Should Exploiters be...

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Xee, Apr 13, 2020.

?

Should Exploiters be Banned or other?

  1. Ban them

    42.2%
  2. Temp long term ban/roll back

    19.5%
  3. Roll back

    11.7%
  4. Reset / Roll back of stolen xp.

    29.9%
  5. Other

    27.9%
  6. Publish character names that exploit allowing players and markets to deal with them.

    16.9%
Multiple votes are allowed.
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  1. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    I do like the idea of a publicly visible title that cannot be removed, allowing the community to deal with the issue themselves! GREAT IDEA!
     
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  2. Ancev

    Ancev Avatar

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    If I owned multiple MMO's and other gaming services I'd ban the player from all of them depending on the severity of the exploit and past history. Players even at the top of their game are still willing to cheat, for lack of a better term I call it Lance Armstrong syndrome.
     
  3. Ostvel

    Ostvel Avatar

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    ha, this reminds me of rep in uo where folks would get so bad they couldn't enter towns without being hunted by all the guards on site. My old guild used to go on "red" hunts too. Think of it like fox hunting, but we were scouring the countryside for reds and gate thieves en masse.
     
  4. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    It's always a fine line we tread. For example those just soloing the game, not reading the forums or other social media, just doing their thing and 'bam'they are banned. I've seen that happen more than once. Too many perhaps don't know why. All they were doing was playing the game and finding mechanics already in place and using them. When a mechanic is added to the game during development it has to be tested out to see how it plays out and what the different exploits of outcomes that can come from it.

    This game has always been an unfinished test site but yet the masses are out for blood way too easily imo. No where does it say ' hey after consideration we see there are exploits from this mechanic so we are going improve upon it by xyz. Thank you for testing and finding exploits for us'. You think this game has ever since 2013 been other than an unfinished test site? I don't. Do we thank exploiters for finding them for us? No we go for blood.

    Roll back is OK but so are thanks needed to improve the game. Chill people. So test away. When devs finally get focused to finish systems and scenes we currently have and stop balancing is when we become a game.
     
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  5. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    I agree with you, for some things. There are some things though, that are WAY TOO OBVIOUS as an exploit, and those are the ones I would like to see banned, as an example, back in 2015, PLAYER X had reported that a quest giver would give out the reward as long as you did not complete the next step. He accidentally got the reward a second time, so he reported it. After seeing that the devs reported it as resolved, He went back, got the reward again. Guess what, he had not updated his client, so he was a patch late, but it still worked! So he reported that as well. After a while, nothing got fixed, so he started a bot to claim the reward over and over, and he warned Chris he would do that, that as long as they don't fix it, he would sit there. At the end, he simply gave everything back to Chris, but it was still a bug he was aware and exploited. (This happened before persistence.)

    That is the kind of exploit that should be an instant ban, especially since that moment! And guess what, some of the exploits that have happened lately were these kinds of exploits, where the ones who did it knew! on your first time, you get a rollback + warning. Next step, if you exploit something else again, that is when the ban should roll in, or like Xee Suggested, Give them the mark of shame and let the community deal with the exploiters themselves!
     
  6. Dartan Obscuro

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    Send them to an inescapable cell in the Clink for some duration. Even more fun put their avatars in torture devices down there.

    Allow them to bribe a guard with COTOs for release.
     
  7. Rowell

    Rowell Avatar

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    When I craft, I don't pay attention to XP. I have a list of items I need to create, and I make them. Most of the time, I'm not raising skills (until I've used a Potion of Guidance). So it's all just XP in the bank. I wouldn't have noticed it either.
     
  8. majoria70

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    Fix the exploit fix the problem. We have too few players as is. Banning does not solve the exploit only fixing it does.
     
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  9. Violet Ronso

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    But repeat offenders are those who are actually out to find those exploits. If an exploiter goes unpunished, finds a new exploit, and then does something that affects the rest of the economy, what is your suggestion there?

    As an example, do you remember when people sold crafted houses for cotos at the coto vendors? Crown traders like CICI, Phil, Terrence and Titania got their buy orders filled by these exploiters. What do you do then, reclaim the cotos from them? Remove those cotos from the game? Only impact the exploiter? What if the exploiter used the technique on an alt and filled his main accounts pocket with it through "Laundering"? Depending on how fast the exploit gets discovered, this can have a very deep impact (Exploiter sold to Phil, Phil sold to new player, new player bought a house, did not like house, sold house, vendor sells house to new player. Now you rollback these changes, there are a few people that got hit by that rollback, that weren't aware of it! Now instead, if we only rollback the exploiter, the exploiter can use the "laundering" technique, so he exploits those cotos, sells them to someone, goes to his vendor, buys overpriced stuff, fills his mains pockets, does a few things with that gold. Guess what, the exploiter still got A LOT out of it).

    Now if one of the exploiters from the crafting exploit, or the exp exploit from a few days ago, was one of the exploiters from the coto exploit, do you think he should have no repercusions? Honestly? You think we should roll him back a little and forget about it? When will he find a new exploit that might break something big? I honestly do not care about the exploiters in terms of number of players, because guess what, he is probably never seen, and only abuses stuff to get even more out of the game, possibly is a RMTer too, so he is filling his pockets at the expense of the real players!

    So once again, ban repeat offenders, those who have exploited more than one exploit, OR MARK THEM AS ONE!
     
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  10. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

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    Wait, something else happened? Do I need to go login and see if I got banned? I did some crafting over the weekend...
     
  11. majoria70

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    Ok I got you. I am concerned for testers and unawares or those who just don't pay attention. If as you say there are blatant verified repeat offenders that know the rules and know what they are doing and that it is against the rules notify them of it with the warning and still fix the exploit. Always always take care of your players in a constructive way. I am biased as I've seen too many things in all my years here that were unkind and unfair and most assuredly not verified before the action. So of course I err to the cautious. So I will speak for verify it, fix it first, warn, and rectify if possible. Thank you for debating this with me. It is the best way to find answers imo. I've seen so many solutions happen on these forums from long debates on a subject. Problem is devs didn't see a lot of them but now we have @Elgarion and @Ravalox to better notice. Finally the forum has a voice.
     
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  12. Illiaro

    Illiaro Avatar

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    Just a note, I think it would be dicey for Catnip to name names.
     
  13. Spinok

    Spinok Avatar

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    Your poll has too many options, smth with 2 options will fit better here - Ban and publish names / kill the game longterm.
    P.S. Really a few years ago I saw here a post by the pretty advanced economist in RL, one of his main ideas, that same rules for everyone in-game is extremely important, and one of the most important dev duties is to defend the uniformity and transparency of game player-driven economy. I completely agree with him exploiters, cheaters, botters should be punished as strong as possible.
     
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  14. Warrior B'Patrick

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    Greetings all
    If it is worth the effort to discover the items/epx that was gained using the exploit then it should be rolled back. Chris said during the live stream that finding it and then taking it back is a time comsuming thing. But do not see a reason to ban long term. Maybe a short term ban just to say don't do this but really for them to spend hours or days exploiting then have it all taken back is punishment enough. Besides what stops them from creating a new email and a new account on that email?
     
  15. Girlsname

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    When was this stream he said this?
     
  16. Jefe

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    Perhaps long term there should be a player virtue in addition to character virtue. Player virtue affected by players abusing the system. People with negative values could have limiters on xp gain amongst other ideas.
     
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  17. SmokerKGB

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    Before I vote, I need a definition for "exploit".... What do you perceive to be an exploit? Duping resources? AFK mining? Just what is being exploited?...
     
  18. Lazlo

    Lazlo Avatar

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    There's a pretty wide range of egregiousness of exploits, but generally speaking, it would be nice if there was enough risk of penalty to actually deter people. SotA has always been kind of a joke in this regard, and a lot of people view exploiting as a total free roll.
     
  19. Titania Xylia

    Titania Xylia Avatar

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    In some cases, exploiters may not have even known. Don't get me wrong
    Once I knew what was going on, I submitted an estimate of my profit (or equivalent COTOs I forgot which) over the life of the exploit and mailed it to Chris. Chris looked at the stats and agreed with my estimate. I don't think those other guys were flipping COTOs at the time, but I was easily moving the bulk of COTOs on a vendor and reporting at sota.net at the time.

    So, I was far from an exploiter and I came forward once I understood what was happening. I will say more than once I had a ridiculous amount of COTO sales from the number 1 exploiter and reported it to Chris to look into. It was way off scale, of course, and totally fishy.
     
  20. CICI

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    Back then I was not as big of a COTO trader...
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2020
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