Everyone saving like mad for Blade crystals.... "Yeah, Blade is not OP" ...
Using refills and running a chapter 1 quest over and over again.. "Yeah, I don't know what a exploit is"...
Cognitive dissonance, I would call it.
Can't say I completely agree with you on the "exploit" part. Your "exploit" may be someone else's "cleverness." Exploit suggests a violation of the ToS. Hard to see how that is the case when you simply play the game before you.
In the history of gaming, players are always looking for ways to secure resources and complete content. To many, Scarlet Witch pre-12.0 was an exploit; Blade post-12.0 is one to many now. But players are not responsible for content. The game team is. This was brought up plain and simple on these forums right after the community noticed it, and the team sat on it for 2-3 days before noting it was placed there to help Summoners in Act 1 and tarring a broad swath of its customers.
Dr. Zola
How would "exploit" infer a violation of the ToS? Video game exploits long predate things like mmo's and mobile games. Go watch any NES video game speedrun. You're likely to see numerous exploits of various flaws in game and level design.
An exploit is using anything in the game in a manner not intended by the developer. On things the devs haven't made a statement on, there can be a debate on whether it was intended by the devs or not, and therefore a debate on whether it's an exploit or not. If a game dev says something in their game is not being used as intended and is an exploit, then it's an exploit. End of story. Not sure why people get so hung up on that word.
Everyone saving like mad for Blade crystals.... "Yeah, Blade is not OP" ...
Using refills and running a chapter 1 quest over and over again.. "Yeah, I don't know what a exploit is"...
Cognitive dissonance, I would call it.
Can't say I completely agree with you on the "exploit" part. Your "exploit" may be someone else's "cleverness." Exploit suggests a violation of the ToS. Hard to see how that is the case when you simply play the game before you.
In the history of gaming, players are always looking for ways to secure resources and complete content. To many, Scarlet Witch pre-12.0 was an exploit; Blade post-12.0 is one to many now. But players are not responsible for content. The game team is. This was brought up plain and simple on these forums right after the community noticed it, and the team sat on it for 2-3 days before noting it was placed there to help Summoners in Act 1 and tarring a broad swath of its customers.
Dr. Zola
How would "exploit" infer a violation of the ToS? Video game exploits long predate things like mmo's and mobile games. Go watch any NES video game speedrun. You're likely to see numerous exploits of various flaws in game and level design.
An exploit is using anything in the game in a manner not intended by the developer. On things the devs haven't made a statement on, there can be a debate on whether it was intended by the devs or not, and therefore a debate on whether it's an exploit or not. If a game dev says something in their game is not being used as intended and is an exploit, then it's an exploit. End of story. Not sure why people get so hung up on that word.
I don’t think we are in disagreement, for the most part. And we may very well view the term “exploit” in the same way, especially if you agree that an exploit doesn’t always denote a violation of the TOS.
But I’m surprised people don't find it troubling that something people obviously disagree on (exploit or not, punishable exploit or not) can after the fact be deemed an exploit by developers that could/should result in punishment.
That’s where my earlier comment about it being “arbitrary and capricious” comes from—when devs create a situation, knowingly allow it to continue, then suddenly swoop in and declare it inappropriate, it’s hard to see it as legitimate.
They haven't punished anyone. However, people were taking advantage of it. When more advanced Players are spamming it and using the Revs in harder content, that's clearly not what it was meant for.
Is that so? That’s like saying using energy you found in act IV to do a path in act V is exploitative.
I could extrapolate, but it would only take us further into LALA land.
Revs are rare. We all know that. That's the whole reason people were using the exploit. It's not some arbitrary debate on farming. Farming is farming when the Resource is meant to be farmed. When they sell Revs for 40 Units a pop and include them in Events as a Milestone, it's pretty apparent they're not meant to be farmed for a few Energy. Bottom line is, people knew what they were doing and expected to get away with it because it was "by design".
Nah. We (you too) must be too far removed from the early playing years. I remember revives showing up often in those chapters. I need them at that time too. As far as intent? They are intended to revive which is what I assume they were used for yes? No exploit here. Everyone farms whatever they can. i used to farm t3cc to sell for t4cc until I could 5/50 my first 4*. No exploit. Kabam just doesn't like it. That's different.
For the record, most of them were level 1 revives anyways, not the 40 unit level 2 revives. Although occasionally you'd get one.
The rate at which you could acquire those revives by spamming that quest was unintentional, as directly stated by kabam. That makes it an exploit.
Is it a game design flaw? Of course it is. Taking advantage of a design flaw is precisely what an exploit is... Was it wrong to take advantage of this design flaw? Well that is debatable and definitely a gray area. Obviously kabam doesn't think it was wrong enough to merit punishment in this case but in other cases they have.
Unintentional after the fact. It was NOT unintentional that they put it there! Same as potions on ROL WS. Very very intentional. They just didn't "intend" for people to keep farming them for game use? Why did they not anticipate this again?
It's like they don't know what farming is in a game or something.
Someone else already posted this, but every aspect of that "exploit" was intended game content by Kabam. They just didn't like what people were using that content for. That is not the same.
It is definitely exactly the same. They obviously did not intend for the outcome of farming endless revives. It's so obvious one would have to be disingenuous to not see that.
Again, for the 1000th time, kabam does have culpability here, a lot. A lot more than the players do. But the players who exploited this quest knew full well this was unintentional, and they have some culpability too.
I personally don't have any issue with kabam's statement. I think it was 100% accurate.
How can you or I know kabam's intent, before they actually said their intent (and not after the fact)?
Anyone, after the fact, can say "it wasn't our intent" and then lay blame. Sheesh.
Would you say their intent is that people cannot farm any resources? If not, where do you see the line clearly laid out?
It isn't. So you are left with pondering their intent all along. There's a word for that.
So i give a new word to the discussion to balance the "disingenuous" statements. That word is "presumptuous!
My problem is with how Kabam is communicating this change to the community, and instead of using this situation as an opportunity to open a dialog with the players and better communicate how the reward system is being managed, they are instead apparently doing the opposite: drawing a line in the sand and significantly curtailing discussion about the change.
Good point, makes you question what kind of logic/data is considered when the higher ups tell forum moderators how to communicate on these kinds of situations.
They haven't punished anyone. However, people were taking advantage of it. When more advanced Players are spamming it and using the Revs in harder content, that's clearly not what it was meant for.
Is that so? That’s like saying using energy you found in act IV to do a path in act V is exploitative.
I could extrapolate, but it would only take us further into LALA land.
Revs are rare. We all know that. That's the whole reason people were using the exploit. It's not some arbitrary debate on farming. Farming is farming when the Resource is meant to be farmed. When they sell Revs for 40 Units a pop and include them in Events as a Milestone, it's pretty apparent they're not meant to be farmed for a few Energy. Bottom line is, people knew what they were doing and expected to get away with it because it was "by design".
Nah. We (you too) must be too far removed from the early playing years. I remember revives showing up often in those chapters. I need them at that time too. As far as intent? They are intended to revive which is what I assume they were used for yes? No exploit here. Everyone farms whatever they can. i used to farm t3cc to sell for t4cc until I could 5/50 my first 4*. No exploit. Kabam just doesn't like it. That's different.
For the record, most of them were level 1 revives anyways, not the 40 unit level 2 revives. Although occasionally you'd get one.
The rate at which you could acquire those revives by spamming that quest was unintentional, as directly stated by kabam. That makes it an exploit.
Is it a game design flaw? Of course it is. Taking advantage of a design flaw is precisely what an exploit is... Was it wrong to take advantage of this design flaw? Well that is debatable and definitely a gray area. Obviously kabam doesn't think it was wrong enough to merit punishment in this case but in other cases they have.
Unintentional after the fact. It was NOT unintentional that they put it there! Same as potions on ROL WS. Very very intentional. They just didn't "intend" for people to keep farming them for game use? Why did they not anticipate this again?
It's like they don't know what farming is in a game or something.
Someone else already posted this, but every aspect of that "exploit" was intended game content by Kabam. They just didn't like what people were using that content for. That is not the same.
It is definitely exactly the same. They obviously did not intend for the outcome of farming endless revives. It's so obvious one would have to be disingenuous to not see that.
Again, for the 1000th time, kabam does have culpability here, a lot. A lot more than the players do. But the players who exploited this quest knew full well this was unintentional, and they have some culpability too.
I personally don't have any issue with kabam's statement. I think it was 100% accurate.
Dont bother try to reason with these people. probably players on the lower end who wanted an easy way to beat end game content.
New word: Presumptuous. I'm not new to the game or the forums. Everyone, possibly you too, knows where to farm the stuff they need. I assume you go right to it too. It would be easy to prevent if it wasn't intended. So their intent, at best was to neglect it until they didn't like it any more.
They haven't punished anyone. However, people were taking advantage of it. When more advanced Players are spamming it and using the Revs in harder content, that's clearly not what it was meant for.
Is that so? That’s like saying using energy you found in act IV to do a path in act V is exploitative.
I could extrapolate, but it would only take us further into LALA land.
Revs are rare. We all know that. That's the whole reason people were using the exploit. It's not some arbitrary debate on farming. Farming is farming when the Resource is meant to be farmed. When they sell Revs for 40 Units a pop and include them in Events as a Milestone, it's pretty apparent they're not meant to be farmed for a few Energy. Bottom line is, people knew what they were doing and expected to get away with it because it was "by design".
Nah. We (you too) must be too far removed from the early playing years. I remember revives showing up often in those chapters. I need them at that time too. As far as intent? They are intended to revive which is what I assume they were used for yes? No exploit here. Everyone farms whatever they can. i used to farm t3cc to sell for t4cc until I could 5/50 my first 4*. No exploit. Kabam just doesn't like it. That's different.
For the record, most of them were level 1 revives anyways, not the 40 unit level 2 revives. Although occasionally you'd get one.
The rate at which you could acquire those revives by spamming that quest was unintentional, as directly stated by kabam. That makes it an exploit.
Is it a game design flaw? Of course it is. Taking advantage of a design flaw is precisely what an exploit is... Was it wrong to take advantage of this design flaw? Well that is debatable and definitely a gray area. Obviously kabam doesn't think it was wrong enough to merit punishment in this case but in other cases they have.
On a side note, I wonder what the actual game code was? I'm guessing a programmer had code in the game that told the operation to drop a revive every time that path was explored. In a court, Kabam would lose this one I'm afraid as code does not write itself.
If I left my garage door open unattended with a sign that said "garage" sale then called the police when someone took something off the dollar table that i didn't intend to have there but then said "i'm not gonna prosecute the thief this time" we'd have this kind of situation I believe. Something's wrong with the responses and assumptions.
It’s the most insulting statement I’ve ever read by any game developer. And it echoes the kind of approach to paying customers, the financial sector subscribed to pre crisis.
I’ve spent a lot of money on this game. A large dollop of that was spent to counter serious, ongoing and unaddressed game issues. Other parts were spent on stuff that’s blatantly broken, like masteries / champs that don’t work as advertised. Or ceased to be of any use.
To suggest customers are cheating by doing what the game allows and always has allowed - it’s even implicitly promoted, e.g. by events like Completion - is a horrendous approach to customer communications. That it’s phrased in that icky ‘the headmaster will spare you now, but may spank you later’ tone of voice, doesn’t help either.
We’re not a bunch of kids stealing candy from a jar. We’re the parents paying the bills that got the sweets in there.
Everyone saving like mad for Blade crystals.... "Yeah, Blade is not OP" ...
Using refills and running a chapter 1 quest over and over again.. "Yeah, I don't know what a exploit is"...
Cognitive dissonance, I would call it.
Can't say I completely agree with you on the "exploit" part. Your "exploit" may be someone else's "cleverness." Exploit suggests a violation of the ToS. Hard to see how that is the case when you simply play the game before you.
In the history of gaming, players are always looking for ways to secure resources and complete content. To many, Scarlet Witch pre-12.0 was an exploit; Blade post-12.0 is one to many now. But players are not responsible for content. The game team is. This was brought up plain and simple on these forums right after the community noticed it, and the team sat on it for 2-3 days before noting it was placed there to help Summoners in Act 1 and tarring a broad swath of its customers.
Dr. Zola
How would "exploit" infer a violation of the ToS? Video game exploits long predate things like mmo's and mobile games. Go watch any NES video game speedrun. You're likely to see numerous exploits of various flaws in game and level design.
An exploit is using anything in the game in a manner not intended by the developer. On things the devs haven't made a statement on, there can be a debate on whether it was intended by the devs or not, and therefore a debate on whether it's an exploit or not. If a game dev says something in their game is not being used as intended and is an exploit, then it's an exploit. End of story. Not sure why people get so hung up on that word.
I don’t think we are in disagreement, for the most part. And we may very well view the term “exploit” in the same way, especially if you agree that an exploit doesn’t always denote a violation of the TOS.
But I’m surprised people don't find it troubling that something people obviously disagree on (exploit or not, punishable exploit or not) can after the fact be deemed an exploit by developers that could/should result in punishment.
That’s where my earlier comment about it being “arbitrary and capricious” comes from—when devs create a situation, knowingly allow it to continue, then suddenly swoop in and declare it inappropriate, it’s hard to see it as legitimate.
Dr. Zola
Exploits don't necessarily denote a ToS violation. Kabam said that the Gwenpool Enervate/Heavy spam tactic was an exploit, but it in no way violated the ToS.
"At this time" is a common Kabamism. Like "We have no plans to nerf Blade at this time.". Basically, it just means that they aren't doing anything now, but reserve the right to in the future. Also keep in mind that Kabam has famously set a precedent for rolling related incidents together when applying discipline. If Kabam finds someone shared their account to run 1.1.5 a ton of times to farm 200 revives and Kabam cracks down on that person, you know they'll be bellyaching if they just said "We're not disciplining players for farming this item, period."
Most likely, Kabam had no idea it was going on until the forum post telling people to do it. They buried the post to cut down on the number of people taking advantage of the exploit until they could get a fix done.
Frankly, I'm not sure if this is a question of semantics or not. In other games, I could state with significant clarity what the intent of the developers was, but I'm not sure in this case.
In other games, there's a difference between "exploits" and "Exploits." There is the colloquial "exploit" which basically means "leverage the opportunity." This isn't a negative thing intrinsically. I can exploit the fact that Thanos is not bleed immune, for example. Then there are "Exploits" as in "attempts to leverage clearly unintended game features for significant gain." These are negative in connotation, in the sense that the game operators must regulate, and in egregious cases take punitive action against.
There's lots of grey area between the two. I personally would describe the farming in 1.1.5 as an exploitable reward, but the players farming it as not exploiting the game in an actionable sense. In my opinion, this comes down to direct verses indirect intention. The reward is there because it was explicitly intended to be there. The reward is earnable because it was explicitly intended to be earnable. And the path is repeatable because the path was explicitly intended to be repeatable. I personally believe when every element of the act is directly explicitly intended, no game operator can fault the players for performing those actions, even if there are unintended *indirect* consequences.
What was unintended here was an indirect result: the game developers did not intend for players to repeatedly and overwhelmingly farm those revives as part of a mechanism to revive past content without significant cost. The value of the reward relative to the effort it takes to earn it is too high when repeated in that manner. It is entirely reasonable for the game developer to act when an element of the game implementation has unintended consequences. But I believe Kabam is doing a very poor job of explaining their position. By calling the reward an "exploit" and in the same passage implying that while punishment isn't planned it was a *possibility* at all, any reasonable player could reasonably infer that Kabam could decide to punish the farming of any repeatable reward in the game if they just felt like it.
If I have doubts, as someone who understands how this works in general, then the messaging for this change is in my opinion dangerously unclear. In every MMO I've ever played, farming alone has never been considered a punishable exploit. It can sometimes get out of hand and need to be regulated, but only in ridiculously extreme cases has it ever been actionable. I would continue to farm rewards that are intrinsically farmable in MCOC. But I am not absolutely 100% certain that is 100% safe in all cases where it would be safe in any other game. And in my opinion, that is a symptom of a general lack of transparency on Kabam's part. To be clear, I have no problem with altering the revive on that map. My problem is with how Kabam is communicating this change to the community, and instead of using this situation as an opportunity to open a dialog with the players and better communicate how the reward system is being managed, they are instead apparently doing the opposite: drawing a line in the sand and significantly curtailing discussion about the change.
This is perfectly explained. I agree that if the revive is there you cant say its only for beginners. That's like saying in ever video game there is that requires items or experience that you are not allowed to go back in the game. This is there fault. i could understand if a revive showed up in ROL on accident due to a bug and everyone knows it shouldn't be there because they have never seen one in ROL or the game allowing you to enter mad titan more than once in a day and getting duplicate rewards. We all know it is not supposed to work like that so its a bug. However, If you dont want to check your changes or upgrades and it happens and you realize it to late than you should not take rewards away or ban people. Cheaters are one thing.
What is funny is that people farm winter soldier all the time in ROL (EASY PEZY fight and those items are in the store for 14 units. They are losing units that way. They could easily put a level cap on Act 1 and 2. If you are level 60 you cant go back and play it. Just like you cant play certain things if you are not above level 40 so you dont progress too fast.
If you have not completed ACT 1 or 2 by level 60 than you can pay units to re-enter. Yes i know people may not have done Story 100% but if you havent done Act 1 or 2 by Level 60 than its your own lose.
Everyone saving like mad for Blade crystals.... "Yeah, Blade is not OP" ...
Using refills and running a chapter 1 quest over and over again.. "Yeah, I don't know what a exploit is"...
Cognitive dissonance, I would call it.
Can't say I completely agree with you on the "exploit" part. Your "exploit" may be someone else's "cleverness." Exploit suggests a violation of the ToS. Hard to see how that is the case when you simply play the game before you.
In the history of gaming, players are always looking for ways to secure resources and complete content. To many, Scarlet Witch pre-12.0 was an exploit; Blade post-12.0 is one to many now. But players are not responsible for content. The game team is. This was brought up plain and simple on these forums right after the community noticed it, and the team sat on it for 2-3 days before noting it was placed there to help Summoners in Act 1 and tarring a broad swath of its customers.
Dr. Zola
How would "exploit" infer a violation of the ToS? Video game exploits long predate things like mmo's and mobile games. Go watch any NES video game speedrun. You're likely to see numerous exploits of various flaws in game and level design.
An exploit is using anything in the game in a manner not intended by the developer. On things the devs haven't made a statement on, there can be a debate on whether it was intended by the devs or not, and therefore a debate on whether it's an exploit or not. If a game dev says something in their game is not being used as intended and is an exploit, then it's an exploit. End of story. Not sure why people get so hung up on that word.
I don’t think we are in disagreement, for the most part. And we may very well view the term “exploit” in the same way, especially if you agree that an exploit doesn’t always denote a violation of the TOS.
But I’m surprised people don't find it troubling that something people obviously disagree on (exploit or not, punishable exploit or not) can after the fact be deemed an exploit by developers that could/should result in punishment.
That’s where my earlier comment about it being “arbitrary and capricious” comes from—when devs create a situation, knowingly allow it to continue, then suddenly swoop in and declare it inappropriate, it’s hard to see it as legitimate.
Dr. Zola
Exploits don't necessarily denote a ToS violation. Kabam said that the Gwenpool Enervate/Heavy spam tactic was an exploit, but it in no way violated the ToS.
"At this time" is a common Kabamism. Like "We have no plans to nerf Blade at this time.". Basically, it just means that they aren't doing anything now, but reserve the right to in the future. Also keep in mind that Kabam has famously set a precedent for rolling related incidents together when applying discipline. If Kabam finds someone shared their account to run 1.1.5 a ton of times to farm 200 revives and Kabam cracks down on that person, you know they'll be bellyaching if they just said "We're not disciplining players for farming this item, period."
Most likely, Kabam had no idea it was going on until the forum post telling people to do it. They buried the post to cut down on the number of people taking advantage of the exploit until they could get a fix done.
If that’s your definition of “exploit,” then I’m mostly comfortable with it. An exploit then is basically finding an anomaly in the in-game economy and using it to save or obtain resources, whether real or virtual (like finding a way to buy a full T2a via shards with 300K less dust than the same full shard T2a could otherwise be bought for).
If you’re right that the game team knew about it when they took the May 20 post down (and they really should have known about it long before that if you believe Miike’s statement about it being there to help low level Summoners), then they waited 3 days to message about it...why? So more exploiting could happen? So they could catch more exploitative Summoners in a L1 revive sting? Because they didn’t know people post things in places other than the forums?
Not an attack—for the most part I think we agree. I’m
just surprised at how this whole thing has been messaged/managed.
If that’s your definition of “exploit,” then I’m mostly comfortable with it. An exploit then is basically finding an anomaly in the in-game economy and using it to save or obtain resources, whether real or virtual (like finding a way to buy a full T2a via shards with 300K less dust than the same full shard T2a could otherwise be bought for).
I'm not sure if this is a matter of wording, but in my experience that isn't how most MMOs would define an "exploit." Exploits could have nothing directly to do with the game economy or even rewards. The Gwenpool cornering exploit wasn't strictly speaking an economical anomaly or imbalance. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of prohibited exploits. The first kind is when a set of in-game actions directly causes an obvious unintended result. For example, if you discover that entering a mission and then immediately exiting, then reentering with the same team causes you to instantly gain the full rewards of that mission, that's obviously a bug generating an unintended result. The second kind is when a set of in-game actions on their own doesn't cause an unintended result, but has unintended side effects or unintended indirect consequences. The Gwenpool cornering exploit was this kind of exploit: everything the player did generated the *intended* result, the exploit was due to the fact that the indirect result was one the developers failed to account for: effectively permanent power lock with no possibility of counterattack.
The *worst* kinds of exploits affect the game economy, progression, or resource management systems, because in a sense they have permanent side effects: players get a lot more stuff outside the normal boundaries of the game progression systems. But a lot of the discussion surrounds what is a *punishable* exploit. Once something becomes a genuine exploit, the devs generally have to take some action, and the obvious action is to remove the exploit from the game somehow. But whether players using the exploit should be punished, or have any gains from the use of the exploit revoked, generally revolve around the question of whether the exploit was obvious and egregious. Usually, exploits that generate *direct* results that are wildly out of bounds are considered more likely to be obvious than ones where the exploit generates *indirect* results that are out of bounds. In the case of the revives in 1.1.5, I would argue that the exploit generates indirect results that are out of bounds, not direct ones. You cannot argue that earning that revive is directly out of bounds, because *everyone* earns that revive in exactly the same way, and everyone cannot be executing an exploit just by entering that map. In the vast majority of cases, earning that revive was not in any way exploitive. The exploit was due to the repeatability of the reward, and more importantly in how the reward was subsequently used. Those are all indirect results, and thus I would argue you cannot consider those results "obviously exploitive." That's a matter of opinion. Here's a statement that is not an opinion: most MMOs I'm aware of would not consider that to be an obvious exploit.
When Kabam says this is "clearly exploitive" that's troubling to me. It is easy for players to post their opinion that this was obviously an exploit, because those are just words. But when a game developer calls something an obvious exploit, they are making a judgment that affects how an exploit should be managed in the game, and that leans towards considering all players that did it to be cheating the game. I've already stated I agree with removing the revive, but implying that players who farm resources in a game are cheating is something I'm extremely uncomfortable with. In fact, I wouldn't play any MMO that I believed would punish me for farming outside the use of what most games would consider exploitive.
@DNA3000 I didn't bother to quote because our dialogue would get way too long, but I would say that I agree with you almost entirely.
The only point I take issue with is that my definition of "economy" is broader than just items you can get in game. I tend to include other inputs like player time/effort--which is a finite resource, is spendable and involves opportunity costs like other resources in game and otherwise. There simply isn't a clear cut way it gets quantified in-game, apart from crude measurements like log-ins or account advancement as a proxy for time/effort spent in-game.
The exploits you note above are in my view ways to obtain the same rewards in-game with reduced time/effort. What is anomalous about them is that I would expect the game architecture implicitly anticipates a value of resources (whether in game or real, whether effort or time or whatever else) to be used by most players in order to obtain them, but that the exploit (the "Gwenpool Heavy" in your example) allows players to obtain them with resources on the lower end or outside of that anticipated value. I'm not a coder and I tend to look at the game from a financial/economic perspective, however, so I defer to your expertise. It's nothing to get hung up on--just trying to describe how I view it in simple terms.
Ultimately, I'm not really worried about the item being removed--that's absolutely a game team decision. What troubles me, like you, is the spirit behind the messaging, which implies a fundamentally different position from other MMOs I've played. Given the fact that threads on this subject continue to exist, how hard is it to just put out a simple apology to the players, to ask for their help in identifying exploits like this in the future, and to clarify that farming basic quests is perfectly acceptable in the game?
@DNA3000 I didn't bother to quote because our dialogue would get way too long, but I would say that I agree with you almost entirely.
The only point I take issue with is that my definition of "economy" is broader than just items you can get in game. I tend to include other inputs like player time/effort--which is a finite resource, is spendable and involves opportunity costs like other resources in game and otherwise. There simply isn't a clear cut way it gets quantified in-game, apart from crude measurements like log-ins or account advancement as a proxy for time/effort spent in-game.
Hmm. That's potentially confusing for anyone without that expansive of a definition of "resources" but I take your meaning. But if the in-game economy is defined to be all consumable or acquirable anythings, then I'm not sure how to define "anomaly" in a way that distinguishes exploitive play from efficient play. For example, is the best arena grinder in the game an anomaly, in the sense that he or she is by definition outside the boundaries of all other players' collective performance?
Consider the case of the player that demonstrated extremely efficient play for Magik verses the starburst node, in which they were able to use Limbo to continuously erase starburst damage in a way that allowed them to defeat a very strong enemy in the face of very high damage that is normally impossible to avoid. You could argue that's an anomaly in the effort required to defeat that node with that champion. What would distinguish extremely good play from unintended anomalies, if we define player effort as one of the resources that anomalous expenditure would constitute an exploit in general?
@DNA3000 I'm guessing that player him/herself would qualify as an anomaly. That's often a very difficult nut to crack.
Seriously, there will always be outliers, just like there will always be players who attempt content and use outsized amounts of time and resources to complete. I like to use the constraint of something like a distribution curve to think about it, with the curve depicting all the different Summoner "costs" to clear content. If the curve is shifted too far in one direction (in this case, the less resource intensive direction), there's likely more than just efficient play going on.
@DNA3000 I'm guessing that player him/herself would qualify as an anomaly. That's often a very difficult nut to crack.
Seriously, there will always be outliers, just like there will always be players who attempt content and use outsized amounts of time and resources to complete. I like to use the constraint of something like a distribution curve to think about it, with the curve depicting all the different Summoner "costs" to clear content. If the curve is shifted too far in one direction (in this case, the less resource intensive direction), there's likely more than just efficient play going on.
But we've gotten way too theoretical...
Dr. Zola
The practical part is that the part of Kabam's statement that makes me most uncomfortable is that they say the reward was "clearly" exploitive, as if there should be no question about it. But I think the only way you could make the cause that the behavior's exploitive nature was obvious is to compare it to the average player: the average player doesn't farm a gazillion revives and use them against Thanos, so that's obviously an exploit. But I think that doesn't leave room for the players to differentiate themselves and try to excel at the game in unique ways.
Of course the definition of an exploit will have some grey area and some judgment, but there should be some guidance from Kabam as to what they think the obviously bad and obviously good conduct is, so we know where the boundaries are. I don't think those boundaries should be defined by what everyone else does. It can offer some guidance, but I don't think it should be definitive. Otherwise, people would be afraid to do anything except what everyone else does. That doesn't seem to be a good way to manage a game or a playerbase.
I've enjoyed the civilized conversation between @DrZola and @DNA3000. Sincerely.
I feel like Kabam should hire you two for forum moderators. Compensated of course.
As for me, I know I would typically ignore where I could get revives or energy refills etc. until the challenge demanded them. They are off my radar until they need to be. Then a new challenge arises and I think, "what are all of my options for getting the resources I need to tackle this?" Units store, daily crystals, Act 4, Act 1, etc. Then make a game plan for the best way to accumulate them within a time frame in order to meet the challenge. This seems like normal non-cheating behavior but now it seems cloudy. They act like it should have been "clear" not to use the best way we could find an in-game resource. TBH, I didn't know about the "infinite" revives until all this came up but I have known typically where to go to get a good chance to get one on a path. I assumed that was normal.
To that end, you guys shed some good light on the subject and have asked some great questions in regards to this.
I hope Kabam takes note and maybe responds after careful consideration.
It's in every players' best interest to maximize the rewards for their efforts. For example, it's only 13 energy to get through Act 1.1.5 and I was getting a lvl 1 revive and some ISO & gold. For that same 13 energy, I could replay RTTL to get some ISO and gold.
Which of those two options would any normal player take?
I must admit I find some of kabam's posts a bit concerning. Items obtained from quests are normal gameplay. I can see how a guaranteed revive drop that is easily obtained can be a concern to Kabam and an issue they'd want to fix if they found their generosity was being used in a way they never anticipated. However, my concern is they made it sound like all farming is potentially punishable as cheating.
A little clarity on this would be nice. Is it wrong to redo completed content if you see it has an item you need? If so, then why are we able to redo quests after they have been 100%?
I've enjoyed the civilized conversation between @DrZola and @DNA3000. Sincerely.
I feel like Kabam should hire you two for forum moderators. Compensated of course.
As for me, I know I would typically ignore where I could get revives or energy refills etc. until the challenge demanded them. They are off my radar until they need to be. Then a new challenge arises and I think, "what are all of my options for getting the resources I need to tackle this?" Units store, daily crystals, Act 4, Act 1, etc. Then make a game plan for the best way to accumulate them within a time frame in order to meet the challenge. This seems like normal non-cheating behavior but now it seems cloudy. They act like it should have been "clear" not to use the best way we could find an in-game resource. TBH, I didn't know about the "infinite" revives until all this came up but I have known typically where to go to get a good chance to get one on a path. I assumed that was normal.
To that end, you guys shed some good light on the subject and have asked some great questions in regards to this.
I hope Kabam takes note and maybe responds after careful consideration.
Well we know we won't really hear from Kabam. Their silence and warnings they have sent out on the forums speak volumes on the topic.
Comments
How would "exploit" infer a violation of the ToS? Video game exploits long predate things like mmo's and mobile games. Go watch any NES video game speedrun. You're likely to see numerous exploits of various flaws in game and level design.
An exploit is using anything in the game in a manner not intended by the developer. On things the devs haven't made a statement on, there can be a debate on whether it was intended by the devs or not, and therefore a debate on whether it's an exploit or not. If a game dev says something in their game is not being used as intended and is an exploit, then it's an exploit. End of story. Not sure why people get so hung up on that word.
I don’t think we are in disagreement, for the most part. And we may very well view the term “exploit” in the same way, especially if you agree that an exploit doesn’t always denote a violation of the TOS.
But I’m surprised people don't find it troubling that something people obviously disagree on (exploit or not, punishable exploit or not) can after the fact be deemed an exploit by developers that could/should result in punishment.
That’s where my earlier comment about it being “arbitrary and capricious” comes from—when devs create a situation, knowingly allow it to continue, then suddenly swoop in and declare it inappropriate, it’s hard to see it as legitimate.
Dr. Zola
How can you or I know kabam's intent, before they actually said their intent (and not after the fact)?
Anyone, after the fact, can say "it wasn't our intent" and then lay blame. Sheesh.
Would you say their intent is that people cannot farm any resources? If not, where do you see the line clearly laid out?
It isn't. So you are left with pondering their intent all along. There's a word for that.
So i give a new word to the discussion to balance the "disingenuous" statements. That word is "presumptuous!
Good point, makes you question what kind of logic/data is considered when the higher ups tell forum moderators how to communicate on these kinds of situations.
New word: Presumptuous. I'm not new to the game or the forums. Everyone, possibly you too, knows where to farm the stuff they need. I assume you go right to it too. It would be easy to prevent if it wasn't intended. So their intent, at best was to neglect it until they didn't like it any more.
On a side note, I wonder what the actual game code was? I'm guessing a programmer had code in the game that told the operation to drop a revive every time that path was explored. In a court, Kabam would lose this one I'm afraid as code does not write itself.
If I left my garage door open unattended with a sign that said "garage" sale then called the police when someone took something off the dollar table that i didn't intend to have there but then said "i'm not gonna prosecute the thief this time" we'd have this kind of situation I believe. Something's wrong with the responses and assumptions.
I’ve spent a lot of money on this game. A large dollop of that was spent to counter serious, ongoing and unaddressed game issues. Other parts were spent on stuff that’s blatantly broken, like masteries / champs that don’t work as advertised. Or ceased to be of any use.
To suggest customers are cheating by doing what the game allows and always has allowed - it’s even implicitly promoted, e.g. by events like Completion - is a horrendous approach to customer communications. That it’s phrased in that icky ‘the headmaster will spare you now, but may spank you later’ tone of voice, doesn’t help either.
We’re not a bunch of kids stealing candy from a jar. We’re the parents paying the bills that got the sweets in there.
Exploits don't necessarily denote a ToS violation. Kabam said that the Gwenpool Enervate/Heavy spam tactic was an exploit, but it in no way violated the ToS.
"At this time" is a common Kabamism. Like "We have no plans to nerf Blade at this time.". Basically, it just means that they aren't doing anything now, but reserve the right to in the future. Also keep in mind that Kabam has famously set a precedent for rolling related incidents together when applying discipline. If Kabam finds someone shared their account to run 1.1.5 a ton of times to farm 200 revives and Kabam cracks down on that person, you know they'll be bellyaching if they just said "We're not disciplining players for farming this item, period."
Most likely, Kabam had no idea it was going on until the forum post telling people to do it. They buried the post to cut down on the number of people taking advantage of the exploit until they could get a fix done.
This is perfectly explained. I agree that if the revive is there you cant say its only for beginners. That's like saying in ever video game there is that requires items or experience that you are not allowed to go back in the game. This is there fault. i could understand if a revive showed up in ROL on accident due to a bug and everyone knows it shouldn't be there because they have never seen one in ROL or the game allowing you to enter mad titan more than once in a day and getting duplicate rewards. We all know it is not supposed to work like that so its a bug. However, If you dont want to check your changes or upgrades and it happens and you realize it to late than you should not take rewards away or ban people. Cheaters are one thing.
What is funny is that people farm winter soldier all the time in ROL (EASY PEZY fight and those items are in the store for 14 units. They are losing units that way. They could easily put a level cap on Act 1 and 2. If you are level 60 you cant go back and play it. Just like you cant play certain things if you are not above level 40 so you dont progress too fast.
If you have not completed ACT 1 or 2 by level 60 than you can pay units to re-enter. Yes i know people may not have done Story 100% but if you havent done Act 1 or 2 by Level 60 than its your own lose.
@Kabam Miike
If that’s your definition of “exploit,” then I’m mostly comfortable with it. An exploit then is basically finding an anomaly in the in-game economy and using it to save or obtain resources, whether real or virtual (like finding a way to buy a full T2a via shards with 300K less dust than the same full shard T2a could otherwise be bought for).
If you’re right that the game team knew about it when they took the May 20 post down (and they really should have known about it long before that if you believe Miike’s statement about it being there to help low level Summoners), then they waited 3 days to message about it...why? So more exploiting could happen? So they could catch more exploitative Summoners in a L1 revive sting? Because they didn’t know people post things in places other than the forums?
Not an attack—for the most part I think we agree. I’m
just surprised at how this whole thing has been messaged/managed.
Dr. Zola
I'm not sure if this is a matter of wording, but in my experience that isn't how most MMOs would define an "exploit." Exploits could have nothing directly to do with the game economy or even rewards. The Gwenpool cornering exploit wasn't strictly speaking an economical anomaly or imbalance. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of prohibited exploits. The first kind is when a set of in-game actions directly causes an obvious unintended result. For example, if you discover that entering a mission and then immediately exiting, then reentering with the same team causes you to instantly gain the full rewards of that mission, that's obviously a bug generating an unintended result. The second kind is when a set of in-game actions on their own doesn't cause an unintended result, but has unintended side effects or unintended indirect consequences. The Gwenpool cornering exploit was this kind of exploit: everything the player did generated the *intended* result, the exploit was due to the fact that the indirect result was one the developers failed to account for: effectively permanent power lock with no possibility of counterattack.
The *worst* kinds of exploits affect the game economy, progression, or resource management systems, because in a sense they have permanent side effects: players get a lot more stuff outside the normal boundaries of the game progression systems. But a lot of the discussion surrounds what is a *punishable* exploit. Once something becomes a genuine exploit, the devs generally have to take some action, and the obvious action is to remove the exploit from the game somehow. But whether players using the exploit should be punished, or have any gains from the use of the exploit revoked, generally revolve around the question of whether the exploit was obvious and egregious. Usually, exploits that generate *direct* results that are wildly out of bounds are considered more likely to be obvious than ones where the exploit generates *indirect* results that are out of bounds. In the case of the revives in 1.1.5, I would argue that the exploit generates indirect results that are out of bounds, not direct ones. You cannot argue that earning that revive is directly out of bounds, because *everyone* earns that revive in exactly the same way, and everyone cannot be executing an exploit just by entering that map. In the vast majority of cases, earning that revive was not in any way exploitive. The exploit was due to the repeatability of the reward, and more importantly in how the reward was subsequently used. Those are all indirect results, and thus I would argue you cannot consider those results "obviously exploitive." That's a matter of opinion. Here's a statement that is not an opinion: most MMOs I'm aware of would not consider that to be an obvious exploit.
When Kabam says this is "clearly exploitive" that's troubling to me. It is easy for players to post their opinion that this was obviously an exploit, because those are just words. But when a game developer calls something an obvious exploit, they are making a judgment that affects how an exploit should be managed in the game, and that leans towards considering all players that did it to be cheating the game. I've already stated I agree with removing the revive, but implying that players who farm resources in a game are cheating is something I'm extremely uncomfortable with. In fact, I wouldn't play any MMO that I believed would punish me for farming outside the use of what most games would consider exploitive.
The only point I take issue with is that my definition of "economy" is broader than just items you can get in game. I tend to include other inputs like player time/effort--which is a finite resource, is spendable and involves opportunity costs like other resources in game and otherwise. There simply isn't a clear cut way it gets quantified in-game, apart from crude measurements like log-ins or account advancement as a proxy for time/effort spent in-game.
The exploits you note above are in my view ways to obtain the same rewards in-game with reduced time/effort. What is anomalous about them is that I would expect the game architecture implicitly anticipates a value of resources (whether in game or real, whether effort or time or whatever else) to be used by most players in order to obtain them, but that the exploit (the "Gwenpool Heavy" in your example) allows players to obtain them with resources on the lower end or outside of that anticipated value. I'm not a coder and I tend to look at the game from a financial/economic perspective, however, so I defer to your expertise. It's nothing to get hung up on--just trying to describe how I view it in simple terms.
Ultimately, I'm not really worried about the item being removed--that's absolutely a game team decision. What troubles me, like you, is the spirit behind the messaging, which implies a fundamentally different position from other MMOs I've played. Given the fact that threads on this subject continue to exist, how hard is it to just put out a simple apology to the players, to ask for their help in identifying exploits like this in the future, and to clarify that farming basic quests is perfectly acceptable in the game?
Dr. Zola
Hmm. That's potentially confusing for anyone without that expansive of a definition of "resources" but I take your meaning. But if the in-game economy is defined to be all consumable or acquirable anythings, then I'm not sure how to define "anomaly" in a way that distinguishes exploitive play from efficient play. For example, is the best arena grinder in the game an anomaly, in the sense that he or she is by definition outside the boundaries of all other players' collective performance?
Consider the case of the player that demonstrated extremely efficient play for Magik verses the starburst node, in which they were able to use Limbo to continuously erase starburst damage in a way that allowed them to defeat a very strong enemy in the face of very high damage that is normally impossible to avoid. You could argue that's an anomaly in the effort required to defeat that node with that champion. What would distinguish extremely good play from unintended anomalies, if we define player effort as one of the resources that anomalous expenditure would constitute an exploit in general?
Seriously, there will always be outliers, just like there will always be players who attempt content and use outsized amounts of time and resources to complete. I like to use the constraint of something like a distribution curve to think about it, with the curve depicting all the different Summoner "costs" to clear content. If the curve is shifted too far in one direction (in this case, the less resource intensive direction), there's likely more than just efficient play going on.
But we've gotten way too theoretical...
Dr. Zola
The practical part is that the part of Kabam's statement that makes me most uncomfortable is that they say the reward was "clearly" exploitive, as if there should be no question about it. But I think the only way you could make the cause that the behavior's exploitive nature was obvious is to compare it to the average player: the average player doesn't farm a gazillion revives and use them against Thanos, so that's obviously an exploit. But I think that doesn't leave room for the players to differentiate themselves and try to excel at the game in unique ways.
Of course the definition of an exploit will have some grey area and some judgment, but there should be some guidance from Kabam as to what they think the obviously bad and obviously good conduct is, so we know where the boundaries are. I don't think those boundaries should be defined by what everyone else does. It can offer some guidance, but I don't think it should be definitive. Otherwise, people would be afraid to do anything except what everyone else does. That doesn't seem to be a good way to manage a game or a playerbase.
I feel like Kabam should hire you two for forum moderators. Compensated of course.
As for me, I know I would typically ignore where I could get revives or energy refills etc. until the challenge demanded them. They are off my radar until they need to be. Then a new challenge arises and I think, "what are all of my options for getting the resources I need to tackle this?" Units store, daily crystals, Act 4, Act 1, etc. Then make a game plan for the best way to accumulate them within a time frame in order to meet the challenge. This seems like normal non-cheating behavior but now it seems cloudy. They act like it should have been "clear" not to use the best way we could find an in-game resource. TBH, I didn't know about the "infinite" revives until all this came up but I have known typically where to go to get a good chance to get one on a path. I assumed that was normal.
To that end, you guys shed some good light on the subject and have asked some great questions in regards to this.
I hope Kabam takes note and maybe responds after careful consideration.
15 energy required
A little clarity on this would be nice. Is it wrong to redo completed content if you see it has an item you need? If so, then why are we able to redo quests after they have been 100%?
Well we know we won't really hear from Kabam. Their silence and warnings they have sent out on the forums speak volumes on the topic.