Good job frontier! Engineer exploit fixed in 24 hours!

[Aris_]

I do see a lack of understanding this cheat is unprecedented because the involvement of a lot of cmdrs for a long period of time in secrecy in order to deceit and also the use of FD to perma lock the exploit when they finish from others.

Add to that even now they use the same exploit because they know what positive secondaries or max benefits to look which i and you don't.

Yesterday was asking a fellow cmdr if g4 lr rails have secondary thermal redaction , cheaters know we don't and the avg roll e.g. 100 to get them, i cannot collect 100 just to see if exist

So the cheat is ongoing even know

 

[Arthur Shappey]

I do see a lack of understanding this cheat is unprecedented because the involvement of a lot of cmdrs for a long period of time in secrecy in order to deceit and also the use of FD to perma lock the exploit when they finish from others.
...

Yeah - it's bad. And it certainly seems the most pronounced example of badness in a while - worse than Quince, Robigo et al.

But it is part of a bigger problem - Engineering unbalanced the game anyway, money is too easy to acquire and so are too many ships; and even that doesn't compensate for the fact that game playing time = awesomeness - BUT that makes the game less and less attractive for noobs. Elite was - always at its inception - an open-gaming experience with no end. But the problem with that in multi-player is that the time factor will always unbalance the game.

I am a terrible player - and yet I appear to be good at ED, because I've done my grinding for money. I am not sure that should be right.

Money and assets need to be at stake in this game. That would quickly rebalance the engineering problem because the god-rolled mods would wear-out, decay, get knicked, or get claimed as punishment. Ranks need to be stripped. Real consequences. Skill and experience should indeed count for a lot, but money and assets should not be endless or without consequence. Piracy should be quickest way to riches - and most dangerous profession - often unable to leave anarchy systems for fear of police - and the richest people in the galaxy should be the biggest targets with the most to lose. Pirates would often be at war with other (richer) pirates.

All the games balancing factors should be aimed at what assets people have. Devaluation & decay, death & taxes... certainties of life.

Just a personal opinion, of course!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

IF its true that it is fixed that is good news but it is only half of the issue.

Stopping new people from cheating is no good at all -arguably possible even worse than doing nothing - if there are 100s of players who still have their cheated items in game, as there will be no catching up with them now.

Also it sends a very loud and clear message - cheat the game as much as you want, the worst that will happen is (eventually) FD may fix it.

the very very minimal thing FD must do is find a way to get these cheated mods out of the game.... from my view, even tho i have invested many hrs on mine, i would happily FD reset all to zero if that was the only option, once a firm fix was in place.

then, on top of that FD need to have some punishment in place to act as a deterrent for future exploits - the force of which would depend on when, and how many times the exploit was done.

ranging from nothing done at all, not even confiscation asuming FD can separate glitched from straight mods

(a few times scattered across time let go (just in case a player accidentally went to tier 1, then backtracked and went to tier 5, it would be possible to do the exploit now and then and not even know it) - no punishment - and no confiscation of gear imo the are unlikely to be unbalance rolls.)

going right up to character reset imo, and with a black flag put on their name so if caught in future exploits they then get account ban.


IF it was me, i would also have the worst players put back in the game (after their reset) with a (x amount of time) where their name is auto highlighted in a different colour, sort of like a dunces cap so as to name and shame. this would be account linked, so unless they buy another account, even if they start a new CMDR that stain will stick

 

[Truesilver]

Add to that even now they use the same exploit because they know what positive secondaries or max benefits to look which i and you don't.

Yesterday was asking a fellow cmdr if g4 lr rails have secondary thermal redaction , cheaters know we don't and the avg roll e.g. 100 to get them, i cannot collect 100 just to see if exist

So the cheat is ongoing even know

This is a good example of how even removing the modules in question leaves an accrued advantage - knowledge.

There is another, even more fundamental accrued advantage, though - flying hours. Early adopters of this thing, who have been able to create their perfect ship literally thousands of times faster than otherwise have gained hundreds (/thousands) of hours in which to practice their flying.

Anyone who watches my vids or read my guides will know that I am very interested in how to get the best out of PvP flying ... but the fact is that for the past year the majority of my game time has been spent gathering materials because the game forces that pyramid model of time investment on us (i.e. vastly more time spent gathering than flying).

This to me has always been one of my worst concerns about 2.1: that in order to stay competitive in PvP flying, I'm forced to spend most of my time not PvP flying.

Although I have no lack of success in PvP, post 2.1, nevertheless there are hundreds of hours of potential self-improvement there that I cannot get back.

 

[4gui4]

Harry Potter might be many things, but he's no cheater. SDC isn't 13th.

You may be right, but how can you be sure ?
Nobody has anything for sure and suspicions are about everyone, even those who play fair. [alien]

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Cough cough, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PGU0lyKSHA, cough.

If that's Harry playing that music through comms, he just gained a fanboy.

 

[Siranui]

But the problem with that in multi-player is that the time factor will always unbalance the game.

Only in competitive multiplayer, though. which we know the vast majority of community do not participate in. It might make people specifically buying the game for PvP slightly wary, but:

a) If they feel the need to exploit to play, then we're not missing anything by not having them buy the game.
b) Let's not annoy the majority of [single player] the current player base by massive changes in order to make things 'fair' for people who have not yet purchased the game yet and might not be interested in PvP anyway.

The problem with decaying assets is that they require more gameplay and grind, not less. Games where things tick down with time and play-hours become a second job, to my mind. Far better to be able to put a game down, return to it after two years and lose nothing. Frankly, re-engineering ships because they 'wear out' penalises everyone, and it penalises casual players more, not the hardened veterans.

There is no need for 'balance' in the vast majority of game-cases though because there is no opposition with other players. Rivalry and bragging rights are not at all relevant, no more than there is a need for balance between two Skyrim characters played by different people. I would also argue that the game is more skill based than kit-based in many ways, so ultimately the idea of 'balance' between new and old players can never be achieved.

 

[Siranui]

You may be right, but how can you be sure ?
Nobody has anything for sure and suspicions are about everyone, even those who play fair. [alien]

Well, when he published video on Youtube of him trying to fix his prismatic shields via the 'sell and rebuy' exploit, it was pretty clear...

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Well, when he published video on Youtube of him trying to fix his prismatic shields via the 'sell and rebuy' exploit, it was pretty clear...

lol i forgot about that one!

also was it code or was it SDC who posted a video where they were talking amongst themselves, and one player asked if anyone minded if he used an increase FSD speed cheat

of course there was later much back tracking and "it was only a joke honest" however this joke by the bizzarest of coincidences just happened to match an actual cheat which was being used according to a certain cheat forum at the time.

 

[Arthur Shappey]

...

The problem with decaying assets is that they require more gameplay and grind, not less. Games where things tick down with time and play-hours become a second job, to my mind. Far better to be able to put a game down, return to it after two years and lose nothing. Frankly, re-engineering ships because they 'wear out' penalises everyone, and it penalises casual players more, not the hardened veterans.

...

I am not talking instant tick-down, but over months and years [real-time]. As a practical way of ensuring god-rolls eventually disappear. If it turns out (which I doubt) that FD can fix the errant modules another way, then so be it. But to me - making engineering easier (less grindy) but less permanent including being uninsured - would be a viable way to restore balance.

Do you have a better way to restore balance? [happy to be persuaded another direction]

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

<snip (make engineer items)> uninsured - would be a viable way to restore balance.

Do you have a better way to restore balance? [happy to be persuaded another direction]

i like this part of your idea. lore wise they are meant to be unique, 1 off a kind, so i think having insurance replace with vanilla items would be a good idea.

as a carrot to the stick, i would add the ability to fly to wrecks to salvage from ships, not all modules of course but if on destruction you could get back a couple of your modded items as well as have a chance of finding random modded items in shipwrecks that would be cool.

salvaging from npcs we kill should also be possible with a small % change of recovering rare modded gear.***

***of course the stick to that carrot is....... npcs need to be able to have modded gear... inc weapons

 

[KingBun]

I don't understand how something like this pass quality test.

Because it's quite balanced actually. It only really works on slow big ships. And that's really only if the pilot dosen't know how to control distance.

 

[Elethiomel Zakalwe]

Hear me out. The exploit works by allowing someone to roll grade 5 blueprints repeatedly very fast. It doesn't actually change the parameters of the blueprint itself, it just lets someone do it over and over. Is this what you understand the exploit to be? if not, can you tell me what you think is going on?

He's clearly an idiot.

 

[bitstorm]

 

[Whitehair]

and I know exactly what to look for in identifying a cheated upgraded ship from a fair play one.

And you have of course enlightened FD so that they can use your vast knowledge and insight to find the perpetrators.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Hear me out. The exploit works by allowing someone to roll grade 5 blueprints repeatedly very fast. It doesn't actually change the parameters of the blueprint itself, it just lets someone do it over and over. Is this what you understand the exploit to be? if not, can you tell me what you think is going on?

if you are suggesting that the top tier ENG god mods are inherently broken even if gotten legitimately and need to be reigned in.... you will get no argument from me.

punish those who cheated and confiscate their toys, then balance those that are left imo.

if they cant/wont do that, FD have only 2 options left.

1) have people have no faith, knowing that exploiters go unpunished and that there are ships in the game literally an order of magnitude higher than everyone elses.

2) remove all eng mods from all, freeze the entire ENG system till fixes in place that they are confident, if they cant stop cheaters going forward they can at least spot them and wipe them.....then start ENG again.


both option 1 AND 2 are the pieces of bread in the manure sandwich imo.

 

[-Denali-]

It would be unfair if they made this change, that would mean that the new players who come after the update would not be able to compete with other CMDR's so if FD ever do this move they should change all modded modules to the listed cap to make it fair.

Completely agree. The listed cap should be the cap for everyone and with sliders people could decide on the stats they wanted (with proportional drawbacks).

 

[znôrt]

Apparently by deliberately causing the menu to glitch in the middle of the rolling process.

yep, a variant of the famous inventory duplication trick, it usually exploits unexpected input and/or timing on the ui to effect the underlying operation. this can always be trivially avoided just isolating these operations in a basic transaction system ... but somehow has come to be a true classic in game history.

 

[znôrt]

ships in the game literally an order of magnitude higher than everyone elses.

that's a bit of an exaggeration but yes, op modded ships have to go now. they had to anyway but this development really seems to call for action and force the issue. let the popcorn flow!

there's basically two ways:
- remove the mods from the game (durability, no insurance, god hammer, whatever)
- make them irrelevant by making them free for anyone (or rolls for just a few credits, worthless anyway but symbolic)

then take a deep, long look at engineers and, dunno ... scrap it? i think it would be a shame, they are actually cool. but just don't make them so critical and sought after. nerf them down, make them cheap, let people have fun and experiment but not current opness, that just generates too many problems the game can't handle well.

 

[ToCBubbaZanetti]

The bigger question is what they're going to do about those who have 'god ships' out there now. The exploit has been around for ages.