How long will the exploits go on?
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2010-11-24 20:30 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Me, too. I wasn't saying, Sam, that toons should be deleted. But if anyone uses an exploit, knowing full well that there is a solid chance said toons will be, they shouldn't whine about the actual deleting.|
Originally Posted by Feycat
I like the way Sam thinks. |
Complain about the mechanic and philosophy, but basically it's like complaining when you put your hand on a hot pan after being told it was hot.
Whambulance.
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Wait, who are we talking about?|
Originally Posted by Tank_Washington
That, as I recall was pretty close, except he had all the fat bunched together.
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Originally Posted by Tank_Washington
The same righteous arguments were made for everything that could be classified as a farm for seven years now, when you could herd a map of wolves into a dumpster you were a dirty cheat mocking the game rules even though you were using the games own mechanics.
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Now since this was patched out early int he game we have also established the development team is against exploiting.
So where is you moral high ground for blatant exploitation of the game rules years after the precedent has been set?
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Well, the be fair, the Architect exploits are the first time the developers themselves came out and said "This is wrong. Don't do it." Wolf farms, Dreck farms, bridging, TV farms, egg farms, portal farming and so on, these they just fixed and swept under the rug, left for players to squabble over whether it was right or wrong. In this case, however, there has been official word on what is and isn't acceptable, so there isn't any room to argue.
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Originally Posted by Tank_Washington
The same righteous arguments were made for everything that could be classified as a farm for seven years now, when you could herd a map of wolves into a dumpster you were a dirty cheat mocking the game rules even though you were using the games own mechanics.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Before I get to the point of this post, let me reiterate that I don't think wide-scale banning is viable or smart, and I am not at all convinced that any banning really is productive. I don't want to see bans. I mostly want the devs to fix truly exploitable things as soon as they can. I don't get worked up about exploits. They come and go. As long as they get fixed in a timely fashion, they don't cause much real uproar. For reasons possibly beyond reasonable control, this exploit wasn't fixed in a terribly timely fashion.
All that said, I don't buy the argument that the fault of people using exploits lies solely on the heads of the devs. Unless you're a new player who doesn't have enough experience to gauge what a normal reward rate is, you absolutely will know when something is too good to be "normal". If you go back and reuse this discovery for those too-good-to-be-true rewards, then you are unequivocally exploiting what you have found in the sense of that word meant to have negative connotations. It's absolutely a matter of degrees, and thus there can be grey areas where arguments about whether something is that sort of "exploit" are valid. What we're discussing in this thread is not one of those cases. If you've played the game for any length of time, there is no way to mistake how good the rewards are as anything but broken.
Again, I'm not into punishing exploiters. If exploits are addressed reasonably quickly, I do not think they individually cause lasting harm to a game. I do not vilify those who use exploits, or hope they are punished. But I really wanted to comment that I don't accept some of the claims of "innocent user of the mechanics" that I've seen tossed around some here. If you do this, you may get punished. The more you do it, the more likely that probably is. You may not like the idea that the devs may take action, but if they do you get punished for really using the exploit, you have no defense. They broke the game, but you took advantage of it. There's no way you wouldn't know.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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actually, as long as they refuse to deploy a useful definition of "exploit" for players to follow there's plenty of room to argue.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
In this case, however, there has been official word on what is and isn't acceptable, so there isn't any room to argue.
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The dictatorial "They're whatever we say they are" approach doesn't carry any water with me. Yeah, they can do it, but that doesn't make it an acceptable way to treat your customers.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
My grouse with this has been with the developers and how long this exploit has been going on.
I'm actually less inclined to ban/de-level people because of this lack of reaction from the devs. If someone was sharp and put a smackdown to these things as soon as they were popping up then I'd be more apt to say "Yeah, warn/ban/punish that guy who is trying to exploit the system". When it sits for a month and you're either punishing a bajillion people or just a select group of "worst offenders" (which makes no one happy) or whatever then you might as well not even bother beyond fixing the issue. Not because people were "innocent" but because you sat and let the problem get so bad that now there's no good solution.
Yeah. That was actually one of the really bad things IMO about how the original, announced punishing was done. Yeah, people were told from the authorities that punishments would happen. Then time passed, and people kept doing things. It seemed potentially reasonable that punishments were being issued behind the scenes, because it's policy to not speak of it, but people were still using exploits.
Then, four or five weeks after the original announcement, and with no other warnings of "hey, we're gathering data, so lay off if you're still exploiting", the hammer came down. That's a long time, both to wait before doing something so sweeping and to leave the problems in play - to do both made a real mess. It didn't help the PR side of things that the hammer caused collateral damage.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
Yeah. That was actually one of the really bad things IMO about how the original, announced punishing was done. Yeah, people were told from the authorities that punishments would happen. Then time passed, and people kept doing things. It seemed potentially reasonable that punishments were being issued behind the scenes, because it's policy to not speak of it, but people were still using exploits.
Then, four or five weeks after the original announcement, and with no other warnings of "hey, we're gathering data, so lay off if you're still exploiting", the hammer came down. That's a long time, both to wait before doing something so sweeping and to leave the problems in play - to do both made a real mess. It didn't help the PR side of things that the hammer caused collateral damage. |
To draw an unflattering but accurate comparison:
If my two year old does something wrong but I wait an hour to correct the behavior, not only will my efforts be futile but he'll look at me like I'm a crazy *******, and he'll be totally justified.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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That's funny cause if my four year old gets told to stop doing something and he does it the next day he's well aware of why he is in trouble (I like to ask first to make sure he's aware).|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
To draw an unflattering but accurate comparison:
If my two year old does something wrong but I wait an hour to correct the behavior, not only will my efforts be futile but he'll look at me like I'm a crazy *******, and he'll be totally justified. |
We got told from release not to abuse AE or bad things will happen to us why are we all in shock and awe when weeks later we are doing it and we get our hands smacked?
If anyone gets banned or rerolled over this it'll be the 2nd time we've sene it...we should not be surprised at all. If anything we should be expecting it by now.
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Oh my good gravy, THIS.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
actually, as long as they refuse to deploy a useful definition of "exploit" for players to follow there's plenty of room to argue.
The dictatorial "They're whatever we say they are" approach doesn't carry any water with me. Yeah, they can do it, but that doesn't make it an acceptable way to treat your customers. |
Seriously, I know Posi thinks that if he gives us an actual definition of exploit that we'll use it to weasel (50 in 5 hours? Nay, I got it in 6!) out of having technically exploited, but seriously, it's a pile of rubbish. It's nonsense to hand out punishments to people without DEFINING what it is they're being punished for. And "for being bad" doesn't hold water.
I would be FULLY and COMPLETELY in support of banning everyone who entered the monkey farm, even for curiosity (as I did on Freedom, just to see what everyone was chattering about - and I don't play on Freedom, so I got nothing out of it except a level 17 defender sitting unleveled in a server I don't play on) IF the devs had put an announcement in the MOTD flat-out stating it was an exploit and that everyone who goes in there from here-on-out risks serious account action. I'd stand up and cheer for that.
Not everyone is going to be able to say "wow, that's clearly an exploit." Is it an exploit to fight Council instead of Fifth? (for some reason, Fifth KICK MY BUTT and Council remain turkeys) Or to fight Freaks instead of Nemesis? That's definitely changing the risk-vs-reward ratio. And there's lots of that built into the game.
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You've got to be kidding. There's no evidence whatsoever punitive measures will be taken. Yes, they did something once and it was absolutely a disaster. There have been plenty of exploits since them, some of them stunningly more lucrative. The punishment? Nada.| If anyone gets banned or rerolled over this it'll be the 2nd time we've sene it...we should not be surprised at all. If anything we should be expecting it by now. |
As for the OP, I don't have the same rage, but I do shake my head at how long this current specific exploit has been allowed to go on, especially since it came right on the heels of a Spiderling exploit which got removed about a week after it became "public". Pretty much the next day the new kid showed up.
Regardless of the moral superiority some are showing about the evils of exploits, or the "who me?", devil-may-care attitude about being an exploit abuser, the fact remains that this has been very public for many weeks now and clearly the devs knew about it, but decided not to patch a fix. I really, really hope we get an explanation of why this one has been allowed to go on so long once a fix is live.
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
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Over my nearly 20 years of online gaming I've found the emotional age of the average participant to be much closer to two than four.
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Originally Posted by LISAR
That's funny cause if my four year old gets told to stop doing something and he does it the next day he's well aware of why he is in trouble (I like to ask first to make sure he's aware).
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The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
umm didn't the devs plan on having this patch out a bit earlier?
so maybe it's not the delay we think it is
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That shows you how long it's been since I played around with the AE system. I got fed up with it do to all the stupid farm missions and gave up on it before that little feature change.|
Originally Posted by Aquabladez
That is not a "hack" they added Mission Parameters so you can spawn mobs at any lvl you wish, even if its not in their listed lvl range, they can go down in lvl but not up in lvl.
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BTW, those people who keep saying that the actions of those exploiting the bugs don't harm other people need to keep my reaction in mind. My giving up of the AE because of the farm mission spamming (usually an exploit of a bug) hurts those people using the AE as intended.
You get rewarded when someone runs and rates your mission. Driving the players out that don't want to run these farm missions means that players that develop non-farm missions won't have their stories ran as often and cuts into the reward they get for their efforts.
That means that players that use the AE system to create missions are being negatively effected by the actions of those that are exploiting AE bugs. Keep that in mind the next time someone tells you that the actions of those players exploting AE bugs doesn't negatively impact anybody else.
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
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The only place I see AE Spamming is in Atlas Park
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Originally Posted by AddamsFamily
BTW, those people who keep saying that the actions of those exploiting the bugs don't harm other people need to keep my reaction in mind. My giving up of the AE because of the farm mission spamming (usually an exploit of a bug) hurts those people using the AE as intended.
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I have to agree yet disagree Sam.| In a very simple sense, I want to see people encouraged to experiment, venture and explore all of the possibilities of the game. They should WANT to find a better, faster way to do things. And this simply won't happen if we instil in them the fear of penalties for even trying. I feel it's all "good game" to let people push the boundaries of what's "working as intended" and have the developers plug up the holes where players manage to push too far. |
In the actual game sense you're quite correct, we should always be pushing our characters to the max and trying to find every last way we can game the system for our benefit (see choosing to say fight only freaks for the xp bonus at the low end or powerful farm build like the old fire/kin trollers perhaps, warwolf dumpsters at the extreme end of this)
The problem and where I draw the line with that is at AE though, there's a huge difference between "exploiting" poor AI or mob types in actual game content. As opposed to creating the exploit farm maps that are clearly not working as intended, done with the full knowledge that the gains are too great for the risk, and are solely meant to PL a toon.
Trying to compare the two is a total apple and orange situation. Honestly what is passionate or driven about sitting in a monkey farm all day long to get a 50? How attached are you gonna be to that character when all the shiny is obtained so cheaply? And again how long are you really gonna bother with CoH when you fly right to the end?
I don't want to burn peoples enthusiasm either, but I can tell you it certainly puts a bit of damper on mine when I go looking for teams and everyone is off either farming or exploiting, or i end up in the group of AE babies who are the living breathing definition of PUG horror stories.
The best Teams I've had? It's been in the hollows fighting frostfire of all things or people who take the time to learn a character and ignore all the race for the lewtz or the XP. Or my SG who don't give a flying flip about how fast one gets to 50, they know it's just playing the actual game that's fun. Not turning it into an electronic you know what measuring contest by who has the most 50's or got there the fastest.
The worst? People sitting on +4/x8 going MUST GET XP MOAR MOAR MOAR!
A bit hyberbolic i know but it is true =p
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| I believe it's human nature for people to have no moderation, but even for that reason alone, game management should work WITH human nature, not against it. Let people invest that drive to "exploit" in the actual game rather than stamping it out entirely. Let them exploit JUUUST a little to where it isn't a big problem, and just keep an eye on where they go from there |
Do I think bans would stop exploits? You're damn right I do if the devs did it properly. As was said, you put up a MOTD saying "Use of X or creation of X = you will be banned." Not Posi's little rant about it. Not trying to close the barn door after all the horses have already left. And definitly not the haphazard spotty automated way it's been done. It's flat out stupid and bad PR how they've handed it in the past, that I agree with. That and as I said before I agree that what I'd like to see happen never will.
But in my opinion some of the exploiters need to lose an eye over it, you break the rules there should be consequences for it.
Though let me stress that's only for exploiters like the monkey farms, there's a difference between those and say just a map full of freaks or a map of easy mobs within normal coh mechanics for ticket farming. I despise the practice and think it's abuse of the system, but not an exploit.
Either way I'll say it again, just remove XP from AE, and we've just eliminated pretty much every problem in this thread.
EDIT
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You get rewarded when someone runs and rates your mission. Driving the players out that don't want to run these farm missions means that players that develop non-farm missions won't have their stories ran as often and cuts into the reward they get for their efforts. That means that players that use the AE system to create missions are being negatively effected by the actions of those that are exploiting AE bugs. Keep that in mind the next time someone tells you that the actions of those players exploting AE bugs doesn't negatively impact anybody else. |
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Originally Posted by AddamsFamily
You get rewarded when someone runs and rates your mission. Driving the players out that don't want to run these farm missions means that players that develop non-farm missions won't have their stories ran as often and cuts into the reward they get for their efforts.
That means that players that use the AE system to create missions are being negatively effected by the actions of those that are exploiting AE bugs. Keep that in mind the next time someone tells you that the actions of those players exploting AE bugs doesn't negatively impact anybody else. |
I haven't seen any MA farm spam outside Atlas Park.
I've seen very little MA farm spam period on servers other than Freedom.
I mean, blame MA farmers in one zone on one server for people not playing your arc if you like, but there's a much more obvious and logical reason they're ignoring it.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Sounds about right, for both the first and second parts.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
I haven't seen any MA farm spam outside Atlas Park.
I've seen very little MA farm spam period on servers other than Freedom. I mean, blame MA farmers in one zone on one server for people not playing your arc if you like, but there's a much more obvious and logical reason they're ignoring it. |
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
On Virtue, I've been hearing AE spam in Steel Canyon & Talos. Presumably because there's actually people in those zones worth spamming at (especially Talos as the dumping ground for graduated Praetorians).
Obviously no one is going to waste their time spamming in Brickstown when the only ones who'll hear it are Crey doctors and someone trying to start a Manti TF.
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I completely agree.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Just want to restate that I am NOT in favour of banning people or taking away their stuff. This is a BAD way to do things, one which the developers ought to have been burned by last time. It will do little to "discipline" people, were discipline even relevant in the context, and it will just make the Architect even more useless for its intended purpose than it already is, and that's saying something.
I don't feel people should be punished. If anything, I feel a "good game" is in order. Good job, guys. You found the exploit, you exploited it, you grabbed your earnings. Party's over now. Move along. Go back to the game, and we'll try to plug these things up faster in the future. I tend to adopt a "no harm no foul" policy with these things. Yes, an exploit is harmful while it's actually active, but the solution is not to punish people but to fix it. No, the developers can't predict every exploit which might happen, but they should still close them down as they come up. Nobody has to lose and nobody has to leave angry. Truth be told, I have nothing but sympathy for the people who got levels off these bugs. So long as the exploiters did so with the full knowledge that it wouldn't last forever, I bear no ill feelings towards the guys and gals. Let 'em keep their stuff, now that they already have it, so long as they aren't big babies about a clear exploit being closed up. *edit* I.e. if you got "toons" deleted, I would moan about it  |
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Well, only if you define usually expensive rare salvage and usually *very* expensive set IO recipes as "squat".
I agree that gamers are more than happy to ruin their own fun if you let them, but folk REALLY need to stop using the market's name in vain on this topic. here's a cheat sheet:
And the usual market caveats apply for several categories: patience can still score you cheap common and uncommon salvage and crafted generics. My guy chasing field crafter has been making BANK off this whole thing- I place salvage bids overnight, crank out a ton of generics the next day and they all sell like hotcakes for ridiculous prices. My inf grinders are also going to realize a ridiculously massive profit once they turn off the spigot- I have bins full of really good IOs that I bought for pocket change that are going to bring in genuinely grotesque profits. Any widespread change in player behavior will upset the "balance" of the market. And all of these disruptions bring just as many opportunities for massive profits as they do opportunities to spend yourself bankrupt. |
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
I haven't seen any MA farm spam outside Atlas Park.
I've seen very little MA farm spam period on servers other than Freedom. I mean, blame MA farmers in one zone on one server for people not playing your arc if you like, but there's a much more obvious and logical reason they're ignoring it. |
Content creators(whatever field they create in) biggest problem is obscurity. The creators work could be the greatest thing since the Mona Lisa, but if nobody knows about, then it doesn't matter.
And I don't think the farm missions clogging up AE make as big a difference as everybody thinks. Even without those farm missions, there is still a lot of stuff to go through in AE to find something good. If somebody wants people to play their arc, they need to actively advertise to people any chance they get.
edit: I coulda swore your last post said something different when I hit the quote button.
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That there's a more obvious and logical reason, when you provide one yourself? |
Originally Posted by MunkiLord
Well I doubt you have the information to say that.
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| And I don't think the farm missions clogging up AE make as big a difference as everybody thinks. |
The interface is so clunky and awful finding anything would be a chore even without the legions of undead arcs, farms and narrowly focused pet projects.
I still manage to discover fun, entertaining content, but it's in spite of the interface.
And as you note, the best way to spot promising stuff is check the forums and people's sigs.
People who care enough about their story to promote them generally turn out a better-than-average product.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Linky?
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, the be fair, the Architect exploits are the first time the developers themselves came out and said "This is wrong. Don't do it."
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I think Sam is referring to Posi's freakout over the epic tsunami of farming the release of MA created.
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Originally Posted by seebs
Linky?
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The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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You don't speak for me! |
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
People who care enough about their story to promote them generally turn out a better-than-average product.
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I don't feel people should be punished. If anything, I feel a "good game" is in order. Good job, guys. You found the exploit, you exploited it, you grabbed your earnings. Party's over now. Move along. Go back to the game, and we'll try to plug these things up faster in the future.
I tend to adopt a "no harm no foul" policy with these things. Yes, an exploit is harmful while it's actually active, but the solution is not to punish people but to fix it. No, the developers can't predict every exploit which might happen, but they should still close them down as they come up. Nobody has to lose and nobody has to leave angry.
Truth be told, I have nothing but sympathy for the people who got levels off these bugs. So long as the exploiters did so with the full knowledge that it wouldn't last forever, I bear no ill feelings towards the guys and gals. Let 'em keep their stuff, now that they already have it, so long as they aren't big babies about a clear exploit being closed up.
*edit*
I.e. if you got "toons" deleted, I would moan about it
Well said, Sam.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone