Abusing Mission Architect
So how's this different than the ToT farming, except a little bit more efficient? A farm is still a farm. The exploits should be fixed, and not by banning people who want to do their farming as efficiently as possible, because honestly farming sucks.
Yay Posi!!! That is great.. I was hoping and waiting
This was SOOOO needed!
But, oh boy, the outcries of a few. Mod8 will be a busy little bee.
Heh, 5 pages into it already and there are WAY to many people that are either not reading it through proper or just have rotten comprehension .
Video games are serious business.
Positron, your post terminated early...
I am laughing and laughing.
Well played, Devs.
"The gaping maw of your mind is filled with layered circles upon circles of bloody razors, I am finding."
- Twoflower
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Positron, your post terminated early...
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I noticed that. GAHHH, stupid forum software.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Sweet, sweet relief.
Of course, prepare for the forums to become an unusable pile of wailing and gnashing of teeth at your oppression of hardcore exploiters supposedly unharmful 1-50-in-3-hours playstyle, but hey, you're wearing power armor, you can take it.
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!
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Sweet, sweet relief.
Of course, prepare for the forums to become an unusable pile of wailing and gnashing of teeth at your oppression of hardcore exploiters supposedly unharmful 1-50-in-3-hours playstyle, but hey, you're wearing power armor, you can take it.
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yep, but hopefully folks will wait till the rest of the post is posted.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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Players who have a story arc banned for any reason, will have it continue to use up one of their publishing slots. Players will NOT be able to unpublish this slot without Customer Services help. This sets up a three strikes and youre out policy. If an individual gets three story arcs banned, they will no longer be able to publish since their slots will all be used up with banned arcs.
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A cunning move. I like this idea.
I hope NCSoft hired some more GMs to do all this. Otherwise, the GMs are going to get swamped with work.
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Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.
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Though I believe that action is necessary, I would dispute that this is necessary or even warranted.
I get the impression that MOST of the players, especially ones who came here new to experience this content, have taken part in at least some form of power-leveling.
I feel to remove what they perceive they earned, not only in effort but in real money spent, would cause a serious reduction in population. There are precedents for this.
Just a thought.
Great post!
Although it would seriously suck to lose access to, say, a lvl 32 blaster I have played for 9 months as an alt that was powerleveled using meow missions from lvl 21-32.
Where would such a line be drawn? What toons would you lose access to? Just toons that went from 1-50 or all toons that have been on any farm in the MA?
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Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.
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Posi, can we please have a clear definition of 'abuse' here?
Are you saying powerlevelling with the MA is abuse regardless of whether it's done with exploits?
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When we created Mission Architect, the goal was to have an outlet for players to craft cool stories, using our assets, that other players could play and participate in. Other players could rate those stories and the best-of-the best would rise to the top.
While we have accomplished some of those goals with the initial launch of Mission Architect, some have found ways to abuse the system we put in place. We are not blind to this happening, nor did we not expect it. However, it is time to take action regarding it, so please be aware that we are about to implement a zero-tolerance stance on the extreme abuse we are seeing in the system.
One thing was made clear to me when I interacted with the players on our Anniversary. It was that you guys really dont like the powerlevelling that is going on with MA. The constant spam of MA PL teams forming, requests for Meow missions, 5 star badge cartels, and the inability to find quality content in the Mission Architect listing are all things I heard complaints about over and over while I was logged in on Tuesday.
So here is a list of things that are going to happen:
Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.
Currently, some badges are being modified, and some may be removed from the game entirely. The list of changes being made to the MA badge system is not final yet, but you will be made aware when we have a concrete plan.
Players who knowingly use an exploit when creating an arc, run the risk of having access to MA suspended, or worse- depending on the severity of the action, their account banned.
Players who have a story arc banned for any reason, will have it continue to use up one of their publishing slots. Players will NOT be able to unpublish this slot without Customer Services help. This sets up a three strikes and youre out policy. If an individual gets three story arcs banned, they will no longer be able to publish since their slots will all be used up with banned arcs.
This lock will not take place on the first level of complaint banning, where an arc has received a larger number of complaints. Players will still have a chance to fix the arc.
If Customer Service looks at an arc and determines it was banned in error, they will mark it as unbannable. At that point the arc can not be banned for any reason. The unbannable flag will reset if the player makes any changes to the arc at that point, and the arc can be banned again.
Remember, publishing slots are account wide, so players will not be able to log in another character on their account and use their slots instead.
Players are urged to avoid using common farming terms in their story title and/or descriptions. Even if its a joke, DO NOT run the risk of having an arc banned and requiring Customer Support to grant you your publishing slot back.
Some of you have taken the stance of how does powerlevelling hurt the game? and shouldnt I be able to play the game the way that I want? What we want to make clear is in order to keep the game fair, balanced, and challenging, we have to maintain a risk:reward ratio. This is a ratio weve spent years attempting to achieve. Mission Architect is not immune to this, and we are taking swift action to see that the problems
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You do realize that some people are farming for hte badges because some of the badges are ridiculously high, 50,000 for the last test kill badge? :/
Not that I'm promoting farm arcs or anything, but it would take forever to get badges like that the normal way.
My Lego Models http://www.flickr.com/photos/30369639@N07/ lemur lad: God you can't be that stupid... I'm on at the same time as you for once, and not 20 minutes into it you give me something worth petitioning?
Lady-Dee: Hey my fat keeps me warm in the winter and shady in the summer.
Oh snap...
Dad got out the belt and someone is getting a whuppin
In all fairness except for being cut off I approve of this wholly, nice to see the devs reacting in a quick and concise manner to address it.
Interesting.
I can understand wanting to curtail some things, but if this spills into banning any mission that has decent xp I don't see myself staying subscribed. I resubbed to try the mission architect and have really enjoyed what I guess are considered farms. Big damn groups of rikti comm officers. It's not even really the xp gain I like, it's the steamrolling of large groups. I'm probably alone in that, so oh well. It was a fun few weeks while it lasted.
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Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.
[/ QUOTE ]
Though I believe that action is necessary, I would dispute that this is necessary or even warranted.
I get the impression that MOST of the players, especially ones who came here new to experience this content, have taken part in at least some form of power-leveling.
I feel to remove what they perceive they earned, not only in effort but in real money spent, would cause a serious reduction in population. There are precedents for this.
Just a thought.
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I assume he means those who have gone from 1-50 in 3 hours.
I don't assume he means those who might have gotten a lvl or two or three from it.
Then again since, as usual, there are no definitions or specifics in that post, it's up to Posi to clarify.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
[ QUOTE ]
This lock will not take place on the first level of complaint banning, where an arc has received a larger number of complaints. Players will still have a chance to fix the arc.
[/ QUOTE ]
This implies to me that the ban will only occur after a CS person has actually examined the arc. I hope that this is a true statement, and that all the bans will have an actual person behind them making that decision.
"I used to make diddly squat, but I've been with the company for 16 years and have had plenty of great raises. Now I just make squat" -- Me
Pediatric brain tumors are the #1 cause of cancer related deaths in children.
Thanks for the heads up Posi.
Only one slot left here so no danger of silliness on my part.
Are players expected to report abusive mission content/exploitive content?
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes
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Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.
[/ QUOTE ]
Though I believe that action is necessary, I would dispute that this is necessary or even warranted.
I get the impression that MOST of the players, especially ones who came here new to experience this content, have taken part in at least some form of power-leveling.
I feel to remove what they perceive they earned, not only in effort but in real money spent, would cause a serious reduction in population. There are precedents for this.
Just a thought.
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My boyfriend and I both Heartily agree. Though I imagine it will likely be aimed at the most flagrant offenders, characters who gained a level or two, maybe so much as five might not be regressed to level 1, but characters that grew 15 or more levels, perhaps?
-Rachel-
When we created Mission Architect, the goal was to have an outlet for players to craft cool stories, using our assets, that other players could play and participate in. Other players could rate those stories and the best-of-the best would rise to the top.
While we have accomplished some of those goals with the initial launch of Mission Architect, some have found ways to abuse the system we put in place. We are not blind to this happening, nor did we not expect it. However, it is time to take action regarding it, so please be aware that we are about to implement a zero-tolerance stance on the extreme abuse we are seeing in the system.
One thing was made clear to me when I interacted with the players on our Anniversary. It was that you guys really dont like the powerlevelling that is going on with MA. The constant spam of MA PL teams forming, requests for Meow missions, 5 star badge cartels, and the inability to find quality content in the Mission Architect listing are all things I heard complaints about over and over while I was logged in on Tuesday.
So here is a list of things that are going to happen:
Players that have abused the reward system egregiously may lose benefits they have gained - leading up to and perhaps including losing access to the characters power-leveled in this fashion.
Currently, some badges are being modified, and some may be removed from the game entirely. The list of changes being made to the MA badge system is not final yet, but you will be made aware when we have a concrete plan.
Players who knowingly use an exploit when creating an arc, run the risk of having access to MA suspended, or worse- depending on the severity of the action, their account banned.
Players who have a story arc banned for any reason, will have it continue to use up one of their publishing slots. Players will NOT be able to unpublish this slot without Customer Services help. This sets up a three strikes and youre out policy. If an individual gets three story arcs banned, they will no longer be able to publish since their slots will all be used up with banned arcs.
This lock will not take place on the first level of complaint banning, where an arc has received a larger number of complaints. Players will still have a chance to fix the arc.
If Customer Service looks at an arc and determines it was banned in error, they will mark it as unbannable. At that point the arc can not be banned for any reason. The unbannable flag will reset if the player makes any changes to the arc at that point, and the arc can be banned again.
Remember, publishing slots are account wide, so players will not be able to log in another character on their account and use their slots instead.
Players are urged to avoid using common farming terms in their story title and/or descriptions. Even if its a joke, DO NOT run the risk of having an arc banned and requiring Customer Support to grant you your publishing slot back.
Some of you have taken the stance of how does powerlevelling hurt the game? and shouldnt I be able to play the game the way that I want? What we want to make clear is in order to keep the game fair, balanced, and challenging, we have to maintain a risk:reward ratio. This is a ratio weve spent years attempting to achieve. Mission Architect is not immune to this, and we are taking swift action to see that the problems players are seeing and are being exposed to are remedied.
Positron
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