Would you use an exploit in Elite Dangerous?
- Thread starter LaveRadio
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Sure. However to preface this discussion, I don't put moral weight on video game exploits. When I call things out as being exploits, I'm merely calling a spade a spade. Rocket jumping in Quake is probably the most classic example of exploits becoming emergent gameplay opportunities.
I never did board flipping, but the long distance passenger rush got me to Elite a lot faster than I expected by accident... and I did log in and out a few times to snag some blueprints out of Guardian sites (though the devs could have designed that experience with that sort of degenerate player behavior in mind so calling that an exploit is questionable). I did also fly between a number of them before relogging. However, the Canonn teams who did the initial surveys of that region of space are the MVP's of that whole stage of the game.
I don't relog for mats. I just scoop most of what I kill, bring SRVs when I go exploring, and scan a lot of stuff and I've always had enough.
I never did board flipping, but the long distance passenger rush got me to Elite a lot faster than I expected by accident... and I did log in and out a few times to snag some blueprints out of Guardian sites (though the devs could have designed that experience with that sort of degenerate player behavior in mind so calling that an exploit is questionable). I did also fly between a number of them before relogging. However, the Canonn teams who did the initial surveys of that region of space are the MVP's of that whole stage of the game.
I don't relog for mats. I just scoop most of what I kill, bring SRVs when I go exploring, and scan a lot of stuff and I've always had enough.
Exploit like the materials thing a few years back where people figured out how to mash a few buttons, exit thd menu real quick and do whatever to get G5 Engineering rolls for the price of a G1? No. These type of things never even occur to me to attempt. Missions on the mission board that are high paying or that i figured out an efficient way to complete? Perfectly acceptable to me. I dont work at frontier and dont get paid to judge balance. I play what they put in front of me in accordance with the EULA and terms of service.
Never seen any need to go after exploits or gold rushes.
If you learn to play the game, credits and mats will fill your ships coffers in no time.
If you learn to play the game, credits and mats will fill your ships coffers in no time.
Exploit = No
But exploit game mechanics to achieve a goal, yes. The problem is that a failure of game design leads to players needing to "exploit" issues with how the game works to achieve a goal in a reasonable time. This leads to grind as you end up doing the same thing over and over, but there is no affective alternative due to a lack of in-game tools and resources.
But exploit game mechanics to achieve a goal, yes. The problem is that a failure of game design leads to players needing to "exploit" issues with how the game works to achieve a goal in a reasonable time. This leads to grind as you end up doing the same thing over and over, but there is no affective alternative due to a lack of in-game tools and resources.
Quite true.
Exploit is an extremely subjective term in ED. What most, though not all, of what player's post on this forum as an exploit.....actually isn't.
I take Frontier's stance of exploits as the only one's..........the rest of what other's deem as exploits are just playing within the available game mechanics & rules.
I play the game. Sometimes it turns out that I've been doing things that other people consider exploits (passenger missions, mining before FCs). I've even been known to deliberately relog to reset a location (though not for a long time as it usually isn't necessary anymore).
Very few of the "exploits" that have appeared in E: D had detrimental on the game (in fact, none of them were detrimental to me). And where I've seen people complain about some of them, most of the complaints were "I don't want to do this so no-one else should be allowed to". Which is not a reasonable argument at all...
Very few of the "exploits" that have appeared in E: D had detrimental on the game (in fact, none of them were detrimental to me). And where I've seen people complain about some of them, most of the complaints were "I don't want to do this so no-one else should be allowed to". Which is not a reasonable argument at all...
I can think of absolutely nothing in this game that is worth cheating to obtain.
As for any kind of PvP/BGS confrontation - as far as I'm concerned, if someone uses that sort of stuff against me, I've already won no matter what the game thinks the outcome is. If you have to resort to that kind of stuff, it shows that you know in your heart of hearts that you can't make it on an even playing field.
And you know what, I wish fdev did publish bans at times, for no other reason than I would laugh my nipples off if I found out that someone got so mad at me that they burnt their account trying to compete. Even the idea that someone spent actual real money on an extra account to try and keep up is hilarious to me.
As for any kind of PvP/BGS confrontation - as far as I'm concerned, if someone uses that sort of stuff against me, I've already won no matter what the game thinks the outcome is. If you have to resort to that kind of stuff, it shows that you know in your heart of hearts that you can't make it on an even playing field.
And you know what, I wish fdev did publish bans at times, for no other reason than I would laugh my nipples off if I found out that someone got so mad at me that they burnt their account trying to compete. Even the idea that someone spent actual real money on an extra account to try and keep up is hilarious to me.
Hi 
Stacking trade missions collecting commodities eg:- gold, palladium. I usually accept these missions as they are highly paid (some as much as 50,000,000) in 'my' systems anyway. So I sometimes wait at the starport for highly paid missions to appear. If they don't appear in a certain amount of time, say only one or two I'll jump to another system and look for any high paid missions there, accept them and then come back to the original starport. to see if any other missions have turned up.
I don't consider this an exploit because if I was a real trader this is what I'd most likely do. I see little point in going to another star port or system without a full cargo hold of goods to sell and filling up my hold with wanted materials / commodities for the return journey.
If I finish playing the game / session I usually have a full cargo hold with commodities, that way when I start the game another time I have a good chance of having some commodities I can sell (for missions that pop up) straight away without leaving the starport initially. When I started the game last night there was a mission to collect some gold (can't remember now how much), I had more than the amount needed so obviously I accepted that mission as it was paying something like 20,000,000, and I hadn't even left the starport.
If this is an exploit then I suppose I'm guilty.
I've never been to Borran mining, and I haven't a clue what the'egg' is?...As for 'botts' I presume this is a program created outside of the valid game structure? so I've never used those. Didn't know about the G1 to G5 exploit either. I usually play Solo, never been in a group or converse with many players so I suppose because of that I'm a bit unaware of any real Exploits in the game.
As I stated earlier, I personally don't consider stacking missions (of any sort really) an exploit, it's to my mind what a real trader would probably do. I make plenty of credits this way, and of course some side rewards as well as cash are engineer materials, so i get quite a few high grade materials as well.
I also just play the game that's presented before me. I've used Inara for finding commodities and services though mainly because in some systems the in game finder for trade goods, materials and services is a bit hit and miss.
Jack
Stacking trade missions collecting commodities eg:- gold, palladium. I usually accept these missions as they are highly paid (some as much as 50,000,000) in 'my' systems anyway. So I sometimes wait at the starport for highly paid missions to appear. If they don't appear in a certain amount of time, say only one or two I'll jump to another system and look for any high paid missions there, accept them and then come back to the original starport. to see if any other missions have turned up.
I don't consider this an exploit because if I was a real trader this is what I'd most likely do. I see little point in going to another star port or system without a full cargo hold of goods to sell and filling up my hold with wanted materials / commodities for the return journey.
If I finish playing the game / session I usually have a full cargo hold with commodities, that way when I start the game another time I have a good chance of having some commodities I can sell (for missions that pop up) straight away without leaving the starport initially. When I started the game last night there was a mission to collect some gold (can't remember now how much), I had more than the amount needed so obviously I accepted that mission as it was paying something like 20,000,000, and I hadn't even left the starport.
If this is an exploit then I suppose I'm guilty.
I've never been to Borran mining, and I haven't a clue what the'egg' is?...As for 'botts' I presume this is a program created outside of the valid game structure? so I've never used those. Didn't know about the G1 to G5 exploit either. I usually play Solo, never been in a group or converse with many players so I suppose because of that I'm a bit unaware of any real Exploits in the game.
As I stated earlier, I personally don't consider stacking missions (of any sort really) an exploit, it's to my mind what a real trader would probably do. I make plenty of credits this way, and of course some side rewards as well as cash are engineer materials, so i get quite a few high grade materials as well.
I also just play the game that's presented before me. I've used Inara for finding commodities and services though mainly because in some systems the in game finder for trade goods, materials and services is a bit hit and miss.
Jack
But did FD called anything out as exploit? I mean, any of the unpunishable things?
Exploit has, apparently not only for me but also for FD, a really bad connotation attached to it
They called them game mechanics or issues at worse
And they do seem to encourage people to find ways of playing the game beyond what FD envisioned.
When they released Carriers they said something, in one of the discussion threads, that goes along the way of: they cant wait to see players surprising them with new ways to use carriers
So they do seem to encourage creativity, but when the non-intended ways conflict with FD way, those non-intended will get changed, if possible, sure. If not they get the accepted status.
For example the UA bombing, board flipping, certain ways of making money and not at last the Egg reset mechanics. All those were changed, but they were not called exploits and the players were not punished for using them. So they were permitted while the said mechanic was available for player use
Even the resetting the instance to get engineering materials was not called an exploit. They said during an AMA that this is not how they envisioned material gathering but they understand why people do it and they will look into ways to change that (apparently this year)
It's the players that make a fuss out of it - and i blame it on the "everyone should play the game as i play it" mentality with the most righteous being the most vocal.
And the most immersed ones too (this is breaking my immursion...). Well, both types should get over it.
Point is, if it's not against the rules that means it is permitted.
And if it is permitted, everyone should play according to their moral compass, but without trying to force their compass on everyone else.
Exploit has, apparently not only for me but also for FD, a really bad connotation attached to it
They called them game mechanics or issues at worse
And they do seem to encourage people to find ways of playing the game beyond what FD envisioned.
When they released Carriers they said something, in one of the discussion threads, that goes along the way of: they cant wait to see players surprising them with new ways to use carriers
So they do seem to encourage creativity, but when the non-intended ways conflict with FD way, those non-intended will get changed, if possible, sure. If not they get the accepted status.
For example the UA bombing, board flipping, certain ways of making money and not at last the Egg reset mechanics. All those were changed, but they were not called exploits and the players were not punished for using them. So they were permitted while the said mechanic was available for player use
Even the resetting the instance to get engineering materials was not called an exploit. They said during an AMA that this is not how they envisioned material gathering but they understand why people do it and they will look into ways to change that (apparently this year)
It's the players that make a fuss out of it - and i blame it on the "everyone should play the game as i play it" mentality with the most righteous being the most vocal.
And the most immersed ones too (this is breaking my immursion...). Well, both types should get over it.
Point is, if it's not against the rules that means it is permitted.
And if it is permitted, everyone should play according to their moral compass, but without trying to force their compass on everyone else.
I disagree 100%.
I think, quite the contrary, that web third party tools are the root of the problem. These tools are akin to data mining in my opinion as they are TOO performant. They are the reason you don't get word of mouth gold rushes that Braben envisaged in the early Dev diaries.
It does show some degree of naivety from Fdev, on the early days, that they would spend so much time and energy to develop the BGS the way they did, a fantastic achievement by the way, only to see it spoiled and rendered purposeless because of web third party tools.
They have since acknowledged the issue by embrassing those tools (implemention of the API player journal), which in my mind, is a form of capitulation. It reminds me of a video I saw on Youtube on how the developers of Ultima Online had this groundbreaking ecosystem in place that players instantly ruined by slaughtering all life on the map in order to grind loot.
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I think a better question would be: what things have FD said are exploits?
I can only think of three:
Disconnecting or crashing the game client to get out of combat.
That G5 engineering for G1 materials thing.
Disconnecting to refresh HGSS.
Are there any more? IMO anything else goes, although ones personal standards and playstyle are still important.
I can only think of three:
Disconnecting or crashing the game client to get out of combat.
That G5 engineering for G1 materials thing.
Disconnecting to refresh HGSS.
Are there any more? IMO anything else goes, although ones personal standards and playstyle are still important.
If I was 12, no. That’s when I learned exploits and cheats suck the fun right out of any game.
I used to take Federation Corporate State passenger missions, specifically so that I could turn them over to the brave resistance members as a modicum of justice.I've not carried passengers for a few weeks - but your comments brought back the 'take your passenger to XXX instead and sell as slaves' offers that used to pop up in comms - It has been ages since the last I saw
What egg???
??? Is that mat trading? or using less mats for engineers?
Not interested in doing it, or knowing how to do it...just interested in what it relates to.
This!
I never even used cheat codes back in the day of 8 bit tape loading games.
I don't understand why people want to cheat or exploit games.
...and like Speedcuffs said, any hacking, modding etc should be a perm or shadow ban, these people are the lowest of the low and I have 0 respect or time for people who do this.
I guess I do.
I have looked at YouTube to see the most efficient way to collect mats and that includes the Jameson Crash Site and the log out and boost back on yourself to get the High Grade Emissions.
I also work off YouTube vids to find planets to collect things too - so I didn't 'work-find' these myself. <O
I have looked at YouTube to see the most efficient way to collect mats and that includes the Jameson Crash Site and the log out and boost back on yourself to get the High Grade Emissions.
I also work off YouTube vids to find planets to collect things too - so I didn't 'work-find' these myself. <O