Ban the Exploiters

[Solmage]

It's the same issue but without being allowed to speak of exploits it can't be made clearer. But let me try this.
You have an ingredient bag with all your ingredients in the shared bank. It disappears. Turbine tells you that they can't replace your bag and all the stuff in your bag, since they CANNOT TRACK what is inside your bags. How is that different then saying they can catch you.
I believe that if they can catch you then they are either not doing anything about the CANNOT TRACK what's inside your ingredient bag or flat out lying saying they CANNOT TRACK what's inside the bag.
And with that being the case if they can "catch" you then all the people who lost bags in shared bank will want an explanation that turbine is not caring to give.

All the text that you type is logged. They could use simple string matching to catch 99% of the exploiters - most were very silly about this - without the need to have the items themselves tracked.

Now as to whether they should or not, I will not weigh in. I used to have a pretty hard stance on this regarding exploits, but since the 'oops sorry you lost full bags, gee, sorry can't do anything about it, and won't even acknowledge the bug exists until 6+ months after, and no, you can't have a status report state of things' - I now feel ambivalent.

Besides, if they're going to ban for 3-10 days someone for getting 20 +3 tomes and more millions in plat than most veterans had accumulated in a few days, then the proportionate penalty for this particular bug would be a 10 minute ban.

[RoelHeeswijk]

Some of the exploits are just that blatant. Like the guy who was flagged as an exploiter during Mabar while he was serving in Iraq and hadn't logged on to DDO in several months.

Yes, Turbine, it's going to take a while for you to live that one down.


I'd also like to know if farming Trogs in eADQ1 is still a bannable exploit. Because I could probably kill them with my Pale Master and it would be nice to be able to use up all of my SP before I recallm summon and dismiss my hireling to reset the instance and head back in to farm up another set of 3 chests. If that's still considered an exploit, though, then I'd like to know which enemies I'm allowed to kill in eADQ1 to do my scroll farming.

You, sir, are a master of grey areas.
Did you happen to have flagged for that ADQ by just stepping into a CoF that a guildy had cleared all the way to the endboss and by window-farming wizking? And did you remember to not get hit by melee trogs by using the environment?

[Qaliya]

I'm sorry, but I don't see how anyone could reasonably see any gray area in the current exploit. Everyone who participated in it very clearly knew that they were doing something they were not supposed to be able to do. "Bound to Account" is pretty simple English.

[RoelHeeswijk]

I'm sorry, but I don't see how anyone could reasonably see any gray area in the current exploit. Everyone who participated in it very clearly knew that they were doing something they were not supposed to be able to do. "Bound to Account" is pretty simple English.

Nope, agree on that one.
But if they label something as an exploit, then not take action against it, their credibility on taking action against exploits goes down. So people will use exploits freely, also when it's more obvious.

[gloopygloop]

I'm sorry, but I don't see how anyone could reasonably see any gray area in the current exploit. Everyone who participated in it very clearly knew that they were doing something they were not supposed to be able to do. "Bound to Account" is pretty simple English.

How significant is it, though? Does it deserve a permaban?

Does standing across the altar from the earth elemental in part 5 of the Shroud deserve a permaban?

Does farming trogs in ADQ1 deserve a permaban?

Does window farming deserve a permaban?

Does taking advantage of the infinite manyshot exploit deserve a permaban?

Some exploits should just be ignored. Some exploits deserve a warning. Some exploits deserve a slap on the wrist. Some exploits deserve a permaban.

I think that this one should probably get a slap on the wrist. I'd say that the people who used this exploit should lose any items that they made through the exploit, but Turbine has clearly shown that they're not capable of figuring out who got what from exploits just like they're not capable of figuring out who lost what when someone loses a special item due to one of Turbine's bugs.

[Ebuddy]

Wow! 21 pages and I can still say, "IBTL"!

WOOT!

At any rate, I happen to be a rule-follower. I even feel guilty "perching" in the Vale (which is acceptable). So while it annoys me to hear of people exploiting, if it doesn't affect me then, I don't really care. That said, there is most certainly an impact to all when the already fubar-ed economy is made even more so.

I only skimmed some of the pages here, but to the person/people who declared that a wave of bans would cause the guilty parties to leave the game, then I say so-be it. If that, in turn, ultimately causes the end of DDO then I would argue that the life of DDO was in jeopardy already and the action only accelerated and while I'd be somewhat sad, I'd move on as would Turbine, and the rest of the player base.

So I'm in the camp of, "let 'em burn for their transgressions".

[Ebuddy]

Does taking advantage of the infinite manyshot exploit deserve a permaban?

WHOA! Wait a second! I play an AA! Can someone let me in on this one so that I dont' get rejected from raids as much?

(kidding)

[Ganak]

I'm still mad tumbling while stealthed was nerfed. How come it didn't get a thread this long!!

[Roderickus]

It is time for Turbine to man up so to speak. Turbine has a code of conduct that the playerbase is supposed to follow. Oh yes there has been exploits, but no repercussions to the offenders in recent years. There have been no suspensions of account or bans.

Exploiting does effect the nonexploiters. Just ask a friend of mine who spent years accumulating platinum only to find that exploiters had amassed the same wealth in just a matter of a few hours. This happened this year and Tubine did nothing to the exploiters.

The message Turbine sends when it does nothing to exploiters is exploiting is o.k. It does not matter how much time somebody spends grinding things the right way its lets just wait until the next exploit comes along and take advantage. At what point does Turbine take a stand and will people listen when Turbine does because Turbine has been unwilling to take a stand since update 1 came out? You see Turbine you can not expect people to follow the rules if you do not enforce the rules.

Because they sold their earned loot? You are mad because somebody has more plat than you or your friend? Or are u simply jealous because some people had things to trade and u don't (want to)? Nobody is forcing anyone to sell and buy seals/shards or whatever bound loot they got, it's like any other trade.

This exploit has nothing to do with plat, people were selling and trading all kinds of stuff before. The real problem right now is you can't tell when somebody is rolling for bound stuff. Do they actually want to use that or just pick it up for trade/sale. And that kinda scares me so I usually just keep what I get right now if I'm in a pug.

[RoelHeeswijk]

How significant is it, though? Does it deserve a permaban?

Does standing across the altar from the earth elemental in part 5 of the Shroud deserve a permaban?

Does farming trogs in ADQ1 deserve a permaban?

Does window farming deserve a permaban?

Does taking advantage of the infinite manyshot exploit deserve a permaban?

Some exploits should just be ignored. Some exploits deserve a warning. Some exploits deserve a slap on the wrist. Some exploits deserve a permaban.

I think that this one should probably get a slap on the wrist. I'd say that the people who used this exploit should lose any items that they made through the exploit, but Turbine has clearly shown that they're not capable of figuring out who got what from exploits just like they're not capable of figuring out who lost what when someone loses a special item due to one of Turbine's bugs.

Well some of those things should not be labeled an exploit. From a game balance point of view, it's doubtful whether or not they should be possible, but if they are possible they should be allowed.
But of those, some other things should be labeled an exploit and the offenders should be warned and/or punished. Then fixing that exploit should be given a very high priority. Even priority over bugs that people only have negative consequences off, in my opinion (in disagreement with a lot of forum users on that).
In the very rare occasion that it's impossible to fix it, it should be made very clear that it's not OK to do it and it should be monitored manually (by random sampling). But these things should be very rare and technologically unfixable (for example some things in Abbot).

But mostly they should be open about it. As a citizen, you know what is and what is not allowed, not by reading the penal code, but by hearing about cases and the corresponding verdict (and by interpolating and extrapolating these).

[QuantumFX]

Not sure what the TR/ completionist was in reference to, but again I ask how it affects me in any way if someone else has the completionist feat without having capped every class?

apparrently it will make all your acheivements in game seem pointless, and make you jelous, ruin your fun and make you lose the will to live!!!!

It will also shrinkage of someone’s virtual manparts.

Anyway, the argument also doesn’t hold much weight. People are already doing this (+5 Hearts of Wood) and isn’t considered an exploit*.

*For clarity’s sake: No, I don’t consider it an “exploit” or “cheating” either. “Crazy” is a good description though.

[Rawel_San]

Well some of those things should not be labeled an exploit. From a game balance point of view, it's doubtful whether or not they should be possible, but if they are possible they should be allowed.
But of those, some other things should be labeled an exploit and the offenders should be warned and/or punished. Then fixing that exploit should be given a very high priority. Even priority over bugs that people only have negative consequences off, in my opinion (in disagreement with a lot of forum users on that).
In the very rare occasion that it's impossible to fix it, it should be made very clear that it's not OK to do it and it should be monitored manually (by random sampling). But these things should be very rare and technologically unfixable (for example some things in Abbot).

But mostly they should be open about it. As a citizen, you know what is and what is not allowed, not by reading the penal code, but by hearing about cases and the corresponding verdict (and by interpolating and extrapolating these).

Personally as a citizen I learn about what is allowed or not allowed by either reading the penal code or asking
a solicitor. Very rarely do I use cases of fraud that go unpunished due to lack of evidence as a basis for my own
behavior and neither do I use the fact that someone gets unjustly imprisoned for being unwilling to disclose
his sources for a journal article.

Same as I don't use the Sun to make my opinion on whether aliens are real.

[countfitz]

We are aware of an issue where players can trade items that are normally restricted. We will be fixing this in the future, but in the meantime, please do not engage in this exploit. Players caught may face disciplinary action.

Also, just a reminder, we do not allow players to explain how exploits are done on our community sites. It's okay to vent frustration within the community guidelines, or discuss this topic in a way that does not provide detail about how an exploit is done, but if you do discuss exploit details or disciplinary action taken against you or others, you may face additional disciplinary action.

Thanks for your cooperation and understanding.

Thank you. This is so much better than the usual policy it's not even funny. I'm actually going to put down $5 in points for this. I was not going to purchase any points, ever again, after this update, even for an awesome Xmas sale, because no one at Turbine was doing the right thing. This is close enough to the right thing for me to start spending RL money again. Keep it up.

[Qaliya]

I think that this one should probably get a slap on the wrist.

I think it should get even less than that. I was in favor of disciplinary action a few days ago, but Turbine's refusal to deal promptly with this issue speaks clearly that they don't consider this a serious matter. It's too widespread now and they've made the whole thing into a sad joke.

That doesn't change the fact that it is very obviously an exploit and anyone participating in it knows that.

[freelove]

has been broken for a while, now it is irreparable.

Turbine exploits new players with shiny new low level content to get them to buy more TP, and +2 longswords in the store.

Veteran players exploit horrid programing errors, reported and nothing done about.

This game has become all about the "shiny" as the kobolds say.

Turbine has cemented its place in history as the F2P, period anyone paying subscription for this should move on to a serious game.

There are so many bugs, enviromental issues, combat issues, lag, etc in this game, an exploit is low on the list. I suggest playing a real game for a while and see how well it plays. Time to log back into Rift ...

[Krell]

I dont play for a couple months and all sorts of bugginess seems to have happened (still waiting for my new iron defender on my new artificer to stop bugging out every 2 minutes and become useless).

From the tone of the first couple pages, apparently 'everyone knows' what is going on, and it is 'super widespread'. If that is the case - clearly the people howling for bans on everyone are not business people that realize banning half of all players and losing half of all income is a good business plan.

There is a phrase used on the forums before many times "Exploit early and exploit often". That is because bugs that negatively affect players get left sitting often for months (or years sometimes), while bugs that players can 'benefit' from are fixed in a week. (And everyone whining about DO IT NOW apparently do not realize even a speedy fix doesnt happen overnight - programming is not a magic button you push and everything it fixed). This has happened every single update/module for years now, so is it any wonder some people are cynical about the whole process?

Maybe things like this would not be nearly as much of an issue if it didnt take 2 years to get a couple items on one character for anyone that doesnt play 12 hours a day every day. I think I have a grand total of ONE epic item on one character - and a few dozen shards/seals/scrolls that dont match up, are none of the useful ones in sequence - that is pretty sad and frustrating when other than the new alchemical weapons there has been no other high level gear other than epics for a long time.

Apparently few remember, or were not around when Dragontouched runes first came out - and were a massive grind, and a massive pain in the keister to get a useful set of armor on even one character. An exploit surfaced around that - you think people that spend months at a time trying to get a single set of useful armor wouldnt take an easy path and then move on to something more fun? (Run Prey 500+ times and come back and say how fun running around massively long corridors jumping like a moron for months on end is fun eh?) Some time after runes were changed and you could see what it was, and suddenly you could get something in a much more reasonable amount of time. A problem solved that should not have been a problem in the first place if the game was not designed where every new thing was a massive, massive grind to get items.

Running something 10 times is one thing, running it 100 times for a single item is simply pain - and quite honestly insulting.

The real question is not what is going on with ...something to be unnamed...but why not make epic shards and seals NOT bound items?

So they sell on the AH for 2 million plat each - people that have things they dont need make money, people that have money but dont have 2 years to grind can buy the ingredients to something they want - like scrolls, like shroud ingredients etc.

Or make the shards unbound, but keep the seals bound - so you still have to run the raids to get the item, and you do not need three separate BTA items and low odds of a scroll to make a single item - which for people with two accounts - makes the whole process x3 as massive and annoying - like when you get one item on the wrong account and sit there looking at it but cant give it to the character that needs it)

Crystal Cove was a better example of how things should work - while easier due to only being around a limited time - you get to pick what you upgrade, from a single source of ingredients basically - you put in the time, you can choose what you get out of it. People enjoy it,(for a while - stupid kobolds) they get things they actually want instead of filling up bags with useless ingredients while searching forever for the few things they need - and everyone is happy.

The fact that 80% of epic items are close to useless as well only adds to the frustration issue.

The Cove and the Shroud are the best examples of a win/win - slow and steady progress, and eventually you get to choose something to upgrade. You run the raid, and you come out with something, as opposed to most quests/epics - where you run it and get zero. No xp, no loot(spending 30 minutes in an epic quest for random trash chest loot is not any sort of benefit at all), no useful ingredients (epic tokens dont count), over and over and over again.

There is a massive amount of frustrated players out there - and years of examples of grindy DT runes, grindy epic loot, grindy random loot - that if changed to more reasonable progressions would reduce a lot of what people have done over the years in this game.

One of the early comments in this thread was the worry that if too many people actually get some stuff they want, they will stop running epics and posting lfms - do be perfectly honest - if someone is not capable of starting their own group to run epics and not die horribly, or has a guild that doesnt run, or cant run epics, and is not able to get anyone on their entire server to trust them enough to come along on epics - clearly they are not ready for epics now are they? Maybe they should be figuring out how to play the game and meeting people who have skill first before worrying about epic gear no? And worrying about what other people that have put the time in get or not also in any hypothetical situation.

I agree. I would like to see all items become unbound, or at most, a very few items BTA. I've played games like Turbine's Asheron's Call that had strong player trade activity and it was a fun part of the game. Some people were very good traders and didn't need to grind all content. Others liked to grind to pick up the rare items. Some items were designated as currency and rates that fluctuated from time to time were set and tracked by the player trade community. For example currency items may be LDS, Flawless, Epic dungeon tokens, and most items would have a pretty standard exchange value after it had been out a little while. While this exists to some extent today, if items were unbound, something like Kundarak Delving Boots or a Glacial Assult rune could be traded for if you collect enough currency wealth.

Yes you could say less people would put things up for roll if they are unbound, but on the other hand you wouldn't be so dependent on people putting things up for roll if you could run other content that you may enjoy more, and then trade for what you want. I've seen it both ways and unbound items with an active trade community seemed like more fun to me. I don't think things will change, but that's my two cents.

[danotmano1998]

The Cove and the Shroud are the best examples of a win/win - slow and steady progress, and eventually you get to choose something to upgrade. You run the raid, and you come out with something, as opposed to most quests/epics - where you run it and get zero.
.

Thank you, and +1.

Exactly.

[RedDragonScale]

WHOA! Wait a second! I play an AA! Can someone let me in on this one so that I dont' get rejected from raids as much?

(kidding)

That one was fixed long ago.

The ironic thing though is that at least one person with a post in this thread organized a "Manyshot Shroud" on the Khyber server. Not only did he organize it, he posted about it because it was a VERY short (timewise) Shroud.

[mudfud]

has been broken for a while, now it is irreparable.

Turbine exploits new players with shiny new low level content to get them to buy more TP, and +2 longswords in the store.

Veteran players exploit horrid programing errors, reported and nothing done about.

This game has become all about the "shiny" as the kobolds say.

Turbine has cemented its place in history as the F2P, period anyone paying subscription for this should move on to a serious game.

There are so many bugs, enviromental issues, combat issues, lag, etc in this game, an exploit is low on the list. I suggest playing a real game for a while and see how well it plays. Time to log back into Rift ...

I've thought hard about this and have come to the conclusion that Turbine is purposely destroying the game so that when they release there DDO-version 2, or whatever they will call it, they will be able to do things right the first time. So consider DDO the trial run for Turbines next big game on what to do/not do from there perspective, and how to correctly handle situations before they get out of control.

Congratulations to us all. We are guinea pigs.

[cdr]

I've thought hard about this and have come to the conclusion that Turbine is purposely destroying the game so that when they release there DDO-version 2, or whatever they will call it, they will be able to do things right the first time. So consider DDO the trial run for Turbines next big game on what to do/not do from there perspective, and how to correctly handle situations before they get out of control.

Congratulations to us all. We are guinea pigs.

Except whatever it is, it's not DDO. That-other-studio-which-won't-be-named has the D&D rights now.