If you're talking about the mission I think you are, they locked this one out with the Tau Dewa stuff.
As far as I can tell, they've basically removed the amount of skill points they (and I want to emphasise that: they) incorrectly awarded us for getting kills in certain missions.
I believe that they've just rolled us back to the number of skill points we should have earned for those kills. But I'm not 100% certain with that.
The main problem I'm having with this at the moment is there's been no "We're sorry, we've awarded you skill points at an inflated rate for some kills, and we are going to have to remove those points". No apology, no explanation. It's been "you exploited something, deal with it".
Yeah, we exploited your not listening to tribble feedback. What a surprise.
I was doing 'Shutdown', to be precise. And doing it over and over again. Alone, and on Elite.
So, just for the record, now solo-ing a story-line mission that's been there since the beginning of time is 'exploitive behavior' too? Lovely. This is getting more insane by the minute.
The main problem I'm having with this at the moment is there's been no "We're sorry, we've awarded you skill points at an inflated rate for some kills, and we are going to have to remove those points". No apology, no explanation. It's been "you exploited something, deal with it".
The main problem I'm having with this at the moment is the taking of my skill points. Period. I was playing an age-old story-line mission. If it had been a brandnew mission, that had an unforeseen bug that got exploited, that would have been something else. But the mission I played simply rewarded what it did, and always has done so. And mind you, it's not even easy on Elite, as the multiple Feedback Pulses on Elite really sting, and I died several times.
I was doing 'Shutdown', to be precise. And doing it over and over again. Alone, and on Elite.
So, just for the record, now solo-ing a story-line mission that's been there since the beginning of time is 'exploitive behavior' too? Lovely. This is getting more insane by the minute.
Yup, that is what I done too. Fortunately I look to have lost a point and a half only.
By definition, I guess it it is exploitative. But, as I say, it is exploiting their mistake.
I understand them locking stuff down immediately, but after that the first part of this process should have been them admitting they ballsed it up, and and the second part then them explaining what they will be doing. That would have been the sensible thing.
They've explained nothing.
(That mission never awarded 900XP per Galor kill pre-DR release BTW. I knew it, and you probably knew it too).
Yup, that is what I done too. Fortunately I look to have lost a point and a half only.
By definition, I guess it it is exploitative. But, as I say, it is exploiting their mistake.
How is it 'exploitative', by any stretch of the imagination?! Because waves keep spawning?! That's just a convenience. if, say, only 5 waves spawned, I would have simply aborted the mission, and done it again.
Basically they're now saying that doing any mission, repeatedly, is exploitive.
I can get behind them frowning upon a certain group-behavior trick, whereby the entire team suddenly faces lower-level NPC's than they should have. But merely repeating a mission, solo, really?! Isn't that the definition of a grind, doing something over and over again?!
Yup, that is what I done too. Fortunately I look to have lost a point and a half only.
By definition, I guess it it is exploitative. But, as I say, it is exploiting their mistake.
I understand them locking stuff down immediately, but after that the first part of this process should have been them admitting they ballsed it up, and and the second part then them explaining what they will be doing. That would have been the sensible thing.
They've explained nothing.
(That mission never awarded 900XP per Galor kill pre-DR release BTW. I knew it, and you probably knew it too).
Hmm, it just occured to me, that they may be under the impressed we group-grinded that mission, like those folks in Tau Dewa. We didn't.
Nope, they consider that exploiting period. Otherwise why would they have changed that mission as now none of those ships in the beginning give exp?
Ugh.
Then, if true, that's truly sad. So, solo rerunning missions is now considered exploitative too?! Like i said, I can cut them some slack, when it concerns ppl using team-trickery to fight lower-level NPC's. But I did none of that.
N.B. Just quickly logged in, to see if my ticket had already been answered. Naturally it had not.
A PERFECT example of compounding an idiotic mistake with a colossally moronic one.
I'm just wondering if Cryptic is responsible for ANYTHING...anything at all. Is it always our fault when a game you designed has a "flaw" or TO BE COMPLETELY ACCURATE a FEATURE that you retroactively call an exploit?
Where precisely does it become a problem in game design and not those eeeevviiiiiiil players?
On edit: And no, I didn't do tau patrols and I lost no levels etc....I just know and am acknowledging childish histrionics when I see them. All of this actually gave me some "new" information that I could get some rommy marks by doing patrols in Tau Dewa ironically....
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.
Understanding the game mechanics and optimize playstyle, ship etc was always the challenge in this game. This is one reason why people spend money or time in the game.
Now because DR is release without proper playtesting by the developers, not reading the feedback players gave while tribble testing the new content, etc many players are called exploiters by Cryptic.
I was expecting and thinking that the DR content was correct as it was. Because it was released on Holodeck. If cryptic now thinks their own software is not well programmed and not working as intended, why should players who just played the game get called exploiters?
Why removing items, progress, levels, specializations, dilli, skillpointe, from player toons? That is unforgivable. It's not done to punisch players. Instead cryptic should fix the way they release new stuff, playtest better, read bug reports provided by players and such. Focus on releasing unexploitable contentin the first place.
What they did now will only result in many more players leaving, especialy the ones that do spend money on this game, because I and many more people do not like to be face slapped like this. They never should have touched our toons, items and stuff.
Don't think I lost any spec points but then again highest I got was 58 on any character.
Motivation to log in is minimal to say the least. I'm not a huge fan of grinding but theres something that makes it worse when you're forced into grinding to actually level up, from supposedly new content and progress is so slow you actually swap to a boring beam boat to fly in circles while you play a totally different game on the vita.
On that note I have to say I think I've played stuff on the vita more since dewa risings launch than I have in the past month or two.
If people exploited to get dilithium thats one thing, it was a fairly blatant loophole that should have been spotted given past similarities for dilithium exploits. But I honestly dont see the point in punishing more people than those for a system that was considered good enough to go live.
The goodwill of a playerbase will only take you so far and with the removal of skill points I somehow doubt a handful of lobi crystals will make ammends. It's like offering someone a chocolate bar while at the same time repeatedly kicking them in the nethers.
I did the first 2 new missions then soloed some patrols for a short bit.
made a call out in the redditchat channel: LFM power leveling. there where devs in the channel at that point. they saw the call out, they didn't care.
Spent the rest of the day plowing through patrols in the Delta Quad with the team, taking a break every 3 or 4 runs. sometimes switching ships, sometimes players would drop and be replaced.
after some hours i had dinged 60 and several others where at 57-58ish.
You'd think this would be considered normal MMO behavior. A week and a half later someone at Cryptic or PWE decided RETROACTIVELY that this was an exploit.
Let me put it another way. One day after 4 years the devs suddenly said: oh wait, the goal post isn't supposed to be here, it's supposed to be over there, way over there. All of you who crossed the goal post have to go back to the starting line because you exploited.
Let me put it another way. One day after 4 years the devs suddenly said: oh wait, the goal post isn't supposed to be here, it's supposed to be over there, way over there. All of you who crossed the goal post have to go back to the starting line because you exploited.
I imagine them having said something like this:
"The goal was for you to have a hard time with the increased difficulty, so that you would start buying T6 ships, out of sheer frustration. But you thwarted that, shamelessly teaming up, and you are now therefore branded an exploiter; and we will rob your account, to boot."
no gives a flying *** if you grind least of all the devs. Anyone who equates simple grinding of any patrol or mission with what happened is either delusional or simply attempting to cloud the issue. its not working.
That there are players with capped points who lost nothing while I went from 13 to 11 points has me pretty much done with this game.
Calling me an exploiter for playing normally and robbing me of 2 points while others get to keep dozens and not be labelled a cheater?
I hope this game crashes and burns.
That is such crappy treatment. I'm just amazed they would do this their player base and then ignore us.
no gives a flying *** if you grind least of all the devs. Anyone who equates simple grinding of any patrol or mission with what happened is either delusional or simply attempting to cloud the issue. its not working.
you know who you are and you are not victims
Then clear up the issue for us.
They specifically mention "excessive levels". How was what the "exploiters" did so different than power grinding? Particularly considering how public it was and how long it took Cryptic to do anything about it. People even specifically asked if it was an exploit and they said nothing.
That there are players with capped points who lost nothing while I went from 13 to 11 points has me pretty much done with this game.
Question: were you forced to do a respec? Me thinks that you are jumping to conclusions.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
They specifically mention "excessive levels". How was what the "exploiters" did so different than power grinding?
Because power grinding is simply a question of efficiency, what among choices among normal gameplay results in the highest productivity (and often that choice isn't clear, there are a few ways you can usually conduct a power grind within a single game). The same mindset is applied to an exploit, only the rewards are massively inflated (which they clearly were here. Through more playtime than I'd care to admit I'm only half-way through 60 on one character and 58 on another. The potential to have MAXED OUTspecializations [and earn dil all the way] does pretty much clinch it. Even if someone else didn't take it to the same extreme, using the same channel does still count as exploitation given that its the rate at issue, not the total amount [though that may easily summarize the impact of the problem.]
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Because power grinding is simply a question of efficiency, what among choices among normal gameplay results in the highest productivity (and often that choice isn't clear, there are a few ways you can usually conduct a power grind within a single game). The same mindset is applied to an exploit, only the rewards are massively inflated (which they clearly were here. Through more playtime than I'd care to admit I'm only half-way through 60 on one character and 58 on another. The potential to have MAXED OUTspecializations [and earn dil all the way] does pretty much clinch it. Even if someone else didn't take it to the same extreme, using the same channel does still count as exploitation.)
Sorry if this all comes off as snippy. It is not intended that way!!!!
I have done zero power grinding.
I have done DOFF missions, PvE, routine patrols on Advanced, and the new Delta episodes.
I have one toon at 60 and another at 59.
I do not, however, have maxxed out specializations.
I do place most of the blame on this on Cryptic, due to their miserable communication skills. Silence generally means assent, and people were outright asking if this was an exploit on Tribble before it ever made it to Holodeck. Most of the folks I know that were doing it were surprised to find out it was considered an exploit. They just figured it was power grinding in the new patrol difficulties.
They'd been able to blow through grinding to 50, so they really didn't see anything different. They figured it was just another power grind opportunity since leveling from just the DR missions wasn't doing it.
They specifically mention "excessive levels". How was what the "exploiters" did so different than power grinding? Particularly considering how public it was and how long it took Cryptic to do anything about it. People even specifically asked if it was an exploit and they said nothing.
We know the following based on Dev actions and statements:
What was definitely NOT exploiting:
Only tau dewa was locked. Therefore Nothing people were doing in argala or ds9, or various missions was the issue
Ship mastery was sped up and exp was supposed to be increased but appears to be bugged. (There's a post in the bug forum that may have identified the specific bug). Therefore it was not the exp gain in general as they felt most players were leveling too slow and needed a boost.
What SEEMS to be involved in the actual exploit
They did remove dil from the bonus levels
They did remove skill points from people
They changed the mechanics and rewards of fighting lower level enemies
Edit: small exp boosts from the zen store were nerfed then restored in the same day /edit
So, logic implies that something was different about fighting lower level enemies on one or more maps in tau dewa that does not trigger in a red alert, argala, ds9, or ground map
That something gave more exp than fighting in a team against elite enemies
That something probably involved the use of small difficulty exp boosts
That exp allowed dil and skill points to be earned more than 25% faster (the intended buff in the patch notes) than teaming on elite difficulty and faster than the price of small exp boosts (roughly 31k dil for 3,000 exp)
Now there is the second issue of editing a post without flagging it as updated for clarity, utter silence for over a day now, and people who were never in tau dewa getting points removed. These do not appear to be malice but rather bugs same as saying exp buff but then nerfing it. We are talking cryptic here, don't assume a conspiracy when incompetence is an option
Based on the above, powerlevelling is not an exploit. There really seems to have been something shady going on by a few people.
We know the following based on Dev actions and statements:
What was definitely NOT exploiting:
Only tau dewa was locked. Therefore Nothing people were doing in argala or ds9, or various missions was the issue
Ship mastery was sped up and exp was supposed to be increased but appears to be bugged. (There's a post in the bug forum that may have identified the specific bug). Therefore it was not the exp gain in general as they felt most players were leveling too slow and needed a boost.
What SEEMS to be involved in the actual exploit
They did remove dil from the bonus levels
They did remove skill points from people
They changed the mechanics and rewards of fighting lower level enemies
So, logic implies that something was different about fighting lower level enemies on one or more maps in tau dewa that does not trigger in a red alert, argala, ds9, or ground map
That something gave more exp than fighting in a team against elite enemies
That exp allowed dil and skill points to be earned more than 25% faster (the intended buff in the patch notes) than teaming on elite difficulty
Now there is the second issue of editing a post without flagging it as updatedmfor clarity, utter silence for over a day now, and people who were never in tau dewa getting points removed. These do not appear to be malice but rather bugs same as saying exp buff but then nerfing it. We are talking cryptic here, don't assume a conspiracy when incompetence is an option
Based on the above, powerlevelling is not an exploit. There really seems to have been something shady going on by a few people.
Excellent explanation, thank you.
And this is why communication is so important. *sigh* I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I am having severe issues. I still can't believe they removed xp from players. It makes no sense as those players were either at or close to end game anyway, and it just set them back a couple of days to a week. It really makes them look like big fat meanieheads.
And this is why communication is so important. *sigh* I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I am having severe issues. I still can't believe they removed xp from players. It makes no sense as those players were either at or close to end game anyway, and it just set them back a couple of days to a week. It really makes them look like big fat meanieheads.
Oh the communication issue is a serious infinite facepalm moment. There's literally no excuse for how bad they handled this
they took back the points that were over payed to the players
mean? perhaps, but still not wrong in my book. I think it would have been far worse to let those who exploited to benefit from it
Why? And I'm asking that in all seriousness, for some reason all my posts look so snotty to me today...
What difference, in all honesty, would it have made if they'd just closed the exploit and been done with it? People who were deliberately exploiting did what...shave a few days off maxxing and get some dilithium? They had to break the game in multiple ways because of that?
It's not like these exploiters and their excessive levels were imbalancing the game. Nor were they disrupting queues, missions, or doing anything that seriously affected other players. It didn't affect me at all until Cryptic stepped in and shut down an entire sector.
I would much, much rather they have addressed the terrible PvE revamp, the respeccing issues, the Mac client issues, the episode bugs, the Delta Quad invisowall, Foundry missions, missing PvE queues, and the dozens of other legitimate issues that are impacting my and others gameplay instead of going after a minute portion of the player base and disrupting things even more.
They took something that should have been a minor blip and have managed to make it into the Hindenburg.
Edit - Forgot to add, mean because a lot of people are assuming that their spec points got deliberately removed even when they were never near any exploitative behavior.
no gives a flying *** if you grind least of all the devs. Anyone who equates simple grinding of any patrol or mission with what happened is either delusional or simply attempting to cloud the issue. its not working.
you know who you are and you are not victims
Well first question is, are you paid by PWE? Second is that so far you are the only one showing delusions. There are many people here, especially sarcasmdetector (Jena), who have played to the rules, the rules provided by the dev's, who then got butthurt by the fast leveling and suddenly anyone who could level at the speed of one of the top DPS dealers going got a roll back, AFTER they deemed it only exploiters in Tau Dewa who were cheating the system.
Sorry but that's called throwing your toys out of the pram. They are wrong in the accusation, they are wrong in the term Exploit as they had known and had it reported about the Tau Dewa lvl matching previously on Tribble more than once. If it's not fixed for weeks, goes live and then 5 days later they chuck a hissy fit because the metrics show everyone in TD not in DQ because their bloody awful grind is being avoided by doing legitimate things within the current ruleset. That is when the they changed the goal posts.
they took back the points that were over payed to the players
mean? perhaps, but still not wrong in my book. I think it would have been far worse to let those who exploited to benefit from it
I am really starting to think you are the kinda guy who thinks cops are there to help you too. Try going into a cop shop and asking for a complaint form. Let's see if you get out without a beating or tasering...
They can check the logs for the people who "exploited" the system. They didn't they decided to blanket TRIBBLE everyone who managed to get over level 60 in the spec system for the most part. That's is almost theft as a lot had put in the time and effort required to level that far. Not all, some were enjoying the about right returns in TD. TBH it's the first time I've felt the returns for the time put in was about right.
Oh and as an aside, I was DPS checking most runs, nearly all the ships had the correct level of hitpoints expected for a lvl 60 run. With 5 in a team it wasn't a cakewalk with quite a few pops along the way, though a lot of the people I ran with had 8-10K DPS there were a few lower and one or two DPS monsters. Overall damage was almost always the same as the equivalent from the DQ. Seeing as that's the case, the dev's screwed the scaling (reversed it?) and then blamed the players for their mistake. Now apparently you can't even group for Patrols in TD. Yay way to ruin the one piece of emergent and multi-player oriented content I've EVER seen in STO.
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
It's not like these exploiters and their excessive levels were imbalancing the game. Nor were they disrupting queues, missions, or doing anything that seriously affected other players. It didn't affect me at all until Cryptic stepped in and shut down an entire sector.
Only if you assume they don't engage with any economic or multiplayer system (and ONLY grind Tau Dewa until the end of time). Once someone with excessive spec points buys zen or hops into SB 24 you CAN'T possibly maintain that they don't have an impact on the game.
They took something that should have been a minor blip and have managed to make it into the Hindenburg.
I'm fairly certain WE did that. Developers taking action against exploits is by no means uncommon in the history of video games. However most of that history doesn't have to contend with the partiular memes (ie. culturally shared pieces of information) floating around the STO forums.
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yes I must work for cryptic, its the only explanation.....I cant possibly be disagreeing because I think your wrong, that would actually make some sense
as for "blanket punishment for lvl 60's" I see a few threads of people who are still 60 and lost 1 or 2 points out of a possible 50, if that
I don't give a TRIBBLE about cryptic i'm, just sick of cheaters making excuses, they knew tau was giving exp WAY above the norm and reported before hand or not still CHOSE to use it, and if they didn't know then they unwittingly still benefited from the exploit. they are not cheaters but the are still not entitled to gain from it either
but if you never used tau dewa since DR launched and you lost points for some reason, THEN and only then do you have a right to complain, and even then I would still blame the exploiters for starting this mess in the first place
Only if you assume they don't engage with any economic or multiplayer system (and ONLY grind Tau Dewa until the end of time). Once someone with excessive spec points buys zen or hops into SB 24 you CAN'T possibly maintain that they don't have an impact on the game.
Six days of using an exploit would be enough to disrupt the entire economy? What? Yeah, I can possibly maintain it. The exploit was in place for six days. Unless they figured out how to break the 8k/day refinement cap and refine tens or hundreds of thousands of dilithium, or were able to break the Epic Mk XIV and T5U and T6 ship upgrades, no, their impact on the game would not be noticeable.
And trust me, if there had been an exploit that big, the wily folks on the forums and in the DPS chats would be talking.
I'm fairly certain WE did that. Developers taking action against exploits is by no means uncommon in the history of video games. However most of that history doesn't have to contend with the partiular memes (ie. culturally shared pieces of information) floating around the STO forums.
Developers taking this extreme of an action to redact the benefits from an easily fixable exploit IS uncommon. Shutting down instances and altering player accounts is, from my experience, reserved for exploit benefits that have a massive impact on the game.
They swatted a fly with a howitzer, the howitzer exploded, and now everything is on fire. But hey, there are no more flies.
Developers taking this extreme of an action to redact the benefits from an easily fixable exploit IS uncommon. Shutting down instances and altering player accounts is, from my experience, reserved for exploit benefits that have a massive impact on the game.
They swatted a fly with a howitzer, the howitzer exploded, and now everything is on fire. But hey, there are no more flies.
^^ This!
Also, for them to start robbing people's accounts, the infraction should have to be very major. And not, like in my case, like "Gee, we really didn't mean for you to solo that mission over and over again, and had kinda hoped you would play more DR content." That did not, in any way, shape, or form, justify stealing 300,000 of my well-earned skillpoints.
Comments
I was doing 'Shutdown', to be precise. And doing it over and over again. Alone, and on Elite.
So, just for the record, now solo-ing a story-line mission that's been there since the beginning of time is 'exploitive behavior' too? Lovely. This is getting more insane by the minute.
The main problem I'm having with this at the moment is the taking of my skill points. Period. I was playing an age-old story-line mission. If it had been a brandnew mission, that had an unforeseen bug that got exploited, that would have been something else. But the mission I played simply rewarded what it did, and always has done so. And mind you, it's not even easy on Elite, as the multiple Feedback Pulses on Elite really sting, and I died several times.
Yup, that is what I done too. Fortunately I look to have lost a point and a half only.
By definition, I guess it it is exploitative. But, as I say, it is exploiting their mistake.
I understand them locking stuff down immediately, but after that the first part of this process should have been them admitting they ballsed it up, and and the second part then them explaining what they will be doing. That would have been the sensible thing.
They've explained nothing.
(That mission never awarded 900XP per Galor kill pre-DR release BTW. I knew it, and you probably knew it too).
How is it 'exploitative', by any stretch of the imagination?! Because waves keep spawning?! That's just a convenience. if, say, only 5 waves spawned, I would have simply aborted the mission, and done it again.
Basically they're now saying that doing any mission, repeatedly, is exploitive.
I can get behind them frowning upon a certain group-behavior trick, whereby the entire team suddenly faces lower-level NPC's than they should have. But merely repeating a mission, solo, really?! Isn't that the definition of a grind, doing something over and over again?!
Hmm, it just occured to me, that they may be under the impressed we group-grinded that mission, like those folks in Tau Dewa. We didn't.
Nope, they consider that exploiting period. Otherwise why would they have changed that mission as now none of those ships in the beginning give exp?
Ugh.
Then, if true, that's truly sad.
N.B. Just quickly logged in, to see if my ticket had already been answered. Naturally it had not.
I'm just wondering if Cryptic is responsible for ANYTHING...anything at all. Is it always our fault when a game you designed has a "flaw" or TO BE COMPLETELY ACCURATE a FEATURE that you retroactively call an exploit?
Where precisely does it become a problem in game design and not those eeeevviiiiiiil players?
On edit: And no, I didn't do tau patrols and I lost no levels etc....I just know and am acknowledging childish histrionics when I see them. All of this actually gave me some "new" information that I could get some rommy marks by doing patrols in Tau Dewa ironically....
Understanding the game mechanics and optimize playstyle, ship etc was always the challenge in this game. This is one reason why people spend money or time in the game.
Now because DR is release without proper playtesting by the developers, not reading the feedback players gave while tribble testing the new content, etc many players are called exploiters by Cryptic.
I was expecting and thinking that the DR content was correct as it was. Because it was released on Holodeck. If cryptic now thinks their own software is not well programmed and not working as intended, why should players who just played the game get called exploiters?
Why removing items, progress, levels, specializations, dilli, skillpointe, from player toons? That is unforgivable. It's not done to punisch players. Instead cryptic should fix the way they release new stuff, playtest better, read bug reports provided by players and such. Focus on releasing unexploitable contentin the first place.
What they did now will only result in many more players leaving, especialy the ones that do spend money on this game, because I and many more people do not like to be face slapped like this. They never should have touched our toons, items and stuff.
Motivation to log in is minimal to say the least. I'm not a huge fan of grinding but theres something that makes it worse when you're forced into grinding to actually level up, from supposedly new content and progress is so slow you actually swap to a boring beam boat to fly in circles while you play a totally different game on the vita.
On that note I have to say I think I've played stuff on the vita more since dewa risings launch than I have in the past month or two.
If people exploited to get dilithium thats one thing, it was a fairly blatant loophole that should have been spotted given past similarities for dilithium exploits. But I honestly dont see the point in punishing more people than those for a system that was considered good enough to go live.
The goodwill of a playerbase will only take you so far and with the removal of skill points I somehow doubt a handful of lobi crystals will make ammends. It's like offering someone a chocolate bar while at the same time repeatedly kicking them in the nethers.
I did the first 2 new missions then soloed some patrols for a short bit.
made a call out in the redditchat channel: LFM power leveling. there where devs in the channel at that point. they saw the call out, they didn't care.
Spent the rest of the day plowing through patrols in the Delta Quad with the team, taking a break every 3 or 4 runs. sometimes switching ships, sometimes players would drop and be replaced.
after some hours i had dinged 60 and several others where at 57-58ish.
You'd think this would be considered normal MMO behavior. A week and a half later someone at Cryptic or PWE decided RETROACTIVELY that this was an exploit.
Let me put it another way. One day after 4 years the devs suddenly said: oh wait, the goal post isn't supposed to be here, it's supposed to be over there, way over there. All of you who crossed the goal post have to go back to the starting line because you exploited.
An exploit is whatever they say it is. That's fine. Whether I agree with them is irrelevant.
How they handled it (and are continuing to handle it) was/is a step-by-step of What Not To Do When You Fark Up Your Game.
I imagine them having said something like this:
"The goal was for you to have a hard time with the increased difficulty, so that you would start buying T6 ships, out of sheer frustration. But you thwarted that, shamelessly teaming up, and you are now therefore branded an exploiter; and we will rob your account, to boot."
you know who you are and you are not victims
Calling me an exploiter for playing normally and robbing me of 2 points while others get to keep dozens and not be labelled a cheater?
I hope this game crashes and burns.
That is such crappy treatment. I'm just amazed they would do this their player base and then ignore us.
This is unfcking acceptable crypticz
Then clear up the issue for us.
They specifically mention "excessive levels". How was what the "exploiters" did so different than power grinding? Particularly considering how public it was and how long it took Cryptic to do anything about it. People even specifically asked if it was an exploit and they said nothing.
Question: were you forced to do a respec? Me thinks that you are jumping to conclusions.
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Because power grinding is simply a question of efficiency, what among choices among normal gameplay results in the highest productivity (and often that choice isn't clear, there are a few ways you can usually conduct a power grind within a single game). The same mindset is applied to an exploit, only the rewards are massively inflated (which they clearly were here. Through more playtime than I'd care to admit I'm only half-way through 60 on one character and 58 on another. The potential to have MAXED OUT specializations [and earn dil all the way] does pretty much clinch it. Even if someone else didn't take it to the same extreme, using the same channel does still count as exploitation given that its the rate at issue, not the total amount [though that may easily summarize the impact of the problem.]
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Sorry if this all comes off as snippy. It is not intended that way!!!!
I have done zero power grinding.
I have done DOFF missions, PvE, routine patrols on Advanced, and the new Delta episodes.
I have one toon at 60 and another at 59.
I do not, however, have maxxed out specializations.
I do place most of the blame on this on Cryptic, due to their miserable communication skills. Silence generally means assent, and people were outright asking if this was an exploit on Tribble before it ever made it to Holodeck. Most of the folks I know that were doing it were surprised to find out it was considered an exploit. They just figured it was power grinding in the new patrol difficulties.
They'd been able to blow through grinding to 50, so they really didn't see anything different. They figured it was just another power grind opportunity since leveling from just the DR missions wasn't doing it.
We know the following based on Dev actions and statements:
What was definitely NOT exploiting:
Only tau dewa was locked. Therefore Nothing people were doing in argala or ds9, or various missions was the issue
Ship mastery was sped up and exp was supposed to be increased but appears to be bugged. (There's a post in the bug forum that may have identified the specific bug). Therefore it was not the exp gain in general as they felt most players were leveling too slow and needed a boost.
What SEEMS to be involved in the actual exploit
They did remove dil from the bonus levels
They did remove skill points from people
They changed the mechanics and rewards of fighting lower level enemies
Edit: small exp boosts from the zen store were nerfed then restored in the same day /edit
So, logic implies that something was different about fighting lower level enemies on one or more maps in tau dewa that does not trigger in a red alert, argala, ds9, or ground map
That something gave more exp than fighting in a team against elite enemies
That something probably involved the use of small difficulty exp boosts
That exp allowed dil and skill points to be earned more than 25% faster (the intended buff in the patch notes) than teaming on elite difficulty and faster than the price of small exp boosts (roughly 31k dil for 3,000 exp)
Now there is the second issue of editing a post without flagging it as updated for clarity, utter silence for over a day now, and people who were never in tau dewa getting points removed. These do not appear to be malice but rather bugs same as saying exp buff but then nerfing it. We are talking cryptic here, don't assume a conspiracy when incompetence is an option
Based on the above, powerlevelling is not an exploit. There really seems to have been something shady going on by a few people.
Excellent explanation, thank you.
And this is why communication is so important. *sigh* I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I am having severe issues. I still can't believe they removed xp from players. It makes no sense as those players were either at or close to end game anyway, and it just set them back a couple of days to a week. It really makes them look like big fat meanieheads.
mean? perhaps, but still not wrong in my book. I think it would have been far worse to let those who exploited to benefit from it
Oh the communication issue is a serious infinite facepalm moment. There's literally no excuse for how bad they handled this
Why? And I'm asking that in all seriousness, for some reason all my posts look so snotty to me today...
What difference, in all honesty, would it have made if they'd just closed the exploit and been done with it? People who were deliberately exploiting did what...shave a few days off maxxing and get some dilithium? They had to break the game in multiple ways because of that?
It's not like these exploiters and their excessive levels were imbalancing the game. Nor were they disrupting queues, missions, or doing anything that seriously affected other players. It didn't affect me at all until Cryptic stepped in and shut down an entire sector.
I would much, much rather they have addressed the terrible PvE revamp, the respeccing issues, the Mac client issues, the episode bugs, the Delta Quad invisowall, Foundry missions, missing PvE queues, and the dozens of other legitimate issues that are impacting my and others gameplay instead of going after a minute portion of the player base and disrupting things even more.
They took something that should have been a minor blip and have managed to make it into the Hindenburg.
Edit - Forgot to add, mean because a lot of people are assuming that their spec points got deliberately removed even when they were never near any exploitative behavior.
Well first question is, are you paid by PWE? Second is that so far you are the only one showing delusions. There are many people here, especially sarcasmdetector (Jena), who have played to the rules, the rules provided by the dev's, who then got butthurt by the fast leveling and suddenly anyone who could level at the speed of one of the top DPS dealers going got a roll back, AFTER they deemed it only exploiters in Tau Dewa who were cheating the system.
Sorry but that's called throwing your toys out of the pram. They are wrong in the accusation, they are wrong in the term Exploit as they had known and had it reported about the Tau Dewa lvl matching previously on Tribble more than once. If it's not fixed for weeks, goes live and then 5 days later they chuck a hissy fit because the metrics show everyone in TD not in DQ because their bloody awful grind is being avoided by doing legitimate things within the current ruleset. That is when the they changed the goal posts.
I am really starting to think you are the kinda guy who thinks cops are there to help you too. Try going into a cop shop and asking for a complaint form. Let's see if you get out without a beating or tasering...
They can check the logs for the people who "exploited" the system. They didn't they decided to blanket TRIBBLE everyone who managed to get over level 60 in the spec system for the most part. That's is almost theft as a lot had put in the time and effort required to level that far. Not all, some were enjoying the about right returns in TD. TBH it's the first time I've felt the returns for the time put in was about right.
Oh and as an aside, I was DPS checking most runs, nearly all the ships had the correct level of hitpoints expected for a lvl 60 run. With 5 in a team it wasn't a cakewalk with quite a few pops along the way, though a lot of the people I ran with had 8-10K DPS there were a few lower and one or two DPS monsters. Overall damage was almost always the same as the equivalent from the DQ. Seeing as that's the case, the dev's screwed the scaling (reversed it?) and then blamed the players for their mistake. Now apparently you can't even group for Patrols in TD. Yay way to ruin the one piece of emergent and multi-player oriented content I've EVER seen in STO.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Which in itself should have told Dev's there was a problem w/ leveling. But people did use TD, and it was reported, to test mastery levels.
Lion Heart of Hammer Squadron
Only if you assume they don't engage with any economic or multiplayer system (and ONLY grind Tau Dewa until the end of time). Once someone with excessive spec points buys zen or hops into SB 24 you CAN'T possibly maintain that they don't have an impact on the game.
I'm fairly certain WE did that. Developers taking action against exploits is by no means uncommon in the history of video games. However most of that history doesn't have to contend with the partiular memes (ie. culturally shared pieces of information) floating around the STO forums.
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as for "blanket punishment for lvl 60's" I see a few threads of people who are still 60 and lost 1 or 2 points out of a possible 50, if that
I don't give a TRIBBLE about cryptic i'm, just sick of cheaters making excuses, they knew tau was giving exp WAY above the norm and reported before hand or not still CHOSE to use it, and if they didn't know then they unwittingly still benefited from the exploit. they are not cheaters but the are still not entitled to gain from it either
but if you never used tau dewa since DR launched and you lost points for some reason, THEN and only then do you have a right to complain, and even then I would still blame the exploiters for starting this mess in the first place
Six days of using an exploit would be enough to disrupt the entire economy? What? Yeah, I can possibly maintain it. The exploit was in place for six days. Unless they figured out how to break the 8k/day refinement cap and refine tens or hundreds of thousands of dilithium, or were able to break the Epic Mk XIV and T5U and T6 ship upgrades, no, their impact on the game would not be noticeable.
And trust me, if there had been an exploit that big, the wily folks on the forums and in the DPS chats would be talking.
Developers taking this extreme of an action to redact the benefits from an easily fixable exploit IS uncommon. Shutting down instances and altering player accounts is, from my experience, reserved for exploit benefits that have a massive impact on the game.
They swatted a fly with a howitzer, the howitzer exploded, and now everything is on fire. But hey, there are no more flies.
^^ This!
Also, for them to start robbing people's accounts, the infraction should have to be very major. And not, like in my case, like "Gee, we really didn't mean for you to solo that mission over and over again, and had kinda hoped you would play more DR content." That did not, in any way, shape, or form, justify stealing 300,000 of my well-earned skillpoints.