I'm sorry but the people who played these patrols didn't exploit anything. These were repeatable patrols, it was designed that way, no cooldowns or anything and it's been that way since LoR. No exploitation was done by anyone because they designed the game like this.
This would be the equivalent of doing Doff missions specifically designed to be only 2 minutes long over and over again to reach max in that particular CXP field in no time because the developers made that doff mission like that and never changed it until the last minute.
To me this is extremely shady on their part and I had to wait for them to relaunch the darned things because I actually needed them to grind out rep for romulus smh
i lost 50 out of 60 points on Jena and 8 out 18 points on Aaxal.
Yikes! You're staying remarkably calm under it. For me, well, I will log in one last time, to file an official protest; and if I don't get my points back, ALL of them, then it's game-over for me.
It's not really a creative interpretation, it's pretty much the definition. Devs put something in the game that is not working as they intended or designed and players take advantage of it. It's straight forward...nothing creative about it. Any advantageous bug/not working as intended-designed thing that a player takes advantage of/does...that's pretty much it.
Did they shut down all grouping? No. So grouping wasn't the exploit.
Did they shut down all patrols? No. So patrols weren't the exploit.
They specifically targeted what was happening in Tau Dewa...and anybody that went there should have known that it was obviously not working as intended and that they were taking advantage of the situation.
But, but, but...it would take too long elsewhere!
An excuse to exploit is just an excuse and doesn't change a thing.
Plenty of folks leveled in groups - doing patrols - without touching what was going on in Tau Dewa.
It's just another example of the entitlement that runs rampant in this game to think that it was normal to get the amount of XP from those mobs at -10 levels compared to elsewhere much less matching the lowest member of the group compared to XP gains elsewhere.
All the complaints are no different than all the crying that takes place any time an advantageous bug is fixed...though, Cryptic normally avoids calling out those players for what they've been doing.
Cryptic called folks on it this time...and the butthurt's been flooding the forums ever since.
i lost 50 out of 60 points on Jena and 8 out 18 points on Aaxal.
Which would be a definite customer service matter, just like anybody else that didn't touch Tau Dewa but got hit in the blanket attempt to address the issue Cryptic took after the fact.
There are two separate issues here, and Cryptic rolling back/nuking the spec on folks that didn't partake in the designated exploit should not have been punished as if they had.
It's asinine but typical of them to have taken such a heavy handed approach to it...
So.... it WAS all taken away deliberately?!! laughingtrendy had the nerve to steal 300,000 XP points from me, when I was never even near Tau Dewa?! Has she finally gone completely mental!? :mad:
Trendy's a community manager. You sure she's the one who actually took your stuff away?
They specifically targeted what was happening in Tau Dewa...and anybody that went there should have known that it was obviously not working as intended and that they were taking advantage of the situation.
And I specifically was NOWHERE NEAR TAU DEWA!
Nor did I group with anyone (save for PUGs).
And that gave them the right to take 300,000 skill points from me?!
It's not really a creative interpretation, it's pretty much the definition. Devs put something in the game that is not working as they intended or designed and players take advantage of it.
For you to define "not working as intended" as a 'straight forward' explanation is laughable.
When has Cryptic EVER clearly defined what is, or what is not, working as intended.
Also, I never level matched a team. Not even once.
Then you have nothing to worry about... and should not be pointing fingers...
Are you unable to read? He wasn't doing ANYTHING in Tau Dewa at all and had his points stolen. Many many other players are reporting this aswell. At the same time, many many players who were powerleveling in Tau Dewa did not have any points deduced at all. And no, we were certainly not aware this was exploiting, as this same method was used AND brought to the attention of devs on the test server, and they did nothing about it, so they clearly seemed ok with it then.
Which would be a definite customer service matter, just like anybody else that didn't touch Tau Dewa but got hit in the blanket attempt to address the issue Cryptic took after the fact.
There are two separate issues here, and Cryptic rolling back/nuking the spec on folks that didn't partake in the designated exploit should not have been punished as if they had.
It's asinine but typical of them to have taken such a heavy handed approach to it...
Spot on.
And this is really why they should have something acknowledging they did some collateral damage to innocents and hopefully will repair it.
Its ok to be heavy handed, but there needs to be fairness too.
Trendy's a community manager. You sure she's the one who actually took your stuff away?
Probably not. Surely very disappointing, though, hearing the blanket accusatory words come out of her mouth, towards anyone who lost XP, whoever put those words there.
It's not really a creative interpretation, it's pretty much the definition. Devs put something in the game that is not working as they intended or designed and players take advantage of it. It's straight forward...nothing creative about it. Any advantageous bug/not working as intended-designed thing that a player takes advantage of/does...that's pretty much it.
Did they shut down all grouping? No. So grouping wasn't the exploit.
Did they shut down all patrols? No. So patrols weren't the exploit.
They specifically targeted what was happening in Tau Dewa...and anybody that went there should have known that it was obviously not working as intended and that they were taking advantage of the situation.
But, but, but...it would take too long elsewhere!
An excuse to exploit is just an excuse and doesn't change a thing.
Plenty of folks leveled in groups - doing patrols - without touching what was going on in Tau Dewa.
It's just another example of the entitlement that runs rampant in this game to think that it was normal to get the amount of XP from those mobs at -10 levels compared to elsewhere much less matching the lowest member of the group compared to XP gains elsewhere.
All the complaints are no different than all the crying that takes place any time an advantageous bug is fixed...though, Cryptic normally avoids calling out those players for what they've been doing.
Cryptic called folks on it this time...and the butthurt's been flooding the forums ever since.
Which would be a definite customer service matter, just like anybody else that didn't touch Tau Dewa but got hit in the blanket attempt to address the issue Cryptic took after the fact.
There are two separate issues here, and Cryptic rolling back/nuking the spec on folks that didn't partake in the designated exploit should not have been punished as if they had.
It's asinine but typical of them to have taken such a heavy handed approach to it...
The handful of people who were able to test on Tribble reported this problem. Do you know what Cryptic did about it?
Absolutely nothing.
Their negligence of a problem that they created does not make the players responsible for exploiting when Cryptic should have already known it would be a problem and fixed it.
I missed that part. And still not seeing it, btw. Has there been an official statement from Cryptic, saying they will roll back unjust deductions?
No word from cryptic, total silence.
[QUOTE=virusdancer;20157171
Which would be a definite customer service matter, just like anybody else that didn't touch Tau Dewa but got hit in the blanket attempt to address the issue Cryptic took after the fact.
There are two separate issues here, and Cryptic rolling back/nuking the spec on folks that didn't partake in the designated exploit should not have been punished as if they had.
It's asinine but typical of them to have taken such a heavy handed approach to it...[/QUOTE]this bit is beneath sarsacmdetecter's statement in the original post.
The handful of people who were able to test on Tribble reported this problem. Do you know what Cryptic did about it?
Absolutely nothing.
Their negligence of a problem that they created does not make the players responsible for exploiting when Cryptic should have already known it would be a problem and fixed it.
Not doubting the claim about reporting the issue on Tribble, but I'd really like to see someone link the forum posts where this was reported. Or where Sarcasm posted the videos.
I had 18 points and dropped back to 10. I don't even know what Japori is, and I certainly didn't exploit anything. I ran STF's with a fleet mate of mine, who also dropped from nearly 20 back down to 10. Undine Assault gave something like 12 - 14k a run, and Borg Disconnected gave around the same. We just blew up as many enemies as we could, as fast as we could and when the mission ended we requeued for another. While those two were on cooldown we slogged through several low xp borg runs. It took many, many hours.. and now it's all gone - and not only that, I've yet to get more than 4k in an STF run.
The handful of people who were able to test on Tribble reported this problem. Do you know what Cryptic did about it?
Absolutely nothing.
Their negligence of a problem that they created does not make the players responsible for exploiting when Cryptic should have already known it would be a problem and fixed it.
Negligence is how almost all exploits come about...their negligence does not excuse people and give them the right to exploit that negligence.
You tend to forget to lock your car. Friends tell you you need to remember to lock your car. You still don't lock your car. Somebody steals the car or something out of the car. Are they innocent because of your negligence?
Cryptic screws things up all the time - all over the place...that's not an excuse to exploit all of their mistakes.
It's not really a creative interpretation, it's pretty much the definition. Devs put something in the game that is not working as they intended or designed and players take advantage of it. It's straight forward...nothing creative about it. Any advantageous bug/not working as intended-designed thing that a player takes advantage of/does...that's pretty much it.
Did they shut down all grouping? No. So grouping wasn't the exploit.
Did they shut down all patrols? No. So patrols weren't the exploit.
They specifically targeted what was happening in Tau Dewa...and anybody that went there should have known that it was obviously not working as intended and that they were taking advantage of the situation.
But, but, but...it would take too long elsewhere!
An excuse to exploit is just an excuse and doesn't change a thing.
Plenty of folks leveled in groups - doing patrols - without touching what was going on in Tau Dewa.
It's just another example of the entitlement that runs rampant in this game to think that it was normal to get the amount of XP from those mobs at -10 levels compared to elsewhere much less matching the lowest member of the group compared to XP gains elsewhere.
All the complaints are no different than all the crying that takes place any time an advantageous bug is fixed...though, Cryptic normally avoids calling out those players for what they've been doing.
Cryptic called folks on it this time...and the butthurt's been flooding the forums ever since.
Which would be a definite customer service matter, just like anybody else that didn't touch Tau Dewa but got hit in the blanket attempt to address the issue Cryptic took after the fact.
There are two separate issues here, and Cryptic rolling back/nuking the spec on folks that didn't partake in the designated exploit should not have been punished as if they had.
It's asinine but typical of them to have taken such a heavy handed approach to it...
Normally agree with you virus, but think you're off base here. Disclosure: I used Tau Dewa teams on 3 characters, 2 hit 60, didn't really grind points after that and have not lost anything
Ignoring everything else asinine about how this has been handled after the fact, the point I keep coming back to on the "obvious exploit" argument is the frame of reference that players had going into DR in regards to leveling. It's never been treated as a grind or time intensive activity, and is often toted as a positive about the game. If you really know what you are doing I imagine 50 in a day is possible, and in a week is obtainable to anyone with a decent amount of time. Outside some non-concrete mentions in dev blogs, nothing else in game was presented to adjust this mindset for 50-60, or 60-100ish/whatever spec point cap is now. The levels stay flat after 60, so it's not even a situation of escalating experience needs to get another point, which is what I would expect the implementation to be if a long grind was their real goal.
So, to spent a week of pretty hardcore grinding in areas to max experience (areas promoted in DR content/filler, no less) does not seem out of place to me. Nor frankly do I see the harm it does to the game by allowing it. With today's hefty xp nerf it's obviously not the direction the devs wanted, but I don't see how that is grounds to retroactively punish. It appears that teaming with a level 50 may have been the crux of the "exploit", but unless I'm unaware of a way to keep that 50 out of the instance, it was a limited time benefit/required constant switching to fresh 50s, which is both non-sustainable and most likely counter to the entire point of trying to level cap a character. Add in that the dragnet appears to have caught people from various other activities and I'm not even clear if this was the real reason.
To me, it all comes back to communication and expectation setting. In my opinion players had been conditioned in this game to expect exactly the experience they had coming into DR, where single minded grinding was going to reach the new level cap in roughly a week. If that's not the apparent experience they are looking for, that's perfectly fine, but to then punish players on top of the changes seems far out of line.
First of all i want to apologize to my friends here who spent any time with me power leveling in Argala.
I spent a bit of time testing out various things about Delta Rising on tribble before it was released and when the the xpac was released i had lots of good information that i shared with everyone, including good locations for power leveling toons. In fact, as you might recall, on the very first day i had a floating group running helping everyone out with leveling up.
To me this is a changing of the rules a week and a half after the release of the XPac. This is punishing players for using a game mechanic that has been in the game since it was launched. This is also punishing the players for poor game design and implementation by the devs.
The devs ****ed up and shifted all the blame to us the players. SHAME ON YOU.
To all my friends i'm very sorry i exposed you to this. What the devs have done is beyond shady. i am now considering my options: perhaps going back to EvE, WoW, Diablo3 or even the new Civ game coming up soon. I feel really uncomfortable playing a game where the developers can stab their players in the back like this.
Again i'm sorry to my friends if any advice i have given you caused your characters to be rolled back.
I'm actually kind of happy that at least one of the Super Elite DPS crowd is mad about this expansion.
Devs might actually do something if you guys start complaining. Otherwise, this is pretty much a fail expansion that killed casual play and customer satisfaction.
Devs, if your idea of an expansion was to ruin the game, gg. You won. Now no one is happy; not even the ones you wanted to cater to this expansion.
I'm actually kind of happy that at least one of the Super Elite DPS crowd is mad about this expansion.
Devs might actually do something if you guys start complaining. Otherwise, this is pretty much a fail expansion that killed casual play and customer satisfaction.
Devs, if your idea of an expansion was to ruin the game, gg. You won. Now no one is happy; not even the ones you wanted to cater to this expansion.
Mal quit this morning about 30 minutes after figuring out what happened. With Jena assumed to be leaving as well, that a nice chunk out of the dps research team who have really driven forward the mechanics understanding on the pve side
It's not really a creative interpretation, it's pretty much the definition. Devs put something in the game that is not working as they intended or designed and players take advantage of it. It's straight forward...nothing creative about it. Any advantageous bug/not working as intended-designed thing that a player takes advantage of/does...that's pretty much it.
But we have no idea what they intend when we have become so used to a game with systems so far out of whack. How are the players to know what is intended? It's not like a shady cabal of players found out about this and kept it quiet. No, this was out in the open from day 1 and nothing was done or communicated about it until the dilithium metrics got out of hand.
They specifically targeted what was happening in Tau Dewa...and anybody that went there should have known that it was obviously not working as intended and that they were taking advantage of the situation.
Tau Dewa was not the only map they locked down. Either that or I was bugged but when they locked down TD I double checked a few other high exp sources and they were also locked. Bug is possible though. Sources I learned about I might add from this very forum.
An excuse to exploit is just an excuse and doesn't change a thing.
Is planting alts next to the security officer to turn in contraband exploiting? Is using KDF to gather contraband rapidly exploiting? Is using a leech console /w high FC skill to get more power than four other consoles combined would provide exploiting? Is FaW exploiting? Was running ISE a month ago for a stupid amount of purple rock taking very little time exploiting?
If this game had any consistency anywhere else at any point in time I would agree with you. But a previous standard had been established and maintained long ago that some activities/things are 4x better than average.
In video games, an exploit (colloquially sploit) is the use of a bug or glitches, game system, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers.[1] Exploits have been classified as a form of cheating; however, the precise determination of what is or is not considered an exploit can be controversial. This debate stems from a number of factors but typically involves the argument that the issues are part of the game and require no changes or external programs to take advantage of them.[2] ~Wikipedia
The Patrol Missions were in Tau Dewa since Legacy of Romulus. Number of issues seen with their existance up to that point was none.
I understand Crytpic can walk in and say that standing on a stone in ESD is an exploit. I'd like to adress that behaviour as stupid, but it's hardly relevant to the point I am trying to make.
It seems that in every cilivised culture with written laws, Ex Post Facto laws are mostly forbidden.
But then again, that's beside my point.
The point is people got punished for spending their game playing the game. Playing legitimate in-game content.
Got punished for it.
For grinding in an MMO.
Not only that but some people weren't even grinding Japori. They were doing Delta Patrols with a team. Also a grind for XP, but if there was the issue with Japori, why they were punished?
Because Cryptic is lazy. That's why. Put them all in a one bag. People level up not buying our utterly pointless XP boosts? Well, NERF EVERYTHING.
People found the way to level up fast? Well, let's punish the people that play the game the most!
No fun allowed indeed.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The beast at Tanagra.
Kadir beneath Mo Moteh. Kiteo, his eyes closed. Chenza at court, the court of silence. Darmok on the ocean.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
If this game had any consistency anywhere else at any point in time I would agree with you. But a previous standard had been established and maintained long ago that some activities/things are 4x better than average.
There are paths of least resistance, things better than other things, but did you see the XP that a -10 mob in Tau Dewa was giving compared to the on-level mobs in DQ or anywhere else in the game for that matter? I needed some Rom Marks for a piece of gear and hit an Archer for the Tau Dewa Patrol in combination with the Daily Box...and the reward from the mobs stood out like a sore thumb that something was off.
It's like the folks that still grumble about the E-Bio Photon and Torp Spread...that was so far and above anything else that it stood out like a sore thumb.
I didn't report any of the stuff in Tau Dewa, Hell - there's a bunch of TRIBBLE out there that I haven't reported (Cryptic's pissed me off enough that it's a TRIBBLE them sort of attitude on things)...but if I use or do something that I know that's out of whack, I'm taking the risk and should anything happen as a result of that, I should expect to eat any potential consequences.
That folks out there that didn't touch Tau Dewa also got hit in Cryptic's attempt to address this...just adds to my overall being pissed at them.
They had the opportunity for a learning/teaching experience here for folks...but Cryptic in typical Cryptic fashion 'effed it up.
Mal quit this morning about 30 minutes after figuring out what happened. With Jena assumed to be leaving as well, that a nice chunk out of the dps research team who have really driven forward the mechanics understanding on the pve side
Wow, Mal left?! I have never flown even near in the strata where he goes; but I know he is as good as certain the best player of this game, in terms of knowlege and DPS. And sarcasmdetector is very high up there too.
If 2 of your top-5 players are leaving, or are about to, then maybe, Crytic, you should start to take this a little more seriously?! Just sayin'.
But we have no idea what they intend when we have become so used to a game with systems so far out of whack. How are the players to know what is intended? It's not like a shady cabal of players found out about this and kept it quiet. No, this was out in the open from day 1 and nothing was done or communicated about it until the dilithium metrics got out of hand.
Except its pretty obvious how they intended us to play the game (whether we agree or not is another matter). Everything else has replay timers and timegating. It doesn't take a genius to see they definitely didn't intend us to be able to do this; overlooking something isn't the same as condoning it. Its like hackers who argue 'you're the one who left the security hole in there; you can't blame me for your mistake.' Did anyone honestly not think this was deliberately exploiting a flaw in mission design? A lie to yourself is still a lie.
Honestly, irritating as so much of this DR stuff is, I'm glad to see Cryptic finally doing something about some of the exploits in this game. Kinda hoping its not a one-off.
Negligence is how almost all exploits come about...their negligence does not excuse people and give them the right to exploit that negligence.
You tend to forget to lock your car. Friends tell you you need to remember to lock your car. You still don't lock your car. Somebody steals the car or something out of the car. Are they innocent because of your negligence?
Cryptic screws things up all the time - all over the place...that's not an excuse to exploit all of their mistakes.
Normally, I'd agree with you here, but the 'exploiters' were doing something that players have been doing without issue or punishment, or even any form of discouragement from Cryptic (if anything, it was encouraged) for years. Your analogy would make more sense if the 'thief' was actually just someone who you would normally allow to borrow your vehicle, and you just decided to call them a thief and magically (because it's the only way you could do it) take away all of the miles that they had ever traveled in your car because they drove too far once, even though you allowed them to and they told you where they were going.
There are paths of least resistance, things better than other things, but did you see the XP that a -10 mob in Tau Dewa was giving compared to the on-level mobs in DQ or anywhere else in the game for that matter? I needed some Rom Marks for a piece of gear and hit an Archer for the Tau Dewa Patrol in combination with the Daily Box...and the reward from the mobs stood out like a sore thumb that something was off.
Yes I did see it. It did not look any more 'off' to me than the other things I listed. Maybe I didn't realize just how drastic of a difference it was but from the few times I did those patrols it was more a pacing preference than a reward based one so my PoV may be skewed. Then again as I said earlier I have become so used to some disparities they don't really register to me like they do others.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
Comments
Wrong. She lost a grand total of 40 points.
This would be the equivalent of doing Doff missions specifically designed to be only 2 minutes long over and over again to reach max in that particular CXP field in no time because the developers made that doff mission like that and never changed it until the last minute.
To me this is extremely shady on their part and I had to wait for them to relaunch the darned things because I actually needed them to grind out rep for romulus smh
i lost 50 out of 60 points on Jena and 8 out 18 points on Aaxal.
Yikes! You're staying remarkably calm under it.
Did they shut down all grouping? No. So grouping wasn't the exploit.
Did they shut down all patrols? No. So patrols weren't the exploit.
They specifically targeted what was happening in Tau Dewa...and anybody that went there should have known that it was obviously not working as intended and that they were taking advantage of the situation.
But, but, but...it would take too long elsewhere!
An excuse to exploit is just an excuse and doesn't change a thing.
Plenty of folks leveled in groups - doing patrols - without touching what was going on in Tau Dewa.
It's just another example of the entitlement that runs rampant in this game to think that it was normal to get the amount of XP from those mobs at -10 levels compared to elsewhere much less matching the lowest member of the group compared to XP gains elsewhere.
All the complaints are no different than all the crying that takes place any time an advantageous bug is fixed...though, Cryptic normally avoids calling out those players for what they've been doing.
Cryptic called folks on it this time...and the butthurt's been flooding the forums ever since.
Which would be a definite customer service matter, just like anybody else that didn't touch Tau Dewa but got hit in the blanket attempt to address the issue Cryptic took after the fact.
There are two separate issues here, and Cryptic rolling back/nuking the spec on folks that didn't partake in the designated exploit should not have been punished as if they had.
It's asinine but typical of them to have taken such a heavy handed approach to it...
Trendy's a community manager. You sure she's the one who actually took your stuff away?
And I specifically was NOWHERE NEAR TAU DEWA!
Nor did I group with anyone (save for PUGs).
And that gave them the right to take 300,000 skill points from me?!
For you to define "not working as intended" as a 'straight forward' explanation is laughable.
When has Cryptic EVER clearly defined what is, or what is not, working as intended.
Also, I never level matched a team. Not even once.
Cryptic is basically calling everyone who lost points an exploiter.
Awesome I feel great. Makes me feel really good about my purchases.
thanks craptic
Are you unable to read? He wasn't doing ANYTHING in Tau Dewa at all and had his points stolen. Many many other players are reporting this aswell. At the same time, many many players who were powerleveling in Tau Dewa did not have any points deduced at all. And no, we were certainly not aware this was exploiting, as this same method was used AND brought to the attention of devs on the test server, and they did nothing about it, so they clearly seemed ok with it then.
ELITE STF SPEED RECORDS (time on optional remaining):
S07: KASE: 12:54 | CSE: 13:20 | ISE: 12:38 All held personally, my POV
LOR: KASE: 13:19 | CSE: 13:47 | ISE: 13:34 None held personally, other player's POV
S08: coming soon
And this is really why they should have something acknowledging they did some collateral damage to innocents and hopefully will repair it.
Its ok to be heavy handed, but there needs to be fairness too.
Probably not. Surely very disappointing, though, hearing the blanket accusatory words come out of her mouth, towards anyone who lost XP, whoever put those words there.
Later in that post virusdancer said that their fix hitting innocents like you was, and I'm quoting here, "asinine"
I missed that part. And still not seeing it, btw. Has there been an official statement from Cryptic, saying they will roll back unjust deductions?
The handful of people who were able to test on Tribble reported this problem. Do you know what Cryptic did about it?
Absolutely nothing.
Their negligence of a problem that they created does not make the players responsible for exploiting when Cryptic should have already known it would be a problem and fixed it.
No word from cryptic, total silence.
[QUOTE=virusdancer;20157171
Which would be a definite customer service matter, just like anybody else that didn't touch Tau Dewa but got hit in the blanket attempt to address the issue Cryptic took after the fact.
There are two separate issues here, and Cryptic rolling back/nuking the spec on folks that didn't partake in the designated exploit should not have been punished as if they had.
It's asinine but typical of them to have taken such a heavy handed approach to it ...[/QUOTE]this bit is beneath sarsacmdetecter's statement in the original post.
Not doubting the claim about reporting the issue on Tribble, but I'd really like to see someone link the forum posts where this was reported. Or where Sarcasm posted the videos.
Since when is running STF's a crime?
Negligence is how almost all exploits come about...their negligence does not excuse people and give them the right to exploit that negligence.
You tend to forget to lock your car. Friends tell you you need to remember to lock your car. You still don't lock your car. Somebody steals the car or something out of the car. Are they innocent because of your negligence?
Cryptic screws things up all the time - all over the place...that's not an excuse to exploit all of their mistakes.
Normally agree with you virus, but think you're off base here. Disclosure: I used Tau Dewa teams on 3 characters, 2 hit 60, didn't really grind points after that and have not lost anything
Ignoring everything else asinine about how this has been handled after the fact, the point I keep coming back to on the "obvious exploit" argument is the frame of reference that players had going into DR in regards to leveling. It's never been treated as a grind or time intensive activity, and is often toted as a positive about the game. If you really know what you are doing I imagine 50 in a day is possible, and in a week is obtainable to anyone with a decent amount of time. Outside some non-concrete mentions in dev blogs, nothing else in game was presented to adjust this mindset for 50-60, or 60-100ish/whatever spec point cap is now. The levels stay flat after 60, so it's not even a situation of escalating experience needs to get another point, which is what I would expect the implementation to be if a long grind was their real goal.
So, to spent a week of pretty hardcore grinding in areas to max experience (areas promoted in DR content/filler, no less) does not seem out of place to me. Nor frankly do I see the harm it does to the game by allowing it. With today's hefty xp nerf it's obviously not the direction the devs wanted, but I don't see how that is grounds to retroactively punish. It appears that teaming with a level 50 may have been the crux of the "exploit", but unless I'm unaware of a way to keep that 50 out of the instance, it was a limited time benefit/required constant switching to fresh 50s, which is both non-sustainable and most likely counter to the entire point of trying to level cap a character. Add in that the dragnet appears to have caught people from various other activities and I'm not even clear if this was the real reason.
To me, it all comes back to communication and expectation setting. In my opinion players had been conditioned in this game to expect exactly the experience they had coming into DR, where single minded grinding was going to reach the new level cap in roughly a week. If that's not the apparent experience they are looking for, that's perfectly fine, but to then punish players on top of the changes seems far out of line.
I'm actually kind of happy that at least one of the Super Elite DPS crowd is mad about this expansion.
Devs might actually do something if you guys start complaining. Otherwise, this is pretty much a fail expansion that killed casual play and customer satisfaction.
Devs, if your idea of an expansion was to ruin the game, gg. You won. Now no one is happy; not even the ones you wanted to cater to this expansion.
Mal quit this morning about 30 minutes after figuring out what happened. With Jena assumed to be leaving as well, that a nice chunk out of the dps research team who have really driven forward the mechanics understanding on the pve side
But we have no idea what they intend when we have become so used to a game with systems so far out of whack. How are the players to know what is intended? It's not like a shady cabal of players found out about this and kept it quiet. No, this was out in the open from day 1 and nothing was done or communicated about it until the dilithium metrics got out of hand.
Tau Dewa was not the only map they locked down. Either that or I was bugged but when they locked down TD I double checked a few other high exp sources and they were also locked. Bug is possible though. Sources I learned about I might add from this very forum.
Is planting alts next to the security officer to turn in contraband exploiting? Is using KDF to gather contraband rapidly exploiting? Is using a leech console /w high FC skill to get more power than four other consoles combined would provide exploiting? Is FaW exploiting? Was running ISE a month ago for a stupid amount of purple rock taking very little time exploiting?
If this game had any consistency anywhere else at any point in time I would agree with you. But a previous standard had been established and maintained long ago that some activities/things are 4x better than average.
The Patrol Missions were in Tau Dewa since Legacy of Romulus. Number of issues seen with their existance up to that point was none.
I understand Crytpic can walk in and say that standing on a stone in ESD is an exploit. I'd like to adress that behaviour as stupid, but it's hardly relevant to the point I am trying to make.
It seems that in every cilivised culture with written laws, Ex Post Facto laws are mostly forbidden.
But then again, that's beside my point.
The point is people got punished for spending their game playing the game. Playing legitimate in-game content.
Got punished for it.
For grinding in an MMO.
Not only that but some people weren't even grinding Japori. They were doing Delta Patrols with a team. Also a grind for XP, but if there was the issue with Japori, why they were punished?
Because Cryptic is lazy. That's why. Put them all in a one bag. People level up not buying our utterly pointless XP boosts? Well, NERF EVERYTHING.
People found the way to level up fast? Well, let's punish the people that play the game the most!
No fun allowed indeed.
Kadir beneath Mo Moteh. Kiteo, his eyes closed. Chenza at court, the court of silence. Darmok on the ocean.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
There are paths of least resistance, things better than other things, but did you see the XP that a -10 mob in Tau Dewa was giving compared to the on-level mobs in DQ or anywhere else in the game for that matter? I needed some Rom Marks for a piece of gear and hit an Archer for the Tau Dewa Patrol in combination with the Daily Box...and the reward from the mobs stood out like a sore thumb that something was off.
It's like the folks that still grumble about the E-Bio Photon and Torp Spread...that was so far and above anything else that it stood out like a sore thumb.
I didn't report any of the stuff in Tau Dewa, Hell - there's a bunch of TRIBBLE out there that I haven't reported (Cryptic's pissed me off enough that it's a TRIBBLE them sort of attitude on things)...but if I use or do something that I know that's out of whack, I'm taking the risk and should anything happen as a result of that, I should expect to eat any potential consequences.
That folks out there that didn't touch Tau Dewa also got hit in Cryptic's attempt to address this...just adds to my overall being pissed at them.
They had the opportunity for a learning/teaching experience here for folks...but Cryptic in typical Cryptic fashion 'effed it up.
Wow, Mal left?! I have never flown even near in the strata where he goes; but I know he is as good as certain the best player of this game, in terms of knowlege and DPS. And sarcasmdetector is very high up there too.
If 2 of your top-5 players are leaving, or are about to, then maybe, Crytic, you should start to take this a little more seriously?! Just sayin'.
Except its pretty obvious how they intended us to play the game (whether we agree or not is another matter). Everything else has replay timers and timegating. It doesn't take a genius to see they definitely didn't intend us to be able to do this; overlooking something isn't the same as condoning it. Its like hackers who argue 'you're the one who left the security hole in there; you can't blame me for your mistake.' Did anyone honestly not think this was deliberately exploiting a flaw in mission design? A lie to yourself is still a lie.
Honestly, irritating as so much of this DR stuff is, I'm glad to see Cryptic finally doing something about some of the exploits in this game. Kinda hoping its not a one-off.
Normally, I'd agree with you here, but the 'exploiters' were doing something that players have been doing without issue or punishment, or even any form of discouragement from Cryptic (if anything, it was encouraged) for years. Your analogy would make more sense if the 'thief' was actually just someone who you would normally allow to borrow your vehicle, and you just decided to call them a thief and magically (because it's the only way you could do it) take away all of the miles that they had ever traveled in your car because they drove too far once, even though you allowed them to and they told you where they were going.
Yes I did see it. It did not look any more 'off' to me than the other things I listed. Maybe I didn't realize just how drastic of a difference it was but from the few times I did those patrols it was more a pacing preference than a reward based one so my PoV may be skewed. Then again as I said earlier I have become so used to some disparities they don't really register to me like they do others.
Well said.
Joined January 2009