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Foundry Exploit

fcrowlesfcrowles Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 136 Bounty Hunter
edited August 2014 in General Discussion (PC)
One thing I'm curious on is I'm assuming doing missions or killing monsters gives some form of experience points or gold. What's keeping people from exploiting this and creating extremely easy repeatable simple missions to easily achieve max level and gold?
Post edited by fcrowles on
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Comments

  • daosagedaosage Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 62
    edited January 2013
    I think they have safeguards written into the Foundry to keep people from giving more treasure or more xp than any given mob of any given level would give. So yeah, people could theoretically make a really easy dungeon with a couple easy mobs and do it over and over and over. However that would take a VERY long time and wouldn't really be worthwhile.
  • uglybuggeruglybugger Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    Limit the amount of gold/XP a person can earn in foundry missions each day. Once you hit the cap, you can't earn any more until tomorrow.
  • cerberusfilmscerberusfilms Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    Daosage is right.
    In STO, the had a similar issue with various XP and Loot exploits, however I doubt most of them would be possible in NW, seeing as there is no Space environment...
    Also from what they have indicated in STO, NW has a similar system in the way of rewarding missions based on the time played as well as possibly having a max cap on rewards that can be gained from a single mission..


    The last thing is.. let people 'exploit' if they want.. it'd be a grind and a half and they'd be missing out on what could possibly be the best half of the game... ;-P
  • fcrowlesfcrowles Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 136 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    Its more the economy I am worried about than the experience. It seems it could be very easy to destroy the economy with inhuman amounts of gold gain using the foundry system. Personally I can't think of how to exploit it, I never was good at those kind of things but from my experience in MMO's if there's a will there's a way.
    Also I was wondering is there a way to change the abilities of monsters built in the foundry and their combat strategy?
    @Uglybugger They tried a system like that in FFXIV and it made hardcore gamers like myself who spend more time playing the game than not very very angry.
  • cerberusfilmscerberusfilms Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    fcrowles wrote: »
    Its more the economy I am worried about than the experience. It seems it could be very easy to destroy the economy with inhuman amounts of gold gain using the foundry system. Personally I can't think of how to exploit it, I never was good at those kind of things but from my experience in MMO's if there's a will there's a way.
    Also I was wondering is there a way to change the abilities of monsters built in the foundry and their combat strategy?
    @Uglybugger They tried a system like that in FFXIV and it made hardcore gamers like myself who spend more time playing the game than not very very angry.

    I think the loot drops will be so low, especially from a low level Mob group, that the impact would be negligable. They could always 'nerf' the drops anyway if it did become a problem.

    In regards to the changing of abilities. Not that's in the Foundry in STO anyway, and we haven't seen any indication of that in the screenshots and demonstrations so far. However you could Reskin one Mob type as anything else and would in theory give the illusion that they have different powers and strategies to what they normally have, if that makes sense?
  • fcrowlesfcrowles Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 136 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    Ah I see. So in theory you could have any monster have any abilities of a already existing monster but you cannot mix and match abilities? Thanks for the answers, I already have some ideas on missions I'd like to create.

    One more completely unrelated question, will there be a vast emote list for roleplaying purposes?
  • uglybuggeruglybugger Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    fcrowles wrote: »
    @Uglybugger They tried a system like that in FFXIV and it made hardcore gamers like myself who spend more time playing the game than not very very angry.
    Er... I worded that incorrectly. The limit was placed on the amount of time you could earn rewards from foundry missions. Cryptic limited the amount of time you could gain XP/resources from foundry missions in STO to 4 hours per day.

    As I understand it, it only applied to foundry missions though, not Cryptic missions.

    Take a gander at this video: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/177517/Video_Cryptics_solution_for_new_MMO_content_Let_the_players_make_it.php#.UQCeTmf-jUB

    Craig Zinkievich talks about the exploits they saw in STO through the user generated content and what they did to prevent it.
  • cerberusfilmscerberusfilms Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    fcrowles wrote: »
    Ah I see. So in theory you could have any monster have any abilities of a already existing monster but you cannot mix and match abilities? Thanks for the answers, I already have some ideas on missions I'd like to create.

    One more completely unrelated question, will there be a vast emote list for roleplaying purposes?

    Yep, that's more or less it :) At least as far as we know.


    If you go by Cryptics other games, I'm sure there will be a large array of emotes, in and out of the foundry :)


    Oh and the video UgglyBugger posted is a good watch.
  • meldrothmeldroth Member Posts: 137 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    Creators of the Foundry missions won't be able to choose the treasure amounts. The program will.

    Plus, the Foundry will have rating system and a system for catching exploits that should help quite a bit as well.
    "Truth is absolute, so if you truly seek it, you can find only one answer."
  • gillrmngillrmn Member Posts: 7,800 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    Exploiters are the most harmful thing that can happen to foundry. Most of the features are disabled for foundrya uthors because of exploiters. So if you are not getting a particular feature you want, exploiter is the sacrificial lamb you should direct your hate to.

    Eventually, it is on players - if they support exploiter missions, exploiters will find a way to do something.

    If they oppose exploiters, they may go away and stop putting limitations on foundry.
    ~~~~
    That said, cryptic keeps changing rules to fight exploiters on a regular basis, however they alone can't win this fight unless they have the support from community.
  • zebularzebular Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 15,270 Community Moderator
    edited January 2013
    Based off of STO safeguards, characters on the Foundry Author's Account will not count towards Ratings or Average Play-time, so they cannot try to spoof their own missions unless they use multiple accounts, which I am sure will cause some red flags to go off. Additionally, it is based on Average, so unless they sat there and spoofed their own mission 24/7 on multiple characters on multiple accounts, their average for their missions will constantly change the more players play their missions.

    Another safe-guard they could implement is to make it so the Founder's own work will not yield them any rewards, so making their own exploit maps would be futile.
  • meldrothmeldroth Member Posts: 137 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    zebular wrote: »


    Another safe-guard they could implement is to make it so the Founder's own work will not yield them any rewards, so making their own exploit maps would be futile.

    I wouldn't mind that too much. Just playing my own mission would be reward enough... but not sure how that would stop someone from using an alt account to build an exploit for their main. :/
    "Truth is absolute, so if you truly seek it, you can find only one answer."
  • clcmercyclcmercy Banned Users, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 308 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    People did the same thing in City of Heroes with the Architect Entertainment system. Low-risk, high yield mobs and just plow through them again and again. Sure, devs caught on eventually..and nerfed or removed said mobs entirely....but it kept happening. So, near the end....pretty much everything about AE had been butchered to tiny pieces. About the only thing it was good for was the as-yet un-nerfed fire farms and stories.

    Sadly, I can well imagine the very same thing happening with the Foundry. Let's hope it doesn't, but prepare for it anyway.

    Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
  • zorbanezorbane Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    One thing I've found is that players are extremely creative in ways to "game" the system in order to get loots. If you ask the Foundry community right now about exploits you'll find them to be quite pessimistic about the ability to stop them
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Check out my Foundry missions:
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  • tikorumbleguttikorumblegut Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 201 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    I would think some type of diminishing returns for repeating foundry content would mostly cure this issue.

    Tiko
  • fcrowlesfcrowles Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 136 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    gillrmn wrote: »
    Exploiters are the most harmful thing that can happen to foundry. Most of the features are disabled for foundrya uthors because of exploiters. So if you are not getting a particular feature you want, exploiter is the sacrificial lamb you should direct your hate to.

    Eventually, it is on players - if they support exploiter missions, exploiters will find a way to do something.

    If they oppose exploiters, they may go away and stop putting limitations on foundry.
    ~~~~
    That said, cryptic keeps changing rules to fight exploiters on a regular basis, however they alone can't win this fight unless they have the support from community.

    It has nothing to do with supporting or reporting exploiters. Its just taking the downhill path as opposed to the uphill one. If it takes 1 day to get to 60 using foundry maps as opposed to 1 month playing regular maps with absolutely no benefit either way then I can guarantee you the majority of the community will play the exploiters maps. Its just ludicrous to take a harder path for the same goal.
  • zylaxxzylaxx Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 591 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    I am all for the Devs fixing and limiting exploiters as much as possible. Some of us want to be able to use the Foundry to recreate a 3D representation of a life's long adventure.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Character is what a man is in the dark
  • daosagedaosage Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 62
    edited January 2013
    Does anybody know yet if we'll be able to put stairs that lead to other levels of the dungeons we make in the Foundry?
  • gillrmngillrmn Member Posts: 7,800 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    fcrowles wrote: »
    It has nothing to do with supporting or reporting exploiters. Its just taking the downhill path as opposed to the uphill one. If it takes 1 day to get to 60 using foundry maps as opposed to 1 month playing regular maps with absolutely no benefit either way then I can guarantee you the majority of the community will play the exploiters maps. Its just ludicrous to take a harder path for the same goal.

    Misusing things as they are not intended to be used is exploiting.

    The recent exploit of 2 second missions was plugged by cryptic and normal foundry users had to suffer as limitations were put on their missions.

    The next exploit in trend is to "defang" the mobs - i.e. put walls so that the monsters can't attack you while you can attack them. This is very much possible in NW foundry to as they have shown ranged and melee mobs can be chosen by users.
    Now because of this exploit that freedom will be taken away.

    Exploiters should be dealt severely by cryptic and users who love foundry and want to see some freedom in missions closer to NWN's foundry should take pitchforks and chase them out for exploiting it.

    Or eventually we will have to turn off all kinds of XP and loot in foundry to kick off the exploiters if situation keeps getting worse. Even though non-exploiting players don't really mind, cryptic minds exploiting and to stop it is ready to punish normal good folks of shire too for the sins of a few.
  • pherephattapherephatta Member Posts: 90 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    I would think some type of diminishing returns for repeating foundry content would mostly cure this issue.

    Tiko

    They've said repeatedly that you can level exclusively through UGC. Diminishing returns would detract from this.
    gillrmn wrote: »

    The next exploit in trend is to "defang" the mobs - i.e. put walls so that the monsters can't attack you while you can attack them. This is very much possible in NW foundry to as they have shown ranged and melee mobs can be chosen by users.
    Now because of this exploit that freedom will be taken away.

    Standard solve for this is to have the mob teleport if it can't get to you due to pathing.


    Does it really matter though? So an exploiter gets to max level quickly. Woo. They then get bored, rant that there's no content, and leave. I'm here for the fun of playing. My only response to someone who games the system that way is to think they're lame, and put them on ignore so I never have to deal with them.

    You can't ever stop people who want to exploit from exploiting. That doesn't mean I am advocating no safeguards, but many people seem to be arguing for such extensive safeguards that the Foundry is limited to such a degree that all fun is lost. :/

    If we as a community make our displeasure with such people known, then it becomes less of an issue. And also, isn't there going to be some sort of a volunteer group who will be playing through the missions before they go live to make sure this isn't happening? That brings forth a bunch of other problems, but still... if they let easy street exploitative missions through, it seems like all we as the community would have to do is report it and they'll be removed from office.
  • gillrmngillrmn Member Posts: 7,800 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    ...
    If we as a community make our displeasure with such people known, then it becomes less of an issue. And also, isn't there going to be some sort of a volunteer group who will be playing through the missions before they go live to make sure this isn't happening? That brings forth a bunch of other problems, but still... if they let easy street exploitative missions through, it seems like all we as the community would have to do is report it and they'll be removed from office.

    Exactly it will be community's fault. Whether we bother with exploiters or not, cryptic can't let its game be exploited. As it is f2p, and IP bans don't always work(as shown by ambi before) they are going to implement things to stop exploiters which will punish normal missions too otherwise.

    If we are not taking up pitchforks to at least minimize the exploiting, if not completely clean it, we are going to suffer.

    I would suggest that guilds take it up and make sure that anyone caught exploiting is held answerable when joining their guild and they make a common statement not to support any exploiting in game as a part of their guild motto. That can help bring things like this to limelight and highlight the harm such dishonorable behavior brings to the game.
  • iamtruthseekeriamtruthseeker Member, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    meldroth wrote: »
    Creators of the Foundry missions won't be able to choose the treasure amounts. The program will.

    Plus, the Foundry will have rating system and a system for catching exploits that should help quite a bit as well.


    Yes. To expand on this and prior and subsequent quotes.

    While you can place simple monsters, they will not drop anything at all or drop really low treasure (think 1 cp) and the end chest will be the low to lowest level of reward.


    It's all internally controlled and not exploitable by the author.

    Also those who are trying to front load a system to max xp by slaughtering a bunch of low levels not only will stop getting xp for their character's level being too high, there is a limit to monsters that can be placed in a foundry mission. People who figure out how to make "defenseless" monsters killable for xp and treasure will have their methods removed, but all I can say is it looks like so far that isn't an option for authors.





    daosage wrote: »
    Does anybody know yet if we'll be able to put stairs that lead to other levels of the dungeons we make in the Foundry?


    Absolutely! Both in the same map and linked to another dungeon map.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • quorforgedquorforged Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    If I use the Foundry, it will be to optimize XP/loot per minute to the greatest possible degree permitted by the rules. My desired playstyle is no less legitimate than any other. If I'm playing by the rules, then I'm not exploiting. Hopefully, Cryptic will make the rules (both programmed game rules, and terms of service) clear and unbroken.
  • mnaticmnatic Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 233 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    No diminishing returns ever, the worst thing about GW2 is this, grinding should be allowed as long as foundry makers arent taking the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>....That being said no DR ever
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • sirsitsalotsirsitsalot Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    In Star Trek Online they have a repetable mission that requires the completion of one Foundry Mission that takes at least 15 minutes to complete. It is the wrapper mission that grants the reward, not the foundry mission itself. Mobs in the foundry mission drop loot based on Cryptic's internal loot tables and the foundry author has no control over it. They do have a mechanism in place where foundry mobs stop dropping loot after a certain point and will not start dropping it again until the next real world day. The official content's mobs do not have this restriction. There is no restriction on how many times you can run the wrapper mission though it has a 30-minute cooldown starting from when you take the mission not from when you complete it. So if you take the wrapper mission, goof off for about 7.5 minutes, run a foundry mission that lasts exactly 15 minutes, then goof off for another 7.5 minutes, you can take the wrapper mission again.

    They are taking steps to make sure people cannot game the system, and have effectively turned foundry into a viable gameplay mechanic that has incentives for playing.
    I'm not really a John Galt,
    but I play one on the forums...
    :P
  • iamtruthseekeriamtruthseeker Member, Moonstars, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    quorforged wrote: »
    If I use the Foundry, it will be to optimize XP/loot per minute to the greatest possible degree permitted by the rules. My desired playstyle is no less legitimate than any other. If I'm playing by the rules, then I'm not exploiting. Hopefully, Cryptic will make the rules (both programmed game rules, and terms of service) clear and unbroken.



    Then your metrics will work the same way as any Cryptic quest, with no exploits allowed by the author. Of course, feel free to use any legal methods found in game to maximize treasure and XP without having to wait for cannon missions of course.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • muzrub333muzrub333 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    I have faith that the majority of the Foundry authors will strive to make the best quests possible, without any exploits. That being said, players always seem to find any possible exploits that might slip past an authors review. I hope that we, as a community, not only come down hard on those who are obviously purposely creating ways to exploit the system, but that we also constructively point out exploits to authors, so they can fix the problem. How many times as a DM has your perfectly crafted adventure been derailed by an overly creative player? It's bound to happen here as well, except here we can't just have the pest devoured by a random demon spawn. We need to help each other.

    I am also hoping that since Cryptic has to approve each Foundry quest, that the worst offenders will never have their creations see the light of day.
  • gillrmngillrmn Member Posts: 7,800 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    One more thing - The exploits of earlier missions of doing quick three dailies started and became popular because rewards in foundry were too unique and precious to be missed. Rewards in foundry should not be such that you cannot find elsewhere.

    This is the reason that earlier quicky missions became popular with people who generally do not exploit the game. Hence rewards available in foundry should also never be such that you cannot get from elsewhere. You should never be forced to do foundry mission.

    however recent trend of defanging monsters for XP is ethically wrong itself and is a clear cut case of exploiting (from the definition I read on PWE's rules page somewhere)

    EDIT:
    What I mean is that Cryptic also has a duty to not encourage exploiters.
  • cosmictimbercosmictimber Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited January 2013
    My personal style of play is such that I have no real concern for the masses. I am casual now, and care more about a good game than getting to end game content beating it and sitting around complaining that there is nothing to do. I've done that. I don't need to sit in the middle of Neverwinter showing off my gear... I've done that too. I will play with a small group of people that are like-minded and we will enjoy the game at our own pace doing as much content as possible.

    I say that to give insight on where I am coming from... that said: Exploiting is everyone's responsibility to police. (assuming they don't support exploiting) Cryptic should be looking to build a system that is solid enough that exploits are difficult to accomplish. Of course, someone will figure out some way to exploit it in some way. It then becomes the job of the community to handle the exploit responsibily. And of course Cryptic should be itteratively fixing exploits etc. This is all in a perfect world... no pun intended.

    In reality, there will be some people who exploit for gains, and many who will enjoy content that is deep and engaging. If someone wants to max xp and loot--- assuming they can find a way to do so... I guess good for them, until cryptic fixes or bans them. It absolutely can mess up the enconomy at large and that is the biggest risk as far as I can see. That and having Foundry options/content disabled because of the exploiting mechanics. But thats how UGC goes... its not perfect.

    It seems like there is a lot of thought going toward the safeguards here, and this is the third (right?) itteration of the foundry for cryptic, so I am sure they have learned more on what works and what doesn't. Hopefully, it is as good as we hope and exploiting is difficult. If not, let's hope it doesnt ruin the game.
  • mnaticmnatic Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 233 Bounty Hunter
    edited January 2013
    I just love the grind of constantly playing and being in instances and killing mobs. If this is fround upon like in GW2 this will case me to detract from the game.

    Dont get me wrong im not an XP chaser or a max level fanatic. I just love to play something that is a great source of entertainment as GW2 was before they started nerfing and changing everthing.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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