cyber week & "gifting/trading" week

CrusaderjrCrusaderjr Member Posts: 1,059 ★★★★
edited November 2021 in General Discussion
so is there any possible way that we can get some type of info on how the rest of the year is ganna play out??
cause i mean if gifting event is botched up/ reduced/ or simply doesnt meet standards due to the "exploit" of unit farming with new accounts(even tho that how the game is intended to be right, play and get rewarded?), people can simply invest in cyber week instead.

its safe to say there is a poop storm brewing and the community is ganna take the brunt of it as usual. there is ganna be more bugs, more game breaking events and such. we already have to deal with that... just hope these upcoming deals arent also ruined....
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Comments

  • Scarcity27Scarcity27 Member Posts: 1,906 ★★★★★
    Miike did say that there will be an increase in requirements for gifting, so reduce at least a bit of the 'exploit' as you called it. He also said that the team would not be revealing those requirements until just before gifting week.
  • Deadpool87Deadpool87 Member Posts: 573 ★★★
    Everything will be spelled out when next months event announcement comes out which should be next week
  • UnknownUnknown
    This content has been removed.
  • AdevatiAdevati Member Posts: 439 ★★★
    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    To your disclosure portion, grinding baby accounts is far more enjoyable than Arena. Obviously, gifting is the only reason to grind on those accounts. So if Kabam takes this away, a lot of people will be very disappointed. Personally, I’d be fine if they did some rearranging and found a way to equal alt account farming to rewards one would have gotten from Arena farming.

    In the end, I think this speaks more to how exhausted people are of Arena/AW/AQ that they’d rather farm new accounts.

    And Red Skull crushes autofight.
  • CrusaderjrCrusaderjr Member Posts: 1,059 ★★★★
    Scarcity27 said:

    Miike did say that there will be an increase in requirements for gifting, so reduce at least a bit of the 'exploit' as you called it. He also said that the team would not be revealing those requirements until just before gifting week.

    thats just a reiteration of what he said, but we need to know as a community what they are planning to do. cause they could also not improve the crystals compared to last year, and if that is the case cyber deals will be more useful. hence why communicating BEFORE cyber week is important, if all the overall good deals come out on cyber week and we get old gifting crystals then yet again we will be shafted.
    Rookiie said:

    Crusaderjr said:

    so is there any possible way that we can get some type of info on how the rest of the year is ganna play out??

    its safe to say there is a poop storm brewing and the community is ganna take the brunt of it as usual. there is ganna be more bugs

    There is a poop storm brewing because of the way you are spelling gonna or going to.

    Heck, I’d even take gonnae because that’s how Sir Alex Ferguson says it.
    you obviously never been to the bay area and it shows, next you are GANNA(pronounced gah-nah) tell me how to say hella LuL. the world uses slang you should try learning more of them :p

  • CrusaderjrCrusaderjr Member Posts: 1,059 ★★★★
    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    100% agree making new accounts and grinding the units from provided content isnt exploiting its playing the game that is provided. now anything more than 5 mini accounts seems like crazy invested time and gets kinda sketchy, 10 and above starts to seem like bot or no life type players and would need to be looked over for sure.

    but even then! they are simply playing the game as intended.

    arena bots, mercs, and hackers are a yearly problem that effect all players while this "exploit" is for a week and only helps accounts grow, if the player still sucks at the game the rewards dont mean much imo
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,581 ★★★★★
    Crusaderjr said:

    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    100% agree making new accounts and grinding the units from provided content isnt exploiting its playing the game that is provided. now anything more than 5 mini accounts seems like crazy invested time and gets kinda sketchy, 10 and above starts to seem like bot or no life type players and would need to be looked over for sure.

    but even then! they are simply playing the game as intended.

    arena bots, mercs, and hackers are a yearly problem that effect all players while this "exploit" is for a week and only helps accounts grow, if the player still sucks at the game the rewards dont mean much imo
    So....because other people are cheating and it's not immediately possible to stop them from doing that, people should be allowed to infinitely spawn Alts to take advantage of easy Units? How dat work doe?
  • NOOOOOOOOPEEEEENOOOOOOOOPEEEEE Member Posts: 2,803 ★★★★★
    I like how we are now suddenly calling this an exploit, despite the fact Kabam in the past bad always been aware and admitted to being fine with the fact people would make Alts during the gifting event to gift to their main.
  • CrusaderjrCrusaderjr Member Posts: 1,059 ★★★★
    NOOOOOOOOPEEEEE said:

    I like how we are now suddenly calling this an exploit, despite the fact Kabam in the past bad always been aware and admitted to being fine with the fact people would make Alts during the gifting event to gift to their main.

    hence why ive been using " " on exploit in my comments, people are simply playing the game with new accounts. personally thats more fun than running 5-10 hours of arena on a main account LuL
  • CrusaderjrCrusaderjr Member Posts: 1,059 ★★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    Crusaderjr said:

    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    100% agree making new accounts and grinding the units from provided content isnt exploiting its playing the game that is provided. now anything more than 5 mini accounts seems like crazy invested time and gets kinda sketchy, 10 and above starts to seem like bot or no life type players and would need to be looked over for sure.

    but even then! they are simply playing the game as intended.

    arena bots, mercs, and hackers are a yearly problem that effect all players while this "exploit" is for a week and only helps accounts grow, if the player still sucks at the game the rewards dont mean much imo
    Again: rolling an alt is not an exploit. Veterans gaining the early game rewards in new alts is not an exploit. Gifting from alts to mains is not an exploit. But rolling mass numbers of accounts and funneling those units into mains can be considered an exploit.

    I know it is practically a tradition for people on the internet to make up definitions for terms, and I've heard all sorts of interesting ones for what people think "an exploit" is (they run the gamut from hilarious to sad) but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage.

    The units added to the early game Acts were very obviously intended to allow new players (or existing players rolling new accounts) to improve and accelerate their early game experience. They were obviously not intended for people to farm into their existing accounts via gifting. Anyone who says this isn't obvious is intellectually dishonest or intellectually challenged.

    But just because it isn't intended, doesn't make it an exploit. Lots of things are unintended, but just represent creativity on the part of the players. Hoarding crystals to bank potions, for example, is completely unintended, but the devs don't see this as an unacceptable advantage, so this is not an exploit. People have played alts for years and then gifted from those alts to their main accounts for years, and this is also not considered an unacceptable advantage and thus not an exploit.

    But at some point, the total advantage you can get by rolling a huge amount of alts makes the advantage gained in this way unacceptable, and at that point you have an exploit.

    Some people are saying that since they are playing the game "as intended" this cannot be an exploit. They are wrong. An exploit has nothing to do with "playing the game as intended." I'm just tapping on the screen, and since the game intends me to tap the screen, by definition no amount of tapping can be an exploit, according to this notion. Exploits are not about what you do, but about which opportunities you take advantage of. Earning the units is intended. Spending them on someone else is not intended.

    Other people are saying that if this is only an exploit if the gifting is huge, then all huge gifting is an exploit. Again: wrong. People spending thousands of dollars on alts, and then gifting back to themselves is not an exploit, because spending thousands of dollars on units is not an unintended acquisition of units. The advantage you get from spending all that money is not unintentional, so this does not meet the definition of an exploit. Similarly, if someone grinds units normally in an alt account and gifts to themselves, that is also not unintended, even if people do it on large scales. Units normally cost a certain amount of money or a certain amount of time to earn, and the exception to that are the huge amounts of units in the early Acts.

    I'm sure this will draw a lot of dislikes, which is fine. And if people want to make up their own definition of what an exploit is and dance around it, that's also cool. But Kabam, like all online game operators, don't define "exploit" arbitrarily. They define it specifically in terms of what they have to prohibit in their games. They are going to use their definition, not yours, and they aren't going to honor yours when they decide which things to act upon and which not to. Don't act surprised when they seem to be ignoring all the made up definitions of what an exploit is.
    went on a whole tangent even tho i said "exploit" in a sarcastic manner... contexts clues...
  • DrZolaDrZola Member Posts: 9,131 ★★★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    Crusaderjr said:

    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    100% agree making new accounts and grinding the units from provided content isnt exploiting its playing the game that is provided. now anything more than 5 mini accounts seems like crazy invested time and gets kinda sketchy, 10 and above starts to seem like bot or no life type players and would need to be looked over for sure.

    but even then! they are simply playing the game as intended.

    arena bots, mercs, and hackers are a yearly problem that effect all players while this "exploit" is for a week and only helps accounts grow, if the player still sucks at the game the rewards dont mean much imo
    Again: rolling an alt is not an exploit. Veterans gaining the early game rewards in new alts is not an exploit. Gifting from alts to mains is not an exploit. But rolling mass numbers of accounts and funneling those units into mains can be considered an exploit.

    I know it is practically a tradition for people on the internet to make up definitions for terms, and I've heard all sorts of interesting ones for what people think "an exploit" is (they run the gamut from hilarious to sad) but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage.

    The units added to the early game Acts were very obviously intended to allow new players (or existing players rolling new accounts) to improve and accelerate their early game experience. They were obviously not intended for people to farm into their existing accounts via gifting. Anyone who says this isn't obvious is intellectually dishonest or intellectually challenged.

    But just because it isn't intended, doesn't make it an exploit. Lots of things are unintended, but just represent creativity on the part of the players. Hoarding crystals to bank potions, for example, is completely unintended, but the devs don't see this as an unacceptable advantage, so this is not an exploit. People have played alts for years and then gifted from those alts to their main accounts for years, and this is also not considered an unacceptable advantage and thus not an exploit.

    But at some point, the total advantage you can get by rolling a huge amount of alts makes the advantage gained in this way unacceptable, and at that point you have an exploit.

    Some people are saying that since they are playing the game "as intended" this cannot be an exploit. They are wrong. An exploit has nothing to do with "playing the game as intended." I'm just tapping on the screen, and since the game intends me to tap the screen, by definition no amount of tapping can be an exploit, according to this notion. Exploits are not about what you do, but about which opportunities you take advantage of. Earning the units is intended. Spending them on someone else is not intended.

    Other people are saying that if this is only an exploit if the gifting is huge, then all huge gifting is an exploit. Again: wrong. People spending thousands of dollars on alts, and then gifting back to themselves is not an exploit, because spending thousands of dollars on units is not an unintended acquisition of units. The advantage you get from spending all that money is not unintentional, so this does not meet the definition of an exploit. Similarly, if someone grinds units normally in an alt account and gifts to themselves, that is also not unintended, even if people do it on large scales. Units normally cost a certain amount of money or a certain amount of time to earn, and the exception to that are the huge amounts of units in the early Acts.

    I'm sure this will draw a lot of dislikes, which is fine. And if people want to make up their own definition of what an exploit is and dance around it, that's also cool. But Kabam, like all online game operators, don't define "exploit" arbitrarily. They define it specifically in terms of what they have to prohibit in their games. They are going to use their definition, not yours, and they aren't going to honor yours when they decide which things to act upon and which not to. Don't act surprised when they seem to be ignoring all the made up definitions of what an exploit is.
    I’m curious: do you think the team contemplated the type of exploit scenario you point out, or do you think they realized it after they modified Acts 1-3?

    Because I think the answer is significant either way.

    Dr. Zola
  • UnknownUnknown
    This content has been removed.
  • ShadowstrikeShadowstrike Member Posts: 3,110 ★★★★★
    Crusaderjr said:

    Scarcity27 said:

    Miike did say that there will be an increase in requirements for gifting, so reduce at least a bit of the 'exploit' as you called it. He also said that the team would not be revealing those requirements until just before gifting week.

    thats just a reiteration of what he said, but we need to know as a community what they are planning to do. cause they could also not improve the crystals compared to last year, and if that is the case cyber deals will be more useful. hence why communicating BEFORE cyber week is important, if all the overall good deals come out on cyber week and we get old gifting crystals then yet again we will be shafted.
    Rookiie said:

    Crusaderjr said:

    so is there any possible way that we can get some type of info on how the rest of the year is ganna play out??

    its safe to say there is a poop storm brewing and the community is ganna take the brunt of it as usual. there is ganna be more bugs

    There is a poop storm brewing because of the way you are spelling gonna or going to.

    Heck, I’d even take gonnae because that’s how Sir Alex Ferguson says it.
    you obviously never been to the bay area and it shows, next you are GANNA(pronounced gah-nah) tell me how to say hella LuL. the world uses slang you should try learning more of them :p

    They even admitted they're still working out the details so if you ask them to share everything they have now, all you are going to get is incomplete information and a bunch of follow-up questions from people who are frustrated because one sentence that hasn't been fully completed made them angry.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,697 Guardian
    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Crusaderjr said:

    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    100% agree making new accounts and grinding the units from provided content isnt exploiting its playing the game that is provided. now anything more than 5 mini accounts seems like crazy invested time and gets kinda sketchy, 10 and above starts to seem like bot or no life type players and would need to be looked over for sure.

    but even then! they are simply playing the game as intended.

    arena bots, mercs, and hackers are a yearly problem that effect all players while this "exploit" is for a week and only helps accounts grow, if the player still sucks at the game the rewards dont mean much imo
    Again: rolling an alt is not an exploit. Veterans gaining the early game rewards in new alts is not an exploit. Gifting from alts to mains is not an exploit. But rolling mass numbers of accounts and funneling those units into mains can be considered an exploit.

    I know it is practically a tradition for people on the internet to make up definitions for terms, and I've heard all sorts of interesting ones for what people think "an exploit" is (they run the gamut from hilarious to sad) but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage.

    The units added to the early game Acts were very obviously intended to allow new players (or existing players rolling new accounts) to improve and accelerate their early game experience. They were obviously not intended for people to farm into their existing accounts via gifting. Anyone who says this isn't obvious is intellectually dishonest or intellectually challenged.

    But just because it isn't intended, doesn't make it an exploit. Lots of things are unintended, but just represent creativity on the part of the players. Hoarding crystals to bank potions, for example, is completely unintended, but the devs don't see this as an unacceptable advantage, so this is not an exploit. People have played alts for years and then gifted from those alts to their main accounts for years, and this is also not considered an unacceptable advantage and thus not an exploit.

    But at some point, the total advantage you can get by rolling a huge amount of alts makes the advantage gained in this way unacceptable, and at that point you have an exploit.

    Some people are saying that since they are playing the game "as intended" this cannot be an exploit. They are wrong. An exploit has nothing to do with "playing the game as intended." I'm just tapping on the screen, and since the game intends me to tap the screen, by definition no amount of tapping can be an exploit, according to this notion. Exploits are not about what you do, but about which opportunities you take advantage of. Earning the units is intended. Spending them on someone else is not intended.

    Other people are saying that if this is only an exploit if the gifting is huge, then all huge gifting is an exploit. Again: wrong. People spending thousands of dollars on alts, and then gifting back to themselves is not an exploit, because spending thousands of dollars on units is not an unintended acquisition of units. The advantage you get from spending all that money is not unintentional, so this does not meet the definition of an exploit. Similarly, if someone grinds units normally in an alt account and gifts to themselves, that is also not unintended, even if people do it on large scales. Units normally cost a certain amount of money or a certain amount of time to earn, and the exception to that are the huge amounts of units in the early Acts.

    I'm sure this will draw a lot of dislikes, which is fine. And if people want to make up their own definition of what an exploit is and dance around it, that's also cool. But Kabam, like all online game operators, don't define "exploit" arbitrarily. They define it specifically in terms of what they have to prohibit in their games. They are going to use their definition, not yours, and they aren't going to honor yours when they decide which things to act upon and which not to. Don't act surprised when they seem to be ignoring all the made up definitions of what an exploit is.
    I’m curious: do you think the team contemplated the type of exploit scenario you point out, or do you think they realized it after they modified Acts 1-3?

    Because I think the answer is significant either way.

    Dr. Zola
    I believe they contemplated it, but did not fully appreciate the possible extent of it. Which is understandable, as even now there are a lot of players who don't fully appreciate the possible extent of it, or don't consider it problematic.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,697 Guardian
    JustingBonoko said:

    @DNA3000 " but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage."

    1st problem is, Kabam did not specify how are you supposed to use the units. Yes, common sense says units from act123 are intended to help new players and not feed into main accounts, but again, kabam did not expressively say that in their TOS.

    2nd problem is, assuming everyone grinds alts legit not using bots or mercs, everyone has the same oportunity to grind as my alts as they want to, no restrictions, if you dont take the oportunity for various reasons, then you cannot blame people,who are more dedicated and willing to put in the work, for gaining an unacceptable advantage

    Neither of these things matter. Firstly, game operators have no requirement to explicitly state every intent of every game change. That would be an unrealistic burden. Secondly, this doesn't make logical sense when discussing unintended possibilities. Many unintended possibilities fall into the category of unanticipated situations, which cannot be explicitly listed ahead of time.

    But most importantly, talking about "blame" is completely missing the point. An exploit is conduct unacceptable to the operation of the game that must be curtailed. Asking who's fault it is is completely immaterial. If it is the players fault, it has to be curtailed. If it is the developers fault it has to be curtailed. The idea that if the developer is "at fault" then the players get to do whatever they want abrogates the developers responsibility to the game. If I'm a game developer and I make a mistake and as a result of that mistake an unacceptable amount of rewards flow into the game, then I will change the game to stop that flow and if the amount is high enough then I will reverse those rewards out of the game, because that's my job. The fact that the players "blame me" for the problem is perfectly fine, because as the developer it ultimately is my fault. It changes nothing about what my job requires me to do.

    At no time would I ever say, oh well, it is my fault, so I guess the players get to keep everything. That's ludicrous. If I was a game developer and I had that attitude, I wouldn't be one for very long.
  • DrZolaDrZola Member Posts: 9,131 ★★★★★
    DNA3000 said:

    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Crusaderjr said:

    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    100% agree making new accounts and grinding the units from provided content isnt exploiting its playing the game that is provided. now anything more than 5 mini accounts seems like crazy invested time and gets kinda sketchy, 10 and above starts to seem like bot or no life type players and would need to be looked over for sure.

    but even then! they are simply playing the game as intended.

    arena bots, mercs, and hackers are a yearly problem that effect all players while this "exploit" is for a week and only helps accounts grow, if the player still sucks at the game the rewards dont mean much imo
    Again: rolling an alt is not an exploit. Veterans gaining the early game rewards in new alts is not an exploit. Gifting from alts to mains is not an exploit. But rolling mass numbers of accounts and funneling those units into mains can be considered an exploit.

    I know it is practically a tradition for people on the internet to make up definitions for terms, and I've heard all sorts of interesting ones for what people think "an exploit" is (they run the gamut from hilarious to sad) but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage.

    The units added to the early game Acts were very obviously intended to allow new players (or existing players rolling new accounts) to improve and accelerate their early game experience. They were obviously not intended for people to farm into their existing accounts via gifting. Anyone who says this isn't obvious is intellectually dishonest or intellectually challenged.

    But just because it isn't intended, doesn't make it an exploit. Lots of things are unintended, but just represent creativity on the part of the players. Hoarding crystals to bank potions, for example, is completely unintended, but the devs don't see this as an unacceptable advantage, so this is not an exploit. People have played alts for years and then gifted from those alts to their main accounts for years, and this is also not considered an unacceptable advantage and thus not an exploit.

    But at some point, the total advantage you can get by rolling a huge amount of alts makes the advantage gained in this way unacceptable, and at that point you have an exploit.

    Some people are saying that since they are playing the game "as intended" this cannot be an exploit. They are wrong. An exploit has nothing to do with "playing the game as intended." I'm just tapping on the screen, and since the game intends me to tap the screen, by definition no amount of tapping can be an exploit, according to this notion. Exploits are not about what you do, but about which opportunities you take advantage of. Earning the units is intended. Spending them on someone else is not intended.

    Other people are saying that if this is only an exploit if the gifting is huge, then all huge gifting is an exploit. Again: wrong. People spending thousands of dollars on alts, and then gifting back to themselves is not an exploit, because spending thousands of dollars on units is not an unintended acquisition of units. The advantage you get from spending all that money is not unintentional, so this does not meet the definition of an exploit. Similarly, if someone grinds units normally in an alt account and gifts to themselves, that is also not unintended, even if people do it on large scales. Units normally cost a certain amount of money or a certain amount of time to earn, and the exception to that are the huge amounts of units in the early Acts.

    I'm sure this will draw a lot of dislikes, which is fine. And if people want to make up their own definition of what an exploit is and dance around it, that's also cool. But Kabam, like all online game operators, don't define "exploit" arbitrarily. They define it specifically in terms of what they have to prohibit in their games. They are going to use their definition, not yours, and they aren't going to honor yours when they decide which things to act upon and which not to. Don't act surprised when they seem to be ignoring all the made up definitions of what an exploit is.
    I’m curious: do you think the team contemplated the type of exploit scenario you point out, or do you think they realized it after they modified Acts 1-3?

    Because I think the answer is significant either way.

    Dr. Zola
    I believe they contemplated it, but did not fully appreciate the possible extent of it. Which is understandable, as even now there are a lot of players who don't fully appreciate the possible extent of it, or don't consider it problematic.
    I tend to agree it was contemplated, although I find it difficult to believe no one considered that giving nearly $100 USD in units for entry level gameplay nary a month before gifting might pose issues.

    Active accounts is an important gaming metric, is it not?

    Dr. Zola
  • Stebo_79Stebo_79 Member Posts: 638 ★★★
    edited November 2021
    IMHO the real "exploit" is that people can create Kabam accounts using fake email addresses. Only just found that out in the thread about BG's video. Surely if that wasn't the case then this would be less of a problem? Sure people can set up as many email accounts as they want; but how many people could be bothered to set up more than, I dunno 6?
    I think having a valid email address to make a Kabam account would add more time and effort for those looking to "exploit" the new account unit farming to the extreme where it would be deemed an unfair advantage.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,697 Guardian
    Stebo_79 said:

    IMHO the real "exploit" is that people can create Kabam accounts using fake email addresses. Only just found that out in the thread about BG's video. Surely if that wasn't the case then this would be less of a problem? Sure people can set up as many email accounts as they want; but how many people could be bothered to set up more than, I dunno 6?
    I think having a valid email address to make a Kabam account would add more time and effort for those looking to "exploit" the new account unit farming to the extreme where it would be deemed an unfair advantage.

    It takes less time to make a new Gmail account than it does to make a new MCOC account, and there are even faster technical trickery options which I will not detail, but experienced IT people will understand can make this requirement basically nonexistent. But just the straight forward make another Gmail account takes no real effort.
  • StarhawkStarhawk Member Posts: 652 ★★★
    higher requirements is fine as long as it isn't too crazy. For example someone suggested being Uncollected. I think that is going too far. I think looking at the amount of lifetime units spent and/or level number makes the most sense.
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,697 Guardian
    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    DrZola said:

    DNA3000 said:

    Crusaderjr said:

    DrZola said:

    Context is important for whatever “changes” or eligibility requirements the team decides to add.

    It isn’t as if this game has been rollicking along this year. If the team wants to target “exploits,” then I would suggest it focus on botting, units scams and account sharing—not playing the game legitimately to earn units they themselves set out to be earned in the game. Sweeping restrictions seem like a sure way to anger a significant swath of the community who have actually enjoyed running old content.

    My experience suggests the gifting event is one which is often abused. I’m guessing there’s plenty of real, illegitimate abuse of the system to keep someone busy without penalizing players willing to put in an extra few hours of gameplay a week to build an account for end of year events.

    Dr. Zola

    [Full disclosure: I have an account from mid-2016 I created when I thought I lost access to my main. I’ve been in it from time to time to collect things and run a quest or two. But it wasn’t until this month that I actually focused on content. I can say I never thought I would be as excited to pop a 3* crystal as I have been, and I never would have been excited to pull a 4* Red Skull but for that account and the team’s changes.]

    100% agree making new accounts and grinding the units from provided content isnt exploiting its playing the game that is provided. now anything more than 5 mini accounts seems like crazy invested time and gets kinda sketchy, 10 and above starts to seem like bot or no life type players and would need to be looked over for sure.

    but even then! they are simply playing the game as intended.

    arena bots, mercs, and hackers are a yearly problem that effect all players while this "exploit" is for a week and only helps accounts grow, if the player still sucks at the game the rewards dont mean much imo
    Again: rolling an alt is not an exploit. Veterans gaining the early game rewards in new alts is not an exploit. Gifting from alts to mains is not an exploit. But rolling mass numbers of accounts and funneling those units into mains can be considered an exploit.

    I know it is practically a tradition for people on the internet to make up definitions for terms, and I've heard all sorts of interesting ones for what people think "an exploit" is (they run the gamut from hilarious to sad) but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage.

    The units added to the early game Acts were very obviously intended to allow new players (or existing players rolling new accounts) to improve and accelerate their early game experience. They were obviously not intended for people to farm into their existing accounts via gifting. Anyone who says this isn't obvious is intellectually dishonest or intellectually challenged.

    But just because it isn't intended, doesn't make it an exploit. Lots of things are unintended, but just represent creativity on the part of the players. Hoarding crystals to bank potions, for example, is completely unintended, but the devs don't see this as an unacceptable advantage, so this is not an exploit. People have played alts for years and then gifted from those alts to their main accounts for years, and this is also not considered an unacceptable advantage and thus not an exploit.

    But at some point, the total advantage you can get by rolling a huge amount of alts makes the advantage gained in this way unacceptable, and at that point you have an exploit.

    Some people are saying that since they are playing the game "as intended" this cannot be an exploit. They are wrong. An exploit has nothing to do with "playing the game as intended." I'm just tapping on the screen, and since the game intends me to tap the screen, by definition no amount of tapping can be an exploit, according to this notion. Exploits are not about what you do, but about which opportunities you take advantage of. Earning the units is intended. Spending them on someone else is not intended.

    Other people are saying that if this is only an exploit if the gifting is huge, then all huge gifting is an exploit. Again: wrong. People spending thousands of dollars on alts, and then gifting back to themselves is not an exploit, because spending thousands of dollars on units is not an unintended acquisition of units. The advantage you get from spending all that money is not unintentional, so this does not meet the definition of an exploit. Similarly, if someone grinds units normally in an alt account and gifts to themselves, that is also not unintended, even if people do it on large scales. Units normally cost a certain amount of money or a certain amount of time to earn, and the exception to that are the huge amounts of units in the early Acts.

    I'm sure this will draw a lot of dislikes, which is fine. And if people want to make up their own definition of what an exploit is and dance around it, that's also cool. But Kabam, like all online game operators, don't define "exploit" arbitrarily. They define it specifically in terms of what they have to prohibit in their games. They are going to use their definition, not yours, and they aren't going to honor yours when they decide which things to act upon and which not to. Don't act surprised when they seem to be ignoring all the made up definitions of what an exploit is.
    I’m curious: do you think the team contemplated the type of exploit scenario you point out, or do you think they realized it after they modified Acts 1-3?

    Because I think the answer is significant either way.

    Dr. Zola
    I believe they contemplated it, but did not fully appreciate the possible extent of it. Which is understandable, as even now there are a lot of players who don't fully appreciate the possible extent of it, or don't consider it problematic.
    I tend to agree it was contemplated, although I find it difficult to believe no one considered that giving nearly $100 USD in units for entry level gameplay nary a month before gifting might pose issues.

    Active accounts is an important gaming metric, is it not?

    Dr. Zola
    Yes and no. But more importantly, farming alts are only active for a brief window of time and then they drop off that metric either way.

    Individual metrics don't mean much out of context. Suppose I were to make a bot that just made accounts one after the other, and added say a million accounts to the game. And let's say I kept logging into them somehow so they are also "active" accounts. You could say hey, look at that, the game is adding tons more active accounts, that's great. But you could also say hey, how come the conversion rate (the percentage of players who spend on the game: that are "converted" into paying customers) dropped from 5% to 2%? What is going wrong? I might not be making things actually look better at all (and actually, you could probably figure out what was happening just by looking at the metrics and seeing one change radically and all the others staying the same).

    In F2P gaming, "active accounts" is a secondary indicator of performance. It only means something in combination with other metrics that can combine to give a better picture of what's going on. And this doesn't even begin to cover the rabbit hole that is "what is an active player?"
  • UnknownUnknown
    This content has been removed.
  • BafNOOBBafNOOB Member Posts: 6 ★
    Who cares the game doesn't even work. Endgame content is unplayable
  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,697 Guardian
    JustingBonoko said:

    DNA3000 said:

    JustingBonoko said:

    @DNA3000 " but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage."

    1st problem is, Kabam did not specify how are you supposed to use the units. Yes, common sense says units from act123 are intended to help new players and not feed into main accounts, but again, kabam did not expressively say that in their TOS.

    2nd problem is, assuming everyone grinds alts legit not using bots or mercs, everyone has the same oportunity to grind as my alts as they want to, no restrictions, if you dont take the oportunity for various reasons, then you cannot blame people,who are more dedicated and willing to put in the work, for gaining an unacceptable advantage

    Neither of these things matter. Firstly, game operators have no requirement to explicitly state every intent of every game change. That would be an unrealistic burden. Secondly, this doesn't make logical sense when discussing unintended possibilities. Many unintended possibilities fall into the category of unanticipated situations, which cannot be explicitly listed ahead of time.

    But most importantly, talking about "blame" is completely missing the point. An exploit is conduct unacceptable to the operation of the game that must be curtailed. Asking who's fault it is is completely immaterial. If it is the players fault, it has to be curtailed. If it is the developers fault it has to be curtailed. The idea that if the developer is "at fault" then the players get to do whatever they want abrogates the developers responsibility to the game. If I'm a game developer and I make a mistake and as a result of that mistake an unacceptable amount of rewards flow into the game, then I will change the game to stop that flow and if the amount is high enough then I will reverse those rewards out of the game, because that's my job. The fact that the players "blame me" for the problem is perfectly fine, because as the developer it ultimately is my fault. It changes nothing about what my job requires me to do.

    At no time would I ever say, oh well, it is my fault, so I guess the players get to keep everything. That's ludicrous. If I was a game developer and I had that attitude, I wouldn't be one for very long.
    in general yes, you might be right, but when they changed act123, they surely must've anticipated this. you yourself dont believe noone thought of this possibility, yet they allowed it. and as they have real data from past years gifting events, they probably concluded it would not make such an impact. so BG's concerns and everyone else talking about breaking game economy are just speculating and talking in hypothetical extreme scenarios.
    They thought about it, allowed it anyway, then reconsidered the consequences. That's basically one of the three ways exploits enter any game. Either they didn't consider it at all, they did consider it but failed to realize the full impact, or they considered the impact but underestimated it.

    Exploits are rarely associated with unintended actions. They are associated with unintended side effects.

    Also, it is possible that they did consider this and were working on mitigation, but was going to remain silent on that mitigation until we were near the gifting event but Brian's video compelled them to respond.
  • UnknownUnknown
    This content has been removed.
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,581 ★★★★★
    Irumili said:

    DNA3000 said:

    JustingBonoko said:

    DNA3000 said:

    JustingBonoko said:

    @DNA3000 " but an exploit, in the context of online games, is when someone takes advantage of an unintended opportunity to gain an unacceptable advantage. You need two things for conduct to be considered an exploit as the term is normally used. You need an unintended opportunity, and you need an unacceptable advantage."

    1st problem is, Kabam did not specify how are you supposed to use the units. Yes, common sense says units from act123 are intended to help new players and not feed into main accounts, but again, kabam did not expressively say that in their TOS.

    2nd problem is, assuming everyone grinds alts legit not using bots or mercs, everyone has the same oportunity to grind as my alts as they want to, no restrictions, if you dont take the oportunity for various reasons, then you cannot blame people,who are more dedicated and willing to put in the work, for gaining an unacceptable advantage

    Neither of these things matter. Firstly, game operators have no requirement to explicitly state every intent of every game change. That would be an unrealistic burden. Secondly, this doesn't make logical sense when discussing unintended possibilities. Many unintended possibilities fall into the category of unanticipated situations, which cannot be explicitly listed ahead of time.

    But most importantly, talking about "blame" is completely missing the point. An exploit is conduct unacceptable to the operation of the game that must be curtailed. Asking who's fault it is is completely immaterial. If it is the players fault, it has to be curtailed. If it is the developers fault it has to be curtailed. The idea that if the developer is "at fault" then the players get to do whatever they want abrogates the developers responsibility to the game. If I'm a game developer and I make a mistake and as a result of that mistake an unacceptable amount of rewards flow into the game, then I will change the game to stop that flow and if the amount is high enough then I will reverse those rewards out of the game, because that's my job. The fact that the players "blame me" for the problem is perfectly fine, because as the developer it ultimately is my fault. It changes nothing about what my job requires me to do.

    At no time would I ever say, oh well, it is my fault, so I guess the players get to keep everything. That's ludicrous. If I was a game developer and I had that attitude, I wouldn't be one for very long.
    in general yes, you might be right, but when they changed act123, they surely must've anticipated this. you yourself dont believe noone thought of this possibility, yet they allowed it. and as they have real data from past years gifting events, they probably concluded it would not make such an impact. so BG's concerns and everyone else talking about breaking game economy are just speculating and talking in hypothetical extreme scenarios.
    They thought about it, allowed it anyway, then reconsidered the consequences. That's basically one of the three ways exploits enter any game. Either they didn't consider it at all, they did consider it but failed to realize the full impact, or they considered the impact but underestimated it.

    Exploits are rarely associated with unintended actions. They are associated with unintended side effects.

    Also, it is possible that they did consider this and were working on mitigation, but was going to remain silent on that mitigation until we were near the gifting event but Brian's video compelled them to respond.
    No normal human being can do Brian Grant's calculations. Ask yourself would you do it? Absofkinlutely you can try for maybe 5 accounts tops. BG did not consider the 6 hrs itself is small but everyday for 45 days? also he did it easily coz of the rank up gems that will not be available for so long. And if you just play the alt accounts your main account would lose a lot of value during that time as well So.. yep the 200k unit exploit is a huge crazy talk.
    To that extreme perhaps. Stranger things have happened when people learn there's an easy advantage. Regardless, it still amounts to thousands of Units being funneled into Mains.
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