I imagine it would be hard not to notice. The pre Delta ships went down in 3 or 4 shots. The new more like 30 or 40. I would guess that was what caused the excitement (which might be an indicator that the new massive HP ships are not the way to go).
There are still some enemies in regular story missions that don't scale. It never even crossed my mind that killing them is exploiting. Does that also apply to those enemy contacts in sector space? They don't scale either.
The XP grind is impossible and is ridiculously not fun. I don't mind paying money to have some fun, but the grind to max out specialization points is just too much. May have to throw in the towel if this doesn't get changed soon.
I had been taking it slow, shame really. I could have taken advantage and be 60 already. I've been stopped at 58 since the massive cut in xp, even doing things the 'legitimate' way. The grind is just too boring.
I'll get there eventually, but there's no way I can bring myself to grind for the sake of leveling with the way things are right now. Especially since it doesn't end at 60.
14 levels gained, all solo play, no teaming. At most 1 level achieved in Tau Dewa patrols (was trying to see for myself what the hype was for, ended up seeing the time spent/xp ratio was worse than Argala, so I left) and I'm being generous.
All the remaining xp was gained in Argala, new story missions, some doffing probably.
If you insist on taking 3 out of the 14 spec points, it means almost all I did was an exploit, definitely solo playing Argala and probably even playing the story missions. If that ain't absurd, I don't know...
Statement Cryptic (see OP): "I have looked into the claim that some players were not using the exploit maps, but so far every claim I have come across has not held up under data pulls.".
In other words even if you are right, Cryptic will not admit. Cryptic can manifacture always a reason or another reason to claim you are wrong and call you an exploiter.
"Slow and steady" is my motto, when it comes to STO.
I just do what I've always done, gameplay-wise. Stick to my routine and I'll get there when I get there.
I've only taken one character into the Delta Quadrant so far. Because of hitting leveling "walls", I'm going to wait on the other characters until they get some levels on them. There is plenty of time.
I have one toon doing absolutely nothing at all and is still an ensign. Also for this toon no money is and will be spend in STO. Why? -> This toon is afraid to labeled as exploiter.
This toon is one of the (see OP) hundreds of thousends that escaped because they are not leveled up enough or do 17x less DPS then the top 300 players in this game: "In fact, in the end there were around 300 characters (spanning around 250 accounts) that crossed the line from being efficient into taking significant advantage of the bugs. 300 is a very small number from the hundreds of thousands of characters playing."
while i applauded them for finally coming out and giving us an official statement on this matter
this clearly states it is an anomaly that was not intended to happen yet it is still persistent.
I took it as meaning "We're not gonna make a DOFF like that again". The Aux2Bat DOFF has been around way too long. The leveling "exploit" had been going on a week or so.
And it also has a very different impact - the Aux2Bat build may have enabled new builds that were not intended, but there are non-Aux2Bat builds that are similar effective (not neccessarily on the same ship), so it doesn't matter in terms of level advancement or dilithium gain.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
There are still some enemies in regular story missions that don't scale. It never even crossed my mind that killing them is exploiting. Does that also apply to those enemy contacts in sector space? They don't scale either.
Whatever may have been the case or not - it no longer is an issue, since the skill point rewards for fighting lower level enemies has been adjusted.
And usually, bugs only turn into exploits if they are used systematically.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
And it also has a very different impact - the Aux2Bat build may have enabled new builds that were not intended, but there are non-Aux2Bat builds that are similar effective (not neccessarily on the same ship), so it doesn't matter in terms of level advancement or dilithium gain.
They also make some ships that would otherwise be not desirable in today's DPS centric game into a viable ship. Which loosely translates into a sale of that ship they may not have otherwise gotten.
1. Its been said that only a few hundred people used this so called exploit. But there have been way more people in these maps... teaming... and making use of the leveling.
So where do you get your numbers from?
2. Its been said something about that there are hundred thousands of active toons which didnt use this exploit. May I ask where they are?
Online certainly not.
3. Its been said that only people that used the exploit have been punished. How comes that then people which were not even on these maps lost their spec points?
4. Its been said that you have so incredible software running in background logging everything and everyone and analyzing the data.
IF so... why was there the need then for one dev to come online and ask the players how much xp they earn and in which timeframe?
5. If everything that appears to be too good to be true can be considered an exploit... what about events? Exploits too?
Playing in teams... exploit?
Sorry dev but you have created a situation now where practically everything could be an exploit now. A situation where every player can be punished by you at any point of time for regular gameplay. Where players have to fear getting punished randomly just because you all of a sudden decide that something is an exploit.
You have broken your players/customers trust with your stupid decisions.
You made promises and you broke them again within just a few days... THAT is the only true exploit here.
6. You clearly say that you see what people do on the server.
IF so then you clearly should be able to see that the players stay away from most PVEs. You should have seen that the difficulty is too high... that these PVEs are failing. You should have seen that there are not enough skill points for the players.
So why in gods name do you require to open a topic here on the forum to ask the players about the difficulty if your analytics tools for the server deliver all the information that you need?
Your analytics and statistics about the server and the players on it sux. Really... you have no idea whats really going on there. You dont know how people play on the server, what problems they have... and therefore your gameplay decisions lately have been a total mess.
Delta Rising is the worst season for this game ever... and you know that.
Players are leaving... players cancel their subscriptions... player refuse to pay anything for your newly created content (ships, r&d boxes, etc.).
PVE games are not played by most players anymore.
You say that players earned skill points 17 times faster than intended.
At this point I highly question your intention because player were not even able to earn enough skill points to play the delta rising story missions.
And after your patch the situation on skill points and difficulty has not become any better.
As developer you should be ashamed of that you have released to the players and how you have been treating loyal customers lately.
They also make some ships that would otherwise be not desirable in today's DPS centric game into a viable ship. Which loosely translates into a sale of that ship they may not have otherwise gotten.
Also a good point.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I took it as meaning "We're not gonna make a DOFF like that again". The Aux2Bat DOFF has been around way too long. The leveling "exploit" had been going on a week or so.
And it also has a very different impact - the Aux2Bat build may have enabled new builds that were not intended, but there are non-Aux2Bat builds that are similar effective (not neccessarily on the same ship), so it doesn't matter in terms of level advancement or dilithium gain.
different impact or not the definition still hold true. and lvlel advancement and dil gain were the end results but that was not included in the definition of exploit as laid out in this thread.
so it does not matter if the gain was lvl advancement or dil gain advantage or bridge officer cool down rates lower than intended. its that they are using something in a way that was unintended. not the results of the usages or the gains from the usage.
i mean dont get me wrong im not bashing A2B i just dont care too much about it. what i care about are the words used . so one day when they finally decide something i like to do an exploit for what ever reason ill have and argument. LOL not that it matters.
Trophies for killing FEDS ahh those were the days.
If they really cared about limiting new players using A2B then they would have removed the technicians from B'Tran.
But if they really cared about this power lvling issue they woudl have headed warnings from tribble and removed it. and that is my entire point in my post, i dont give a rats TRIBBLE about A2B its how things are worded and handled. either they care or they dont. they cant just lay the blame on the players saying we are to know if its too good to be true its a cheat . when they knew about it and left it in the game. just as people still use A2B doffs when in some builds they are too good to be true. and others not so much and even in others completely worthless.
Trophies for killing FEDS ahh those were the days.
Why punishing players at all?
You already have removed the promised dilithium rewards from the spec tree end. Whatever level a player had gained from using the exploit would have never hurt you (the devs) or anyone else.
It wouldnt have played a role for anyone if a player reached lvl110 this week or in 1 year. It wouldnt have made a difference.
All that this overreaction from the developers has caused is angry players and people that dont know what they are allowed and now allowed to do anymore.
... im just saying
You have been overreacting like an angry child and now you seem to justify it with questionable arguements.
1. Its been said that only a few hundred people used this so called exploit. But there have been way more people in these maps... teaming... and making use of the leveling.
So where do you get your numbers from?
From the mishmash of posts from Cryptic, I believe that they looked at the metrics for those in the affected areas, then looked at some sort of leveling:time ratio to determine who was exploiting and who was not. The comment about "excessive levels" being removed from Q is mainly what makes me think that.
2. Its been said something about that there are hundred thousands of active toons which didnt use this exploit. May I ask where they are?
Online certainly not.
They said 250 players, around 300 characters were "actively" using the exploit to gain levels in what they considered to be an unfair manner. From their perspective, the hundreds of thousands are everyone besides those 250 players.
3. Its been said that only people that used the exploit have been punished. How comes that then people which were not even on these maps lost their spec points?
They said pretty much outright that if you lost spec points, you were determined to be one of those 250 players. They have never officially released the full list of affected areas or the exact steps of what they considered to be THE EXPLOIT. For everyone else, they can submit a support ticket to have their data looked at again.
I personally think it's a cheap out for a broken piece of code they came up with in their panic that affected a lot more players than they intended to. I think it's a bug, but they're only going to to address it for anyone who makes enough of a stink via persisting with the support tickets. Even then, I have yet to hear of anyone getting their points restored, but it's early yet and communication on this between the players is limited.
4. Its been said that you have so incredible software running in background logging everything and everyone and analyzing the data.
IF so... why was there the need then for one dev to come online and ask the players how much xp they earn and in which timeframe?
This is a bit easier. There are a lot of numbers out there, and a lot of spaghetti code to go through. They probably needed the numbers from the players in order to help write the code to specifically analyze the data they were looking for.
Although, if they'd paid attention from when they were first informed of it on Tribble, it would have gone a lot easier.
5. If everything that appears to be too good to be true can be considered an exploit... what about events? Exploits too?
Playing in teams... exploit?
They way it's set up is anything they say is an exploit is an exploit. So yes, if they decide that people are leveling too fast by teaming or events then they could say that's an exploit and remove it from the game, and punish players who did those things. You sum it up here:
Sorry dev but you have created a situation now where practically everything could be an exploit now. A situation where every player can be punished by you at any point of time for regular gameplay. Where players have to fear getting punished randomly just because you all of a sudden decide that something is an exploit.
You have broken your players/customers trust with your stupid decisions.
You made promises and you broke them again within just a few days... THAT is the only true exploit here.
They refuse to acknowledge this, because for some reason they are absolutely incapable of admitting fault. While not uncommon in the business world, more and more companies are finding that they need to figure out a way to mitigate it because of social media. It's not word of mouth by talking to your neighbor about it anymore, and ironically, PWE doesn't seem to realize that yet. They seem to think that because it's Star Trek, they will always have an influx of enough players to make it successful (for successful read: financially viable), or so they believe. *cough* Star Wars: Galaxies *cough*
6. You clearly say that you see what people do on the server.
IF so then you clearly should be able to see that the players stay away from most PVEs. You should have seen that the difficulty is too high... that these PVEs are failing. You should have seen that there are not enough skill points for the players.
So why in gods name do you require to open a topic here on the forum to ask the players about the difficulty if your analytics tools for the server deliver all the information that you need?
Your analytics and statistics about the server and the players on it sux. Really... you have no idea whats really going on there. You dont know how people play on the server, what problems they have... and therefore your gameplay decisions lately have been a total mess.
They do have all the data. They do "know" what we are all doing. But it's like security camera footage. You know someone stole something, but you have to go through all the footage to see who did it and when. I have no idea what metrics they use for success, but it is most likely more financial in nature and less about how many players they have consistently logging in (particularly as it is now F2P).
As I've said ad nauseum in other threads, this "exploit" reaction has all the earmarks of someone on the financial numbers end seeing something about it they didn't like and having a panic attack. The devs freaked out, shut everything down, removed/nerfed, and created shoddy code to "fix" the exploit benefits. Someone on high called the shots on it. Otherwise the exploit holes would probably have been quietly fixed and they would have all moved on with their lives.
They don't really care about gameplay and player experience, they care about the bottom line, and what can we shove out the door in it a half-baked, badly tested format that can still get people to spend the maximum amount of money for minimum effort.
It's Star Trek. The player base is there. Eventually I do believe they will shoot themselves in the foot so badly that it will fail unless something radical is done. The precedents are there. But that's just me saying "DOOOOOM" I suppose.
Actually this is the first ti me i have been really "there" when a gaming company shot itself in the foot, then ate the foot and THEN tried to sing a lullaby.
Heck, for a moment i had to check if ubisoft, activision or EA had secretly bought cryptic because this level of pure ineptness is usually found with those companies.
So.. i guess respect for finally having unlocked the secret to becoming a loathed entity. good job.
What i would really like to know:
Are the people that put their work into all these fun little missions, filled with easter eggs and little shout outs the same as the people who derp around and make TRIBBLE design decisions like the upgrade system, the "new" leveling "experience" and later on totally turn hostile on the PLAYERBASE THE FCKN PEOPLE THAT PAY FOR THIS ALL?
YOU awful tards have been informed about these leveling tactics. Beforehand.
YOU IGNORED the testers warnings. WE already did your job in testing, YOU failed to actually get your shiite in gear!
You ignored the negative effect of level locking the story content and slowing down advancement at the same time.
You ignore the feedback in regards to the AVERAGE player being almost incapable to actually burn through several mobs with uber hp and DR in any enjoyable fashion, let alone 5 waves of them.
You ignored tau dewa.
You ignore everything that doesn't fit into your little world.
And then, to top it all off, you accuse US of exploiting.
THAT is the sort of behavior even FCKN EA has made an effort to cut down in its company.
They said pretty much outright that if you lost spec points, you were determined to be one of those 250 players. They have never officially released the full list of affected areas or the exact steps of what they considered to be THE EXPLOIT. For everyone else, they can submit a support ticket to have their data looked at again.
Actually, they got nothing on me. Yes, I was at DS9. Yes, I was playing the 'Shutdown' mission, on Elite. I solo-ed, never was in Japori, or patrolling anywhere near Tau Dewa, even. Anything else D'Angelo seems to insinuate is a lie. Like the cake. And I maintain to have been of good faith, and had no reason to suspect that a mission 5x as difficult, also paying out 5x as much, was an exploit. Especially since I haven't looked at XP, ever since I reached VA, a couple of years back.
And I still expect to get my XP back (even though I already grinded my 6 stolen points back).
So I have finally read all the posts in this thread. I can certainly see from the posts who is in what camp of thought...and how this drama could have been avoided, eliminating yet more alienation of the player base.
This fiasco rests entirely on the Cryptic developer staff and any punitive action taken on player playing standard content is purely unjust. If the skill rewards were incorrect that is due to errors in reading the "metrics" on the developers part.
A player plays a mission. Ever since LoR was released when the romulan marks and rewards were balanced, people played the Tau Dewa patrol daily because it was one of the better time to rewards ratios for the task. No one called it an exploit. Many used it as a means to test builds. Also not considered an exploit. Using ones time efficiently is the best way to balance grind vs. just playing the game for fun. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not an exploit. It is absolutely normal behavior.
When someone plays this game the average person does not scrutinize the reward vs. game balance. That dilemma is left to the developers Zane the average person has no reason to question the reward level because they will generally assume everything is working as intended by the developers. We generally assume they know their metrics and set rewards vs time and effort. The developers failed and then punished 300 players for the mistakes the developers made, essentially calling the players cheats, denigrating their reputations. One person I know had his name taken off the DPS top 500 leader board because of this situation. He uses his knowledge of math and the abilities in the game as set by developers, yet is called a cheat because he played the game as intended in standard content.
So by this, we can now see anything we do in this game will be considered an exploit if a developer wants to save face over their mistakes. Using rich claims on a Dilithium event weekend might be considered an exploit if it upsets their metric, despite that practice being WAI. Playing content might be considered an exploit if you level too fast. If you play more than 3 hours straight you might be exploiting. If you don't have a real life and play until you have a heart attack in your gaming chair in your moms basement and earn too much in 24 hours you might be an exploiter.
Rolling someone's justly earned spec points back is fairly minor, but if they had no intent to commit a wrong while playing standard content, there IS NO EXPLOIT! And is the fact someone played and earned 16 spec points really worth alienating any player, much less veteran players who support this game, really worth it? No. It isn't.
As for me, because of how some players have been treated, I will be cancelling my monthly sub on my alt account for the next 6 months and making no purchases during that time. When I see an apology to the player base I will lift this early. No one should be punished for playing standard content. We are not here to tell the developers what they should already know before releasing new content. We are the customer here to play the game, which is, ladies and gentlemen, the reason the developers jobs exist.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
So I have finally read all the posts in this thread. I can certainly see from the posts who is in what camp of thought...and how this drama could have been avoided, eliminating yet more alienation of the player base.
This fiasco rests entirely on the Cryptic developer staff and any punitive action taken on player playing standard content is purely unjust. If the skill rewards were incorrect that is due to errors in reading the "metrics" on the developers part.
A player plays a mission. Ever since LoR was released when the romulan marks and rewards were balanced, people played the Tau Dewa patrol daily because it was one of the better time to rewards ratios for the task. No one called it an exploit. Many used it as a means to test builds. Also not considered an exploit. Using ones time efficiently is the best way to balance grind vs. just playing the game for fun. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not an exploit. It is absolutely normal behavior.
When someone plays this game the average person does not scrutinize the reward vs. game balance. That dilemma is left to the developers Zane the average person has no reason to question the reward level because they will generally assume everything is working as intended by the developers. We generally assume they know their metrics and set rewards vs time and effort. The developers failed and then punished 300 players for the mistakes the developers made, essentially calling the players cheats, denigrating their reputations. One person I know had his name taken off the DPS top 500 leader board because of this situation. He uses his knowledge of math and the abilities in the game as set by developers, yet is called a cheat because he played the game as intended in standard content.
So by this, we can now see anything we do in this game will be considered an exploit if a developer wants to save face over their mistakes. Using rich claims on a Dilithium event weekend might be considered an exploit if it upsets their metric, despite that practice being WAI. Playing content might be considered an exploit if you level too fast. If you play more than 3 hours straight you might be exploiting. If you don't have a real life and play until you have a heart attack in your gaming chair in your moms basement and earn too much in 24 hours you might be an exploiter.
Rolling someone's justly earned spec points back is fairly minor, but if they had no intent to commit a wrong while playing standard content, there IS NO EXPLOIT! And is the fact someone played and earned 16 spec points really worth alienating any player, much less veteran players who support this game, really worth it? No. It isn't.
As for me, because of how some players have been treated, I will be cancelling my monthly sub on my alt account for the next 6 months and making no purchases during that time. When I see an apology to the player base I will lift this early. No one should be punished for playing standard content. We are not here to tell the developers what they should already know before releasing new content. We are the customer here to play the game, which is, ladies and gentlemen, the reason the developers jobs exist.
Thank you for your very thoughtful post. Couldn't agree more.
I can't afford to fully boycott the game, as I've invested too much in it, figuratively and literally (you know, as a loyal paying customer). But being branded an exploiter, I will simply accomodate them, and cheat them out of their paycheck! I had several hundred bucks worth of gear, T6/lockbox ships planned for this month. Ain't happening now. If my word isn't good, then nor is my money.
So I have finally read all the posts in this thread. I can certainly see from the posts who is in what camp of thought...and how this drama could have been avoided, eliminating yet more alienation of the player base.
This fiasco rests entirely on the Cryptic developer staff and any punitive action taken on player playing standard content is purely unjust. If the skill rewards were incorrect that is due to errors in reading the "metrics" on the developers part.
A player plays a mission. Ever since LoR was released when the romulan marks and rewards were balanced, people played the Tau Dewa patrol daily because it was one of the better time to rewards ratios for the task. No one called it an exploit. Many used it as a means to test builds. Also not considered an exploit. Using ones time efficiently is the best way to balance grind vs. just playing the game for fun. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not an exploit. It is absolutely normal behavior.
When someone plays this game the average person does not scrutinize the reward vs. game balance. That dilemma is left to the developers Zane the average person has no reason to question the reward level because they will generally assume everything is working as intended by the developers. We generally assume they know their metrics and set rewards vs time and effort. The developers failed and then punished 300 players for the mistakes the developers made, essentially calling the players cheats, denigrating their reputations. One person I know had his name taken off the DPS top 500 leader board because of this situation. He uses his knowledge of math and the abilities in the game as set by developers, yet is called a cheat because he played the game as intended in standard content.
So by this, we can now see anything we do in this game will be considered an exploit if a developer wants to save face over their mistakes. Using rich claims on a Dilithium event weekend might be considered an exploit if it upsets their metric, despite that practice being WAI. Playing content might be considered an exploit if you level too fast. If you play more than 3 hours straight you might be exploiting. If you don't have a real life and play until you have a heart attack in your gaming chair in your moms basement and earn too much in 24 hours you might be an exploiter.
Rolling someone's justly earned spec points back is fairly minor, but if they had no intent to commit a wrong while playing standard content, there IS NO EXPLOIT! And is the fact someone played and earned 16 spec points really worth alienating any player, much less veteran players who support this game, really worth it? No. It isn't.
As for me, because of how some players have been treated, I will be cancelling my monthly sub on my alt account for the next 6 months and making no purchases during that time. When I see an apology to the player base I will lift this early. No one should be punished for playing standard content. We are not here to tell the developers what they should already know before releasing new content. We are the customer here to play the game, which is, ladies and gentlemen, the reason the developers jobs exist.
Finally someone who comprehends the basis of the rage and puts it forth in a manner that others might see what truly occurred. I was barely affected by the actual rollback, but the actions of the Dev's/PWE have incensed me.
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."
So I have finally read all the posts in this thread. I can certainly see from the posts who is in what camp of thought...and how this drama could have been avoided, eliminating yet more alienation of the player base.
This fiasco rests entirely on the Cryptic developer staff and any punitive action taken on player playing standard content is purely unjust. If the skill rewards were incorrect that is due to errors in reading the "metrics" on the developers part.
A player plays a mission. Ever since LoR was released when the romulan marks and rewards were balanced, people played the Tau Dewa patrol daily because it was one of the better time to rewards ratios for the task. No one called it an exploit. Many used it as a means to test builds. Also not considered an exploit. Using ones time efficiently is the best way to balance grind vs. just playing the game for fun. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not an exploit. It is absolutely normal behavior.
When someone plays this game the average person does not scrutinize the reward vs. game balance. That dilemma is left to the developers Zane the average person has no reason to question the reward level because they will generally assume everything is working as intended by the developers. We generally assume they know their metrics and set rewards vs time and effort. The developers failed and then punished 300 players for the mistakes the developers made, essentially calling the players cheats, denigrating their reputations. One person I know had his name taken off the DPS top 500 leader board because of this situation. He uses his knowledge of math and the abilities in the game as set by developers, yet is called a cheat because he played the game as intended in standard content.
So by this, we can now see anything we do in this game will be considered an exploit if a developer wants to save face over their mistakes. Using rich claims on a Dilithium event weekend might be considered an exploit if it upsets their metric, despite that practice being WAI. Playing content might be considered an exploit if you level too fast. If you play more than 3 hours straight you might be exploiting. If you don't have a real life and play until you have a heart attack in your gaming chair in your moms basement and earn too much in 24 hours you might be an exploiter.
Rolling someone's justly earned spec points back is fairly minor, but if they had no intent to commit a wrong while playing standard content, there IS NO EXPLOIT! And is the fact someone played and earned 16 spec points really worth alienating any player, much less veteran players who support this game, really worth it? No. It isn't.
As for me, because of how some players have been treated, I will be cancelling my monthly sub on my alt account for the next 6 months and making no purchases during that time. When I see an apology to the player base I will lift this early. No one should be punished for playing standard content. We are not here to tell the developers what they should already know before releasing new content. We are the customer here to play the game, which is, ladies and gentlemen, the reason the developers jobs exist.
There have been many monthly sub cancellations, and I'm happy to see another person voting with their money. Very well thought out response, +1.
So I have finally read all the posts in this thread. I can certainly see from the posts who is in what camp of thought...and how this drama could have been avoided, eliminating yet more alienation of the player base.
This fiasco rests entirely on the Cryptic developer staff and any punitive action taken on player playing standard content is purely unjust. If the skill rewards were incorrect that is due to errors in reading the "metrics" on the developers part.
A player plays a mission. Ever since LoR was released when the romulan marks and rewards were balanced, people played the Tau Dewa patrol daily because it was one of the better time to rewards ratios for the task. No one called it an exploit. Many used it as a means to test builds. Also not considered an exploit. Using ones time efficiently is the best way to balance grind vs. just playing the game for fun. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not an exploit. It is absolutely normal behavior.
When someone plays this game the average person does not scrutinize the reward vs. game balance. That dilemma is left to the developers Zane the average person has no reason to question the reward level because they will generally assume everything is working as intended by the developers. We generally assume they know their metrics and set rewards vs time and effort. The developers failed and then punished 300 players for the mistakes the developers made, essentially calling the players cheats, denigrating their reputations. One person I know had his name taken off the DPS top 500 leader board because of this situation. He uses his knowledge of math and the abilities in the game as set by developers, yet is called a cheat because he played the game as intended in standard content.
So by this, we can now see anything we do in this game will be considered an exploit if a developer wants to save face over their mistakes. Using rich claims on a Dilithium event weekend might be considered an exploit if it upsets their metric, despite that practice being WAI. Playing content might be considered an exploit if you level too fast. If you play more than 3 hours straight you might be exploiting. If you don't have a real life and play until you have a heart attack in your gaming chair in your moms basement and earn too much in 24 hours you might be an exploiter.
Rolling someone's justly earned spec points back is fairly minor, but if they had no intent to commit a wrong while playing standard content, there IS NO EXPLOIT! And is the fact someone played and earned 16 spec points really worth alienating any player, much less veteran players who support this game, really worth it? No. It isn't.
As for me, because of how some players have been treated, I will be cancelling my monthly sub on my alt account for the next 6 months and making no purchases during that time. When I see an apology to the player base I will lift this early. No one should be punished for playing standard content. We are not here to tell the developers what they should already know before releasing new content. We are the customer here to play the game, which is, ladies and gentlemen, the reason the developers jobs exist.
This post is too good to be true, it's 17x faster than anywhere else in the game. Expect your post count to be rolled back.
It's extremely rare that I see a reason to post in these forums but after this fiasco, I felt the need. I personally wasn't affected by this luckily (i hadn't logged in during the time it all went down), but it still gets my blood boiling to see what happened.
After reading what everyone has said, I have a few things to point out...
I've seen mention from a few people that those that "exploited" the map getting the 5x XP points should have known it was an exploit and not taken part. I ask you "How were they to know?" The NPCs were 5x the difficulty from what I've read in here! To me, 5x XP wouldn't ring any alarm bells. I would think that 5x the XP for 5x the difficulty makes sense! If it is released to holodeck then, as far as I'm concerned (and I think some others would agree here), it isn't an exploit. It may be a bug, but that isn't the fault of the players, it's entirely on you Cryptic/PWE. Especially when you had players on Tribble telling you there was a problem. It's YOUR fault you ignored the players, not ours.
Cryptic/PWE have penalised players that earnt skill point up to 17x faster. Did you (Cryptic/PWE) stop to think that maybe those players weren't "exploiting" the game but rather they had worked out a build that did alot more damage? Yeah, sure I don't like challenging these players because of their builds (mainly because I know they'd wipe the spacedock with me), but I wouldn't consider them to be cheaters/exploiters because of it! I guess Cryptic/PWE don't like people that have the ability to put together an awesome build!
Since when is it "exploiting the game" to not play the content in a new expansion like DR? Personally, I haven't even started it yet. I have several lvl 50 characters that I could start it with but I am quite happy playing my alt and getting him up to the DR portion of the storyline before i start doing it!
Am I considered to be exploiting the game simply because I'm playing a different character (who btw is doing all the patrol missions and story line missions and hit level 50 before even hitting Beta Ursae). This was done by playing SOLO and doing each mission once only. The levelling was alot quicker before DR. I remember years ago when you wouldn't hit the level cap (lvl 50) until after you had played ALL sector blocks. YOU (Cryptic/PWE) made the game to be that way so how about you get off your high horse and stop crying and accusing players of exploiting the game just because you don't like how fast some people level.
I could go on about the way you nerfed XP bonuses that were paid for from the C-Store without even partial refunds but I don't think an essay is required here yet (yes I know this is turning into one lol).
Basically Cryptic/PWE, I think it's about time you looked at yourselves and realised that when something doesn't work as intended, you should stand up, admit you screwed up and fix it WITHOUT punishing the people that play the game. I never thought I would see the day when you would punish people for playing your game as it was presented with the bugs you didn't bother to fix but I should have known better I guess.
Now the question is, do i still invite a good friend of mine to start playing in the hopes you may actually start listening to your player base or do i tell them not to bother and save them the risk of being accused of exploiting the game just because they play? The choice is yours Cryptic/PWE, let your actions be the deciding factor.
edit: ok, how can i only be at first post? Did I miss something and they reset the post counts because I should be up around 200 odd!
Thank you for your very thoughtful post. Couldn't agree more.
I can't afford to fully boycott the game, as I've invested too much in it, figuratively and literally (you know, as a loyal paying customer). But being branded an exploiter, I will simply accomodate them, and cheat them out of their paycheck! I had several hundred bucks worth of gear, T6/lockbox ships planned for this month. Ain't happening now. If my word isn't good, then nor is my money.
I'm in the same camp. No money coming from me for several months at a minimum unless I see something fundamentally change management wise with STO.
Frankly speaking I want Brandon to come back and try his hand as EP. I know for sure he loves STO and I fully trust him but that is a pipe dream methinks...
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
edit: ok, how can i only be at first post? Did I miss something and they reset the post counts because I should be up around 200 odd!
The dev team calculated your post/time ratio, and concluded you were going 17x faster than elsewhere; then decided to roll you back to anything over postcount 1. :P
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."
Comments
There are still some enemies in regular story missions that don't scale. It never even crossed my mind that killing them is exploiting. Does that also apply to those enemy contacts in sector space? They don't scale either.
I'll get there eventually, but there's no way I can bring myself to grind for the sake of leveling with the way things are right now. Especially since it doesn't end at 60.
Statement Cryptic (see OP): "I have looked into the claim that some players were not using the exploit maps, but so far every claim I have come across has not held up under data pulls.".
In other words even if you are right, Cryptic will not admit. Cryptic can manifacture always a reason or another reason to claim you are wrong and call you an exploiter.
I just do what I've always done, gameplay-wise. Stick to my routine and I'll get there when I get there.
I've only taken one character into the Delta Quadrant so far. Because of hitting leveling "walls", I'm going to wait on the other characters until they get some levels on them. There is plenty of time.
This toon is one of the (see OP) hundreds of thousends that escaped because they are not leveled up enough or do 17x less DPS then the top 300 players in this game: "In fact, in the end there were around 300 characters (spanning around 250 accounts) that crossed the line from being efficient into taking significant advantage of the bugs. 300 is a very small number from the hundreds of thousands of characters playing."
love the sig fit what cryptic has done very well
system Lord Baal is dead
And it also has a very different impact - the Aux2Bat build may have enabled new builds that were not intended, but there are non-Aux2Bat builds that are similar effective (not neccessarily on the same ship), so it doesn't matter in terms of level advancement or dilithium gain.
And usually, bugs only turn into exploits if they are used systematically.
If they really cared about limiting new players using A2B then they would have removed the technicians from B'Tran.
They also make some ships that would otherwise be not desirable in today's DPS centric game into a viable ship. Which loosely translates into a sale of that ship they may not have otherwise gotten.
1. Its been said that only a few hundred people used this so called exploit. But there have been way more people in these maps... teaming... and making use of the leveling.
So where do you get your numbers from?
2. Its been said something about that there are hundred thousands of active toons which didnt use this exploit. May I ask where they are?
Online certainly not.
3. Its been said that only people that used the exploit have been punished. How comes that then people which were not even on these maps lost their spec points?
4. Its been said that you have so incredible software running in background logging everything and everyone and analyzing the data.
IF so... why was there the need then for one dev to come online and ask the players how much xp they earn and in which timeframe?
5. If everything that appears to be too good to be true can be considered an exploit... what about events? Exploits too?
Playing in teams... exploit?
Sorry dev but you have created a situation now where practically everything could be an exploit now. A situation where every player can be punished by you at any point of time for regular gameplay. Where players have to fear getting punished randomly just because you all of a sudden decide that something is an exploit.
You have broken your players/customers trust with your stupid decisions.
You made promises and you broke them again within just a few days... THAT is the only true exploit here.
6. You clearly say that you see what people do on the server.
IF so then you clearly should be able to see that the players stay away from most PVEs. You should have seen that the difficulty is too high... that these PVEs are failing. You should have seen that there are not enough skill points for the players.
So why in gods name do you require to open a topic here on the forum to ask the players about the difficulty if your analytics tools for the server deliver all the information that you need?
Your analytics and statistics about the server and the players on it sux. Really... you have no idea whats really going on there. You dont know how people play on the server, what problems they have... and therefore your gameplay decisions lately have been a total mess.
Delta Rising is the worst season for this game ever... and you know that.
Players are leaving... players cancel their subscriptions... player refuse to pay anything for your newly created content (ships, r&d boxes, etc.).
PVE games are not played by most players anymore.
You say that players earned skill points 17 times faster than intended.
At this point I highly question your intention because player were not even able to earn enough skill points to play the delta rising story missions.
And after your patch the situation on skill points and difficulty has not become any better.
As developer you should be ashamed of that you have released to the players and how you have been treating loyal customers lately.
Also a good point.
different impact or not the definition still hold true. and lvlel advancement and dil gain were the end results but that was not included in the definition of exploit as laid out in this thread.
so it does not matter if the gain was lvl advancement or dil gain advantage or bridge officer cool down rates lower than intended. its that they are using something in a way that was unintended. not the results of the usages or the gains from the usage.
i mean dont get me wrong im not bashing A2B i just dont care too much about it. what i care about are the words used . so one day when they finally decide something i like to do an exploit for what ever reason ill have and argument. LOL not that it matters.
But if they really cared about this power lvling issue they woudl have headed warnings from tribble and removed it. and that is my entire point in my post, i dont give a rats TRIBBLE about A2B its how things are worded and handled. either they care or they dont. they cant just lay the blame on the players saying we are to know if its too good to be true its a cheat . when they knew about it and left it in the game. just as people still use A2B doffs when in some builds they are too good to be true. and others not so much and even in others completely worthless.
Why punishing players at all?
You already have removed the promised dilithium rewards from the spec tree end. Whatever level a player had gained from using the exploit would have never hurt you (the devs) or anyone else.
It wouldnt have played a role for anyone if a player reached lvl110 this week or in 1 year. It wouldnt have made a difference.
All that this overreaction from the developers has caused is angry players and people that dont know what they are allowed and now allowed to do anymore.
... im just saying
You have been overreacting like an angry child and now you seem to justify it with questionable arguements.
From the mishmash of posts from Cryptic, I believe that they looked at the metrics for those in the affected areas, then looked at some sort of leveling:time ratio to determine who was exploiting and who was not. The comment about "excessive levels" being removed from Q is mainly what makes me think that.
They said 250 players, around 300 characters were "actively" using the exploit to gain levels in what they considered to be an unfair manner. From their perspective, the hundreds of thousands are everyone besides those 250 players.
They said pretty much outright that if you lost spec points, you were determined to be one of those 250 players. They have never officially released the full list of affected areas or the exact steps of what they considered to be THE EXPLOIT. For everyone else, they can submit a support ticket to have their data looked at again.
I personally think it's a cheap out for a broken piece of code they came up with in their panic that affected a lot more players than they intended to. I think it's a bug, but they're only going to to address it for anyone who makes enough of a stink via persisting with the support tickets. Even then, I have yet to hear of anyone getting their points restored, but it's early yet and communication on this between the players is limited.
This is a bit easier. There are a lot of numbers out there, and a lot of spaghetti code to go through. They probably needed the numbers from the players in order to help write the code to specifically analyze the data they were looking for.
Although, if they'd paid attention from when they were first informed of it on Tribble, it would have gone a lot easier.
They way it's set up is anything they say is an exploit is an exploit. So yes, if they decide that people are leveling too fast by teaming or events then they could say that's an exploit and remove it from the game, and punish players who did those things. You sum it up here:
They refuse to acknowledge this, because for some reason they are absolutely incapable of admitting fault. While not uncommon in the business world, more and more companies are finding that they need to figure out a way to mitigate it because of social media. It's not word of mouth by talking to your neighbor about it anymore, and ironically, PWE doesn't seem to realize that yet. They seem to think that because it's Star Trek, they will always have an influx of enough players to make it successful (for successful read: financially viable), or so they believe. *cough* Star Wars: Galaxies *cough*
They do have all the data. They do "know" what we are all doing. But it's like security camera footage. You know someone stole something, but you have to go through all the footage to see who did it and when. I have no idea what metrics they use for success, but it is most likely more financial in nature and less about how many players they have consistently logging in (particularly as it is now F2P).
As I've said ad nauseum in other threads, this "exploit" reaction has all the earmarks of someone on the financial numbers end seeing something about it they didn't like and having a panic attack. The devs freaked out, shut everything down, removed/nerfed, and created shoddy code to "fix" the exploit benefits. Someone on high called the shots on it. Otherwise the exploit holes would probably have been quietly fixed and they would have all moved on with their lives.
They don't really care about gameplay and player experience, they care about the bottom line, and what can we shove out the door in it a half-baked, badly tested format that can still get people to spend the maximum amount of money for minimum effort.
It's Star Trek. The player base is there. Eventually I do believe they will shoot themselves in the foot so badly that it will fail unless something radical is done. The precedents are there. But that's just me saying "DOOOOOM" I suppose.
called out as cheating scum by you?
smirks ship building prowess?
dev teams general ignorance of bugs?
or your own inability to lead a team of game devs?
cause as i see it i got punished for dangelo and team being inept at their respective jobs, OP just proves it.
Heck, for a moment i had to check if ubisoft, activision or EA had secretly bought cryptic because this level of pure ineptness is usually found with those companies.
So.. i guess respect for finally having unlocked the secret to becoming a loathed entity. good job.
What i would really like to know:
Are the people that put their work into all these fun little missions, filled with easter eggs and little shout outs the same as the people who derp around and make TRIBBLE design decisions like the upgrade system, the "new" leveling "experience" and later on totally turn hostile on the PLAYERBASE THE FCKN PEOPLE THAT PAY FOR THIS ALL?
YOU awful tards have been informed about these leveling tactics. Beforehand.
YOU IGNORED the testers warnings. WE already did your job in testing, YOU failed to actually get your shiite in gear!
You ignored the negative effect of level locking the story content and slowing down advancement at the same time.
You ignore the feedback in regards to the AVERAGE player being almost incapable to actually burn through several mobs with uber hp and DR in any enjoyable fashion, let alone 5 waves of them.
You ignored tau dewa.
You ignore everything that doesn't fit into your little world.
And then, to top it all off, you accuse US of exploiting.
THAT is the sort of behavior even FCKN EA has made an effort to cut down in its company.
What the fck is wrong with you?
Actually, they got nothing on me. Yes, I was at DS9. Yes, I was playing the 'Shutdown' mission, on Elite. I solo-ed, never was in Japori, or patrolling anywhere near Tau Dewa, even. Anything else D'Angelo seems to insinuate is a lie. Like the cake. And I maintain to have been of good faith, and had no reason to suspect that a mission 5x as difficult, also paying out 5x as much, was an exploit. Especially since I haven't looked at XP, ever since I reached VA, a couple of years back.
And I still expect to get my XP back (even though I already grinded my 6 stolen points back).
This fiasco rests entirely on the Cryptic developer staff and any punitive action taken on player playing standard content is purely unjust. If the skill rewards were incorrect that is due to errors in reading the "metrics" on the developers part.
A player plays a mission. Ever since LoR was released when the romulan marks and rewards were balanced, people played the Tau Dewa patrol daily because it was one of the better time to rewards ratios for the task. No one called it an exploit. Many used it as a means to test builds. Also not considered an exploit. Using ones time efficiently is the best way to balance grind vs. just playing the game for fun. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not an exploit. It is absolutely normal behavior.
When someone plays this game the average person does not scrutinize the reward vs. game balance. That dilemma is left to the developers Zane the average person has no reason to question the reward level because they will generally assume everything is working as intended by the developers. We generally assume they know their metrics and set rewards vs time and effort. The developers failed and then punished 300 players for the mistakes the developers made, essentially calling the players cheats, denigrating their reputations. One person I know had his name taken off the DPS top 500 leader board because of this situation. He uses his knowledge of math and the abilities in the game as set by developers, yet is called a cheat because he played the game as intended in standard content.
So by this, we can now see anything we do in this game will be considered an exploit if a developer wants to save face over their mistakes. Using rich claims on a Dilithium event weekend might be considered an exploit if it upsets their metric, despite that practice being WAI. Playing content might be considered an exploit if you level too fast. If you play more than 3 hours straight you might be exploiting. If you don't have a real life and play until you have a heart attack in your gaming chair in your moms basement and earn too much in 24 hours you might be an exploiter.
Rolling someone's justly earned spec points back is fairly minor, but if they had no intent to commit a wrong while playing standard content, there IS NO EXPLOIT! And is the fact someone played and earned 16 spec points really worth alienating any player, much less veteran players who support this game, really worth it? No. It isn't.
As for me, because of how some players have been treated, I will be cancelling my monthly sub on my alt account for the next 6 months and making no purchases during that time. When I see an apology to the player base I will lift this early. No one should be punished for playing standard content. We are not here to tell the developers what they should already know before releasing new content. We are the customer here to play the game, which is, ladies and gentlemen, the reason the developers jobs exist.
Player and forumite formerly known as FEELTHETHUNDER
Expatriot Might Characters in EXILE
Thank you for your very thoughtful post. Couldn't agree more.
I can't afford to fully boycott the game, as I've invested too much in it, figuratively and literally (you know, as a loyal paying customer). But being branded an exploiter, I will simply accomodate them, and cheat them out of their paycheck! I had several hundred bucks worth of gear, T6/lockbox ships planned for this month. Ain't happening now. If my word isn't good, then nor is my money.
Finally someone who comprehends the basis of the rage and puts it forth in a manner that others might see what truly occurred. I was barely affected by the actual rollback, but the actions of the Dev's/PWE have incensed me.
"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."
There have been many monthly sub cancellations, and I'm happy to see another person voting with their money. Very well thought out response, +1.
This post is too good to be true, it's 17x faster than anywhere else in the game. Expect your post count to be rolled back.
After reading what everyone has said, I have a few things to point out...
I've seen mention from a few people that those that "exploited" the map getting the 5x XP points should have known it was an exploit and not taken part. I ask you "How were they to know?" The NPCs were 5x the difficulty from what I've read in here! To me, 5x XP wouldn't ring any alarm bells. I would think that 5x the XP for 5x the difficulty makes sense! If it is released to holodeck then, as far as I'm concerned (and I think some others would agree here), it isn't an exploit. It may be a bug, but that isn't the fault of the players, it's entirely on you Cryptic/PWE. Especially when you had players on Tribble telling you there was a problem. It's YOUR fault you ignored the players, not ours.
Cryptic/PWE have penalised players that earnt skill point up to 17x faster. Did you (Cryptic/PWE) stop to think that maybe those players weren't "exploiting" the game but rather they had worked out a build that did alot more damage? Yeah, sure I don't like challenging these players because of their builds (mainly because I know they'd wipe the spacedock with me), but I wouldn't consider them to be cheaters/exploiters because of it! I guess Cryptic/PWE don't like people that have the ability to put together an awesome build!
Since when is it "exploiting the game" to not play the content in a new expansion like DR? Personally, I haven't even started it yet. I have several lvl 50 characters that I could start it with but I am quite happy playing my alt and getting him up to the DR portion of the storyline before i start doing it!
Am I considered to be exploiting the game simply because I'm playing a different character (who btw is doing all the patrol missions and story line missions and hit level 50 before even hitting Beta Ursae). This was done by playing SOLO and doing each mission once only. The levelling was alot quicker before DR. I remember years ago when you wouldn't hit the level cap (lvl 50) until after you had played ALL sector blocks. YOU (Cryptic/PWE) made the game to be that way so how about you get off your high horse and stop crying and accusing players of exploiting the game just because you don't like how fast some people level.
I could go on about the way you nerfed XP bonuses that were paid for from the C-Store without even partial refunds but I don't think an essay is required here yet (yes I know this is turning into one lol).
Basically Cryptic/PWE, I think it's about time you looked at yourselves and realised that when something doesn't work as intended, you should stand up, admit you screwed up and fix it WITHOUT punishing the people that play the game. I never thought I would see the day when you would punish people for playing your game as it was presented with the bugs you didn't bother to fix but I should have known better I guess.
Now the question is, do i still invite a good friend of mine to start playing in the hopes you may actually start listening to your player base or do i tell them not to bother and save them the risk of being accused of exploiting the game just because they play? The choice is yours Cryptic/PWE, let your actions be the deciding factor.
edit: ok, how can i only be at first post? Did I miss something and they reset the post counts because I should be up around 200 odd!
Frankly speaking I want Brandon to come back and try his hand as EP. I know for sure he loves STO and I fully trust him but that is a pipe dream methinks...
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
The dev team calculated your post/time ratio, and concluded you were going 17x faster than elsewhere; then decided to roll you back to anything over postcount 1. :P
"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."