What is an Exploit? A general discussion

[Lightspeed]

With the introduction of 2.4 we have seen a resurgence of threads claiming "exploits" in the game, presumably because the mission mechanics have been changed.

But what is an exploit?

According to Wikipedia, "In video games, an exploit is the use of a bug or glitches, game system, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers."

So in simple terms, we could clearly identify an exploit as cheating, where a player identifies a clear bug and uses it for his own advantage. But what about when it is not a bug?

We know that the in-game mechanics, in particular the BGS, generates circumstances where systems interact with each other and benefit players, or disbenefit them, according to the relative states of those systems. The player also influences the BGS by developing reputation with those systems, and benefits from positive reputation with rewards of higher value.

What if a player encounters a high reward situation and discovers he can repeat the process over and over, either in succession or in parallel (typical of mission stacking)? Is that player using an exploit?

It could be argued this is not an exploit, because it uses a mechanism of what is currently designed into the game. On the other hand, if the game designer (FD in this case) did not foresee a plethora of high-payment rewards, might it be termed an exploit?

In any event, does such a multiple high-reward scenario distort the game? I hesitate to call it an exploit, because I don't think it is.

I would argue that it does, because it creates players with the capability to purchase large ships that can survive combat longer, or can ship large tonnage of cargo which, at Community Goals can actually affect me - because I am in competition with them in completing the CG rankings. The more big-haulers there are, for example, the less chance I have in hitting the top 25% or higher. So they do affect me to a limited extent.

But do they then affect the game overall by influencing the BGS further? In a kind of BGS spiral of distortion, yielding higher and higher rewards, as we might be seeing now? Is that unforeseen and therefore brings it within the definition of an exploit?

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

But what is an exploit?

Something FD explicitly declares as an exploit. Everything else is forum wars and a rather subjective attitude.

 

[Gamatech]

"Used by a player for unfair advantages". That alone is my personal definition of an exploit. I don't care if it's a technical glitch or an oversight by the creators, if you take advantage of something that wasn't intended that's an exploit. The new credit exploits for example at certain systems for passenger runs offering 20 million for a single jump. If you continue to use those you're exploiting the game. It is something Completely unintended and gives you a major credit advantage over other players.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Something FD explicitly declares as an exploit. Everything else is forum wars and a rather subjective attitude.

Not quite true, you can stumble upon a exploit FD is not aware of so they can't declare it as an exploit until they know of it. See the Engineer exploit where they then afterwards took away mods from players for using the exploit. So players where using a exploit dispite it wasn't declared one when players did activily use it.

There is a thing called common sense which can be easly applied to certain cases like the engineer exploit, it obviously didn't work how it should have worked you don't need FD tell you that to know it.

 

[Bob McBobblehead]

"Used by a player for unfair advantages". That alone is my personal definition of an exploit. I don't care if it's a technical glitch or an oversight by the creators, if you take advantage of something that wasn't intended that's an exploit. The new credit exploits for example at certain systems for passenger runs offering 20 million for a single jump. If you continue to use those you're exploiting the game. It is something Completely unintended and gives you a major credit advantage over other players.

That means 3rd party elite tools for trading, finding the things you looking for could be considered an exploit. It give you an unfair advantage over players that don't know about these sites.

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

Not quite true, you can stumble upon a exploit FD is not aware of so they can't declare it as an exploit until they know of it. See the Engineer exploit where they then afterwards took away mods from players for using the exploit. So players where using a exploit dispite it wasn't declared one when players did activily use it.
There is a thing called common sense which can be easly applied to certain cases like the engineer exploit, it obviously didn't work how it should have worked you don't need FD tell you that to know it.

Nevertheless FD stated it was an exploit after it was revealed. The thing with common sense is that there is none. Everybody has his own based on his own values and perceptions, and that's why there can be only one institution making clear what an exploit is: The gaming company.

 

[GJ51]

An exploit is anything you don't get away with that FD penalizes you for.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

With the introduction of 2.4 we have seen a resurgence of threads claiming "exploits" in the game, presumably because the mission mechanics have been changed.

But what is an exploit?

According to Wikipedia, "In video games, an exploit is the use of a bug or glitches, game system, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers."

So in simple terms, we could clearly identify an exploit as cheating, where a player identifies a clear bug and uses it for his own advantage.

This isn't true. Just because the developer didn't foresee it, doesn't mean it's cheating. Cheating is doing something that breaks the rules.

And it doesn't have to be a bug that is exploited. The definition says: "or". It can simply be a game system being used in a weird way. The engineer exploit was a clearly bug and a cheat. No one that used it thought he was making clever use of the system. They cheated. They knew they cheated. And it didn't suddenly turn into a cheat once the developers found out.

Refreshing the mission board by logging out and in again is an exploit, but it's not cheating. There's no rule that says when and why you're allowed to log in or out. Unlike the engineer exploit where you used G1 mats to get G5 results. That's a clear break of the rules.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Nevertheless FD stated it was an exploit after it was revealed. The thing with common sense is that there is none. Everybody has his own based on his own values and perceptions, and that's why there can be only one institution making clear what an exploit is: The gaming company.

Yes, but again, when people where using it it wasn't declared as exploit by FD so according to your logic they did nothing wrong. And yet everybody who did it knew its an exploit and FD said as much once they knew about it. If its obvious, its obvious, you don't need to wait for FD to tell you the obvious.

Sure, there are cases where its not that clear but really, some are clear as day and night. Its no rocket science, you can figure it out on your own that doing G5 mods with just some Iron or sulphur is an exploit.

 

[duckofdeath]

Nevertheless FD stated it was an exploit after it was revealed. The thing with common sense is that there is none. Everybody has his own based on his own values and perceptions, and that's why there can be only one institution making clear what an exploit is: The gaming company.

That is still not facts. Most exploits are there because the developers accidentally code errors into software. The thing you're discussing is cheating. That is defined by Frontier. Credit exploits are closed in the game during every patch. Some of the most extreme are retroactively reversed.

 

[Jukelo]

It could be argued this is not an exploit, because it uses a mechanism of what is currently designed into the game.

Not designed, implemented. An exploit is anything you can do but which potentially goes against the spirit of the rules.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

We know that the in-game mechanics, in particular the BGS, generates circumstances where systems interact with each other and benefit players, or disbenefit them, according to the relative states of those systems. The player also influences the BGS by developing reputation with those systems, and benefits from positive reputation with rewards of higher value.

Which makes recent comments from Ed Lewis about being "mindful and considerate" when it comes to possible inflated mission payouts hard to gauge, especially when devs have said before they consider that there will be gold rushes from time to time in the game.

I would argue that it does, because it creates players with the capability to purchase large ships that can survive combat longer, or can ship large tonnage of cargo which, at Community Goals can actually affect me - because I am in competition with them in completing the CG rankings. The more big-haulers there are, for example, the less chance I have in hitting the top 25% or higher. So they do affect me to a limited extent.

This makes a good flow of credits more vital in my opinion. With the game having been out three years soon enough, players will already have big ships to make CGs harder for those still with smaller ships. Being able to make credits easier allows people to catch up and, if they want to do CGs, give them the ability to compete.

 

[verminstar]

Their house, their rules...if they come out and say something is an exploit, then its an exploit.

However...if its using the mechanics of the game, its been reported and frontier have not responded either yay or nay, then its fair game...the rest is just forum salt. If they say its an exploit but havent fixed it, then either dont get caught, dont tell anyone or simply walk away...Im not judging anyone regardless what they do as the onus is on frontier to put an end to it by declaring it an exploit in the first place.

Cheats on the other hand are different from exploits...a cheat could be a foreign code in the form of scripts designed to influence the elite code to bypass certain limitations and replace them with something else. In some games, scripts can be used to program certain actions in game without needing user input enabling gold farmers to farm literally 24 hours a day afk.

A cheat is an external source while an exploit is using existing mechanics sorta thing. Is it wrong? Yes but only because frontier says its wrong, whereas a cheat is a clear and obvious cheat and doesnt get much more complicated than that ^

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Which makes recent comments from Ed Lewis about being "mindful and considerate" when it comes to possible inflated mission payouts hard to gauge, especially when devs have said before they consider that there will be gold rushes from time to time in the game.

Focused Painite mining by a wing of experienced miners in a HazRES can reliably get them all ~30 million per hour, and that's been the case basically since limpets were introduced in 1.3 - though it took quite a while after 1.3 before people actually figured out how, I believe.

Frontier's "closing-off" actions in previous releases suggest that they don't generally want people earning significantly faster than that, especially not for basic "fly from A to B" tasks. It'd be interesting to know if they actually have a figure in mind for maximum earning rate, or just decide when they see them.

 

[l1nk-dna]

From before the beginning FD have been great fans of 'Gold Rushes', i remember the first canisters of gold in some Anarchy system.
Just Enjoy it whilst it lasts, enjoy the game.
0>

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I don't ency designers the task of trying to keep the game accessible to those new players coming into the game today trying to play / compete with established players, while not making the rich richer and widening the gap. There are things that could be done under the hood and be invisible to players, such as mission rewards/npc bounties etc could scale down as a players total assets increases, CG's could also specifically reward players who make the most runs to a CG system rather than only those with the most tonnes. IE: New CMDR does 50 runs in a cobra totalling 2000T has put in a lot more effort than me doing 2160T over three runs in my cutter and deserves a notable mention/special reward.

There are so many grey areas on the term exploit... Engineers Exploit was so obviously a cheat mode. But take for instance Tea-Bagging rare goods, where multiple commanders coperate in a coordinated effort to game the rare goods allocations, is that emergent game play and to be encouraged, or is that playing against the rules and exploiting insufficiently robustly governed game mechanics?

I tend to go with the rulings of my moral compass, does something feel wrong and cringeworthy obviously cheating or is it merely taking advantage of an opportunity? If I deem something to be dodgy I'll give it a wide berth, but if I deem something to be a legit opportunity I'm all over it like a skin condition. Then again I may have a skewed perspective as IRL I work on oil rigs, the money is great but there is obviously compromises on things like long working hours in dangerous and hostile environments with limited recreational facilities and virtually no private space and minimal comms, but I invoice more perdiem than a guy with similar skill sets will clear as disposable income in a week working in a regular 9-5 job for an employer. I regard Sothis / Robigo / Quince as being analogous to that, spending a play session trekking out there, another play session mission grabbing (or starport to srv to self destruct back to stack looping at quince) another play session jonking back to the bubble. Those three play sessions ain't much fun, nor are my three weeks on a tin can in the north sea, but the money to be made from either is phenomenal and to some people its worth it.

IRL my career isn't an exploit, but many say quince/sothis/robigo are.

 

[daman]

I don't ency designers the task of trying to keep the game accessible to those new players coming into the game today trying to play / compete with established players, while not making the rich richer and widening the gap. There are things that could be done under the hood and be invisible to players, such as mission rewards/npc bounties etc could scale down as a players total assets increases, CG's could also specifically reward players who make the most runs to a CG system rather than only those with the most tonnes. IE: New CMDR does 50 runs in a cobra totalling 2000T has put in a lot more effort than me doing 2160T over three runs in my cutter and deserves a notable mention/special reward.
.

this is a good idea. +1

 

[Blackcompany]

An Exploit, in a PVE game, is defined as:

Something we probably wouldnt have to talk about if the developer could be bothered to create compelling game play instead of useless time sinks and busy work.

 

[sollisb]

"Used by a player for unfair advantages". That alone is my personal definition of an exploit. I don't care if it's a technical glitch or an oversight by the creators, if you take advantage of something that wasn't intended that's an exploit. The new credit exploits for example at certain systems for passenger runs offering 20 million for a single jump. If you continue to use those you're exploiting the game. It is something Completely unintended and gives you a major credit advantage over other players.

If every player can use those missions, then there is no advantage, major or otherwise.

I think what you meant was an advantage over other players who can't be bothered to go use them?

 

[Stealthie]

I always think it's interesting the way the terms "bug" and "exploit" get mashed in together whenever this topic comes up.
The most common argument seems to be that a thing can only be an exploit if it involves a bug in the software and anything else is simply "emergent gameplay".
Personally, I don't buy either the conflation or that argument.

Bugs and exploits are two entirely distinct things, although exploits can often make use of bugs but they don't have to.

A "bug" is simply a dodgy bit of programming which makes software act in an unintended manner.
An "exploit" is when a player takes advantage of an unintended thing - and not just bugs - for their own gain.

The first online game I ever played was AvP2 and that had textbook examples of all this.

Firstly, it had iffy geometry which meant you could clip inside walls and then snipe at other players who couldn't retaliate because you were inside the wall.
In this case, the "bug" was that the geometry was screwed-up and the "exploit" was that a player could get inside the walls and make use of the lousy geometry to get kills without risk.

Secondly, it had an "exploit" involving crates and staircases where no "bug" was involved at all.
Basically, you could play as a human or as an Alien or Predator and the humans were slightly smaller than either Aliens or Predators.
As a result of this, humans could wedge themselves under staircases or among crates and, because they used a slightly larger model, it was impossible for Aliens or Predators to reach them.
There was no "bug" involved. The software was functioning exactly as intended.
Even so, there WAS still an "exploit" because players had discovered something unintended which they could use to their advantage.

Fortunately, ED isn't solely a PvP game so even if one player does choose to take advantage of an exploit, it doesn't necessarily mean that will cause problems for other players.