Punishing the Innocent for the Exploits of the Guilty

[Sally]

When a group of people level to max mastery in a day; how do you think everyone else in the game feels when you take that away, and leave us to grind away at normal tasks? No compensation. No reward. No punishment.

You come in the game, punish everyone else, and let the people who exploited, YES, exploited (which i'll prove to you, by definition), and then act like everything is back to normal; when they got a MASSIVE advantage, and have essentially delegitimized the playing field of the sandbox; and the fresh start.. Like, they skipped to the endgame in an instant guys.. You can't just brush that under the rug.

Also, to say there was no "bug"; well, when you leave the Akrep task on a permanent loop; it may not be a "bug", but obviously it shouldn't work like that, and that was an obvious oversight.

I can prove to you, by definition, this was an exploit; barring ONE instance (which near certainly did not occur)

Here is the definition of "exploit": To treat unfairly: To selfishly or unethically take advantage of a person, group, or situation for profit or gain.

In the context of gaming: "No, exploits do not have to be bugs or glitches. While many exploits rely on unintended software defects, an exploit can also be achieved by using fully intended game mechanics in unanticipated ways to gain an unfair advantage"

So, how do i prove it is unfair? Well, they got to max veterancy in a day. Now, if i'm not mistaken, and i could be wrong.. Word on the street is that Henrik said levelling to max mastery should take roughly a year....

A YEAR.

Do you think they really thought it was supposed to be this way? If not, it is an exploit. There are no buts about it. You didn't mean for it to be that way, it is factually an exploit. They exploited the situation for their own gain; they knew it was unfair, as in, their characters in Sarducca are now ahead of their Myrland variants in a day; i'm pretty sure they noticed it.. My god, they even self reported it after using it. That PROVES they knew it was broken, but they used it anyway...

It IS an exploit.

We're all in the game now, wondering why they got to MASSIVELY save their time doing the boring grind of completing our build; whilst making a large amount of gold, and we have to take the substantially longer route there. Like, it'll take weeks.. What they did in a day will take weeks/months for everyone else.

EITHER LEAVE IT THE WAY IT WAS, OR PUNISH THEM. Anything else is PUNISHING your players who DID NOT EXPLOIT.

Don't take my word for it? What does the AI say?

The prompt i entered, the only prompt in the entire chat: "Would this situation constitute as unfairness and/or exploitation? A group of players found an area of the map on a sandbox RPG; here, they could spam out a task to get to max level in a day. This task was then removed from the game; so nobody else could use it, as it was unintended design. Would this class as unfairness or an exploit?"

The answer?

"Based on your description, it would generally be considered an exploit that resulted in an unfair advantage.


Here's why:

• It was unintended. The fact that the developers removed the task because it wasn't intended strongly suggests it was an exploit rather than a legitimate game mechanic.
• It provided disproportionate progression. Reaching max level in a single day by repeatedly spamming one task is far outside the normal progression expected in most RPGs.
• It was no longer available to later players. Once the task was removed, new players couldn't obtain the same benefit, creating an uneven playing field between those who used it and those who didn't.

That said, there are a few ways people use these terms:

• Exploit: Using an unintended mechanic or oversight to gain an advantage. Based on your description, this fits well.
• Unfairness: A broader concept. The exploit created an unfair situation because only some players benefited before it was patched.

Whether the players themselves did anything "wrong" depends on additional context:

• If they simply discovered it and used it without realizing it was unintended, some communities would view that more leniently.
• If they knowingly abused it because they recognized it was unfair, many games would consider that exploit abuse, even if the developers ultimately chose only to patch it.

So the clearest characterization is:

The mechanic itself was an exploit, and the players who used it gained an unfair advantage over everyone who played after it was removed.

The unfairness comes from the unequal opportunity; the exploit is the unintended game behavior that created that inequality."

There you have it. It all hinges on if they knew they were exploiting; and let's be real? How could you not? You've overtaken your Myrland alt in a day, and you're acting like you didn't know it was unintended design when you SELF REPORTED after using it to get to max veterancy? Come on guys.

You need to find a way of properly compensating players who did not exploit. It will have to be a huge compensation too, when factoring in the time they saved.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Same SV as always. Deny any exploit was present and hide their head under the sand.

A reputable company would roll back servers, or at least remove the duped gold and delete the characters that used the exploit.
But SV is too afraid of losing the few people that came back to the game to punish anyone. Better to just deny and cover up.

this is why nobody plays this game. This company is a joke.

 

[Locke]

They might aswell open the bridge already, we now have players in Sarducaa with 100 mastery and a gazillion gold from "legit" tasks...
What can you expect from low IQ game designers anyway.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

For context:

Source: https://discord.com/channels/345493247931711488/913143909432041592/1526268893679583263
**Clarification Regarding Sarducaa Tasks**

We have completed our review of the recently reported Sarducaa task locations.

No cheating, instant-respawn exploit, spawn manipulation, or other technical abuse was found. The task mechanics, group credit, distance requirements, respawns, and turn-in process all functioned as designed.

We also investigated reports claiming that normal Akreps could be used to complete Giant Akrep tasks. This is not the case. We have verified this multiple times: only Giant Akreps provide progress toward Giant Akrep tasks.

The issue identified was one of balance. At two locations, the short travel distance and reward values allowed tasks to be completed and repeated considerably faster than intended, particularly when many players were active in the area.

The affected NPCs have therefore been temporarily disabled. The tasks will be rebalanced and re-enabled in an upcoming patch.

No players or guilds will be punished for this. Players used normal, openly available game systems and did not manipulate or bypass any mechanics.

We continuously review task completion and reward data to identify unusual patterns. Should the data indicate an actual exploit, manipulation, or other rule violation, we will investigate and take appropriate action.

We appreciate all reports from the community. They help us identify both potential cheating and balance issues, allowing us to maintain a fair and secure game environment.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Absolute bs. They admit that those tasks were not working as intended, to the point where they had to be disabled. Obviously a broken mechanic that was abused instead of reported. At minimum they should roll back servers, especially that early into a fresh server start.
To gain hundreds of mastery points in mare hours is obviously a broken mechanic.

Every exploit is simply a "broken mechanic" that players discover and use knowing full well thats not how its supposed to work.

Absolute zero acountability by SV for anyone including themselves. Its just an "Oopsies, we fucked up. Nobody will be punished, except all those people that didnt use the exploit as they now have to deal with the huge inbalance we have created. We could fix this but we'd rather not. If in the future you find a broken mechanic, feel free to use it and not report it. Its not your fault we are bad at coding. Cheerios."

 

[Iloros]

When a group of people level to max mastery in a day; how do you think everyone else in the game feels when you take that away, and leave us to grind away at normal tasks? No compensation. No reward. No punishment.

You come in the game, punish everyone else, and let the people who exploited, YES, exploited (which i'll prove to you, by definition), and then act like everything is back to normal; when they got a MASSIVE advantage, and have essentially delegitimized the playing field of the sandbox; and the fresh start.. Like, they skipped to the endgame in an instant guys.. You can't just brush that under the rug.

Also, to say there was no "bug"; well, when you leave the Akrep task on a permanent loop; it may not be a "bug", but obviously it shouldn't work like that, and that was an obvious oversight.

I can prove to you, by definition, this was an exploit; barring ONE instance (which near certainly did not occur)

Here is the definition of "exploit": To treat unfairly: To selfishly or unethically take advantage of a person, group, or situation for profit or gain.

In the context of gaming: "No, exploits do not have to be bugs or glitches. While many exploits rely on unintended software defects, an exploit can also be achieved by using fully intended game mechanics in unanticipated ways to gain an unfair advantage"

So, how do i prove it is unfair? Well, they got to max veterancy in a day. Now, if i'm not mistaken, and i could be wrong.. Word on the street is that Henrik said levelling to max mastery should take roughly a year....

A YEAR.

Do you think they really thought it was supposed to be this way? If not, it is an exploit. There are no buts about it. You didn't mean for it to be that way, it is factually an exploit. They exploited the situation for their own gain; they knew it was unfair, as in, their characters in Sarducca are now ahead of their Myrland variants in a day; i'm pretty sure they noticed it.. My god, they even self reported it after using it. That PROVES they knew it was broken, but they used it anyway...

It IS an exploit.

We're all in the game now, wondering why they got to MASSIVELY save their time doing the boring grind of completing our build; whilst making a large amount of gold, and we have to take the substantially longer route there. Like, it'll take weeks.. What they did in a day will take weeks/months for everyone else.

EITHER LEAVE IT THE WAY IT WAS, OR PUNISH THEM. Anything else is PUNISHING your players who DID NOT EXPLOIT.

Don't take my word for it? What does the AI say?

The prompt i entered, the only prompt in the entire chat: "Would this situation constitute as unfairness and/or exploitation? A group of players found an area of the map on a sandbox RPG; here, they could spam out a task to get to max level in a day. This task was then removed from the game; so nobody else could use it, as it was unintended design. Would this class as unfairness or an exploit?"

The answer?

"Based on your description, it would generally be considered an exploit that resulted in an unfair advantage.


Here's why:

• It was unintended. The fact that the developers removed the task because it wasn't intended strongly suggests it was an exploit rather than a legitimate game mechanic.
• It provided disproportionate progression. Reaching max level in a single day by repeatedly spamming one task is far outside the normal progression expected in most RPGs.
• It was no longer available to later players. Once the task was removed, new players couldn't obtain the same benefit, creating an uneven playing field between those who used it and those who didn't.

That said, there are a few ways people use these terms:

• Exploit: Using an unintended mechanic or oversight to gain an advantage. Based on your description, this fits well.
• Unfairness: A broader concept. The exploit created an unfair situation because only some players benefited before it was patched.

Whether the players themselves did anything "wrong" depends on additional context:

• If they simply discovered it and used it without realizing it was unintended, some communities would view that more leniently.
• If they knowingly abused it because they recognized it was unfair, many games would consider that exploit abuse, even if the developers ultimately chose only to patch it.

So the clearest characterization is:




The unfairness comes from the unequal opportunity; the exploit is the unintended game behavior that created that inequality."

There you have it. It all hinges on if they knew they were exploiting; and let's be real? How could you not? You've overtaken your Myrland alt in a day, and you're acting like you didn't know it was unintended design when you SELF REPORTED after using it to get to max veterancy? Come on guys.

You need to find a way of properly compensating players who did not exploit. It will have to be a huge compensation too, when factoring in the time they saved.

Man Im not even with OS and they played with Wigsplit/cheaters now Reformed and theystill play with them but there is a huge issue in your argument.

They did not level to max mastery, they leveled to 80ish mastery, going from 80 to 110 mastery takes like 20x more grind than going from 0 clade to 80 mastery.

And that 1 year thing was for average player people had 100ish mastery firstmonth on Myrland too (after mastery came out obviously) Tukh I remember had 100ish first month.

They are mastery 80, Im mastery 52 rn and Ill be 80 in a week you guys truly are making an elephant out of a mouse and focusing on the wronf thing lol

These people played for like a year on Myrland and still do sometimes with a group of like 10-15 ragehackers some of which are confirmed permabanned. And now we are gonna ignore all the actual bad stuff to hyperfocus on I mean them literally doing tasks Im sorry lol.

Peoples heart is in the right place and they carry tons id bias from Myrland where OS and JA played with ragehackers the entire time and prob some members did some of that themselves, but cmon.

However I will say this depending on what the actual exp per hour of that task since noone wants fo disclose details I think they should have revertex some of their mastery if task gave like 15000 exp per hour which I doubt and btw youd need 45k exp per hour for 72 hours straight to get to 110 mastery none of them and noone on Sarducca is 110 mastery yet.

End of the day this one truly is a Starvaults fault and I would 100% do the same as OS did.

I see no symetry breaker in doing op task or even borderline broken task to gain advantage and playing a borderline broken build to gain advantage game isnt intended to be that unfair yet Alvarins literally instawin vs non Alvarins rn, so should we permaban Alvarin players because they do actually abuse broken in game mechanics? There was 0 exploiting though definitions are subjective and may vary.

Party system is also broken asf and 100 people can farm a single mob for task now 20 groups all of 5 people doing 5% dmg each group = 1 mob that would give 5 gold and 120 clade lets say gives 500 g snd 12000 total clade..... pro zerg mechanics.

At some extend I expect a rollback but 80 mastery aint all that and yi dou t they will do it, if some of them got actual 100+ mastery and I am wrong they should 100% lose some exp because thats a big big difference.

I would like you to name the trait or set of traits present in doing tasking that are op which makes them an exploit that isnt present in playing an op class and getting advantage from that.