3dent

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Just imagine, - they delay I14 launch till, say two weeks ago, they don't tell why, rumor mill starts. Then, after that delay, the thing is exploited anyway, maybe not as epically, but still it would be. You can't find exploits without exploiters, and open beta is of only so much help anyway.

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i understand what you're saying but this is incorrect. The very first posts we did when MA was first announced regarded- guess what? - Farming! This wasn't some unforseeable exploit that came from no where.


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Yes and no. I can say for sure, that there are multiple potential major exploits in the game right now. The catch is I don't know what exactly they are. Plus, as far as I recall, those "very first posts" expected it to be akin to "old" farming/PLing, maybe slightly better, not THIS.
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Oh, sure, you personally might not care about MA, even if it's used as intended, or even might wish it never existed. But many do care. Frankly, MA and what it could mean are major reasons why I didn't cancel the sub this winter. Press would react negatively to uunexplained delay too, I suppose, and even more so to delay explained by MA security issues.

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That's unfair. I would never knock your likes. And I even put my own mission arc up. It's not my fault. It's theirs.


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Sorry, wasn't directed @you specifically.


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And with CO around the corner some producer, or even Posi himself, might have gotten nervous enough to force the launch no matter what, figuring that they can keep farmability hush-hush long enough.

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They are in blissful denial of CO. But that's another topic.


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Are they? Or are you exprecting that they'll seriously talk about it in public, thusly providing free advertising to the competitor?
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Or in other words, you're offered 2 choices: guaranteed loss of, say £8 000 or a gamble, - 1/10 chance to WIN £10 000 and 9/10 to lose the same £10 000 (most of which you're going to lose anyway)? Apply this to delayed launch vs doing what devs did.

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Too late! You've drawn me in. MA (disregarding the exploit) is a great add on.
It is not however, a response to the new shiny game coming round the corner. This games response to that has been almost nothing. And, good luck to em? Why should people switch from this game to another brand new one packed with features this one can't be bothered to put out? Right?


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well, I disagree, I14 was supposed to be part of that response. whether it would be enough even in the ideal case may be debatable, but it's obviously something they thought about.
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(2) Devs aren't babbling idiots.

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No but someone amongst them should have an ounce of business sense. This isn't a game. (couln't resist)

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Even retroactive ban threat is quite reasonable.

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I disagree here. Retrospect ie banning is not reasonable. You are punushing someone for something that you,by your inaction, told them it was ok to do.


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Again, they weren't "inacting".
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Would it be OK for you to use my flat for your party? You meticulously steal nothing, you just party there because my actions might be an indication I don't mind strangers in my flat. you are even so nice you pay me a little. Would this behaviour be OK?

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isn't there a law against that? Which is my point isn't it?
Even if we accept their word as law, no one said boo to a goose.

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Well, for each law there is a lawyer(*). And that "they permitted it by inaction" argument, is just that, - "lawyering", as in attempt to reinterpret pre-existing rules in your favour. There was no "inaction", just not enough action to stop the problem on its own. There aren't any new rules, either. The problem is that those rules weren't ebnforced for ages, and now they dusted them off all of a sudden. (Which is a major screwup, - a law not enfored is worse than no law.) But again, the situation is such that devs are bound to be unfair to someone.

(*) BTW, in some equity cases "they didn't act on it quickly enough" is a valid defense, IIRC.

Yes, that's valid point. But CO will launch just att the moment all the nerdrage (I'm nerdraging too) caused by I14 should calm down... On the other hand, anyone remembrers any recent MMO launch that wasn't hit by at least 2 of those:
1) Serveer stability issues.
2) At least one titanic exploit you could drive the entire US Navy through, all at once, sideways (in hindsight)
3) Rebalancing, aka. nerf patch

I think only WoW avoided most of the list, and I may be mistaken about it. Suddenly, CoX seems all shiny and stablee again... Of course, relying on that is too a gamble.

Personally, I'll try CO... After the 2nd patch.

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Most (not everyone) of those who seriously would quit over farmer bans are either in "and good riddance" category or would quit no matter what

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And what about that small "not everyone" group (which I'm in either that or I'm a good riddance member)

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I might quit too. I specially have monthly sub, to keep my options open, just in case. But, let's face it, unless there are tens of thousands of like-minded players, (and I strongly doubt there are) it won't even start to figure in NC/PS calculations. And even if it would, they may still reach conclusion it's neecessary. Tens of thousands people, most of whom, I'm sure, were not in any way troublemakers, left over ED, and the game survived, didn't it?

Again, as I said in that locked thread our peersonal hurt feelings are one thing, but what NC may or may not do is something entirely different. And again, my feelings are hurt by it. But I'm trying to be objective, that's all.

Warshades are ultra-cool if you like lots of darkly-purple FX and aren't afraid of binding/macroing, no doubt about it. And they always have something else they can do in a tricky situation. (And since I13 buffs, - no defensive toggle drops, inherents buffing all 3 forms, Dwarf working when mezzed, and increased human/dwarf damage, they're easier to play than they used to be. (I hadn't pre-I13 khelds, but judging by general reaction it's true.) )

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Well, about that "they weren't highlighting" bit, - no one with any sanity left does that ever, especially if they know they can't get to fixing it in a while.

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Sure. But I can raise you on that one by saying that no one with any sense would knowingly put something live that is going to be this game breaking without having a fix in place.

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Just imagine, - they delay I14 launch till, say two weeks ago, they don't tell why, rumor mill starts. Then, after that delay, the thing is exploited anyway, maybe not as epically, but still it would be. You can't find exploits without exploiters, and open beta is of only so much help anyway.

Oh, sure, you personally might not care about MA, even if it's used as intended, or even might wish it never existed. But many do care. Frankly, MA and what it could mean are major reasons why I didn't cancel the sub this winter. Press would react negatively to uunexplained delay too, I suppose, and even more so to delay explained by MA security issues. And with CO around the corner some producer, or even Posi himself, might have gotten nervous enough to force the launch no matter what, figuring that they can keep farmability hush-hush long enough. They failed to do that, sure, but I imagine it wasn't at all clear it would surely fail back then.

Or in other words, you're offered 2 choices: guaranteed loss of, say £8 000 or a gamble, - 1/10 chance to WIN £10 000 and 9/10 to lose the same £10 000 (most of which you're going to lose anyway)? Apply this to delayed launch vs doing what devs did.

I seriously thought about it, from the point of view that (1) things couldn't be done much faster than they were (Yes, dev team's resurces are formidable, but they're not unlimited. You don't fix bugs by wishing them go away.), (2) Devs aren't babbling idiots. NOTHING they could do under those assumptions was much better than the current situation, with anniversary deadline, competition and half a year delay there already. They could make it _somewhat_ better, maybe, but not much.

Even retroactive ban threat is quite reasonable. (Still not something anyone, including me, likes. I honestly, honestly want they would avoid that.) Imagine forum being filled with "WTH i was baned, but my m8 wasn't cuz he stopped farming day earlier?" cries and "Why indeed? Farming is farming, whenever you did it and I HATE FARMERS,ban'em, ban'em ALL!" zealotry. I don't say I like retrobans, I say that, again, it was lesser of many evils. (Assuming, that like me, you think MA farms were game-breaking.) Most (not everyone) of those who seriously would quit over farmer bans are either in "and good riddance" category or would quit no matter what.
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I remember being on ultima on line and they introduced a new beetle pet. This beetle turned out to be way more powerful than intended. Think that stopped us using it?

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Well, please, I'm not exactly fan of oldschool UO, B0n3DeWd, precasting and all. It was one big exploit from the beginning, and the less MMO is like that UO the more it's successful it appears. (I don't know how UO evolved post-Trammel, TBH, but you've got my point, - "UO does it that way" isn't terribly good way to persuade me.)
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I think you're making excuses for them here.

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No, I just don't assume they're subspecies of fairy with unlimited cash on hand.
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it's actions not words that count. And their actions led to this farming

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Again, my list is pretty much all action. They fixed this, removed that, banned arcs, in other words they were doing things. All rather visibly, especially to the users of those things that were fixed or removed.

Again, stupid real world analogy. I have cheap cardboard door in my flat (not really, but NVM) Someone accidentally breaks it. I, being the poor guy with a broken cheap door can't replace it until the next week, and put a paper, saying "door" in its stead for a while. Would it be OK for you to use my flat for your party? You meticulously steal nothing, you just party there because my actions might be an indication I don't mind strangers in my flat. you are even so nice you pay me a little. Would this behaviour be OK?

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And if it is and the devs didn't intend that level of gain, then it is an exploit.

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Well, yes and no. Because if the devs launched this knowing the issues, not highlighting the issues and not dealing with the issues, then it actually can't be an exploit.

If you ask me how ludicrous it is to launch something like MA, knowing it's going to be abused because it's laid out in such a way as to actually encourage it, without safeguards, and then respond with draconian measures that can be enforced retrospectively.. that's another story.

They really have made their own bed and this ain't good at all.

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Well, about that "they weren't highlighting" bit, - no one with any sanity left does that ever, especially if they know they can't get to fixing it in a while. "Highlighting" anything of this nature, then saying "we'll fix it next month" (and adding there won't be rollback, as many wish) is exactly the opposite of what everyone does.

In the non-gaming world, security researches use public notices as a last resort, not as a routine practice. In this game devs have explicit policy to hide anything exploit-related from the official info until after it's fixed. What everyone learned about all the farming exploits(*) anyway is argument to tighten that policy in the future, not for the opposite. Of course, such a secrecy won't hold forever, but it's the only reasonable way to deal with things like that in the short term.

That said, I'm still a bit surprised they did release MA with no way ro rapidly respond do situations like that, and/or some sort of global mechanics to nerf any such exploits in advance. But just a bit surprised. /Tells all the now-boring Soviet jokes about anniversary deadlines... /

And no one can honestly say they didn't know dev team was anti-farm. (**) They mentioned it repeatedly in pre-release materials, they banned farm-related terms, they did some exploit(*)-fixing (Snake eggs, vamp chambers, Prisoners) both in beta and live long before that. Plenty of statement for me. I still farmed a little, more out of curiosity, than genuine need for XP or inf, but I didn't make any 50s or billions of inf by it. Just 6 levels 20-something levels, a bit of debt clearing and low mils.

(*) Exploit here means "whatever the devs call an exploit."
(**) They can cay they didn't expect threat of retroactive bans, I didn't for one. But I knew they will do SOMETHING and something harsh about it sooner or later.

Ok, new, updated definition, - anything I do isn't an exploit, honestly. Anything those other people I don't like do is an exploit, even if both things have exactly the same effects. Just kidding. (almost)

Thanks again

Ok, in my opinion, exploit is anything that wasn't intended to give you something for nothing (or very little), but it does nevertheless, and can be reliably reproduced. How much that "something" is, and how many people know about it is besides the point. Back in Wild Wild Web days, everyone knew about phf exploit in Apache, - it was still an exploit. So, neither of your examples is an exploit, - it was either intended that way, has drawbacks, doesn't guaranteedly work or needs lots of time/experience to do,

Rikti comm officcers are a borderline case, - they are a threat, even all by themselves, they were just not balanced well. Some people exploited that.

Multi-bubbles, as used by farmers, were(and might be still, haven't checked) clearly an exploit. God mode for doing nothing.

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The problem here is we're debating two very different things:

One side is saying that farmers should get smacked in the head hard. Then they explain repeatedly why.

The other side is saying Positron made a bad statement and Paragon has handled this situation badly at a time where handling the situation badly is, well, very bad. Then they go on explaining why they think so.

The thing is we (most of us) pretty much actually agree on most things:

The situation had to be handled.
It should've been handled sooner.
It's been very bad for the game.

My point remains this though: You may think whatever the heck you want about those that abused the Com officer farms, and have/will exploit other parts of the game, but no matter what you say, how you phrase it this was handled poorly at a time where the game can't affort (any more) bad PR. Even farmers pay their bills that pay the devs that we so badly need for new, serious "story" content and other game updates.

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I quite understand your point, but, look, it's all nice and simple to play backseat driver and bloviate on what PS should or shouldn't do sitting thousands of miles away in our homes/offices/classrooms, not knowing what's really going on inside the studio. It's VERY DAMN EASY, to give advice when you aren't responsible for acting on it, and it's even easier to just say how Posi personally and/or PS suck. I tend to think that devs did all they could, as soon as they could, unless proven otherwise. I don't particularily like their wording, true, but I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, and I don't think they're fools either. Neither do I see better way out of the farming situation this late. Whatever they could do now would backfire one way or the other.

AND LEAVE POSI ALONE!

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THAT is the exact perfect reason to over-react, Avatea. Scare tactics that leaves people hanging by a thread. Yes, OF COURSE actions had to be taken, but hangin' up the Damoclese sword coupled with the, pardon the language bloody rediculously lame-(youknowwhat) 5 ani speech is just another really sad example of total lack of PR skills and customer knowledge.

If you do little now, everyone's gonna go, "oh, they just shoot blanks anyway, nothing to worry about", if you use the sledge hammer, the game's dead.

The game slowly died down yesterday. I'm happy that fixed a lot of things, but there's not even people to CHAT with now, let alon play with redside. Ergo, friggin' Travian's more fun now - again! It's rediculous!

Govern by fear, live in fear!

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And what if they'd announced teh specifics? "Why do you punish ME and don't punish ("regular" PLers, old players/new players/those who farmed exactly 1 XP less than I did/badgers/catgirls/ebil marketeers)? That's UNFAIR!!!" Same amount of stink, just of different type, AND less freedom of action.

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I only hear people yelling about the 'scrath 6 hours', but all those have read so, heard so or even assume so. Never i speak someone that actualy made 6 hours on a _avarage_ team. Not those min-maxed teams that focus 1000% on fast exp, but just a picked up group trying to get some exp.

Only devs can see the time it took the recent 50s to hit 50, i dont believe the majority of those will even be close to 6 hours. (apart, pre MA 18 hours was possible already).

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I didn't level anything 1-50 in the MA, but I've been on farms, have seen the XP rate, and belive me, it's not even close to anything you get anywhere else in the game, including traditional PL (at least if not done by someone VERY good at PLing). I fully believe it was enough to make 1-50 in a day, and not very busy one at that, being mostly AFK to boot.

Thanks.

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Well, should you be bothered by it? As avarage player, would it affect you that someone has 5 lvl50s now, or a new player in his trial got his 50? Those handfull of bad parties?

The irony kicks in when people yell about 'newbs' at 50, while i still remember i didnt know untill lvl27 that i could replace my enhancements by any other 'color'. (and by exp curve, back then it is comparable by lvl50 now).


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Whaat? You can do that? (kidding.) That said, I agree that getting to 50 isn't difficult now, and you're still rather new when you do. (it took me about 3 months of rather casual play, if you don't count all the breaks I've taken. I think it could be done in 2 months or even faster, without prior knowledge and obvious PL. (of course if there happens to be a team desperate enough to SK you 10 levels, that can speed things up, but these things don't happen that often.) ) But, getting to 50 in 3 months, in a month even, and getting it in A DAY, without using multiboxing, etc. are different things. Quantity has quality of its own. Facing different mobs in different team setups during "normal" levelling, even speedy one, you learn things you totally miss if you just get your 50 for essentially doing nothing.
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You can make yet another 50 pages about this, with repeated stories how bad and how sucky Posi may be on his PR, it doesnt help, it doesnt matter.

I am more worried on long term issues, this is just a issue for the time being. New forums, new game engine, new features, stuff that can go into the future and keep this game interesting. I'm rather happy this happens, all those meeeh people now finaly have made the choice to leave, giving fresh new blood into the community by the MA, thats good.

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Well, I pretty much agree. I'm not particularily happy about the leaving epidemics, TBH, but I doubt it would hurt _game itself_. And the current issue? Heh, WoW had Bad Blood exploit. We have this. Both problems (and dev's reactions) weren't something respective dev teams can be proud of, but... Bad Blood didn't kill WoW, neither will this kill CoX. IMO, of course.

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While Posi's dictionary is being mentioned, what on earth is a Meow mission?

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euphemism for comm officer farm, mostly used US side, I think.

Do set bonuses and global effects (LOTG 7.5, Steadfast Res/Def, etc.) work while in forms, incl. those that are from sets not slotted in the form's powers?

Effects from unique procs (like Numina) - if, I say, use humanform Heal with that proc, then shift to a form, - would the effect be active, suppressed or discarded?

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Please Avatea, use what ever power you to have to shut Positron up, its clear he has limited at best PR skills and he seems to nark everyone off every time he gives a statement.

Please Avatea spill coffee on his hands when he's writing these statements or something.

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Anything Posi or anyone else says or doesn't say would have the same effect. Look, before this hoopla, (almost) everyone agreed that something has to be done about farming in Atlas (and yes, blatant farming in a starting zone coupled with easy PL hurts everyone. Teaming is difficult, 50's with the knowledge of lvl 2, lag, etc.)

But, whoever announced and implemented this "something" was BOUND to catch tons of NERD RAGE!!! however they would do it (vaguely or specifically, nicely or sternly, with or without bannhammer.) from one segment of the playerbase or another.

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I'm in with the "I love it" camp I'm afraid.

And for all you lovely people who say "they can't do this". Actually, it's their game, and they can do what they hell they like.

I'm glad to see Posi finally growing a set and coming down on what has been the blight of this game for far too long. Sure there'll be a fair few farmers who quit because of it, and good riddance. I'd imagine that there'll also be people who are prepared to play the game how it was intended to be played, absolutely delighted and coming right on back. Me being one of them.

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This


I've got to say I'm very saddened (but not terribly surpised) by the vituperative comments made by the pro-farming lobby, but I'd reiterate what many have said; that the EULA is there for a reason and the Devs may take whatever measures they seem appropriate to address a given issue.

For those who are concerned my best guess is this: The Devs will not wield their banhammer without caution - the casual player won't likely notice a thing, and if you got a 50 in an evening, well done. But if you find another exploit and do it again, beware.

The Devs know that heavy handed behaviour will hurt the bank balance - but farming will hurt it much more so. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Positron, but in this I think he's very right - and they are taking pro-active action. More importantly, we have been warned. We now know the collective score.

Nuff said.

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Amen.

The only thing that really frightens me is the image of a banbot indiscriminately kicking everyone based on some draconian criteria, w/o appeals. But, let us be honest, no one in dev team is THAT stupid.

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Re: Posi on Abusing Mission Architect [Re: fireballman]
#1357720 - Tue May 05 2009 09:21 PM Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply




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ok ive played ma quite a bit, and i have loved all of it, and i can tell you i have been here since 2005 and before that in the US, so i have the passport badge, and if i get one toon banned i will not look back i will be gone no question


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Playing MA is fine - it's what you play in it that can cause problems

so are you calling me a some kind of cheater ?

cus i play what the team picks

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No one makes you to stay on team that does something you don't like. Sure, other team members might get annoyed at you, but unless you're on a TF or a SG event, or something, few would go out of their way to remember that you did it. Esp. if the team is farming.

If you were in farmy SG, - well, that was your choice too.

That said, if you farmed because you didn't know any better, I'm sorry. I'm genuinely sorry. The game is much, much, more than AE grind, especially after you discover TF/badging channels.

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Again farming comm officers is NOT an exploit.

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As I ninja-edited into one of my posts, whether we consider this an exploit actually means little in the big scheme of things. Devs decided to treat it as if it were, love it or hate it. (I don't think they were an exploit, unlike some other things PLers did.)

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Scheses, you just don't WANT to even TRY to consider what the rest of us are saying:

WE AGREE: FARMING BAD!
WE AGREE: GOTTA DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

BUT! And it's a big friggin' whoppin' whoooopin' BUT:
They COULD have done something, but chose not to for days. They COULD have done a lot of things, but chose not to do any of them and NOW they're gonna PUNISH people for THEIR mistake (e.g. not doing anything once the problem surfaced) in a time when they're about to face some SERIOUS competition.

We can all agree on the idea of getting those "6-account 30 new 50s in a few days" a good slap on the wrist but if they do that, someone has to draw a very shaky line somewhere.

THEY dropped the ball. THEY chose not to pick it up, and I bet they'll go on a whining spree when the other team scores.

YES, players used something that was *very obviously there*. It wasn't hidden and it got so widely abused even us non-grinders just HAD to test it to seee if it was as bad as people said, and yes it was and they still left it in there for days. It's like going to a prison full of murderers and rapists, giving them a bunch of high powered weapons and a free pass to the nearest girls-only party. Yes, that was a blatant disgusting, outrageous comparison, but god(censored) it applies. So give me a friggin forum ban for it and see me moan about that! (It's what I do(tm))

I'm mosty annoyed about that: They did nothing. Going mental now, as they're doing is too much too late.

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Not entirely true.
1) They put that paragraph GG pointed out.
2) They put farm-related terms into banlist in the very first patch.
3) They tried to fix most egregious exploits, like aforementioned multi-bubbling.
That's hardly "nothing".

Now, the only mistake they made is that threat of retroactive bannhammer, which made many people (including me) nervous. But, TBH, almost everything else they could do would cause adverse rreaction of some sort. (First Law of MMO, - devs never do things right, never ever.) Either some people would complain that measures were too harsh and indiscriminate or they would complain they weren't enough.

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If you look back, you'll see they could've done a LOT of things and chose not to. They left the RCOs in forever, probably causing that horrible rubberbanding/DC'ing [censored]. I hated that, and every day I hoped to get a patch that would rectify the situation!

I don't blame the players for using what was there, but I do blame the devs for not fixing it sooner and now taking it out on the players. They took down CoP (and it never came back btw) and I'd rather see them get rid of MA until they've re-thought it properly. Blaming the player base for doing what players do is childish, as childish as the farming whiners whining about them doing something about it.

They just seen intent on killing another of their MMOs. They're getting BLOODY good at that.

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Well, are you one of dev team members? If not, how do you know what they could and couldn't do? (Remember what sort of wail temporary removal of Prisoners caused? If they had to do something like that with Rikti, one of the game's signature factions, they as well might shut down the entire MA.

And fixing RCOs without removing them first might have taken that long. Of course,you might not believe devs' explaination that taking mobs out of MA makes fixing and reintroducing fixed version(*) much, much easier... But it looks plausible enough for me. ) Plus, anyone paying attention to test server or forum knew of RCO nerf well in advance, despite devs' explicit policy to not to announce exploit fixes until after it's fixed on live. Yes, rationale for that policy doesn't apply here, everyone knew those exploits anyway, but well, they stuck to it.

(*) notice the language in patchnotes, it implies that RCOs that spawn now are entirely different mob as far as the game engine is concerned.

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Uh, did I miss something. NOONEs complaining they got rid of the com officers. They left the game running for days knowing very well people would abuse it madly (NO I DIDN'T, GET IT???). They didn't even try to police the arcs or put out the obvious "goddammit, keep playing those arcs repeatedly and we'll smack you in the head".

I'm not saying they threw a bate at us, hoping for us to bite - intentionally - but they do have a weird way of taking care of the game.

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I probably was unclear. My theory is that they didn't remove them, b/c they could not do it, like they did with the Prisoners, and that's why fixing them took so long. They didn't widely announce the fix beforehand because they never do it for bugs like that, to not to advertise them even more than they already are.

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Scheses, you just don't WANT to even TRY to consider what the rest of us are saying:

WE AGREE: FARMING BAD!
WE AGREE: GOTTA DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

BUT! And it's a big friggin' whoppin' whoooopin' BUT:
They COULD have done something, but chose not to for days. They COULD have done a lot of things, but chose not to do any of them and NOW they're gonna PUNISH people for THEIR mistake (e.g. not doing anything once the problem surfaced) in a time when they're about to face some SERIOUS competition.

We can all agree on the idea of getting those "6-account 30 new 50s in a few days" a good slap on the wrist but if they do that, someone has to draw a very shaky line somewhere.

THEY dropped the ball. THEY chose not to pick it up, and I bet they'll go on a whining spree when the other team scores.

YES, players used something that was *very obviously there*. It wasn't hidden and it got so widely abused even us non-grinders just HAD to test it to seee if it was as bad as people said, and yes it was and they still left it in there for days. It's like going to a prison full of murderers and rapists, giving them a bunch of high powered weapons and a free pass to the nearest girls-only party. Yes, that was a blatant disgusting, outrageous comparison, but god(censored) it applies. So give me a friggin forum ban for it and see me moan about that! (It's what I do(tm))

I'm mosty annoyed about that: They did nothing. Going mental now, as they're doing is too much too late.

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Not entirely true.
1) They put that paragraph GG pointed out.
2) They put farm-related terms into banlist in the very first patch.
3) They tried to fix most egregious exploits, like aforementioned multi-bubbling.
That's hardly "nothing".

Now, the only mistake they made is that threat of retroactive bannhammer, which made many people (including me) nervous. But, TBH, almost everything else they could do would cause adverse rreaction of some sort. (First Law of MMO, - devs never do things right, never ever.) Either some people would complain that measures were too harsh and indiscriminate or they would complain they weren't enough.

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If you look back, you'll see they could've done a LOT of things and chose not to. They left the RCOs in forever, probably causing that horrible rubberbanding/DC'ing [censored]. I hated that, and every day I hoped to get a patch that would rectify the situation!

I don't blame the players for using what was there, but I do blame the devs for not fixing it sooner and now taking it out on the players. They took down CoP (and it never came back btw) and I'd rather see them get rid of MA until they've re-thought it properly. Blaming the player base for doing what players do is childish, as childish as the farming whiners whining about them doing something about it.

They just seen intent on killing another of their MMOs. They're getting BLOODY good at that.

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Well, are you one of dev team members? If not, how do you know what they could and couldn't do? (Remember what sort of wail temporary removal of Prisoners caused? If they had to do something like that with Rikti, one of the game's signature factions, they as well might shut down the entire MA.

And fixing RCOs without removing them first might have taken that long. Of course,you might not believe devs' explaination that taking mobs out of MA makes fixing and reintroducing fixed version(*) much, much easier... But it looks plausible enough for me. ) Plus, anyone paying attention to test server or forum knew of RCO nerf well in advance, despite devs' explicit policy to not to announce exploit(**) fixes until after it's fixed on live. Yes, rationale for that policy doesn't apply here, everyone knew those exploits anyway, but well, they stuck to it.

(*) notice the language in patchnotes, it implies that RCOs that spawn now are entirely different mob as far as the game engine is concerned.
(**) Of what they call an exploit, whether RCOs are that bad in your or my opinion is besides the point.

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What a pathetic decision by Posi in my opinion.

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I think it's fine - as long as they don't take the avatar suspension too far

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I qote GG's one-liner for truth. What's next? Flying piggs?

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Scheses, you just don't WANT to even TRY to consider what the rest of us are saying:

WE AGREE: FARMING BAD!
WE AGREE: GOTTA DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

BUT! And it's a big friggin' whoppin' whoooopin' BUT:
They COULD have done something, but chose not to for days. They COULD have done a lot of things, but chose not to do any of them and NOW they're gonna PUNISH people for THEIR mistake (e.g. not doing anything once the problem surfaced) in a time when they're about to face some SERIOUS competition.

We can all agree on the idea of getting those "6-account 30 new 50s in a few days" a good slap on the wrist but if they do that, someone has to draw a very shaky line somewhere.

THEY dropped the ball. THEY chose not to pick it up, and I bet they'll go on a whining spree when the other team scores.

YES, players used something that was *very obviously there*. It wasn't hidden and it got so widely abused even us non-grinders just HAD to test it to seee if it was as bad as people said, and yes it was and they still left it in there for days. It's like going to a prison full of murderers and rapists, giving them a bunch of high powered weapons and a free pass to the nearest girls-only party. Yes, that was a blatant disgusting, outrageous comparison, but god(censored) it applies. So give me a friggin forum ban for it and see me moan about that! (It's what I do(tm))

I'm mosty annoyed about that: They did nothing. Going mental now, as they're doing is too much too late.

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Not entirely true.
1) They put that paragraph GG pointed out.
2) They put farm-related terms into banlist in the very first patch.
3) They tried to fix most egregious exploits, like aforementioned multi-bubbling.
That's hardly "nothing".

Now, the only mistake they made is that threat of retroactive bannhammer, which made many people (including me) nervous. But, TBH, almost everything else they could do would cause adverse rreaction of some sort. (First Law of MMO, - devs never do things right, never ever.) Either some people would complain that measures were too harsh and indiscriminate or they would complain they weren't enough.

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See now i call exploits getting under a map and shooting foes that cant shoot back.

Not this.

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And shooting comm-ofs from under 20-something forcefields (which pretty much ensures that they never hit) is different how? (And yes, it still could be done, even after Sky Raiders patch.)

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Not everyone had 20 bubbles.

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But still there were farms like that, plenty of them. If that's not an obvious exploit I don't know what is. I may agree that "plain" farm, w/o bubbles etc. might not be an exploit, but not something like that.