You want to know why I ran it? I ran it because I was bored with New Romulus. I enjoy fighting in space; I did so with the patrol missions. After doing the patrol missions for marks, with three other fleet mates; found it to be fun and, got a couple levels out of it. 4x gw provided absolute control on the incoming waves. 3x torp spread 3, and 1x cannon volley would lay down some serious hurt with the way we were set up.
Went back, actually was able to do a couple episodes in DR without the exp hunting that breaks the story in to semi-coherent, disjointed babble.
The next day, did it again, for marks and another level. And, at that point, since I knew the wave patterns; kept it in mind for other, newer fleet members for if(and when) they needed exp.
Why not DR patrols? Because, like the pve queues, they're nothing but damage sponges and I really do not wish to deal with them.
That clear enough, for ya?
I don't care why you ran it, how many times etc. Again, given the "go grind" expansion, I am quite proud of you for finding and using an efficient solution to the problem. You are putting words in my mouth -- I have said repeatedly that I don't care that people used this exploit. That was not the question being asked. The question was how to know if you are exploiting. If you want we can debate morality or something, but since I agree with you, it won't be a very lively discussion.
Which is subjective (versus objective, which is where the physics comes in). If you're doing something that the devs (being dependent on the long and short term health of the game, its systems, and economy) don't want you to do they have the right to stop you. Remember the TOU agreement? I can't imagine that [and haven't seen] ANY active dev fail to refer to it when confronted with a clear, game breaking exploit.
Resets, bans, lock downs, you should have seen PLENTY in your time as a gamer to cue you into how seriously devs take their game. Even if its their bugs/bad decisions that create the situation, they'll still act against those who go too far with it (and before you start whining about how other people have been affected, refer to the larger post around here complaining about a 10 spec point loss while hit with a forced reset. I strongly suspect that there's a separate issue with the "skill invalid" respec glitch [which has been with us for some weeks] that's ALSO causing lost spec points.)
There is NOTHING subjective about a feature of a game, either it's there or it isn't. In this case it is...period. Why are we still talking about it?
What would cue me into how seriously they take their game is to fix this problem prior to it getting off tribble where many, many, MANY people pointed it out....but they didn't. DID they?
The fact is that the rewards WERE higher than expected doing ELITE missions with a full group means you shouldn't expect that it's an exploit. The rewards for doing an elite patrol (given the insane difficulty of elite STFs now) should be a clear signal that "this is fine and expected"...period. Try again.
No the fact that ONE mission is better than all the others, means that it's the ONE people are going to do. This, again, is fully expected, reasonable, and makes perfect sense. Go fish.
Level matching can be UP or DOWN it doesn't matter which. CoH allowed BOTH and this didn't cause anyone to have histrionic conniption fits and close down neighborhoods.
Nothing, absolutely NOTHING shows exploiting here. IF the devs didn't like the metric (which they flipped on its head BTW) players were achieving then they should "fix" it and move on. Not flip out in a magnificently spastic manner, close down a sector, and roll back people to oblivion.
I agree. There should be no rollbacks or freaking out, just patch it and move on.
I agree -- people will take the easy way out and if one mission is "as expected" giving significantly more xp than all the others people will do that one. I do not have any issue with that, nor with people abusing this relatively harmless* bug.
Level matching does not bother me. Its not a problem. It was not the problem here either, the problem here was a buggy mission that made level matching a wee bit better than was probably intended.
I don't agree there were no signs. When one mission is significantly better than all the rest, its a red flag that something is messed up.
*bugs that allow exploits that mess up the economy irritate me. The ones that let people cheeze to beat a mission or level up or other harmless things do not bother me at all, though I dislike being grouped with exploiters cheating to beat a boss because I like an actual challenge.
That falls flat. If the rewards were not higher than expected, why did 9/10 the player base do that one mission and no others? Why? Was it more fun? More challenging? Again, when you answer the WHY you will discover that the rewards to effort ratio were wrong.
Or the enemies there were less annoying than in other patrols. Whenever I did the daily I would avoid e.g. Hirogen groups because I'd just get constantly Subnuked.
There is NOTHING subjective about a feature of a game, either it's there or it isn't. In this case it is...period. Why are we still talking about it?
Does it exist. Yes or no, that's objective. Is it desirable? Do we want it? Is it a good thing? SUBJECTIVE (I find it hard to believe that I had to seriously explain this to you.)
You brought it up by the way.
There is no definition of higher than normal results, that's totally subjective
There's no set definition on how high is too high. Its subjective. Ergo, cryptic's definition can't really be argued with on what is purely a matter of opinion and points of view. Their decision, their game. You might disagree with how excessive is an excess, but that's merely being pedantic.
What would cue me into how seriously they take their game is to fix this problem prior to it getting off tribble where many, many, MANY people pointed it out....but they didn't. DID they?
I was on tribble a lot and I don't recall ANY threads pointing out the potential abuse of badly leveled elite enemies in the Tau Dewa sector block (or what that might mean in light of the specialization system.) Link?
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The ones they call exploitors had to do more than run the patrols.
The game just got an explansion where everything changed, how was anyone suppose to know XP was higher.
Now if they had left the STF alone like they should have and just added new content maybe people would know it was bugged.
From what i can tell people saw the expansion and patch hit and thought his is a great way to level.
Crytpic messed with too many variables in the game how is anyone suppose to really know.
very valid point. But presumably a random sampling of players would do a random sampling of tasks when the expansion hit. Then all of a sudden nearly everyone is doing a single thing rather than anything else. Again, WHY? Because its a great way to level up. And it seems like a great level up mission... why again? Because having tried other stuff, it was the fastest. Red flag again.
No matter how you slice it, the majority of the players doing this should have at least been aware that it seemed to be too easy. Game developers do not *usually* intentionally release a major expansion where the goal is to play a single 5 min mission 200 times in a row.
Then all of a sudden nearly everyone is doing a single thing rather than anything else. Again, WHY? Because its a great way to level up. And it seems like a great level up mission... why again? Because having tried other stuff, it was the fastest. Red flag again.
Red bull again, you mean. Your grossly simplified thinking is tantamount to saying every mission should pay out about the same, lest it be a 'red flag' you should have spotted, and are now punished for.
Red bull again, you mean. Your grossly simplified thinking is tantamount to saying every mission should pay out about the same, lest it be a 'red flag' you should have spotted, and are now punished for.
Almost. What I said was effort to reward, which is roughly reward value / time spent. And that ratio was pretty equal pre expansion, and outside of glitches (not having tested *everything* yet), it seems to be reasonably balanced post expansion as well.
And, I said as well that punishment is not good. At all. Some exploits are worthy of punishment (read about neverwinter and the cat someday). This one is not worth a punishment IMHO.
Should have spotted? Maybe not. Certainly 100% of the population would not have clued in. Maybe 1/3 should have realized it though. I mean, come on, I knew something fishy was up just from passing thru TD and seeing 10000 LFG messages every second for the same mission, while at the same time, 0 groups for anything else. I did not know exactly what people were doing but I knew something was going on. Same as the cat thing, I knew when the zen to diamonds (dil) ratio and trade channel chatter hit that something had gone very, very wrong over in NWN. And after a short time I knew what people were doing because it was being openly discussed in chat channels. By people who knew it was "not right' and effectively said as much.
I've been using my many alts to turn in contraband, which I'm sure they consider an exploit. I've got a few thousand marks to convert to dil, too, and that's an exploit if I've ever seen one. My KDF toons are leveling up pretty nicely just from their usual doffing rounds, surely exploitative play. I was considering taking my main character through a complete replay of story episodes from the beginning, maybe on elite, but gosh does that sound like an exploit.
I've been using my many alts to turn in contraband, which I'm sure they consider an exploit. I've got a few thousand marks to convert to dil, too, and that's an exploit if I've ever seen one. My KDF toons are leveling up pretty nicely just from their usual doffing rounds, surely exploitative play. I was considering taking my main character through a complete replay of story episodes from the beginning, maybe on elite, but gosh does that sound like an exploit.
A curious game. The winning move is not to play.
that's right better be careful or "theeeelll tak UR poooints eway"
if crytic really thought those were exploits they would have killed that stuff long ago, don't equate everything in the game to what happened in tau dewa, ppl were not "just running patrols"
I'm tediously filling 50 mark rep projects for dil during a dil weekend. Intended feature, bugged, exploit? Who knows...
Still no communication from the Devs on several points of criticism and obvious bugs raised in the past couple days. But whatever, I should just accept anything they do without question or leave the game.
very valid point. But presumably a random sampling of players would do a random sampling of tasks when the expansion hit. Then all of a sudden nearly everyone is doing a single thing rather than anything else. Again, WHY? Because its a great way to level up. And it seems like a great level up mission... why again? Because having tried other stuff, it was the fastest. Red flag again.
Yeah people communicating, about great ways to level up in an MMO & teaming up ... that's completely insane ... everyone knows MMO's are not supposed to be social & about communicating ...
PS : There is always the "fastest" way even if they nerf Tau Dewa to death it's gonna be something else ... better tell people about the Doffing Exploits ... logging in just once a day for 2min to get XP sounds pretty fishy ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
MMO cheaters will always ignore the truth while they decry their innocence and blame the devs for tricking them into cheating.
And apologists will always attack the community in some pathetic attempt to gain attention from the Devs...Mommy must not have hugged you enough as a child.
very valid point. But presumably a random sampling of players would do a random sampling of tasks when the expansion hit. Then all of a sudden nearly everyone is doing a single thing rather than anything else. Again, WHY? Because its a great way to level up. And it seems like a great level up mission... why again? Because having tried other stuff, it was the fastest. Red flag again.
No matter how you slice it, the majority of the players doing this should have at least been aware that it seemed to be too easy. Game developers do not *usually* intentionally release a major expansion where the goal is to play a single 5 min mission 200 times in a row.
No they release an expansion where the goal is to play a single 20 minute mission 200 times in a row. Or have you not played DR content?
Dyson Ground. Must be an exploit. Send bug reports.
Doing higher DPS than a T4 rainbow boat. Must be an exploit. Send bug reports.
Being the last one alive in an -almost- teamwipe. Must be an exploit. Send bug reports.
And make sure you don't do any of these activities, or you risk being call a liar, cheat, and/or exploiter by the devs- and random people on the internet (none of whom have anything to do with it in any way).
Here is the problem I see with expecting us to know that it was an exploit.
1) No one have ever been to level 60 before and had no idea what sp we should be getting on elite.
2) Most of us have been level 50 for so long we haven't seen skill points as it all has been turned into expertise. I wouldn't have noticed what amount it was suppose to be as I have 7mil sitting on my main that I barely play. What is 500 skill points after having earned 20 mil and have spent over 12 mil in a few years?
3) After they changed the rate of leveling with Season 5, seeing elite mode with mobs produce high skill points does not seem out of the ordinary.
Cryptic's definition of the word exploit has been a little argumentative lately. First was the rep boxes, if I go into the details, I'd be crossing the line drawn in crayon (should I?... No, not today). As for the latest occurrence, because that all I know is from the forums, I think it should be safe for me to piece together an educated guess: So long ago Cryptic added a level where players could earn extra XP. And it sat to DR hit, out of mind of Cryptic. But when people were leveling up faster than they anticipated, they did not say "no, we cannot have that", but instead said "you cheated!".
That's two examples I can think of, and it is only the latest that is having any real repercussions because Cryptic handed out punishments this time. Many to players who believe by the fibers of their bodies that they did not do anything wrong. This very thread is an example of the repercussions that are happening; I'm personally not sure if Cryptic's definition of "exploit" is even solid or not. I am sorry I am doubtful, but this is what happens.
When I noticed they nerfed the exp - the nerf that came out with the expansion, not the neo-nerf of japori, and I saw it took 100 story-missions to get to 60, I knew they didn't want on us to level and the patrols were an error on their part.
But I did it anyway because at this point it's that or nothing.
Nothing in the game now to attract me so whatever developers, go nerf the contraband so we can officially call this game over
So was I breaking the developers' intented design, hell yeah proudly.
Because their design has ruined the game and should they manage to finally fit people into their petty battery hens metric it's going to be lights out for sure.
They nerf contraband next, the only thing left, and they will effectively have shut down, deleted and ruined everything there was to do in-game
Hilarious to call the players the exploiters though because who exactly is the exploitation expert here
When I noticed they nerfed the exp - the nerf that came out with the expansion, not the neo-nerf of japori, and I saw it took 100 story-missions to get to 60, I knew they didn't want on us to level and the patrols were an error on their part.
But I did it anyway because at this point it's that or nothing.
Nothing in the game now to attract me so whatever developers, go nerf the contraband so we can officially call this game over
So was I breaking the developers' intented design, hell yeah proudly.
Because their design has ruined the game and should they manage to finally fit people into their petty battery hens metric it's going to be lights out for sure.
They nerf contraband next, the only thing left, and they will effectively have shut down, deleted and ruined everything there was to do in-game
Hilarious to call the players the exploiters though because who exactly is the exploitation expert here
They nerfed the 5 contraband to 3 for the "Collect Contraband" Doff assignment , back in season 6 didn't they? That would suck if they did it again.
Comments
I don't care why you ran it, how many times etc. Again, given the "go grind" expansion, I am quite proud of you for finding and using an efficient solution to the problem. You are putting words in my mouth -- I have said repeatedly that I don't care that people used this exploit. That was not the question being asked. The question was how to know if you are exploiting. If you want we can debate morality or something, but since I agree with you, it won't be a very lively discussion.
There is NOTHING subjective about a feature of a game, either it's there or it isn't. In this case it is...period. Why are we still talking about it?
What would cue me into how seriously they take their game is to fix this problem prior to it getting off tribble where many, many, MANY people pointed it out....but they didn't. DID they?
I agree. There should be no rollbacks or freaking out, just patch it and move on.
I agree -- people will take the easy way out and if one mission is "as expected" giving significantly more xp than all the others people will do that one. I do not have any issue with that, nor with people abusing this relatively harmless* bug.
Level matching does not bother me. Its not a problem. It was not the problem here either, the problem here was a buggy mission that made level matching a wee bit better than was probably intended.
I don't agree there were no signs. When one mission is significantly better than all the rest, its a red flag that something is messed up.
*bugs that allow exploits that mess up the economy irritate me. The ones that let people cheeze to beat a mission or level up or other harmless things do not bother me at all, though I dislike being grouped with exploiters cheating to beat a boss because I like an actual challenge.
The game just got an explansion where everything changed, how was anyone suppose to know XP was higher.
Now if they had left the STF alone like they should have and just added new content maybe the bugged would not have happen.
From what i can tell people saw the expansion and patch hit and thought this is a great way to level.
Crytpic messed with too many variables in the game how is anyone suppose to really know.
In Sovjet Russia the system exploits YOU!
Or the enemies there were less annoying than in other patrols. Whenever I did the daily I would avoid e.g. Hirogen groups because I'd just get constantly Subnuked.
Does it exist. Yes or no, that's objective. Is it desirable? Do we want it? Is it a good thing? SUBJECTIVE (I find it hard to believe that I had to seriously explain this to you.)
You brought it up by the way.
There's no set definition on how high is too high. Its subjective. Ergo, cryptic's definition can't really be argued with on what is purely a matter of opinion and points of view. Their decision, their game. You might disagree with how excessive is an excess, but that's merely being pedantic.
I was on tribble a lot and I don't recall ANY threads pointing out the potential abuse of badly leveled elite enemies in the Tau Dewa sector block (or what that might mean in light of the specialization system.) Link?
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!
very valid point. But presumably a random sampling of players would do a random sampling of tasks when the expansion hit. Then all of a sudden nearly everyone is doing a single thing rather than anything else. Again, WHY? Because its a great way to level up. And it seems like a great level up mission... why again? Because having tried other stuff, it was the fastest. Red flag again.
No matter how you slice it, the majority of the players doing this should have at least been aware that it seemed to be too easy. Game developers do not *usually* intentionally release a major expansion where the goal is to play a single 5 min mission 200 times in a row.
Red bull again, you mean. Your grossly simplified thinking is tantamount to saying every mission should pay out about the same, lest it be a 'red flag' you should have spotted, and are now punished for.
lulz!!!!!!
Almost. What I said was effort to reward, which is roughly reward value / time spent. And that ratio was pretty equal pre expansion, and outside of glitches (not having tested *everything* yet), it seems to be reasonably balanced post expansion as well.
And, I said as well that punishment is not good. At all. Some exploits are worthy of punishment (read about neverwinter and the cat someday). This one is not worth a punishment IMHO.
Should have spotted? Maybe not. Certainly 100% of the population would not have clued in. Maybe 1/3 should have realized it though. I mean, come on, I knew something fishy was up just from passing thru TD and seeing 10000 LFG messages every second for the same mission, while at the same time, 0 groups for anything else. I did not know exactly what people were doing but I knew something was going on. Same as the cat thing, I knew when the zen to diamonds (dil) ratio and trade channel chatter hit that something had gone very, very wrong over in NWN. And after a short time I knew what people were doing because it was being openly discussed in chat channels. By people who knew it was "not right' and effectively said as much.
A curious game. The winning move is not to play.
that's right better be careful or "theeeelll tak UR poooints eway"
if crytic really thought those were exploits they would have killed that stuff long ago, don't equate everything in the game to what happened in tau dewa, ppl were not "just running patrols"
great now i want a gold plated F-22...
Still no communication from the Devs on several points of criticism and obvious bugs raised in the past couple days. But whatever, I should just accept anything they do without question or leave the game.
Yeah people communicating, about great ways to level up in an MMO & teaming up ... that's completely insane ... everyone knows MMO's are not supposed to be social & about communicating ...
PS : There is always the "fastest" way even if they nerf Tau Dewa to death it's gonna be something else ... better tell people about the Doffing Exploits ... logging in just once a day for 2min to get XP sounds pretty fishy ...
I've been having fun!... Defend the romulan station before DR hit... Sorry Cryptic! It'll never happen again!
And apologists will always attack the community in some pathetic attempt to gain attention from the Devs...Mommy must not have hugged you enough as a child.
No they release an expansion where the goal is to play a single 20 minute mission 200 times in a row. Or have you not played DR content?
Dyson Ground. Must be an exploit. Send bug reports.
Doing higher DPS than a T4 rainbow boat. Must be an exploit. Send bug reports.
Being the last one alive in an -almost- teamwipe. Must be an exploit. Send bug reports.
And make sure you don't do any of these activities, or you risk being call a liar, cheat, and/or exploiter by the devs- and random people on the internet (none of whom have anything to do with it in any way).
You're welcome.
1) No one have ever been to level 60 before and had no idea what sp we should be getting on elite.
2) Most of us have been level 50 for so long we haven't seen skill points as it all has been turned into expertise. I wouldn't have noticed what amount it was suppose to be as I have 7mil sitting on my main that I barely play. What is 500 skill points after having earned 20 mil and have spent over 12 mil in a few years?
3) After they changed the rate of leveling with Season 5, seeing elite mode with mobs produce high skill points does not seem out of the ordinary.
Blaming the players is in bad form.
You will know when CRYPTIC shuts down a sector/map/set of maps, punishes it players, and calls them Expoiters...
"IF it's fun AND you gain a level, you might just be an exploiter!"
"If you log into the game and can complete a patrol mission with an xp bonus, you might just be an exploiter!"
"If you go to the Tau Dewa system for ANY reason at all, you just miht be an exploiter!"
"If you play the game and gain a level but don't play it the way they want you to, guess what? You just might be an exploiter."
/blablabla there 10 Char
Would you recommend STO to a friend?
That's two examples I can think of, and it is only the latest that is having any real repercussions because Cryptic handed out punishments this time. Many to players who believe by the fibers of their bodies that they did not do anything wrong. This very thread is an example of the repercussions that are happening; I'm personally not sure if Cryptic's definition of "exploit" is even solid or not. I am sorry I am doubtful, but this is what happens.
But I did it anyway because at this point it's that or nothing.
Nothing in the game now to attract me so whatever developers, go nerf the contraband so we can officially call this game over
So was I breaking the developers' intented design, hell yeah proudly.
Because their design has ruined the game and should they manage to finally fit people into their petty battery hens metric it's going to be lights out for sure.
They nerf contraband next, the only thing left, and they will effectively have shut down, deleted and ruined everything there was to do in-game
Hilarious to call the players the exploiters though because who exactly is the exploitation expert here
They nerfed the 5 contraband to 3 for the "Collect Contraband" Doff assignment , back in season 6 didn't they? That would suck if they did it again.