FD - Fix the Credits Hack PLS!

[Luniticisi]

Exactly.

BTW I find singular the high prices of the new ships in this Alpha: we already know that credits can be gained by playing... in this stage people should not be forced grind their way out for testing purposes (like Razorwire explained).

There is no reason to play an alpha game if not for testing it. If you want to test the combat capabilities of your new anaconda, just go in an anarchist system, while if you only want to trade then take some safer routes.

If FD wanted everyone to be testing out the bigger, more expensive ships and not the grind for credit's, they would have started you off with enough credit's to buy those ship right away ... I am pretty sure that FD are disappointed that the game is so easy to hack.

To say people shouldn't grind credit's anymore because "we already know that credits can be gained by playing" is wrong, grinding credits is at the heart of the game .. and should be thoroughly tested ...

Let's say that once I join the game come P-Beta -- cheat my way to get the best/most powerful ship I can .. and shoot every single ship in the game to "test" if it can be done .. would that be me testing the game or just cheating to spoil others games?

It's a fine line .. and as I have said before we have Plenty of time for testing out the later stages of the game during Beta ... it doesn't all have to be tested right now ... but what needs fixing ASAP is hacks to advance yourself in way's that are not through gameplay ... if you want to test an Anaconda .. grind up to one .. through the gameplay mechanics that have been given to you by FD to test.


*Edit* to be honest I think that it is too easy as it stands to get to a large ship .. If I can get to a big ship in a couple of day's/weeks in the final game i will be very disappointed ... it should take a long ..long time to get enough credits to even move up from a Sidewinder to a Cobra .. if everything becomes too easy to upgrade to/make credits quickly the game will become stale very quickly. IMO

 

[Memnoch]

Given the current limited number of activities we can engage in, I think the grind is just about right. I think I managed about 50,000 credits in a little over two days play. Getting a Cobra in less than a week is pretty acceptable I think, and we haven't even got all those lucrative missions available to us yet either.

Once I got my Cobra I managed to get just over 200,000 credits in about five hours play, or a fifth of the way to a Lakon 9.

Hacking the game to make easy credits so it makes it easier to test some of the larger ships within an acceptable timescale i.e. two weeks is fine, as not everyone has the same amount of time to play as the next person.

 

[Luniticisi]

Given the current limited number of activities we can engage in, I think the grind is just about right. I think I managed about 50,000 credits in a little over two days play. Getting a Cobra in less than a week is pretty acceptable I think, and we haven't even got all those lucrative missions available to us yet either.

Once I got my Cobra I managed to get just over 200,000 credits in about five hours play, or a fifth of the way to a Lakon 9.

I have no problem in the balance of the grind in these early stages .. but if I played constantly for a week (in the retail release) and ended up with millions of credit's, so that everything is affordable (after a week of playing) I would say I'd get bored very quickly .. I remember in the original it took forever just to build up to military beam lasers ... I want this game to last years and if after 1 month of playing I could afford most expensive ship (for my style of play) and the best weapons/loadout .. I'd get bored.

 

[JohnStabler]

how on earth did you come to the conclusion that I am "confusing playing the game with testing the game" from what I said above.. I think I was quite clear (but I bolded my points to make it clearer) I think the people who are using the hack to advance their character, monetarily wise are "confusing playing the game with testing the game"

I quoted you. You said the hackers were cheating. However, given that this is a test and not the actual game, cheating isn't really a valid concept.
By all means, have fun while testing. Accusing people who use hacks of doing it solely/mainly to further their own character is an unfounded assumption. It's also totally illogical because why would people be interested in furthering their characters when all progress is to be imminently wiped?

 

[Memnoch]

Not everyone wants to grind for an entire year just to get a new ship though. The way to improve longevity in a title like this is not just to make it harder to make money to get bigger ships, but to give you lots of things to do in those ships and keep adding to this list of activities.

One of the keys to this may be player driven content i.e. missions that players themselves post on to whatever replaces the BBS of old.

 

[M.E.A.T]

I am pretty happy to see post about hacking & exploits at this stage as long as they are reporting to FD. When PB goes on live i will also find every possible way to "break" the game and report back to FD.

I see no point getting upset on seeing other people with better ships or getting pwned since there will be wipes on every stages until final release.

 

[Luniticisi]

What I am saying, and have been saying ... is that once the wipes happen, if this problem isn't fixed, people are going to add ton's of credits to themselves and the wipe, to them, wouldn't have stopped them or slowed their progress (credit/ship/loadout wise) at all.

Saying that none of this matters because there will be wipes is pointless .. Just hack, buy your old ship/weapons and carry on ... it needs to be addressed just as any other exploit should be.

I know it can never be truly solved, but again quoting the "wipes" as a reason not to be concerned is total tosh.

I am pretty happy to see post about hacking & exploits at this stage as long as they are reporting to FD. When PB goes on live i will also find every possible way to "break" the game and report back to FD.

I see no point getting upset on seeing other people with better ships or getting pwned since there will be wipes on every stages until final release.

I too will be trying to break the game as much as I can and when I do I shall report it to FD and move onto the next thing I can try to break and hope that these problems get fixed .. I will not be trying to use those flaws for my benefit. if it is such a simple thing to do and has been ticketed, why are people still using it ? possibly to "further their own character" or to gain something ingame that wasn't intended to be given to them without the grind (which is what is being tested here along with travel)

 

[JohnStabler]

gain something ingame that wasn't intended to be given to them without the grind (which is what is being tested here along with travel)

Another assumption. You're assuming Frontier Developments only want us to test a narrow form of gameplay (the grind). While I would not assume to know their entire plan, they have been fairly open and have actively engaged with people who are going out of their way to break / hack the game. That doesn't sound like a development team who just wanted players to do trade runs and a bit of combat.

If the client had not been hackable then I would have probably been very vocal against making all players grind their way to the larger ships (although I take my hat off to those who do). I would have advocated for splitting alpha testers into groups, some testing grind and some just testing content. Otherwise, forcing grind limits the number of players testing the higher-end content.

 

[jinja]

how on earth did you come to the conclusion that I am "confusing playing the game with testing the game" from what I said above.. I think I was quite clear (but I bolded my points to make it clearer) I think the people who are using the hack to advance their character, monetarily wise are "confusing playing the game with testing the game"

With respect, I think you are the one who is confused.

As has been said in this thread multiple times, all progress will be wiped. It will almost certainly be wiped at points during the Beta too.

Therefore, "using the hack to advance their character" is not meaningful before the Gamma release (at the earliest).

Using the hack to buy expensive things to test them is meaningful.

The ONLY thing that is bad on this topic, would be using the hack to bully or 'grief' others who are having fun. This should only be an Alpha/Beta problem, though, and it seems FD have made it clear there will be multiple ways to reduce the opportunities to 'grief' in the final release.

​

 

[Luniticisi]

Another assumption. You're assuming Frontier Developments only want us to test a narrow form of gameplay (the grind). While I would not assume to know their entire plan, they have been fairly open and have actively engaged with people who are going out of their way to break / hack the game. That doesn't sound like a development team who just wanted players to do trade runs and a bit of combat.

If the client had not been hackable then I would have probably been very vocal against making all players grind their way to the larger ships (although I take my hat off to those who do). I would have advocated for splitting alpha testers into groups, some testing grind and some just testing content. Otherwise, forcing grind limits the number of players testing the higher-end content.

You are right it is my assumption, and maybe FD made the code easily hackable for a reason, though I can't think of one except maybe to allow people to test the higher end ships without the grind.. but then they should have given everyone a million credits as a starting point, or even the choice of ships to fly at the start ... they didn't do that, so my assumption is that it wasn't what they intended to happen.

And not everything needs full testing at this point, Beta testing is there for testing the wider aspects of the game, maybe even the higher-end aspects were intended for the Beta tests over a longer period of time. after all, from what has been said by FD regarding P-Beta is that - Alpha testers will get P-Beta 2 weeks before the beta testers. that is what is happening now.
So what the Alpha players are testing right now is most likely an early version of P-Beta.

In which case maybe the testing for this scenario is designed for a wider player base and over a longer period of time and not designed for a rush to the testing of the bigger ships as some people see it.

The ONLY thing that is bad on this topic, would be using the hack to bully or 'grief' others who are having fun. This should only be an Alpha/Beta problem, though, and it seems FD have made it clear there will be multiple ways to reduce the opportunities to 'grief' in the final release.

I'm sorry, but what is wrong with "Testing" the griefing mechanics with cheating the game if it is ok to gain as many credits as you want through hacking? ... If I said I wanted to "TEST" that particular mechanic and spoil others fun ... I would still be "TESTING" wouldn't I ?

Just because you don't see credit hacking as a problem in your game and you don't think it is spoiling your fun .. It might be spoiling others fun ... I might just use that credit cheat to gain a powerful ship and grief every single person I see .. just to test of course ... if FD haven't put anti griefing measures in then it's the same as not putting in anti credit hacks in to me.

 

[Theaghan Black]

If FD wanted everyone to be testing out the bigger, more expensive ships and not the grind for credit's, they would have started you off with enough credit's to buy those ship right away ... I am pretty sure that FD are disappointed that the game is so easy to hack.

And that was a correct way IMO. Thinking to another game I'm "beta-playing" there are some warbirds models that will be flyable only if the player reaches some goals during the campaign, but since the game is still in alpha then everyone can fly them freely.
Just think about having to gain 4mils, picking your new anaconda for a trip and because of a bug it explodes... I would be furious because I lost hours in getting those credits!

To say people shouldn't grind credit's anymore because "we already know that credits can be gained by playing" is wrong, grinding credits is at the heart of the game .. and should be thoroughly tested ...

Sure! I mean that ships' DM and FM are more important IMO since if the trading is not working correctly then probably you'll lose those credits, but with a problem with the ship you'll lose everything...

Let's say that once I join the game come P-Beta -- cheat my way to get the best/most powerful ship I can .. and shoot every single ship in the game to "test" if it can be done .. would that be me testing the game or just cheating to spoil others games?

Those who "shoot every single ship" without consensual agreement at this stage of the game are not smart people. Anyway I think you can avoid them staying away from the anarchic system (I'm not in Alpha, is it possible?) or by not engaging them.

I mean. It's not a game yet.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

I have no problem in the balance of the grind in these early stages .. but if I played constantly for a week (in the retail release) and ended up with millions of credit's, so that everything is affordable (after a week of playing) I would say I'd get bored very quickly .. I remember in the original it took forever just to build up to military beam lasers ... I want this game to last years and if after 1 month of playing I could afford most expensive ship (for my style of play) and the best weapons/loadout .. I'd get bored.

In principle I agree with the above, I do not want the game to be so easy that you get to a point where you have everything within weeks.

However ..... There will be people who will want to do that, this isn't the 90's anymore, the majority of people don't want to do the grind, and even with games where you do need to (MMO's) most hardcore players can get to the 'end game' within weeks, if not days on some titles.

I played Elite II for a long time and never really got anywhere important. I also played the X series of games (before it got poop) for a massive amount of time and really struggled to 'make a name for myself'.

I want this game to be ridiculously difficult to get anywhere, the trouble is that will put off a fair percentage of gamers.

 

[Frobitz]

I feel like people have been generalising 'modern gamers' as only interested in easy games across a few threads on here now.

There's actually a big renaissance in challenging gameplay going on with the likes of the Demon's / Dark Souls games, DayZ, Spelunky and many, many 'rogue-likes'.

Maybe the game industry dumbed down for a while to try and reach a wide market due to the rising cost of making games, but I think there are just as many people who enjoy a challenging game as there ever were.

You can't simply complain about the 'youth of today' not coping with tough games when it seems they actually enjoy them when the industry bothers to produce them.

 

[Luniticisi]

In principle I agree with the above, I do not want the game to be so easy that you get to a point where you have everything within weeks.

However ..... There will be people who will want to do that, this isn't the 90's anymore, the majority of people don't want to do the grind, and even with games where you do need to (MMO's) most hardcore players can get to the 'end game' within weeks, if not days on some titles.

I played Elite II for a long time and never really got anywhere important. I also played the X series of games (before it got poop) for a massive amount of time and really struggled to 'make a name for myself'.

I want this game to be ridiculously difficult to get anywhere, the trouble is that will put off a fair percentage of gamers.

I know what you are saying, but back in the early 80's everyone was a casual gamer ... we never had a game like Elite before .. it was all about lives and hi-scores .. then Elite came along and blew our minds .. there is nothing to say that this game can't do the same for a new generation of gamers who are getting used to playing a game for quick gratification, maybe the return to the long-haul will be a good thing ... it was a revolution back then (A copy of Elite sold for every BBC micro that was sold... everyone who had a BBC had Elite, practically) it can happen again. :smilie:

 

[Deorch]

I dont disagree with many of the points here. For me it boils down to this.

FD want people to test their game, the testers arent getting paid so it has to be fun/enjoyable.

If you can only play a few hours here and there getting into a sidewinder and getting reset every time you go out (combat, interdictions, glitches) whatever tests a very limited part of the game...over....and....over....again.

In the final game I want a hard grind, I want longevity however here and now? When I know my work is getting erased in the next release? I want to test, I want to try different variations, I want to try trading, piracy, Mercenary etc.

These options are not open to me. Im not saying give everyone infinite credits but make it a bit more accessible give more money/flexibility up front, make it possible/likely to survive longer than a snowball in a supernova when attacked (at least for us non-uber players) and you get more balance. Make it cheaper to insure earlier so your survivable ship becomes sustainable. Slap the bigger ships with shudderingly painful Insurance etc to reflect their massively exponential earning potential.

Cmon guys take the pain away. In the meantime if people want to hack their way to a few credits to achieve that then thats fine, it answers the question about demand as a lot of people just want not to randomly lose everything...

(Ironic that the game will now save your ship loss if you die as it crashes but not the credits you made since the last save if your in a FFA, thats FD focussing on the wrong thing)

frankly love the game, look feel etc, but cannot bring myself to play it at the moment, its so maddeining. End result=no result for testing.

 

[Memnoch]

DayZ?! What started out as a great idea, surviving a zombie infestation, has instead turned into Deathmatch with food. The zombies aren't a threat, other players are. So I don't really count it as an example of hard core survival, any more than I would multi player Arma.

 

[Frobitz]

DayZ?! What started out as a great idea, surviving a zombie infestation, has instead turned into Deathmatch with food. The zombies aren't a threat, other players are. So I don't really count it as an example of hard core survival, any more than I would multi player Arma.

Yeah I've heard it's a mess now. It was pretty great when I played the mod back in the day.

My point stands though yeah?

 

[Memnoch]

My point stands though yeah?

Yes, totally, for I suspect a sizeable minority. The majority are quite happy to play third person shooter console fodder I'm afraid, if recent releases are any indication.

Pacman was more hardcore survival than DayZ!

 

[Frobitz]

Pacman was more hardcore survival than DayZ!

Are you kidding? There's food everywhere in Pacman

 

[Memnoch]

Are you kidding? There's food everywhere in Pacman

LOL True, I was referring to lives but point taken.