Gather round! Lets talk about exploits!

[apious1]

My opinion is that There is no way Turbine should be punishing anyone for what is clearly their own negligence. If You (Turbine) consider something that the players are doing to be an exploit because of Your own bad coding, Instead of punishing players, FIX IT!
Don't try to tell Me that I am a "bad" player and punish Me for using any and all resources at My disposal to complete a quest. This subject has really polarized the playerbase of DDO, and what has been done? NOTHING! Instead of FIXING THE CODE, You decide to punish the people who pay Your salaries? Ludicrous, incredible, and ridiculous are the adjectives that spring to mind when I think about this subject, and what has been done to actually fix the problems with the AI in DDO. You want to go "Big Brother" on the playerbase and ban people? Fine. I can go spend My money elsewhere. Until I am banned for trying to play My favorite game of all time the way it is coded, I will continue to use any and all resources at My disposal to finish any and all quests in the game.

DON'T BLAME THE PLAYERS FOR YOUR OWN INCOMPETENCE!!!!!!!!

I just got done reading this whole thread...whew! And, this was probably the best post I saw. I don't understand banning players in an already floundering game.

/Analogy on
Yes, I did smoke pot and yes I did inhale.
/Analogy off

That being said, the only reason people may be remotely frightened by "exploit bullies" in this game is because of Turbine's reaction to people that exploit. Honestly, the easiest solution to this whole problem is to just shut up and stop banning people. If you, Turbine, do not appreciate your player base using a mechanic of the game that you created because you feel it manipulates the way it was intended to be played...well, then stop pointing the finger at the player base and just fix it. This thread is going to do nothing more than drive a bigger divide between people that exploit and don't exploit.

Mr. Kobold,
Okay, I would like to say that greater than 50% of the player base intentionally choose to exploit but I know I will just get flamed here by forum groupies about how wrong I am. So I am going to pose a hypothetical situation instead. Let's say "hypothetically" that 50% of your player base "intentionally" choose to exploit. If you did "clean house" you would cut your customer base in half, would you be okay with that?

[Borror0]

heck just send em to the Abbot LOL

jrp

We could force them to beat the Abbot if they want to complete any other quest... but that'd be too mean, would it?

[Angelus_dead]

I have zero doubt that the operators of this game can observe actions within any dungeon at any time. If by some madness they can't, they must seriously be slow at implementing some straight-forward tools that are must-haves for any online game.

There's a major difference between having the technical capabilities and having the manpower to sit around watching people play.

I doubt it would take more then a couple of hours of someones time a few times a week observing for these known issues and banning folks that do these actions before word spreads among the illicit-news-trading-players that it's not worth the risk. Hell pop into dungeons with high rewards and no reports of exploits occasionally just to see what's up.

Aggressively hunting for players to ban isn't the path to maintaining subscription revenues.

[Quanefel]

Yeah, that reverse Jedi mind schtick does not work in DDO, I won't really dwell too much on your words, but I did read them...The obvious complaints came from those who were complaining (hence whining) about the exploits in the 1st place-what I wrote is pretty much cut and dry-a complaint you ask? No no, a rebuttal to what has happened coz of all the whining.

You say you are afraid of getting busted or banned coz of other people's actions?-then leave their group.

You say you'll send a tell to someone who puts a trade up in the LFM to let them know they can't do that?-he/she probably already knows

You say you don't like labeling people as tattlers or NARCS-well then what are you doing, are you on Turbine's payroll?

You pay your fees, I pay mine-and Turbine provides the services, so is this an issue you feel you have expertise on? You think you will get banned coz someone threw a firewall down where it shouldn't have been? You love playing this game but don't realize the implementation of a report system will ruin it? Gimme a break, the real exploiters are the farmers, the dupers, the guys putting **** up on the AH that should not be there...Not the people who pay to play this game and have a good time by whatever means they happen to take to complete their objectives. It is Turbine's job to fix these issues and the community's job to help them and let them know about things that should be fixed, IT IS NOT THE COMMUNITY'S JOB TO REPORT PEOPLE FOR HOW THEY PLAY THE GAME COZ I WOULD HATE TO GET REPORTED BY SOMEONE LIKE YOU IF I CAST A FIREWALL IN WHAT YOU THINK IS THE WRONG PLACE, I hope that clarifies things for ya

There is no Jedi mind-trick being used. I am trying to tell you, in not so many words that coming down on others for expressing their own opinions(When it may or may not be how you see things) and labeling them "whiners" or the like might not be the best way to go about expressing your own opinions such as they are doing. If you want to give people a negative label for simply expressing their opinion, go ahead. But bare in mind it does not mean others will not pick up on this behavior and call you out on it. It gets us no where but sinking into a abyss of name-calling and bad feelings that does not solve anything.

Leaving group like I wrote earlier from someone else springing an exploit or cheat on us is not always an option. Why should any of us who wish not to cheat be forced to drop or leave when we did nothing....nothing wrong. Why should we be punished for the actions of the few?

Trade LFM's the way I described it works well for everyone involved. If I or others want to save that person from being noticed by a GM or have that person get banned for something silly like that is the best course to take. In my mind at least. It saves the GM's time when we players can help each other out like that. Allowing the GM's to work on more pressing matters at hand. Them knowing or not knowing if it trade LFM's in the grouping panel is not reasonable either. I will not pretend to know what they might know or not know. I can not read their minds but I can at least offer a friendly helping hand to that player.

No, I do not like labeling anyone a whiner, or complainer or NARC. I am not other people, I do not think or feel the same as others so I can not decide for them what to do, what not to do or think. Its our own choice to do such things as in real life and if anyone wants to express an opinion, thought or feeling other than my own...who am I to suggest they can't? What right is it of mine to tell them what to do or how to think? If someone has a concern and wants to come to the forums to express it, let them. It does not make them a crybaby, NARC or any such thing. It makes them a human being wanting to express themselves. I personally might seem preachy sometimes in my beliefs but I would never think of telling anyone to....shut up.

Although I agree that the farmers, true exploiters, dupers and the like should maybe should not be here, I can not agree with the idea that no one is allowed to speak up about it. Maybe report it. Thats what the report feature is for. Same with real life, if you see something wrong that might be harmful or questionable, speak up about it and stop trying to convince people they should keep their mouths shut. It only causes people to live in fear to be called a "rat" for wanting to protect themselves by other people. Even in the real world, we as citizens have no real power to do much of anything. Only our voices carry weight most of the time. Use that. The powers that be have the power to fix, change or protect us most of the time. If we do not use this to help us, then why have people in power protect us at all? Why have police if we are made to think we are not to call on them when we need them? Why label anyone a "NARC" for wanting a GM's help or at the very least, their ear so we can express our concerns? No one is being rounded up and unfairly banned. People act like GM's simply take the word of someone making a ticket out about an issue and that GM not investigating it throughly. Please, we all know that is not the case nor is true that this report feature is something new they JUST sprung on us. The report feature has been there for a LONG time, but people want to be dramatic and claim otherwise or suggest that the GM's/Dev's are Nazi-like in asking for our help. None of that is true but as you can see on this and other threads, people trying to convince others of this falsehood. For their own personal reasons.

I am not an expert on this or anything, never made such a claim. I am also am not comfortable with the suggestion I will narc you out for casting a firewall, or anything of the sort. I have no desire personally to turn in another REAL player, unless of course anyone verbally assaults another player that is a woman or child. I have to draw the line somewhere. Children or woman are off-limits for me personally. Does that mean everyone else has to have that same belief? No. But I am in my right to speak up against such horrible behavior. And its all within the rules that some players take so casually. All of us were warning many, many times of the proper way to play by Turbine. If a person makes that choice to break it, they have no one but themselves to blame. If for some reason people do not agree with one rule or the next, start a thread and discuss your feelings on the matter, speak up and change things the proper way. Like so many others have in the past on these forums, even today. About ANY subject that 1 person has a belief in. Do you not encourage people to speak their minds?

[DrAwkward]

Actually, that seems an idea... but I'd go for -5 to loot, for about two weeks. Just so exploiting really hurts.

Nice. If you get caught 'splioting, you immediately get ransacked on *everything*.

[KristovK]

Wow, an amazing amount of negative feedback/comments here, what's the deal?

Did you or did you not agree to the ToS for this game? Trick question, you had to agree in order to play. Did you or did you not READ those Terms before you clicked Agree? Again, trick question, you agreed regardless of whether or not you read them.

So, from that point on, you have agreed to play by the rules Turbine set, don't like it, cancel your account or petition for changes to the ToS(which is extremely unlikely to the point of essentially being impossible). BREAKING the rules set forth isn't a viable option, as it only leads to having your account canceled for you by Turbine. Oddly enough, that's how things work offline as well as online, don't like the rules in life and break them, you tend to get punished for it.

Turbine is clear, don't use exploits. They even tell you what they consider an exploit in general, easy to understand, terms. Some tactics are clearly exploits, and people continue to use them because, as stated by someone in this thread, they don't feel the effort required to play without exploits is worth the reward. Personally, I'd suggest those folks play Barbie Dreamhouse, it's an easy to play game that requires no effort for the rewards, but that's me, I'm easy going that way. Turbine says don't do it, if we catch you at it we'll remove you from the game, they aren't as easy going as I am obviously, but then again, you DID agree to play by the rules Turbine set forth, so you really have no recourse there. Turbine has asked the players to report people using exploits, some of you have VERY negative feelings on that subject, which personally makes me think your account is in jeopardy, but I'm a cynical person that way, or maybe I've just read too much Shakespeare. Turbine asking us to report exploiters is no different from your local police asking you to report criminals, in both cases the people who abide by the rules are asked to help keep the ones who won't abide by the rules under control. Oddly enough, removing the criminal element in real life is considered a good thing and I'm pretty sure those complaining about this wouldn't have issues reporting someone breaking into their car to the police, yet they have serious issues with reporting someone breaking the rules in DDO. And don't tell me it's not a valid analogy, breaking the rules to get something without earning it is the same regardless of the situation, the person doing it has no moral or ethical basis and does what they want, when they want, how they want, for their own gratification, rules be damned. Guess I was just brought up radically different from some of the posters here, but I definately feel that that type of person needs to be removed from the population until they've had a mindset change and agree to abide by the rules set forth by the community..be it the one I live in in real life or the one I participate in online. For those who don't think we need rules, just browse the web a bit and check out forums without rules, it doesn't take long to see why rules are actually required when dealing with human beings, we're really not suitable company for civilized beings. If you personally don't want to report people for exploiting, don't, simple as that. No one is requring that you do so, despite the claims to the contrary. I have yet to personally report someone for that to Turbine...report em to my guildies, so they know who to avoid, but that's about it. And it's not because I have anything against turning people in, or that I feel they aren't hurting the game, it's just that I know their actions are self punishing, I've seen them get caught due to their own greed every time. And for those concerned that banning players who exploit is hurting DDO...yeah...I know more than a couple of people who've been banned multiple times for exploiting who are still playing..albeit on another account from the banned ones.

A list of known exploits, without actually stating HOW they get done, would be nice. KK has said they ARE trying to compile a list of sorts here, so there's hope on that subject.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I don't suppose you could tell us exactly how we are suppose to somplete prt 2 of the Shroud could you?

There must be some purpose for the four corners. And some resaon we are teleported randomly to different corners.
Must be some purpose for the trees too.

Players will pull a couple of the creatures to a specific tree, but not others. So I am confused on whether some of this is exploiting or not.

[Altarboy]

If you do not think Ethics, morals or anything else you consider as "non-sense", you might want to reread the EULA because that is basically what we all agree to when we installed. If you want a "free for all" or "Ethic,moral" free zone while you play, you might not be saying that if someone in game did or said something to you that goes against the rules that are stated in the EULA as being unaccepted. If you personally do not want or have personal ethics, morals in game it does not mean others feel the same as you. There is nothing wrong with having at least a small set of guildlines for people to behave, I think we all know that a anarchy type mindset...anywhere is not something people enjoy. If you do, that is fine. Most of us do not and Turbine asked us to follow simple rules to guide us to a better playing environment where we all can play together no matter what our personal beliefs outside the game are.

Dude you so LOVE to quote the EULA...
Your like a Rent-A-Cop

do you think even 3% of the players in this game have read it?..
How does YOU reporting everybody for everything make for a better environment?
All Im saying is why do you feel the need to report something that is not done with any malice twards you or any other player?

I never said I don't have personal ethics...
but they are MY PERSONAL ETHICS..I don't go round inflicting them on other people.

and I didn't say Ethics are nonsense...
I compared the murder and theft we ALL do in game to Exploiting.
I'm sorry if that was a little to deep for you.
Comprehension goes a long way

[genericearthling]

man lots of pent up energy about this topic!

so is changing my display setting for rainbow in the dark cheating?

[Oreg]

man lots of pent up energy about this topic!

so is changing my display setting for rainbow in the dark cheating?

Undoubtedly. Oh and I just reported you for posting that specific exploit

jk but I guess I could have....

[Quanefel]

PINK is not a punishment. How dare you take my color and use it such a manner...

Pink is beautiful and not to be worn by the uncouth.

Although if it would get more PINK in game... hmmmm

See ya in Stormreach,

-R

I know, bad bad Quanefel. My apologises m'lady. :P

Although it would be a bit fun if it was in neon type colors. More so since I am colorblind and neon colors actually...irritate me. Irritate me to the point of actually getting a headache from looking at them too long. >.o

[Altarboy]

I know, bad bad Quanefel. My apologises m'lady. :P

Although it would be a bit fun if it was in neon type colors. More so since I am colorblind and neon colors actually...irritate me. Irritate me to the point of actually getting a headache from looking at them too long. >.o

Oh man!....EVery post is gonna be this color from now on....is that an exploit?

[apious1]

$10 says this thread is going to get closed very, very soon.

[Ildaron]

Here are my thoughts and beliefs on this topic (and a shameless plug telling the devs to post on my Birthday thread in one month and 14 days. You missed the last 2 Devs this year post!)

Why is it the Dev's do not want people posting No expoiters on the LFM pannel, but it is acceptable to inform party members you will not be tolerating exploits after they join?

Easy even though exploiting is a problem it is not desriable to advertise something is wrong with the game. Yes the Devs are trying to work on and Fix the bugs. They are doing their best to get everything 100% playable, errors are in the game. Everyone's tolerance for errors is diffrent, some new person may be playing this game who just came from a really buggy game. While on his 10 day free trial sees a lot of LFMs saying 'No exploits' & 'No cheese'. That is an easy way to give the impression is filled with bugs AND filled with cheaters. Something people like to avoid.

Now onto the its Turbine's fault I exploit and don't judge my playstyle argument I pay my $15 bucks too!

You pay your taxes, you have a job, donate your time to chairty and purchase a car. Your an upstanding member of the community and are doing your civic duty. Your a swell person.

Then you have the other person, he is a thief. He pays his taxes like you as a nice house, a car, and so forth just like you. (And yes he files with the IRS every year he just hides the fact his income is from by stealing.)

Now lets say he steals your car and this is where tie things back into with exploiting. By your arguments it is not his fault. You locked your car, but he used a slim to get into it. You had a car alarm, but he disabled it. You had a lo jack, but he turned it off. It is not /his/ fault you didn't purchase a car which could be gotten into. He just used all the tools avilable to him in order to take your car and drive on off. He pays his taxes just like you so he is free to live his life anyway he sees fit. Big brother doesn't have any right to tell him how to live his life. He isn't hurting anyone. In fact he is making his life more enjoyable and evening helping the enviroment by forcing people to use public transportation.


Now am I the sort of person to drop group if exploits are used? Yup! Well I report an exploiter? Sure will if I know it is an exploit. Generally I do not know what is an exploit however or is working as intended. Example. Summoning a monster and then Fleshing to stone them is not an exploit. A player told me it wasn't, but I was not sure so I PMed and asked a Dev awhile back and was told. It is not. I felt happy and continue to run with people who do so with a clear conscience and without worry of getting banned.

I used to send people polite tells first for things such as the LFM trade posts warning people it was not allowed, however a lot of people took a bite out of my backside for doing so. Now I allow GMs to do so. Does that make me a snitch? An informant for Turbine? A Huge Narc? Nope. All it does it hold people accountable for following the rules they agreed to. As I have no right to enforce the rules as defined by Turbine on anyone else I just report what I /clearly/ know to be a violation and let Turbine handle it.

[Ringos]

I don't suppose you could tell us exactly how we are suppose to somplete prt 2 of the Shroud could you?

There must be some purpose for the four corners. And some resaon we are teleported randomly to different corners.
Must be some purpose for the trees too.

Players will pull a couple of the creatures to a specific tree, but not others. So I am confused on whether some of this is exploiting or not.

So true man! I don't know how many times I have completed part 2 and I STILL have no idea what you are and are not supposed to do. I basically just wait for someone to tell me where to go and what to kill. I know the part 5 issue and do not use it but part 2? How is it SUPPOSED to work? If it's broke, fix it and you don't have to worry about people playing your game wrong. You won't have to threaten to 'take your ball and go home'. Or hey, give me a SPECIFIC list of what I CAN'T do and I won't do it. I'm not gonna pay a cash to play a game and worry about killing something the 'right' way. Geesh...

[Kistilan]

That being said, the only reason people may be remotely frightened by "exploit bullies" in this game is because of Turbine's reaction to people that exploit. Honestly, the easiest solution to this whole problem is to just shut up and stop banning people. If you, Turbine, do not appreciate your player base using a mechanic of the game that you created because you feel it manipulates the way it was intended to be played...well, then stop pointing the finger at the player base and just fix it. This thread is going to do nothing more than drive a bigger divide between people that exploit and don't exploit.

Mr. Kobold,
Okay, I would like to say that greater than 50% of the player base intentionally choose to exploit but I know I will just get flamed here by forum groupies about how wrong I am. So I am going to pose a hypothetical situation instead. Let's say "hypothetically" that 50% of your player base "intentionally" choose to exploit. If you did "clean house" you would cut your customer base in half, would you be okay with that?

Turbine's history does not point them in the direction of cleaning house. It depends on the nature of the exploit, and how Turbine views it affecting the overall game.

Let's step back to 2003 to the land of Dereth, a Turbine product called Asheron's Call, and the April patch. Since we can talk about exploits to a degree in this thread, I'll explain something. Turbine made an error in programming (this has been known to happen FAR MORE FREQUENTLY in Asheron's Call, so they're doing a great job IMO with DDO and LOTRO). The error in this patch was small, numerical, and did NOT create lag. It created a price difference of less than 100 pyreal (equivalent to the DDO Copper or Silver Piece). The problem in this erroneous price was that a specific ranged bolt/arrow was cheaper to make than it was to buy at the NPC. Infact, selling to the NPC reaped a rather hefty price tag and made the player money for pennies on the dollar.

What happened? Turbine publicly announced they'd fubar'd and said no one would be jacked with if they chose to make money doing this. The results were astounding -- a plugin for Decal took all the fletcher-skilled characters (mules or mains) and programmed them to automatically purchase the required components at one store, create the desired item, sell the items, and then leave the store to purchase notes (conversion of stacks of 10k pyreal into 100k M-notes). A good 80% of the population was actively running bots for 3 weeks across all servers, making pyreal.

This of course ruined the economy. No one was banned in the making of this blunder, but no one could afford a Tusker Doll.

On the other hand, a lot of people had M-notes and platinum scarabs (even easier way to have money, as can be stacked 100 per slot in a backpack in AC).

So, Turbine is not ruthless to players that do cheat. They do however realize what cheating will cause in the end. Do you want an over-flated economy where 4.5million plat buys you a Dragon Shard? Many people left AC after it became an elitist game -- where the common guy couldn't do anything due to the inflated economy, the lack of low-level groups and the absolute disdain of anyone that was a n00b. Cheating accelerates this growth and causes long-term subscribers to leave to find a new game.

I would place your estimate of 50% exploiting subscribers as low. I would gauge the exploiting subs at 60-75%. This thread has obviously marked quite a few of the sympathizers, and without pointing any fingers, I would also reckon the sympathizers are on a slippery ethical slope as well.

Ya know though, if Turbine did bring down the axe. If we really did go too far, what then? Well, the plat farmers would not have an unethical base to fund their existence in DDO. The elitist groups that say "Hey can't hack it he lax skillz man" might simmer down because of the slim pickings. And overall the need to exploit would likely be removed because no one would be competing for economic power.

Exploits generally come down to economic power. Resources utilized. Time required to complete. The ability to gain items out of reach.

Oh I almost forgot! Remember, Dereth became inflated, lost its player base to SWG and WoW, etc etc etc. Turbine is still running it and still updating the game where they lost subscribers. Hmmm...... Looks like if you manage an operation correctly, even under a small quantity of players, a company can survive.

They were successful enough to create DDO and LOTRO after all of this, weren't they? I don't think their stance on an issue will ruin them. They did ban quite a few accounts in Asheron's Call too for various exploits -- and sometimes they gave the community the "ok" to exploit as an experiment. Just follow the rules.

[Altarboy]

You pay your taxes, you have a job, donate your time to chairty and purchase a car. Your an upstanding member of the community and are doing your civic duty. Your a swell person.

Then you have the other person, he is a thief. He pays his taxes like you as a nice house, a car, and so forth just like you. (And yes he files with the IRS every year he just hides the fact his income is from by stealing.)

Now lets say he steals your car and this is where tie things back into with exploiting. By your arguments it is not his fault. You locked your car, but he used a slim to get into it. You had a car alarm, but he disabled it. You had a lo jack, but he turned it off. It is not /his/ fault you didn't purchase a car which could be gotten into. He just used all the tools avilable to him in order to take your car and drive on off. He pays his taxes just like you so he is free to live his life anyway he sees fit. Big brother doesn't have any right to tell him how to live his life. He isn't hurting anyone. In fact he is making his life more enjoyable and evening helping the enviroment by forcing people to use public transportation.

So your equating exploits and ...erm......someone stealing YOUR car???....your argument is skewed so badly that it makes not sense.
Let me elaborate....

Player A exploits a quest...he gets his loot...done
Player B runs same quest sans exploit...he gets his loot...done
These players lives are parallel no interaction at all

Human A has a car...
Human B steals car...
Life sucks for Human A...

Big difference

[DelScorcho]

Ok, let me see if I can get it strait. You can report people you believe are exploiting unknown rules, but not plat spammers that everyone knows are violating rules.

Also, who is responsible for disciplining the exploiters? If its the in game GMs, I am not worried.

Here is a likely report conversation

"This group I am in is exploiting by *********"

(2 hours later)

GM - What is your issue?

"This group I am in is exploiting by **********"

GM - What group? This mission has been over for 1 hour 45 minutes.

Alternatively

GM - what is your issue?

"This group I am in is exploting by ********"

GM - Let me look into the problem

(15 minutes later)

GM - I'm sorry, I can't help you. Nothing shows that ***** is officially an exploit.

[Oreg]

Now lets say he steals your car and this is where tie things back into with exploiting. By your arguments it is not his fault. You locked your car, but he used a slim to get into it. You had a car alarm, but he disabled it. You had a lo jack, but he turned it off. It is not /his/ fault you didn't purchase a car which could be gotten into. He just used all the tools avilable to him in order to take your car and drive on off. He pays his taxes just like you so he is free to live his life anyway he sees fit. Big brother doesn't have any right to tell him how to live his life. He isn't hurting anyone. In fact he is making his life more enjoyable and evening helping the enviroment by forcing people to use public transportation.

I am not seeing that analogy. Now are the police acknowledging that there is crime and not taking steps to reduce the crime and then asking neighbors to police themselves? How would you feel about that? In your analogy probably the same way I feel about Turbine's responsibility here.

[Turial]

I don't suppose you could tell us exactly how we are suppose to somplete prt 2 of the Shroud could you?

There must be some purpose for the four corners. And some resaon we are teleported randomly to different corners.
Must be some purpose for the trees too.

Players will pull a couple of the creatures to a specific tree, but not others. So I am confused on whether some of this is exploiting or not.

In one of the articles this part of the shroud was originally called the Pac Man area. The corners due to the twisted nature of the maze are all roughly about the same distance from the center where the 4 named mobs will respawn. In Pac Man players would group up the ghosts in one corner and then eat the power cell and then the weakened ghosts thus giving them the maximum ammount of time before the ghosts respawned, unless you simply ignored the ghosts who could no longer hurt you and went about your normal task of eating yummy yellow/white dots.

Likely, due to the fact that the 4 named guys buff each other, this situation wont work for DDO so you would have to split your group of 12 into 4 groups of 3 to take each of the named mobs to a corner and slowly work them down so that they all died at the same time. Not easy. Integrated with this system is the fact that mobs that come back to life are weaker then they originally were and are now easier to kill. Seems like the intended way to do things but it places some pretty devistating restrictions (group make up wise) on groups that could actually complete it.