MCOC and Player Reponsibilties
Cunning_linguist
Member Posts: 5 ★
Dear MCOC team,
Could you please clarify to us what constitute a bug, the exploitation of a bug and where the responsibility lies?
Having played quite a few online games, it’s clear to me that any user who tries to use 3rd party software or make alteration to the game to gain unfair advantages should not be tolerated and should be banned from the game.
However, if there is a design flaw to a particular event/game feature, I would assume it’s the responsibility of the game designers to determine whether it is intended or not, and if and what action should be taken against it. We the players’ sole responsibility is to report anything we believe to be unusually to Kabam either through the forum or the support team directly.
Until now, whenever there is an unintended bug that had an adverse effect to us players, the process seems to follow my assumptions above, and I have been very happy with the way the support team has handled them. I.e Reponses on the forum and from the support teams mostly been swift, and when the anomaly has been confirmed as an unintended, patches were generally put in within a few days. On cases when the bug had a serious negative impact to all the players, we also received compensation rewards.
However, when there is an unintended bug that had a beneficial effect to us players, the process become inconsistent and ambiguous. If I or any player goes into an event map, and see two revives in a single path, I think most of us will be inclined to take that path and the rewards on offer; and if these revives appear again on re-entering the map, I think some of us will be tempted to do that path again until they disappear.
As long an action is within the game design mechanism, it should not be us the players to decide whether it’s intended or not. Those with the upmost morality, may decide to report such an anomaly to Kabam through the forum or the support team, and from there, it should then be dealt in the same way as the adverse bugs. On cases when the bug had a serious positive impact to some players, it should be Kabam’s responsibility to take back some of the extra rewards people received to ensure the fairness of the game (but also consider compensate people for the time and resources they spent in getting these rewards). Once such an action is openly communicated to the players, I doubt many will have much to complain.
Now what I really don’t like is this concept of ‘exploitation’ introduced by you on those players who benefited from your game design flaws. It encouraged us players to turn on each other in the name of fairness of the game, and I have seen tag such ‘cheaters, ‘cancers’, ‘plagues’ been thrown around in the forum, along with other nasty comments that constitute personal attacks on individual players.
We really like the MCOC game, and with the amount of new content that it introduces every month, we understand that there are always going to be design flaws, and the game will need constantly to be twigged, Some of the fixes and unwind could be difficult to achieve and we will try out best to be patient on them; but ultimately this is what we pay any game company for, to ensure the proper function and integrity of a game.
Labelling players who benefited from a game design flaw as ‘cheater’, ‘exploiters, banning and use them as scape goat rather than finding a proper fix to an error in the game is both wrong and unprecedented. With the amount of money people have spent on the game, this could also bring unwanted liabilities to Kabam, something none of us would like to see
And finally, the forum is a place for us players to express our opinions about the game, and seek to bring positive changes to the game. I am not here to offend anyone, so please don’t just delete my post and threaten to close my account (like you did to some of my friends)
regards
Could you please clarify to us what constitute a bug, the exploitation of a bug and where the responsibility lies?
Having played quite a few online games, it’s clear to me that any user who tries to use 3rd party software or make alteration to the game to gain unfair advantages should not be tolerated and should be banned from the game.
However, if there is a design flaw to a particular event/game feature, I would assume it’s the responsibility of the game designers to determine whether it is intended or not, and if and what action should be taken against it. We the players’ sole responsibility is to report anything we believe to be unusually to Kabam either through the forum or the support team directly.
Until now, whenever there is an unintended bug that had an adverse effect to us players, the process seems to follow my assumptions above, and I have been very happy with the way the support team has handled them. I.e Reponses on the forum and from the support teams mostly been swift, and when the anomaly has been confirmed as an unintended, patches were generally put in within a few days. On cases when the bug had a serious negative impact to all the players, we also received compensation rewards.
However, when there is an unintended bug that had a beneficial effect to us players, the process become inconsistent and ambiguous. If I or any player goes into an event map, and see two revives in a single path, I think most of us will be inclined to take that path and the rewards on offer; and if these revives appear again on re-entering the map, I think some of us will be tempted to do that path again until they disappear.
As long an action is within the game design mechanism, it should not be us the players to decide whether it’s intended or not. Those with the upmost morality, may decide to report such an anomaly to Kabam through the forum or the support team, and from there, it should then be dealt in the same way as the adverse bugs. On cases when the bug had a serious positive impact to some players, it should be Kabam’s responsibility to take back some of the extra rewards people received to ensure the fairness of the game (but also consider compensate people for the time and resources they spent in getting these rewards). Once such an action is openly communicated to the players, I doubt many will have much to complain.
Now what I really don’t like is this concept of ‘exploitation’ introduced by you on those players who benefited from your game design flaws. It encouraged us players to turn on each other in the name of fairness of the game, and I have seen tag such ‘cheaters, ‘cancers’, ‘plagues’ been thrown around in the forum, along with other nasty comments that constitute personal attacks on individual players.
We really like the MCOC game, and with the amount of new content that it introduces every month, we understand that there are always going to be design flaws, and the game will need constantly to be twigged, Some of the fixes and unwind could be difficult to achieve and we will try out best to be patient on them; but ultimately this is what we pay any game company for, to ensure the proper function and integrity of a game.
Labelling players who benefited from a game design flaw as ‘cheater’, ‘exploiters, banning and use them as scape goat rather than finding a proper fix to an error in the game is both wrong and unprecedented. With the amount of money people have spent on the game, this could also bring unwanted liabilities to Kabam, something none of us would like to see
And finally, the forum is a place for us players to express our opinions about the game, and seek to bring positive changes to the game. I am not here to offend anyone, so please don’t just delete my post and threaten to close my account (like you did to some of my friends)
regards
16
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
These threads always come up when something similar happens. There is not much to say here. Players know what they were doing, and they know they are doing a wrong thing. There really is no excuse, and ban them is the right thing to do
i dont condone cheating as i said at the start. but we need is clear differentiation between cheating and game design flaws; and how bugs should be dealt with consistantly whether it had adverse or benifical effects to the playing community, and how fairlyness can be ensured.
banning the top 100 'offender' when 10K people gain extra advantage of lesser degree doesnt eactly bring fairness
Although I wish they could have implemented a quick-n-easy “Waiting Period” when joining alliances, that would have also hurt legitimate people looking for new alliances, or those joining ally’s that had been going Solo before.
Summoner ran through 1 path of 6 and receives 💯% of the rewards instead of completion reward.
Summoner runs 2 path and by now realised, there is a duplicate 💯% rewards again.
Should Summoner stop or continue to run paths 3 to 6 and get 6 times the reward instead of once?
Let's say this Summoner does not come to the forum, does not join an alliance. Could the Summoner claim innocence?
Ban consequence offence because of bug?
Also, there is a clear difference between people who took advantage of it, and the people who abused it. You're comparing someone that did it 10 times in the month with someone that did it 500 times in a day (don't take the numbers seriously).
Either way, if it is just like last times, items will be removed, so it's fine
Exploiting game bugs for personal gain is clearly written in the ToS. Testing for bugs can be a fairly big task since many of them are device related and I doubt (because I am not 100% sure) they have an example of every device this game is played to test.
Also why is it on Kabam if people intentionally try and exploit rewards? I am sure they wouldn't have ever thought of the possibility of people alliance hopping just to get extra rewards and they shouldn't have had too. It's these types of players that ruin everything for everyone else.
Ive never been a proponent of people shaming others for reporting bugs that benefit players. Bugs are bugs no matter who it benefits. Also your friends get posts taken down most likely because their post was talking about accounts and you can't do it here.
Say throwing stones was illegal. You didn't know it was illegal. But every day you threw hundreds of stones. Someone saw that you threw hundreds of stones. One day you go to throw another stone and you're arrested because you've been throwing stones. You say "I didn't know I was doing anything wrong".
Does ignorance excuse the crime committed? No. You're still punished because of it.
There's a phrase in Latin that's used in Law that goes "ignorantia legis neminem excusat" which means
"ignorance of law excuses no one". People broke the ToS, or in this case the Law, and regardless of being ignorant or not, they are accountable.
- Kabam Terms of Service
We aim to keep a balance of fairness in The Contest for all players. However, when players choose to exploit a bug or use an unintended method to gain an advantage over others in the game, they ultimately affect the balance that we're trying to maintain. In such situations, we feel it's necessary to punish any offending players for their actions. Regardless of whether or not you agree with how we choose to punish those players, it's not something which is up for discussion or debate on these Forums.
Thank you for your understanding as we work to keep The Contest fair for everyone.