Frontier - Enough Shoulder Shrugging - Get Tough on Exploits and Exploiters.

[Deadspin]

Hold on Deadspin, you brought the pips up, not me.
The OP is about all exploits, not pips in particular, it is about the effect they have on Frontier's reputation, the BGS, PVP, the ranking system and much more.

My apologies.

My point is in the original reply still. Pip management and the extra two pips provided by multi-crew is the only clear cut chance for a true exploit that I see right now. Frontier may call combat logging an exploit but who does it really provide an advantage over? Not the aggressor, who is the player that needs the exploit to have the advantage, since PvP is the only real place you can have an advantage over another player in this game.

All of the "other" exploits are just people complaining because someone else doesn't play the game the way they think it should be played. Forge our own paths, right?

 

[Theodrid]

My apologies.

My point is in the original reply still. Pip management and the extra two pips provided by multi-crew is the only clear cut chance for a true exploit that I see right now. Frontier may call combat logging an exploit but who does it really provide an advantage over? Not the aggressor, who is the player that needs the exploit to have the advantage, since PvP is the only real place you can have an advantage over another player in this game.

All of the "other" exploits are just people complaining because someone else doesn't play the game the way they think it should be played. Forge our own paths, right?

No worries Deadspin, and don't worry, I more than expected other posters mileage to vary on my observations

Some of the things that you do not consider exploits I clearly do, as Shar said too, I would like the integrity of owning a big ship or being ranked Elite in one or the other professions to have prestige, (to some degree), attached to it rather than those things being ten-a-penny.

 

[Deadspin]

No worries Deadspin, and don't worry, I more than expected other posters mileage to vary on my observations

Some of the things that you do not consider exploits I clearly do, as Shar said too, I would like the integrity of owning a big ship or being ranked Elite in one or the other professions to have prestige, (to some degree), attached to it rather than those things being ten-a-penny.

I understand that completely. At the same time, having Elite in one of the big three and a big ship has been commonplace for over a year now.

I think, personally, that Frontier needs to just abandoned the current ranking systems as-is for now and come up with something new, something with substance. Unfortunately, I fear that we're going to need a whole hell of a lot more content / foundation before a system that could be rewarding in that sense can truly be established.

 

[CylonSurfer]

My apologies.

My point is in the original reply still. Pip management and the extra two pips provided by multi-crew is the only clear cut chance for a true exploit that I see right now. Frontier may call combat logging an exploit but who does it really provide an advantage over? Not the aggressor, who is the player that needs the exploit to have the advantage, since PvP is the only real place you can have an advantage over another player in this game.

All of the "other" exploits are just people complaining because someone else doesn't play the game the way they think it should be played. Forge our own paths, right?

The exploit of cutting ones network connection to combat log clearly avoids the consequence of destruction and the costs associated with said destruction of ship. I'd go as far as to say that its cheating in fairness.

 

[Theodrid]

Sorry, your pop psychology is all wrong.

If you cannot see how being so invested in a game is something to be concerned about, that is on you.

If you think that my post was an attack on you, well that is also on you.

I like ED but I do not 'care' about it - there will always be something else, I hope that it fulfills its potential but if it does not, that is life.

I am a developer so am perhaps quite well placed to make this statement, I assume you are too and know lots of other devs because "...that is also true for an awful lot of other developers and their stances on exploitation too." is a rather sweeping statement to make if not.

Definition of righteous - "morally right or justifiable.", sorry for the terrible insult. I merely meant that perhaps your efforts are better spent elsewhere (real life, perhaps?)

As for defensive, will perhaps another definition is needed - "very anxious to challenge or avoid criticism", as you had not responded to me yet, I could not be challenging criticism and I think my tone shows that I do not care about avoiding criticism, perhaps you could be... wrong?

Also, you did not hit a nerve, I just like to add to arguments with my perspective - your response clearly shows I hit a nerve with you .... just, wow, man wow.

People lie, steal, cheat, drink drive and a million other horrible things, cheating in a game is not really worth this much time and effort, is it? Convince me otherwise or just keep hiding behind your keyboard, either way, meh...

Again, fly safe CMDR.

'Pop psychology' - the mirror is that way pal, I have not claimed to know how 'invested' you are in something nor claimed you are 'righteous' or anything else, I will decide how I spend my time, when to post, when to work and when to spend time with my kids, I get to play Elite maybe 6 hours a week if I'm lucky, take your 'real life' swipe and shove it where the sun don't shine.

If you think calling me 'righteous' is not an personal slight on me, (attack in your words), then what world do you live in? Why does me having the opinion that Frontier should be tougher on exploits and exploitation as some other developers are make me 'righteous' and seem to offend you so much?

Also, 'all this effort' - what effort? - I'm posting on a forum, I've spent maybe 15 minutes on this subject since I posted the thread, and as I raised the subject and you felt compelled to respond in the way you did it is clearly your nerves that have been tingled.

Finally, no, I'm not a developer, I've just been a gamer for more than 30 years, unlike many internet forum posters I do not feel the need to try an legitimise my posts, thoughts and opinions with delusions of grandure, they are my own. Also, from what I can tell over 75% of the forum users here are game developers, that is an astounding statistic to be honest, almost unbelievable.....almost.

 

[ShimEnki]

I understand that completely. At the same time, having Elite in one of the big three and a big ship has been commonplace for over a year now.

I think, personally, that Frontier needs to just abandoned the current ranking systems as-is for now and come up with something new, something with substance. Unfortunately, I fear that we're going to need a whole hell of a lot more content / foundation before a system that could be rewarding in that sense can truly be established.

If a new ranking mechanism is going to be a thing then make sure pay to gain is added as well otherwise all you do is ditch and marginalize those with 2 hours to play and lots to pay just to satisfy all day gamers who complain endlessly about in game spending /SUPPORTING to grind some navy or authority ranking system.

In fact anyone who pays to engage the game at higher than grind speeds deserves a special ranking as they are supporting the very game all day gamers depend on for their daily focus.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I don't give a toss how other players play the game or whether they use exploits to make insane amounts of money.

I care about a robust game, which means exploits have to be closed. The only reason for this I need is that exploits by-pass the developers intentions. At the end of the day FDev decides the rules in the galaxy and the direction of the game, not me. So whether I'm affected or not by a particular exploit is completely irrelevant. The game needs to behave the way the developers want it to behave, so they have knowledge of what goes on, so they can control the already ridiculous amounts of parameters and variables.

If an exploit delivers a desireable effect, the argument can be made to include that behaviour into the bigger picture and make it intended behaviour. This also gets rid of exploits.

 

[Morbad]

One mans terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.....

...but a cheater is still a cheater.

It's not like there's gold farming or something.

Actually, that's almost exactly what it's like.

Really don't care how somebody else wants to play the game that they have paid for.

Problem with this line of thinking is that it fails to account for the fact that, in any and all modes, Elite: Dangerous is an MMO.

If there was an offline game, then what you did would be your concern and your concern alone. However, that's not what we have. Everything you do has some impact, however small it may be, on everyone else. If you can ignore the impacts of others, great, but it's not remotely fair or equitable to expect everyone to ignore how you impact their experience.

Frontier may call combat logging an exploit but who does it really provide an advantage over? Not the aggressor, who is the player that needs the exploit to have the advantage, since PvP is the only real place you can have an advantage over another player in this game.

Disconnecting during combat to save one's ship provides the same effect as an instant cash injection equal to one's rebuy cost and cargo value, as well as less tangible effects such as time saved.

This is abused by aggressors as often as not, and many wantonly belligerent types would find it more difficult to do what they do if they had to pay the cost in credits and downtime they are currently able to cheat their way out of.

 

[Deadspin]

Disconnecting during combat to save one's ship provides the same effect as an instant cash injection equal to one's rebuy cost and cargo value, as well as less tangible effects such as time saved.

This is abused by aggressors as often as not, and many wantonly belligerent types would find it more difficult to do what they do if they had to pay the cost in credits and downtime they are currently able to cheat their way out of.

1: As someone else said, in all fairness, it's more akin to cheating than an actual exploit.

2: That's a mighty large assumption you've got there.

 

[Theodrid]

I don't give a toss how other players play the game or whether they use exploits to make insane amounts of money.

I care about a robust game, which means exploits have to be closed. The only reason for this I need is that exploits by-pass the developers intentions. At the end of the day FDev decides the rules in the galaxy and the direction of the game, not me. So whether I'm affected or not by a particular exploit is completely irrelevant. The game needs to behave the way the developers want it to behave, so they have knowledge of what goes on, so they can control the already ridiculous amounts of parameters and variables.

If an exploit delivers a desireable effect, the argument can be made to include that behaviour into the bigger picture and make it intended behaviour. This also gets rid of exploits.

See Ziggy, brilliantly put, that's why I love you even though you dressed up as a gimp teenage mutant ninja turtle!

 

[Morbad]

1: As someone else said, in all fairness, it's more akin to cheating than an actual exploit.

Exploiting bugs and unintended effects of game mechanisms is one of many forms of cheating.

2: That's a mighty large assumption you've got there.

While my statements are based on the anecdotal experiences of myself and many, many, others, I do not think it qualifies as a large or unfounded assumption.

Most CMDRs I've seen disconnect were CMDRs who attacked me, or those in my presence, first and who disconnected to prevent their vessel from being destroyed in self-defense or retaliation.

Combat-fit vessels are often the only ones that give their CMDR's time to cheat out of destruction in this manner.

 

[SeaFireliv]

I hate cheaters, but this kind of thing is rife with potential problems. the harder you crack down, the more an innocent member suffers. I`d rather 10 cheaters get away than one honest guy suffers. Also, there`s nothing worse than letting Big Brother walk in and do `What`s best` and slowly turn the whole thing into some kind of marxist hellhole in gaming. I`ve already seen it with consoles with people being banned for being politically incorrect in a COMPETITIVE MULTIPLAYER GAME! That`s how bad it can get.

People would wonder how boys played games when all we had were sticks and shouted "RATATATAT!" We monitered ourselves.

But I generally play Solo anyway, so if they make zillions of cash it don`t bother me, they just get bored faster. Just as long as they don`t interfere with other people`s actual game somehow (hacking accounts etc).

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Sure, that's fine. But what exploits specifically are you referring to?

The only true exploit I remember hearing about is one from around launch time when a lot of CMDRs were able to buy and resell commodities in the same station for a profit, allowing them to functionally grant themselves tens of billions of credits in a few hours.

Other stuff like Robigo and Sothis were functionally sanctioned by FDev and only nerfed after many months of giving away free Cutters and Anacondas to CMDRs with a couple of days worth of patience. Even mission stacking was permissible even if questionable until they properly nerfed them.

The biggest issue with these quasi-exploits is FDev's lack of interest in addressing them expeditiously. There's no reason for Draconis 17, Sothis, Robigo or such to be in the game for 4 months each before patching them out. At that point, patching them out simply hurts everyone who didn't take advantage as they are now financially months or even years behind those who spent a week or two grinding those credit volcanos. People playing the game for a month shouldn't have more money than me who has been playing damn near daily for 2 years, but here we are and those players exist because of FDev's slow response to imbalanced credit payout scenarios. That's FDev's fault; not the players fault.

 

[Morbad]

But I generally play Solo anyway, so if they make zillions of cash it don`t bother me, they just get bored faster.

Even if I played Solo, it would bother me, because cheaters would still be shifting the BGS around me, and at a pace that I could not counter, even one CMDR for one CMDR, without cheating myself.

Other stuff like Robigo and Sothis were functionally sanctioned by FDev.

You can't have an exploit without the game mechanisms allowing it. That's precisely how cheating via bug exploiting works.

That's FDev's fault; not the players fault.

Both are to blame.

If you see something that obviously flies in the face of reason and any plausible intent on the part of FDev, and then you use it to your advantage, you are a cheater.

 

[OH and 15]

If we didn't have unwanted pvp then most likely there would be less exploitation.
Scenario:
You are flying around in your aspx minding your own business and bam you are pulled out of SC and attacked. No warning, no comms, no cargo and no bounty. Skill has nothing to do with this.
Now everytime I have been attacked by another player it has been in a molded out cutter or a wing of molded out ships.(one of the biggest reasons to exploitation exist, from what I can tell.) How does one compete with someone who has that much wealth except to gain that much wealth as well and get to a decent rank to buy the best ships. Currently the best way to gain rank and credits is to stack missions however this will be gone in 2.2.03. Then it will take a year to gain rank in elite ,in the mean time you have paid millions in insurance or are playing in solo.
Point is if there were less unwanted pvp encounters I'm willing to bet the number of exploiters will go down as well.
There is a cause and affect.

 

[CylonSurfer]

If we didn't have unwanted pvp then most likely there would be less exploitation.
Scenario:
You are flying around in your aspx minding your own business and bam you are pulled out of SC and attacked. No warning, no comms, no cargo and no bounty. Skill has nothing to do with this.
Now everytime I have been attacked by another player it has been in a molded out cutter or a wing of molded out ships.(one of the biggest reasons to exploitation exist, from what I can tell.) How does one compete with someone who has that much wealth except to gain that much wealth as well and get to a decent rank to buy the best ships. Currently the best way to gain rank and credits is to stack missions however this will be gone in 2.2.03. Then it will take a year to gain rank in elite ,in the mean time you have paid millions in insurance or are playing in solo.
Point is if there were less unwanted pvp encounters I'm willing to bet the number of exploiters will go down as well.
There is a cause and affect.

This scenario rarely happens though. If you want less PVP encounters go and find one of those billion or more system that no CMDRs play in.

 

[shadragon]

And, by "beta-testing" I mean PROPER beta-testing, where you pay people to work their way through lists of operations and do their best to expose flaws, and not the sort of "beta-testing" where you just get people to pay money so they can play in your sandbox for a few weeks before all the pleb's get let in.

Paying people to test software is called QA, quality assurance and it's in no way sexy. It's done by in-house personnel and you validate functions from a check list, and typically do not look for exploits. You don't pay Beta testers. Beta testing uses members of your player community. Not only is paying for Beta testing a conflict of interest, as players beta test. It's a way for people who have never seen that functionality to test it and try it out for feedback.

It's like paying reviewers to review your game. The end result isn't viable.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

Op, unfortunately the horse has bolted a long, long time ago. Last I heard was that it was beaten to death some time late 2015, and has since been very dead, not napping , but dead as in cold and stiff, and now in a very bad state.
I sympathize fully with you post, but I think it's too late.
I just play my own game , mostly PG, so I'm not affected.
Sad, so sad.

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Morbad]

There is a cause and affect.

Cheating because you don't like how something works is no excuse at all. Ultimately, there is only one cause of cheating...the lack of deterrent.

Various game mechanisms are going to rub various people the wrong way. People, being the selfish, inconsiderate, types almost all of them are, will do whatever is in their power to shape things to their ends, irrespective of the consequences to others, and irrespective of the intent behind them. The only way to curtail this is to make cheating, including the abuse of exploitable features/mechanisms, to be less advantageous/more costly than not doing so.

Obviously, a less easily abused game would greatly help things, but nothing can replace deterrence.

 

[Theodrid]

Op, unfortunately the horse has bolted a long, long time ago. Last I heard was that it was beaten to death some time late 2015, and has since been very dead, not napping , but dead as in cold and stiff, and now in a very bad state.
I sympathize fully with you post, but I think it's too late.
I just play my own game , mostly PG, so I'm not affected.
Sad, so sad.

Cheers Cmdr's

I'm a 'glass half full' guy Napoleon, I believe, (probably quite stupidly), that said horse can be stuck on the back of a low loader, taken back to the stable, injected with copious amounts of adrenaline, shocked so it lights up like Heathrow at night and live again. Live again as a faster, brighter coated, more fertile stallion, as I said earlier, better late than never - don't give up hope just yet.........