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Creative Interpretation of "Exploit"

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    bareelbareel Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    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.
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    mightybobcncmightybobcnc Member Posts: 3,354 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    azniadeet wrote: »
    Us playing the missions they give us is exploitation.

    Meanwhile, them devaluing our equipment and raising the cost on the new stuff is legitimate business.

    The real exploit is in the way they treat us.

    Well said.

    Joined January 2009
    Finger wrote:
    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.
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    bareelbareel Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    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.
    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.

    When someone commits a crime, shares the details of it publicly on my forums, and I don't bother to inform the police for nearly a week, it is a bit different don't you think? There is a reason you get ignored if you lend someone your car, they wreck it, and then you decide it was stolen after the fact.

    I am not attempting to 'victim blame' Cryptic like your two examples are attempting to imply. I am simply saying they either pay absolutely no attention to their customer community only metrics, or are complete morons. And I don't think they are morons.

    That is the part that really irritates me about this. If any of them logged into the game with chat channels open, or read the forums at any point from the release of DR, they would have realized the community was flocking to the DR patrols. They then at that point could have investigated it and stamped it out land Thursday before it became this complete mess.
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    antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    This isn't about Tau sector... they rolled back toons that where doing large scale group patrol missions. That includes ones in the Delta. What it comes down to is the XP you have now is the xp you should have earned running those missions at the new rate.

    I am ok with Cryptic rolling a few people back... cause to me at least it shows they have grown some spherical organs. Proper devs don't allow people to keep things they feel they earned by exploiting. (am not saying I believe it was an exploit) I am simply saying that at least if the dev is going to call it one they should have the courage to follow through and remove stuff earned through its use.

    Now having said that... I have 3 toons I have bothered trying to level... one was rolled back a good bit ... and one which as far as I remember was leveled almost the exact same way. (combo of patrols / STF with my friends and a handful of missions mostly to unlock new stfs ect). Was not rolled back at all.

    So the only thing that confuses me a lot is how they have decided which toons to roll and which to not. With out mentioning names I also know people with toons I KNOW leveled to almost or to full spec tree that saw no roll back at all.

    To sum it up... I'm fine with Cryptic deciding to roll people back... and yes this has nothing to do with Tau it has to do with Patrol earned XP on mobs well below your level. (by using matching team levels ect). The only issue I have myself is the way they have decided who to roll and who not to roll. It does seem like it was almost 100% random with them putting 10,000 toons into a hat and pulling out the first 1000 to roll back and letting the rest slide. In that regard its very sloppy.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
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    meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    This isn't about Tau sector... they rolled back toons that where doing large scale group patrol missions.

    And they rolled back toons, like me, who weren't doing anything like that at all. I haven't participated in *any* group patrol, or other group-grinding activity. Yet they robbed me of 300,000 skill points, nonetheless.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
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    oneratsonerats Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Same here. I got reset from 18 back to 10, and ALL my post 60 leveling has been done in either STF's or from Doff missions. Nothing else, at all. Prior to that I did elite story missions and stf's.. and of course doff's.

    Zero.. ZERO group patrol missions. ZERO group story missions. I think I did one tau dewa patrol solo (no idea which one, prob whichever was closest to where you transwarp into tau dewa) and found that it gave NO xp at all, as the enemies where way under my level. Warped out and never came back.
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    calaminthacalamintha Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    And they rolled back toons, like me, who weren't doing anything like that at all. I haven't participated in *any* group patrol, or other group-grinding activity. Yet they robbed me of 300,000 skill points, nonetheless.

    I guess you "exploited" by playing something that was giving too much XP for their liking? :confused: This is beyond bizarre.
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    atomictikiatomictiki Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Cryptic has a long, long history of holding a very loose definition of the word "exploit" to the point where it means simply "players are doing something we don't like." They aren't owed the benefit of the doubt here and their reaction here is far from professional (as it always is).
    Leave nerfing to the professionals.
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    antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    And they rolled back toons, like me, who weren't doing anything like that at all. I haven't participated in *any* group patrol, or other group-grinding activity. Yet they robbed me of 300,000 skill points, nonetheless.

    Fair... like I was saying it makes no sense to me how they choose which toons to roll back. I had 2 toons pretty deep into the trees... and one got rolled a little bit (can't remember honestly 5-7 points something like that) The other got nothing rolled back at all. I also know people that didn't get rolled back even though I know 100% they spent all there time grinding the content that is now being called an exploit. It does seem very random.

    I guess if they wanted to randomly punish X number of players to put the fear of the exploits into the population perhaps they got what they wanted. lol

    I don't know considering how many people where already almost ready to delete all there toons and uninstall so they wouldn't ever be tempted to come back... I think they may have just screwed up a bit.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
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    reginamala78reginamala78 Member Posts: 4,593 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    bareel wrote: »
    When someone commits a crime, shares the details of it publicly on my forums, and I don't bother to inform the police for nearly a week, it is a bit different don't you think? There is a reason you get ignored if you lend someone your car, they wreck it, and then you decide it was stolen after the fact.

    I'm not talking about legality, I'm talking about morality. Whether the letter of the law or a gap in the code allows something, people doing this to such an extent that HAD 20+ levels to lose had to know damn well they were taking advantage of an error. Their own sense of right and wrong should have been enough to tell them "This can't be right, I shouldn't be doing this." Especially the people who got hit the hardest by this were the ones exploiting it the most and HAD to know they were breaking the rules, yet they did it anyways. For the people who lost a couple of levels for being wrong place wrong time I sympathize, but people complaining about losses of 20+ were cheating and knew they were cheating but did it anyways. I've little sympathy for cheaters.
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    prierinprierin Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm not talking about legality, I'm talking about morality. Whether the letter of the law or a gap in the code allows something, people doing this to such an extent that HAD 20+ levels to lose had to know damn well they were taking advantage of an error. Their own sense of right and wrong should have been enough to tell them "This can't be right, I shouldn't be doing this." Especially the people who got hit the hardest by this were the ones exploiting it the most and HAD to know they were breaking the rules, yet they did it anyways. For the people who lost a couple of levels for being wrong place wrong time I sympathize, but people complaining about losses of 20+ were cheating and knew they were cheating but did it anyways. I've little sympathy for cheaters.


    Morality? In PWE? You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    You will forever be missed and never forgotten.
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    bareelbareel Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm not talking about legality, I'm talking about morality. Whether the letter of the law or a gap in the code allows something, people doing this to such an extent that HAD 20+ levels to lose had to know damn well they were taking advantage of an error. Their own sense of right and wrong should have been enough to tell them "This can't be right, I shouldn't be doing this." Especially the people who got hit the hardest by this were the ones exploiting it the most and HAD to know they were breaking the rules, yet they did it anyways. For the people who lost a couple of levels for being wrong place wrong time I sympathize, but people complaining about losses of 20+ were cheating and knew they were cheating but did it anyways. I've little sympathy for cheaters.

    So did I cheat when I let my marks pile up on characters, their reputation turn ins, and stacks of contraband, to create a few million dilithium on bonus week? I knew I was gaming the game so to speak but I figured those mechanics have been in the game for quite awhile, they were well known, even openly discussed on various forums.

    Tell me how exactly this is any different? Am I going to get banned when they have a bonus mark weekend and I open up all the delta mark boxes I've started to stockpile? How would that be any different? Especially if those boxes are filling my bank for a month or two and nothing is done or said about them before hand?

    Morality is relative. It requires one to know the 'rules of the culture' so to speak. The environment the action is taken in matters.

    This is gross negligence by Cryptic to allow such an exploit to exist and be openly discussed for this long with no action taken if they consider it such a terrible exploit they are willing to punish players for it. These zones should have been locked down by last Thursday at the latest for me to be willing to give them any slack on the matter.
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    azniadeetazniadeet Member Posts: 1,871 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    bareel wrote: »
    Morality is relative. It requires one to know the 'rules of the culture' so to speak. The environment the action is taken in matters.

    That's why it's the job of the player base to communicate the rules of OUR culture to them.

    If they're going to act morally bankrupt to our standards, we need to chastise them for it.
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    bareelbareel Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    azniadeet wrote: »
    That's why it's the job of the player base to communicate the rules of OUR culture to them.

    If they're going to act morally bankrupt to our standards, we need to chastise them for it.

    Sadly they are the creators of the environment and have control over it. The only power we have is the option to either be a customer, a paying customer, or not a customer. Yes even if you don't spend a dime you are still helping them and are a customer.

    And they have set the standard as 'arbitrary' with this action. They have the power to do whatever they want and we accept that because we expect them to act fairly. Because of this latest action some are no longer willing to accept it.
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    varekraithvarekraith Member Posts: 198 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm curious if Cryptic just ran a basic script that flagged people over a certain amount and just zapped them, regardless if they exploited TD or not. It would explain a bit.
    Would also be lame as hell.
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    neoakiraiineoakiraii Member Posts: 7,468 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    varekraith wrote: »
    I'm curious if Cryptic just ran a basic script that flagged people over a certain amount and just zapped them, regardless if they exploited TD or not. It would explain a bit.
    Would also be lame as hell.

    Yes, and most likely
    GwaoHAD.png
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    bwemobwemo Member Posts: 257 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    To sum it up... I'm fine with Cryptic deciding to roll people back... and yes this has nothing to do with Tau it has to do with Patrol earned XP on mobs well below your level. (by using matching team levels ect). The only issue I have myself is the way they have decided who to roll and who not to roll. It does seem like it was almost 100% random with them putting 10,000 toons into a hat and pulling out the first 1000 to roll back and letting the rest slide. In that regard its very sloppy.

    Antonio and I were power grinding 3 man argaya for days, using my doffing dkora/suliban mule in party to buff up the mob #'s and just sit idle and mooch exp.

    My main reached 110 + 10-15 random levels gained helping friends/doing stfs.

    Not once did we abuse level matching japori or any tau dewa patrol at all. I get rolled back 36 points, antonio gets rolled back as well. My doff mule that was mooching? Still level 91.

    I'm sorry to have some type of hope, but this feels like either a gigantic whoops on collateral damage or cryptic just picked numbers out of a hat on who to nerf. I wouldn't even mind having to do it again, its not like grinding mobs was hard, but now the supposed "buffed exp" is actually reduced, so yeah good thing Civ comes out tonight while you folks straighten your **** out.

    PS- Would be nice to have the 80-120m ec back on hour skill boosters I bought from the exchange. Atleast then I could get 400 exp for a battleship instead of 348 :rolleyes:
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    meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    varekraith wrote: »
    I'm curious if Cryptic just ran a basic script that flagged people over a certain amount and just zapped them, regardless if they exploited TD or not. It would explain a bit.
    Would also be lame as hell.

    That is very likely what happened. Being over lv 60, and well into your Specialization tree, was taken as prima facie evidence of your guilt. No matter whether you actually just did the hard work alone.
    3lsZz0w.jpg
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    prierinprierin Member Posts: 7 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    varekraith wrote: »
    I'm curious if Cryptic just ran a basic script that flagged people over a certain amount and just zapped them, regardless if they exploited TD or not. It would explain a bit.
    Would also be lame as hell.

    Most probably right on the money.

    Lazinbess is what allowed this to happen. It's not a stretch of the imagination to assume laziness is how they'll try to fix it.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    You will forever be missed and never forgotten.
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    marc8219marc8219 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    opo98 wrote: »
    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.

    Me too, game will be better off if DPS channel goes away.
    Tala -KDF Tac- House of Beautiful Orions
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    sernonserculionsernonserculion Member Posts: 749 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    varekraith wrote: »
    I'm curious if Cryptic just ran a basic script that flagged people over a certain amount and just zapped them, regardless if they exploited TD or not. It would explain a bit.
    Would also be lame as hell.

    I had two chars with the same behaviour. One with 24 specialization points, the other one with 12. The higher one got hit. They took half of it. The higher level/progression char had even soloed quite a few of those points after level 60, so there was at least a partial mixture there.

    The 12 specialization point guy was pure Argala from level 57 up to 60 + 12 specialization points. He got away Scot free!

    As you can imagine, I am inclined to agree.
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    jorantomalakjorantomalak Member Posts: 7,133 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Incorrect, you can't blame Trendy for this.. she's just delivering the news.

    Correct dont punish the messenger punish the ones who sent the message in the first place aka cryptics dev team and PWE who is responsible for the dev teams actions.
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    antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    bwemo wrote: »
    Antonio and I were power grinding 3 man argaya for days, using my doffing dkora/suliban mule in party to buff up the mob #'s and just sit idle and mooch exp.

    My main reached 110 + 10-15 random levels gained helping friends/doing stfs.

    Not once did we abuse level matching japori or any tau dewa patrol at all. I get rolled back 36 points, antonio gets rolled back as well. My doff mule that was mooching? Still level 91.

    I'm sorry to have some type of hope, but this feels like either a gigantic whoops on collateral damage or cryptic just picked numbers out of a hat on who to nerf. I wouldn't even mind having to do it again, its not like grinding mobs was hard, but now the supposed "buffed exp" is actually reduced, so yeah good thing Civ comes out tonight while you folks straighten your **** out.

    PS- Would be nice to have the 80-120m ec back on hour skill boosters I bought from the exchange. Atleast then I could get 400 exp for a battleship instead of 348 :rolleyes:

    No doubt ya we leveled a lot in delta together... playing the content they gave us. Heck it wasn't even that bad it was sort of fun most of the time. When it got to be unfun we went and did something else for a bit. We had fleet mates come and beat up NPCS with us here and there... and crazy thing is as boring as the content was (We didn't make boring 1992 kill 5 waves of monster missions they did) we did have some fun times.

    I did this on 3-4 toons... no I didn't max out the spec points on any of them... really I didn't go that crazy on any of them... I was switching toons... switching ships to level master traits and try out new stuff... It was more fun then it should have been... trying to find fast PvE builds to trash some Delta trash mobs.

    As lori has pointed out as well... he and many like him spent a lot of game resources and or actual $ on XP boosters. The people that did that are understandably miffed. Those items aren't exploits... they are items SOLD by Cryptic.

    Now the question is do we bother with trying to relevel our toons that got hit... and the ones that didn't for some reason... or do we wait. It does seem likely to me that Cryptic could decide next week that NPC kills should have always given 25% less XP then they have and just retro roll back everyones XP they have ever earned. Perhaps to geko everyone having to start over from level 25 ill seem like good business between now and next Thursday. :)
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
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    antoniosalieriantoniosalieri Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    That is very likely what happened. Being over lv 60, and well into your Specialization tree, was taken as prima facie evidence of your guilt. No matter whether you actually just did the hard work alone.

    You could be right...

    The only MMO I have ever played where playing it as a Multi Player game in itself is considered possible evidence of exploiting. :)
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    Dignity and an empty sack is worth the sack.
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    xaramanxaraman Member Posts: 291 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I'm curious if Cryptic just ran a basic script that flagged people over a certain amount and just zapped them, regardless if they exploited TD or not. It would explain a bit.
    Would also be lame as hell.
    I'm actually hoping that's what happened.

    Because the alternative is ridiculous. Considering the reported reduction of XP in elite content (solo or team) since this patch, it means the "exploit" was simply just playing the game on elite difficulty.


    Cheers!
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    opo98opo98 Member Posts: 435 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    marc8219 wrote: »
    Me too, game will be better off if DPS channel goes away.

    That's NOT what I meant.

    Anyways, devs need to look at the 99% who play instead of the small crowd.
    The only viable character I have now is a Beam Array slinging Min/Max donkey character.
    I hate having to be relegated to a certain playstyle because it is "the only way to go".

    I don't mind that the DPS channel people are around, or even if content is created for them.

    But it is the fact that the devs balance the game assuming everyone has 50k DPS that is the problem.

    I daresay that for the majority of people in the game, the old difficulty ratings were sufficient. The super newbie people could play in normals and learn the ropes, and the competent, well geared people could play in elites.

    The only thing that was missing was the coveted "Nightmare Mode" to challenge the top players.

    But no, instead of just adding another difficulty level, they went ahead and nerfed all the rewards for PVE queues and shot the difficulty for EVERYTHING through the roof.

    All unnecessary and underhanded updates to make the game unrewarding and boring. DPS channel people are not at fault, it's entirely Cryptics' fault.
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    jorantomalakjorantomalak Member Posts: 7,133 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    I exploited nothing, jack-TRIBBLE! I grinded up solo, on Elite, and never grouped together with anyone.

    Calm down i too was punished for playing and besides going to new rom for some other stuff i havent done any tau dewa patrols since i finished my rom rep about 3-4 months ago and i got tapped for levels etc.

    theres not much we can do about it now except rage here or quit the game entirely im done raging it does me no good since craptic doesnt listen to us any longer .

    so either stop lining cryptics pockets with money or quit the game one way or another you must decide to quit or play spend or not .

    anyways you must decide whether you play or not and remember your not the only player whos been tapped for levels and etc.
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    buddha1369buddha1369 Member Posts: 386 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Correct dont punish the messenger punish the ones who sent the message in the first place aka cryptics dev team and PWE who is responsible for the dev teams actions.

    Angry mobs don't are about who is actually responsible, they just want someone to stab their pointy sticks into so they can feel justified.
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    reginamala78reginamala78 Member Posts: 4,593 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    prierin wrote: »
    Morality? In PWE? You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

    TRIBBLE PWE. They are what they are, and I've ranted about them in plenty of other places. I mean morality for the players. I mean hell its Star Trek of all things; how many episodes revolved around Doing The Right Thing even when it hurt? We're the ones who can say 'this is wrong, I shouldn't be doing this even nothing is stopping me.' Its the First Duty of a Starfleet officer, right? ;)
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    f9thretxcf9thretxc Member Posts: 505 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    bareel wrote: »
    Dear Cryptic:

    When some of your most enthusiastic players, those who have actively fostered a community excited about future content releases including ship traits, lock box goodies, new group content, etc, who have been actively helpful to other players learning the ropes, who have promoted your game via social media and streaming activities, and you decided to redefine what was in fact nothing more than a design oversight into an exploit. A design oversight that was publicly shared via your official forums, twitch, and in game chat from day 1 and remained after two patches. A design oversight that persisted in the public spotlight for nearly a week.

    When you redefine that design oversight to exploit and then take punitive measures against those types of players, those types of customers, I have no words to adequately describe the stupidity of that action.

    Cryptic, you did something wrong. You failed to realize your error for nearly a week. And now you are both insulting and taking punitive measures against some of your best customers.

    :confused:

    PS: I didn't loose any levels, I typically avoid grouping. This is just inane.

    This, so much this! I have known the OP for a few months now, and he has always helped with questions I may have had. To punish guys like him, for Cryptics error is just insane!

    I also, wasn't nerfed, and have all the XP I earned, but this is just a horrible way to treat those, when you are the ones who made a mistake.

    Guess what, we all make mistakes, and most great people realize when they do, and own up to them. are yo gonna try and be a great company or not Cryptic?
    My mother always told me to walk away from a fight, The Marines taught me how.
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