Given all of the insurmountable hurdles MO has to face w/ one server, one world issue + their wonky engine, 'unfair' game play is probably the final straw for most people. The nature of the game is so cut throat, that cheating is kind of like PEDs in sports: an open secret. I'd be surprised to know of many players in MO history who were 'factors' and didn't benefit either directly from cheating or from being aligned with cheaters. Talking about purely competitively.
This could be an amazing PvP game. People can adapt to just about anything, if your disadvantage is x, just do y, etc, if you really wanna play high tier comp.
The game is 'growing' (SV still was too greedy to put their game at 19.99 heh,) but watch it bleed out, just as it always does.
I can say "lol yeabut UR CHEATING IN MORTAL ONLINE" or feel the salt they must be feeling when they STILL LOSE (but we all know, something is wrong w/ my brain,) but over time, they aren't going to?
This is a marathon MMO. It is going to continue to destroy the game. It's a cycle. Props to SV for adding RMT content to incentivize more cheating! Very ugly to have this on the front page of forum.
MO is very dynamic, very complex, even if some of the mechanics are weird. Everything put together, it's something with a stupid-high skill cap. Imagine investing 10k hours or whatever into your craft just to get duped out or hacked out. Obviously, you're not gonna quit at that point, cuz you're still GOOD, but the trajectory of your 'greatness' will change and, in my opinion, it is SO IMPACTFUL to have this happen to people (who either decide to 'go to the dark side' or just curb their competitive nature,) that it alters the whole game world and overall game health.
It's a big part of the 'toxic community' meme, even if not directly. It's the number 1 reason (IMO,) no matter what anyone says, that MO will never be what it should be, NOT LAG, NOT GM FAVORITISM, NOT SUB, etc.
And yet, not only do people get banned and come back (but we trust them not to do the same things again, of course,) but we actually have camps of people who a sympathetic to those who 'just made a mistake.'
I'm not gonna play the good person card, but I can say competition is a big driving force for me. With gaming, it's actually relaxing to get good comp. I have competed long enough that losing doesn't even bother me. I just wanna go at it, you know? In anything. Just for fun, to test our limits, whatever. It makes 0 sense to ever cheat in competition. You're not competing, then. You're wagging your dick and living a lie. GG.
I understand there will always be an upward climb to combat all of the, to quote Albie, problematics w/ MO and it's pro-cheating population, but they should be slamming everyone they catch. It's too important to the 'fair competition' crowd.
At this point, try to take a step back and look at how many 'advantageous situations' that have propelled people to positions they will probably never lose. That's with-or-without exploit/cheating, just game malfunctioning. IT'S A DAMN SHAME.
But yea... the last thing they (not even gonna say we anymore cuz bleee) need is a second chance program. haha. #cmonson.
Get this shit off the front page. You're losing potential customers.
removing cheaters doesn't save the integrity of the game or the match if the match comes to completion and then punishment is applied.
once we move past this, and realize exploiting game mechanics are first the fault of the developers and referees who miss the foul play, remove the affected content and create systems and structure to actually referee the game in a meaningful way where exploitation and duping doesn't affect the outcome of a match you'll see how unnecessary it is to permanently punish a weak minded exploiter who is incapable of exploiting if no exploits are available. Yes ban exploiters, there is absolutely no reason to do three strikes with exploiters, you abuse, your account is deleted, buy another one, the extent of the damage from the exploits is the sole responsibility of the developers and referees to limit. Hackers...HWID ban, don't ever come back your head is broken, when you visit space forget your suit please.
Not that any story is needed but back during Easter of ~2009, RuneScape exploit released that abused a PvP mechanic that allowed people to gain EP a form of pvp system that rewarded players who lost money. briefly explained, if you lost 10M in loot, your EP would go up to compensate and your next kill/kills would have the potential to drop enormous bonus loot. There would be a cap on how much you needed to lose. skipping how it was done cuz it requires game knowledge, afterwords many people got banned for the exploit as it happened over easter nobody was there to deal with the situation and Sparc Mac ended up getting banned for this as one of the larger abusers. 15 years later, he still exists in the game as a large content creater...
In this system, Sparc Mac gets banned, all his accounts after get banned, he never gets to participate and he may have very well continued to break rules and be toxic after. But his bans after words, if he received any came because of the actions he took on them, not the action he took before. And nobody ever did the Easter glitch again...why? it was fixed and so to permanently ban someone who cannot repeat the behavior, which he wouldn't have been capable of doing if it wasn't made possible by the developer anyways, makes no sense. It was fair to ban him, it was fair to ban all that got banned, and I can tell you they didn't ban as many as they should have and they didn't repair the damage it caused, if it caused much at all to the economy.
He was a little shit for exploiting, everyone who does is. I blame first the developers, second the weak people who abuse in their shitty little voice comms with their giddiness and girly laughter as they think they are getting away with something. but i know these people are little fucking bitches and the referees should catch it soon enough, ban them, repair the damage, fix the bug and move on.
Here's whats actually terrible though, developers who intentionally ignore exploits or create them for friends/themselves. Exploits that get abused for extended periods of time from neglect of the referees. Constant undermining of economical systems putting huge amounts of stress on the market, deflated gold prices on the black market with exorbitant market prices on rares/high teir items. This isn't caused BY the players, its created by the developers, maintained by the developers and abused by a few people. banning those players and pretending a harsh punishment fixes anything is a complete bait and switch to pretend anything is okay when the system is completely devastated.
TLDR: Don't HWID ban exploiters, catch them early, fix broken mechanics. HWID ban hackers. Fixing what's broken makes for better player experience, not banning players who exploit what's broken.