already dyed red with the bug.
  • The event has a daily log-in reward of 500 coins and 5 megaphones upon staying online for 1 minute which is only limited to once per day. The timing bug caused an event bug where players entering and leaving certain instances switch back and forth between server dates and timings due to the timing inconsistency, causing the game to reset the daily log-in reward and 5000 coin limit . Players can get the 500 coins and 5 megaphones repeatedly simply by moving in and out of instances.
  • This bug affects the following:
    • Queuing up for Saalus
    • Queuing up for Instanced Dungeons
    • Queuing up for Mercenary Runs
    • Entering Team Battle League (TBL)
    • Entering Gemstone Feud
    • Entering and AFK-ing in the Beauty Shop
    • Basically bugs littered everywhere on any player’s daily activities
    • And more that we probably haven’t found out (or I forgot)
  • By simply entering and leaving such instances, players can easily get 1000 coins and 10 megaphones every time . To put it into perspective, a normal player can get 7000 coins per character just from doing Saalus and Instanced dungeons, not counting in the coins from other dailies that do drop coins, Connection Rewards, Fishing Rewards and killing monsters via quests. A normal player usually has up to 3 characters, so that’s an easy 21000 coins not even trying to exploit. Players entering and AFK-ing in Beauty Shops aren’t all that rare either, considering the game now currently has a Popo Shop event running and players may want to AFK in a quiet spot to gain PP points, one of them being in Beauty Shop.
  • New and returning players won’t know if a bug is happening, some players who don’t read nor take note in detail what the event is about won’t understand if anything odd was happening, and veteran players who have been through this before understood that this is just the norm, that IMC will fix the bug without resolving the main source of the problem just as they have always done for the past 2 years. Players do still need to gear up and prepare for Episode 12 with the Lvl 450 cap, and simply continued doing dailies while not caring about the bug while there are others that of course, started abusing the event bug (like screw it its guilty as charged, might as well go all the way kinda thing) now that they already unknowingly used the event bug.
  • This event also just had to happen after an event (Phantom Thief event) that gives Instance Reset Vouchers, adding to the problem as new players will simply use them while others will have to make choices if the vouchers are expiring on that day. There are also players who unluckily got matched up with such abusers and got forced to join in with the bug. It would be very hard to differentiate such players from abusers as well.
    • For example, a player needs help in clearing a dungeon or Saalus and queues for help and gets a party. However, 2-4 of the party members are AFK and leave the instance shortly after (bug abusers), forcing that player to quit and find a new party to help as well. That player will keep re-queuing until a proper party can help the player finish the instance, or the player quits as everyone keeps leaving. At that moment, that player also unintentionally participated in “abusing” the bug as well. This was a common occurrence on the first day of the bug.
  • The bug is littered on most of the game’s daily activities, so there’s no avoiding the bug other than essentially not playing the game after doing Challenge Modes, especially for players at the endgame. Basically, don’t play the game until IMC comes back. Telsiai players warned others of the bug but it was too late for most players. All this happened on the first day of the event.
  • At the same time, information regarding this bug was misreported to IMC, causing implications that anyone using the bug did so intentionally and knowingly, and that anyone using the bug is due for a punishment. It was during the new year and there were probably little to no staff, thus their options to deal with the problem was limited.
  • IMC proceeded to take action and banned anyone who used the bug in any way or form (probably the only action they could have taken since its the New Year and everyone’s on holiday). From what I heard, a player was banned for having 2000 coins, the equivalent of doing Instanced Dungeons two times , and another player was banned for having 6120 coin which is the equivalent of one character doing almost all instanced dailies . It is hard for any player to realize a bug is happening just by doing 2 dungeons. This is just to point out how easy it is for anyone to get banned by this bug.

The aftermath of the “2020 IS HERE” event:

  • Of course, many Telsiai players got banned immediately without warning due to this. The numbers would have been bigger if this event was not held during the coming of the New Year where not as much players are playing due to celebrating the new year. As of this point, the event bug has still not been fixed, and IMC gave an announcement warning on the issue, that anyone who abused the bug, or abuses the bug in future (the event bug is still active as of the ban wave), will be punished thus leaving players vulnerable until the fix happened (AKA banned).
  • IMC attempted to fix the event bug so players can do dailies again, but the bug came back few hours later on 7 AM server time on the same day during Saalus Rewards Reset timing. Players who didn’t get hit by the ban due to not playing before the first ban wave thought the bug was gone, got caught up with the bug again, risking the rest of Telsiai once again with the ban (a few more players got banned after the ban waves, or so I heard).
  • Telsiai players also got a blanket reply from IMC Ticket support stating that they have been banned permanently irregardless of the circumstances with their actions . Players affected by this ban wave took it to forums (since ticket is giving blanket replies) to address the issue. Various voices chimed in on the issue, but as the bug and the main source of the problem was specific to Telsiai (and that the full details regarding this bug and the source of the problem isn’t wwidespread), opinions were divisive due to the false assumptions and misinformation regarding the issue. New and Returning players who happened to play during this period simply abandoned the game at this point due to the ban.
  • IMC officially addressed the ban wave in a later announcement that banned players were only temporarily banned while they fixed the issue, and that the tickets issuing a permanent ban were misleading, reason being “a miscommunication within imcGAMES”, and will continue to solve the bug in the mean time. This was made probably due to discussions on forums pertaining to the situation.
  • IMC made another announcement with more details on the same day, apologizing for how the issue was handled and informing how the event bug came about. IMC admitted that they considered anyone using the bug as participating in a system abuse without a clear understanding of the situation being that excessive coins can be received just by playing normally without any intention to exploit . Tickets citing permanent bans were issued simply due to an internal miscommunication causing Ticket Support’s misdirecting tickets with such answers. The event bug is fixed as of this announcement
  • Despite the event bug affecting only Telsiai, compensation was given to players from all iToS servers including Klaipeia, Silute and Fedimian. Additional compensation was given to players who got suspended due to the whole situation, irregardless of the each player’s circumstances with the ban. More compensation in the form of coins will be given to ALL players, with suspended players getting an increased amount of coins in the following maintenance.
  • With that said, IMC still has not fixed the main source of the problem, the timing bug that has been there since the beginning of the Telsiai/Varena merger, thus leaving Telsiai to still be vulnerable to such bugs with regards to future events and game content.

Hopefully this is the end of the “2020 IS HERE” event bug and I hope IMC can close this matter by the next maintenance. With that said, the source of the problem, the timing bug, remains unresolved even after 2 years as always.This simply fixes the symptoms of a bigger problem, and a similar problem is bound to happen in future as the main problem is still sitting around waiting to cause another bug just like with this event. This event bug wouldn’t have happened had IMC actually fixed the timing bug in the 2 years leading to this event.

This is a good chance for IMC to start fixing the timing bug so future problems can be nipped in the bud. Please resolve the timing bug already before it makes more problems down the road with future events like the incoming Burning Weekend event.

23 Likes

is your thread getting flagged+hidden+unlisted twice in a row? i saw it first emerged 12 hours ago and 8 hours ago the second thread. I knew this is a different thread because i liked the previous one

@tuyetnguyetnhu please help monitor this thread

3 Likes

yeah some users are intentionally flagging threads to abuse the auto hide feature in the forums. Simply sad

1 Like

Yes, its getting flagged+hidden+unlisted repeatedly. Someone is deliberately muting information on core problems that had been affecting Telsiai for 2 years. It still hasn’t been resolved even after the event fix, and IMC is going to bring out the Burning Weekend Event which is also vulnerable to this bug.

It happened to a similar event in Re:Build, causing the whole transcendence event to be cancelled only in Telsiai, and it might happen again.

IMC simply doesn’t know how time works. Here a couple examples:

  • Gemstone Feud starting at 9.10pm CET, getting the system message at 3am six hours after the event
  • Buff lasting 10 seconds starts showing as “9s” down to “0s” where it flicker for a short while instead of simply starting with 10s down to 1s and disappearing
1 Like

Is EU getting the same time issues for announcement and events?

We get gem fued announcements in the morning ( 9am ) . But the actual gem fued at night ( 9pm ). But it wasn’t game breaking in any way since fued is able to run normally

System messages always use server time, while some events like Feud use local time. So for EU the event starts at 9.10pm CET while the system message appears at 9.10pm server time. It’s probably the same for all servers.

Whatever it is, events that get bugged due to time issues from the timing bug usually only happen in Telsiai.

Before the merger, IIRC Telsiai’s server time followed SGT which is 12 hours ahead of NA’s timing while Varena’s server time followed NA’s timing, which is already odd in itself both being SEA servers to begin with. May be due to SEA’s server time being 12 hours ahead causing all these issues (Telsiai is always a day ahead of Varena), but it has been happening for two years repeatedly screwing up events left and right including this recent event, with no fix in sight.

The Burning Weekends event is the next upcoming event and people are just praying it will not end up like previous events where IMC ended up cancelling the whole event only for Telsiai due to bugs as always.

An update on Telsiai’s 2020 IS HERE event, coin drops are fixed, which is great. Meanwhile, typing /newyear says that the daily 5000 coin count resets at 6 AM EST, but instead it resets at 6 PM EST. IMC is so confused about Telsiai’s timing that they keep screwing event timings by 12 hours even now after the fix.

I have a pet theory (just a theory, don’t take this seriously) about why this timing bug exists in Telsiai, where whoever is running Telsiai has a basic misunderstanding of Telsiai’s server time. Before the merger, Telsiai’s server clock used to run under SGT timing, but ever since the merger with Varena (Varena runs under NA timing, which is 12 hours behind SGT timing), Telsiai’s server clock has since been running under NA timing. With that said, whoever is running Telsiai miss this fact half the time, and runs time-based events for Telsiai using EST time conversion on Telsiai’s server clock with SGT time assuming Telsiai’s server clock still uses SGT time when it is in fact using NA timing. Because of this, using the values from NA timing as the values for SGT time causes this 12 hour difference, thus the tendency for events in Telsiai to start 12 hours away from its initial plans.

Basically, the event is still time-bugged, but at least its not overproducing coins anymore. Some things never change I guess, might as well go with the lesser screw-up of the two … or maybe just fix the timing issue already IMC. Forum posts and tickets can only do so much.

This topic was automatically closed after 60 days. New replies are no longer allowed.