Posi on Abusing Mission Architect
By
2wabbits,
Posted on: 2009-05-05 13:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I think its kinda wierd how they can miss such a big issue with MA after all the testing put into it. Either the testers are complete morons or NC just hoped they wouldnt find the bug. Because thats what it is a bug.
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Well, the normal testers were testing the system for bugs and seeing if it'd work as intended - but any farming testers who found an exploit would be unlikely to report it, as they'd want to use it once the MA went live.
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I still maintain that most testers weren't really trying to test as much as they were trying to get a jump on creating their arcs ahead of it going live. If any bugs jumped out then they may or may not have reported/bugged them.
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Also things I was trying to say but failed to 
While I admit being able to level so much in so short a time needed fixing, threatening to ban alts that have used the system they put in is a bit much.
I too have used it to get some of my lowbie characters which I couldnt face grinding, up a bit so they can taskforces etc.
If they got banned or suspended, I would leave too, as I only used what was put into the game in the first place.
The farming needs sorting, but fix it rather than punish people for playing what was there, ......as others have said too, I havent seen the servers this busy for ages.
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...aaah, but was it an exploit? Exploit suggests something that is a tad harder to find than a farming ARC mission. My main point still is that a development cockup and mistake should not be taken out on the players. I don't think the speed you get to 50 matters, what matters is if you can play the toon.
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As I said it's a bit difficuult to say how Draconian they are going to be in applying this, but, strictly speaking, taking away something that wasn't ever meant to be there in the first place is fair enough for me, even if it might touch a couple of my own characters. If it would be some sort of XP/inf rollback I'd probably hardly notice it even on those couple characters. It all depends on how NC/PS will go about it themselves, really. If they would handle it in "Die, thou filthy villain(*), DIE!" manner it would be one thing, if they will do businesslike "We're sorry, but it's necessary, you weren't meant to get this, we must rollback/suspend/delete this" it would be another one.
(*) From Latin "villa" - "country house, estate, farm"
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Awesome.
I like it.
And anyone who disagrees... go read the EULA. NC can do this.
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^ This.
I like it too. It's partially restored my faith in the Devs.
I wonder if the mission-rating cartel on Sal's badgehunters channel will be in trouble - any channel mods might want to wrap that up asap. It certainly left a bad taste in my mouth seeing it justified as (and I paraphrase) "well the farmers have already wrecked the rating system, so it doesn't really matter that we're doing this to farm the badges". With those badges gone there'll be no need for it, and with other rating cartels and farming being hit hard as well (hopefully), MA ratings can go back to being about the quality of the story in the arc and how fun the gameplay is, instead of being about badges/farming or popularity contests.
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Well then one can instead say: This weeks recommondations are... [insert names or arcs here].
Don't think a suggestion to play arcs should be punished or the forum posts about it here on this forum would get into problems as well.
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...aaah, but was it an exploit? Exploit suggests something that is a tad harder to find than a farming ARC mission. My main point still is that a development cockup and mistake should not be taken out on the players. I don't think the speed you get to 50 matters, what matters is if you can play the toon.
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As I said it's a bit difficuult to say how Draconian they are going to be in applying this, but, strictly speaking, taking away something that wasn't ever meant to be there in the first place is fair enough for me, even if it might touch a couple of my own characters. If it would be some sort of XP/inf rollback I'd probably hardly notice it even on those couple characters. It all depends on how NC/PS will go about it themselves, really. If they would handle it in "Die, thou filthy villain(*), DIE!" manner it would be one thing, if they will do businesslike "We're sorry, but it's necessary, you weren't meant to get this, we must rollback/suspend/delete this" it would be another one.
(*) From Latin "villa" - "country house, estate, farm"
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I'm pretty suire they're going to take it from the top down - anyone who got a 50 inside of of 24 hours will probably be dealt with way before someone who got 10 levels in 24 hours.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
OMG **** OFF POSI,
There is nothing in the EULA that says what missions can and cannot be run/made.
You made the content, and you expect people not to play it.
If you think you can strip characters and rewards when you didn't previously warn anyone what is deemed abusive then you can shove your already hanging by a thread game up your [censored]!
Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.
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Get your relatively cheap epic loot while you can.
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Ah but if you do that are you making use of a exploit?
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hmm another eg of them doing what they wannt.... the balanced and fair thing is irony at its best and banning toons that have used ma to 50
all i will say is once CO comes (and yes still not greatest fan good bye CoX)
im off to play a fairer nc game GW for now screw CoX
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So combatting abuse of a new system is "unfair"?
...............either I really don't understand you, or I disapprove of your activities. Probably both. Shouting this makes you seem.......guilty. Saying nothing would probably have been wiser, you've painted yourself in very dark colours there.
And probably made sure that your account is checked as a matter of priority.
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Get your relatively cheap epic loot while you can.
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Ah but if you do that are you making use of a exploit?
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Yes, but I think this particular repurcussion is so far from the phenomenon's source that the devs (as in real life, governments) can't keep tabs of what goes on in the market.
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There is nothing in the EULA that says what missions can and cannot be run/made.
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Not as such, but there is this bit:
"You agree that NC Interactive may take whatever steps it deems necessary to abridge, or prevent behavior of any sort on the Service in its sole discretion, without notice to you."
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There is nothing in the EULA that says what missions can and cannot be run/made.
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But there was a warning in the MA patch notes:
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NCsoft reserves the right to ban any missions that contain any exploits that provide unintended statistical advantages. Players and/or "authors" that advertise exploitable missions through our forums, in-game chat system or through the Mission Architect system may be banned from the Mission Architect System or may have their game account closed.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I have one toon i probably will loose but it's not a huge loss, felt unrewarding to level via farms and tbh spent more time in the creator than leveling it to 30 something .
Then i have my badging corr who has used badging "farms"(not much rewards involved) will i loose access to it?
Ran a mission solo repeatedly on a brute that was like a farm for ticket cap badges on all my toons, i actually enjoyed because there were so many ambushes i was constantly way over aggro cap. For the first time i fully appreciated playing a brute, hordes of custom critters wailing on me. Pushing my brute to it's limits, it was glorious.
Will i loose access to it?
If my badging corr is subject to rollback and i loose the hundred badges i gotten since i14(currently at 253-254, 50 or so are ma) outside of ma they will loose a sub.
I think they should do two things.
a. Punish the most blatantly abusers of the exploits.
b. Make sure that everyone is warned! Put one of those pop up messages into the game.
c. From that moment, apply the banhammer strict and immediately.
I sincerely hope they will be able to back up these fighting words.
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Well then one can instead say: This weeks recommondations are... [insert names or arcs here].
Don't think a suggestion to play arcs should be punished or the forum posts about it here on this forum would get into problems as well.
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That's pretty much what it does say anyway - it was 'please play the following peoples' arcs to help them get badges' not 'Five Star the following peoples arcs'.
Very few people actually did either, to be honest :P .
You know it's quite funny...
...yes the massive levelling speed was wrong but it did singlehandely kill or seriously dent any of the PL and inf selling business (especially that one that sounds like 'Gag Order') in one fell swoop.
So they moved the power levelling out of the seedy underworld of the paid for business and into the hands of players, also with the price drops on A LOT of recipes the need for inf is nolonger so great that there are recipes that cost increasingly silly amount of inf bar the uber-purples (how it should be).
So now we're going to go back to the spam emails of power levelling and inf selling...
...meh kill one thing only to have another raise it's ugly head once more...
Though if they can datamine how long a person has taken to hit 50 with a specific character...surely they can now be able to tell who has been powerlevelled anyway or up until now, when the problem got massively hugebig, they've not bothered...odd..
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I have one toon i probably will loose but it's not a huge loss, felt unrewarding to level via farms and tbh spent more time in the creator than leveling it to 30 something .
Then i have my badging corr who has used badging "farms"(not much rewards involved) will i loose access to it?
Ran a mission solo repeatedly on a brute that was like a farm for ticket cap badges on all my toons, i actually enjoyed because there were so many ambushes i was constantly way over aggro cap. For the first time i fully appreciated playing a brute, hordes of custom critters wailing on me. Pushing my brute to it's limits, it was glorious.
Will i loose access to it?
If my badging corr is subject to rollback and i loose the hundred badges i gotten since i14(currently at 253-254, 50 or so are ma) outside of ma they will loose a sub.
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I think you'd only lose badges, you wouldn't have the badge hunting avatar suspended.
And most of the MA badges can be gotten without intensive farming, so it'd only be a handful that'd be removed.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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If that would ever happen half the players would leave the game in a blink of an eye. I think its kinda wierd how they can miss such a big issue with MA after all the testing put into it. Either the testers are complete morons or NC just hoped they wouldnt find the bug. Because thats what it is a bug.
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OK first off, the only "bug" or exploit in the game was com officers giving the xp they shouldn't. That was no ones fault for its presence, easily missed. However its definitely someone's fault for abusing it to level. FIxing that and banning/punishing anyone who used that for personal gain.
Boss, leiut farming is not so much an exploit as its getting nerfed with the patch. there was no real exploit as that was mostly just bad balancing.
Meh i'm happy the firm stance is being taken but they really are treading on soft ground with the banning warning. They make a wrong ban and there will be problems...
I think Posi is lining himself up for another shot in the foot.
Making an arc then farming it after being given the tools to do it aint an exploit.
Nor is it unfair, because anyone can do it if they want.
Im not saying i agreed with what was happening and if this is the stance they want to take then thats fine, but dont start talking about "back dating" punishments.
Do you REALLY want to end up with no customers?
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I think they should do two things.
a. Punish the most blatantly abusers of the exploits.
b. Make sure that everyone is warned! Put one of those pop up messages into the game.
c. From that moment, apply the banhammer strict and immediately.
I sincerely hope they will be able to back up these fighting words.
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Wasn't there some ancient Roman MMO that had exploiting avatars executed in public? 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
Quality from posi 
I think this is good, especally for the people who have truely taken the [censored] with leveling character times, influence farming isnt really as bad IMO, its more the leveling of the characters so rapididly that needs stopped.
I dont think farming altogether needs to stop, however the MA system truely has taken the [censored] with people being able to exploit the times from 1-50, some as low as 4 hours in some cases I've seen. At least on the good old farms it took abit more time!
I farm myself mostly for influence or infamy, I luckily had all the 50's I wanted to 50 before this MA came about. But even I have grown sick & tired of "any farm teams" "starting farm team" spams in Atlas, usually a place where people who are completly new to the game or testing it out can get a good experience & feel for the game, as well as bump into one of the many helpful higher levels located under globe, the spams for farm teams in the 1st place you spawn doesnt create a good atmoshphere for new people...nor does the fact they could get from 1-30 in a few hours if any of them stumbled onto a farm team
Good move I feel, it will truely help the game
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Im not saying i agreed with what was happening and if this is the stance they want to take then thats fine, but dont start talking about "back dating" punnishments.
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It's not back-dataing - there was a clear warning in the MA patch notes that exploiters would be in trouble.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Im not saying i agreed with what was happening and if this is the stance they want to take then thats fine, but dont start talking about "back dating" punnishments.
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It's not back-dataing - there was a clear warning in the MA patch notes that exploiters would be in trouble.
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Read it again, what was "lose access to chars leveled this way" or whatever it was he said.
Get your relatively cheap epic loot while you can.
On another note, I think this is a great stance to take. Surely it's the only reasonable course of action you could expect the devs to embark upon given the situation.
I might even start playing again.
Please fight My Brute: http://2hero.mybrute.com
Mission Architect 54161 - Michael Mundano, Megan Malloney and the Secret Senate.
Mission Architect 91838 - Constantinople Jones' Family Secret. A One Mission Story arc.