Acceptable use for acquiring items

24

Comments

  • DNA3000DNA3000 Member, Guardian Posts: 19,844 Guardian
    DNA3000 wrote: »

    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.

    See this is where I take issue.

    The implication that they could have, but decided not to punish anyone means they saw this as punishable offence. In other words as people cheating.

    In a game like this farming items is a normal activity. It brings into question now if farming any items is now considered cheating and potentially punishable.

    They seem to be saying in other posts that they didn't intend to imply that they thought about it and decided not to punish anyone, they simply stated as a matter of fact that no punishment was going to happen. They said in a post they received questions about it, and it is entirely possible that there were players that PMed the mods about this reward and straight up asked them if it was an exploit and if so would players farming them get punished. There was some chatter about it like that off the forums.

    My problem is that any operator of a multiplayer game should know that "exploit" is a loaded word. Whether they meant to imply that any excessive farming could be punished at any time or not, that's the inference players would make, and this is something I would think all veteran game players and game developers would understand when crafting their messaging. We aren't talking about obscure meanings here, we're talking about what the vast majority of people in the video gaming community would believe was being implied when they said that. Open discussion could have clarified that, theoretically.

    This is what I think smart (or at least less antagonistic) messaging would have looked like:

    Summoners,

    We have recently been made aware of the fact that a number of players have been excessively farming a reward in Act 1. Although the reward in question was intended to appear on that map and it was not originally intended to be restricted to a single award, we did not foresee the large amount of farming of this reward or the effects this would have on the difficulty of other higher level content.

    As a result, we will be removing this item and replacing it with a different reward. This change will go live soon without the need for game clients to be updated. Although the effects of large scale farming of this reward were not intended by the designers, as there was no obvious prohibition on repeatedly running lower level maps for other purposes there will be no action taken against any Summoner who farmed this reward. However, in cases where the reward is obviously excessive, repeatable, and/or requires vastly lower effort than normal for those rewards, Kabam reserves the right to take actions we believe are required to address excessive farming or the use of exploits to gain in-game rewards in the future.
  • PlantesanPlantesan Member Posts: 335 ★★
    Cujo999 wrote: »
    Rotelly wrote: »
    Since the 1.1.5 was an exploit please clarify what methods of collecting items is acceptable.

    Is it acceptable to farm ROL for health potions?

    One of the mods stated in one of the closed threads that no items in the game are intended to be farmed. Ergo, farming RoL or any other content you've already completed to get more of the items from that quest would be considered an exploit.

    If that’s the case, it sounds like someone didn’t put in a code sequence to close out events once they were 100% completed (if that’s even possible)

    Otherwise people are going to lose a ton of rankups if they went back into daily catalyst quests to get the resources for level/rank. This whole incident sounds like a sloppy cleanup.
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  • 1haunted_memory1haunted_memory Member Posts: 804 ★★★
    It’s simple... if it benefits the player base to a point of advancement then it’s an exploit. If it cost the player base items or units or cash it’s a bug that takes time to fix.....

    Kabam fix pure skill, fix the consent crashes, fix the none responsive control of champs, and for the love of all things marvel fix the lag....and buff carnage lmao

    #BS
  • ZzyzxGuyZzyzxGuy Member Posts: 1,292 ★★★
    ^^^
    And fix AW synergies
    Also fix auto block parry
  • Cujo999Cujo999 Member Posts: 117
    Plantesan wrote: »
    Cujo999 wrote: »
    Rotelly wrote: »
    Since the 1.1.5 was an exploit please clarify what methods of collecting items is acceptable.

    Is it acceptable to farm ROL for health potions?

    One of the mods stated in one of the closed threads that no items in the game are intended to be farmed. Ergo, farming RoL or any other content you've already completed to get more of the items from that quest would be considered an exploit.

    If that’s the case, it sounds like someone didn’t put in a code sequence to close out events once they were 100% completed (if that’s even possible)

    Otherwise people are going to lose a ton of rankups if they went back into daily catalyst quests to get the resources for level/rank. This whole incident sounds like a sloppy cleanup.

    I'm not saying right or wrong, just communicating what they said. The full quote was...

    "Hey everybody,

    The revive in that quest was not meant to be a farmable object. It was originally only meant for new players to obtain when they are making their first passes through Act 1. It was not intended to be repeatedly farmed by experienced players that are no longer meant to be going through this beginner quest.

    If you would like more chances at Revives, remember that they can be found in many different quests, as well as 4-Hour Crystals. We do not use guaranteed farmable items in our game."

    Based on that, farming RoL as in the OP's would be considered an exploit. Rerunning Proving Grounds would not as you're going after non-guaranteed drop boxes.
  • ZzyzxGuyZzyzxGuy Member Posts: 1,292 ★★★
    Cujo999 wrote: »
    Plantesan wrote: »
    Cujo999 wrote: »
    Rotelly wrote: »
    Since the 1.1.5 was an exploit please clarify what methods of collecting items is acceptable.

    Is it acceptable to farm ROL for health potions?

    One of the mods stated in one of the closed threads that no items in the game are intended to be farmed. Ergo, farming RoL or any other content you've already completed to get more of the items from that quest would be considered an exploit.

    If that’s the case, it sounds like someone didn’t put in a code sequence to close out events once they were 100% completed (if that’s even possible)

    Otherwise people are going to lose a ton of rankups if they went back into daily catalyst quests to get the resources for level/rank. This whole incident sounds like a sloppy cleanup.

    I'm not saying right or wrong, just communicating what they said. The full quote was...

    "Hey everybody,

    The revive in that quest was not meant to be a farmable object. It was originally only meant for new players to obtain when they are making their first passes through Act 1. It was not intended to be repeatedly farmed by experienced players that are no longer meant to be going through this beginner quest.

    If you would like more chances at Revives, remember that they can be found in many different quests, as well as 4-Hour Crystals. We do not use guaranteed farmable items in our game."

    Based on that, farming RoL as in the OP's would be considered an exploit. Rerunning Proving Grounds would not as you're going after non-guaranteed drop boxes.

    And by that stupid logic (Kabam's not yours), winning matches in arena would be an exploit as each won match guarantees gold and chips.
  • phillgreenphillgreen Member Posts: 4,186 ★★★★★
    ROL/WS farming is not an exploit because you are not guaranteed the same rewards every time.

    How about ISO farming from act4 venom?
  • mostlyharmlessnmostlyharmlessn Member Posts: 1,387 ★★★★
    OneManArmy wrote: »
    DNA3000 wrote: »

    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.

    See this is where I take issue.

    The implication that they could have, but decided not to punish anyone means they saw this as punishable offence. In other words as people cheating.

    In a game like this farming items is a normal activity. It brings into question now if farming any items is now considered cheating and potentially punishable.

    Oh come on. Just stop already.. how can you not see the imbalance of infinite revives for everyone. Everyone got a bunch of free revives that never should have been there. They didnt take them back so stop complaining. Me and everyone else who got those revives knew exactly what it was

    I'm not complaining about the item, I'm not complaining about them removing them. I'm fine with that. L

    My point is they implied that farming resources is a punishable offense meaning everyone was cheating. This leaves a giant question of what is allowed now.

    Mike said in his announcement that "at this time" they were not going to punish players which means they still may.
  • mostlyharmlessnmostlyharmlessn Member Posts: 1,387 ★★★★
    See this is where I take issue.

    The implication that they could have, but decided not to punish anyone means they saw this as punishable offence. In other words as people cheating.

    In a game like this farming items is a normal activity. It brings into question now if farming any items is now considered cheating and potentially punishable.

    Considering big time spenders get a one month ban for committing felonies in the form of scamming Apple out of $100s-$10,000s+, it would be laughable if anyone received consequences for this topic

    It would be... But still a possibility
  • DTMelodicMetalDTMelodicMetal Member Posts: 2,785 ★★★★★
    DrZola wrote: »
    What is curious to me is that the issue of farming revives from 1.1.5 was actually brought up by a poster named "krakenwagen" on or about May 20 at 12:26 AM forums time. That post and even that thread appear to have been "disappeared" from the forums (or at least relocated to a place that is very difficult to find), but I came across a screenshot of the post tonight on another chat.

    Why is that curious? Because a moderator likely decided to remove or relocate the "krakenwagen" thread referencing 1.1.5 a couple of days ago (I picked up revives in 1.1.5 May 21 but first looked on the forums to see if there was any mention of it--there was none at that time), which means the game team likely knew there was an "exploit" being "exploited" well before today. Why they chose to wait and deal with it in the way they did is anyone's guess.

    I don't disagree with the decision to remove the revives. But I cannot imagine a worse way to handle and communicate about the issue with the community.

    Dr. Zola

    I hope that player does not receive too much backlash because of how forum moderators handled this situation. He/she seemed to be asking a honest question.
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  • Dexman1349Dexman1349 Member Posts: 3,060 ★★★★★
    DrZola wrote: »
    What is curious to me is that the issue of farming revives from 1.1.5 was actually brought up by a poster named "krakenwagen" on or about May 20 at 12:26 AM forums time. That post and even that thread appear to have been "disappeared" from the forums (or at least relocated to a place that is very difficult to find), but I came across a screenshot of the post tonight on another chat.

    Why is that curious? Because a moderator likely decided to remove or relocate the "krakenwagen" thread referencing 1.1.5 a couple of days ago (I picked up revives in 1.1.5 May 21 but first looked on the forums to see if there was any mention of it--there was none at that time), which means the game team likely knew there was an "exploit" being "exploited" well before today. Why they chose to wait and deal with it in the way they did is anyone's guess.

    I don't disagree with the decision to remove the revives. But I cannot imagine a worse way to handle and communicate about the issue with the community.

    Dr. Zola

    I hope that player does not receive too much backlash because of how forum moderators handled this situation. He/she seemed to be asking a honest question.

    I remember seeing that thread. It ended up having at least a dozen replies along the lines of "why would you report this" and "WTF is wrong with you" which likely lead to it's ultimate removal.
  • PlantesanPlantesan Member Posts: 335 ★★
    We don't need a PhD to see that farming infinite Revs using a very small amount of Energy is exploitative.

    Are you using the term in the sense of agreeing with their considering it as punishable or not so much?

    Just to point out I didn’t even notice that whole revive farm thing until it was brought up by someone about a day ago. I understand why kabam said what they did, but it’s the execution in which they did it that is being brought through the fire.

    If it wasn’t mentioned before that the maps weren’t meant to be revisited, then it’s on kabam for not making that crystal clear, or giving us the option after we 100% that section of the game.
  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Member Posts: 8,675 ★★★★★
    OneManArmy wrote: »
    DNA3000 wrote: »

    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.

    See this is where I take issue.

    The implication that they could have, but decided not to punish anyone means they saw this as punishable offence. In other words as people cheating.

    In a game like this farming items is a normal activity. It brings into question now if farming any items is now considered cheating and potentially punishable.

    Oh come on. Just stop already.. how can you not see the imbalance of infinite revives for everyone. Everyone got a bunch of free revives that never should have been there. They didnt take them back so stop complaining. Me and everyone else who got those revives knew exactly what it was

    No one has a problem with Kabam shutting down the infinite revives. The complaint is the implication that players who farmed them were cheating and could have been punished.
  • PlantesanPlantesan Member Posts: 335 ★★
    Plantesan wrote: »
    We don't need a PhD to see that farming infinite Revs using a very small amount of Energy is exploitative.

    Are you using the term in the sense of agreeing with their considering it as punishable or not so much?

    Just to point out I didn’t even notice that whole revive farm thing until it was brought up by someone about a day ago. I understand why kabam said what they did, but it’s the execution in which they did it that is being brought through the fire.

    If it wasn’t mentioned before that the maps weren’t meant to be revisited, then it’s on kabam for not making that crystal clear, or giving us the option after we 100% that section of the game.

    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.

    I can understand that, but also understand that if the team didn’t consider this situation happening at some point with that early game mechanic...then it’s not on the players for that oversight.

    I know they didn’t punish anyone, but the way they worded it made it sound like it was something that could’ve been punishable...which would’ve been wrong if it took someone in the community to point out the issue and kabam realized “oh, that is a thing!”

    Does that make sense at all? (Not trying to attack btw, just trying to understand both ends of the discussion)

  • LeNoirFaineantLeNoirFaineant Member Posts: 8,675 ★★★★★
    Plantesan wrote: »
    We don't need a PhD to see that farming infinite Revs using a very small amount of Energy is exploitative.

    Are you using the term in the sense of agreeing with their considering it as punishable or not so much?

    Just to point out I didn’t even notice that whole revive farm thing until it was brought up by someone about a day ago. I understand why kabam said what they did, but it’s the execution in which they did it that is being brought through the fire.

    If it wasn’t mentioned before that the maps weren’t meant to be revisited, then it’s on kabam for not making that crystal clear, or giving us the option after we 100% that section of the game.

    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.

    @GroundedWisdom was it cheating? Was it a punishable offense?
  • GroundedWisdomGroundedWisdom Member Posts: 36,634 ★★★★★
    Plantesan wrote: »
    We don't need a PhD to see that farming infinite Revs using a very small amount of Energy is exploitative.

    Are you using the term in the sense of agreeing with their considering it as punishable or not so much?

    Just to point out I didn’t even notice that whole revive farm thing until it was brought up by someone about a day ago. I understand why kabam said what they did, but it’s the execution in which they did it that is being brought through the fire.

    If it wasn’t mentioned before that the maps weren’t meant to be revisited, then it’s on kabam for not making that crystal clear, or giving us the option after we 100% that section of the game.

    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.

    @GroundedWisdom was it cheating? Was it a punishable offense?

    Well, it's a touchy subject. Was it within the framework of the game? Yes. Was it wrong? Sure. People were most likely aware they found a shortcut. That was the nature it was advertised in. Punishable is debatable. It's up to them to determine that. Most likely they opted not to because it was somewhat legit. However, we've seen shortcuts that led to action in the past. It's really a matter of motive. If the motive is to farm Resources that are meant to be limited by taking advantage of some sort of loophole, I would agree that's up for discussion in the punishment department. No one does that much organically. Lol. In the case of WS, you may be using little Energy, but that's a bit more fighting just for a Pot.
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