It's Me or the Exploit, D3 (A New Poll)

Dauthi

My previous poll was locked because I didn't add an option to announce you are still going to play. I assumed it was superfluous since active forum users are likely active players. I was also under the impression that D3 could see a list of players who have logged in since the poll was cast and extrapolate. The message is to them, after all. Adding a yes may not even give account to all active forum users/players in any case.

I hope this makes it "meaningful" in your opinion DayvBang. I took some time to clarify my original post, too.

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Is D3 going to fix the exploit that has been going on for 2 years now? We know that offenders will be given a second chance if they played a lot or spent a lot (their discretion I guess). We also have been told the exploit can be used, but "lightly" without detection.

This means we have to believe that they can easily find offenders, and will actually pursue finding them. We have to hope this exploit won't create chaos with new features in the game like it did with legendaries. It also means that we may have to use the exploit carefully to stay competitive. I have been here through all the changes MPQ has had, but accepting a game changing exploit into the game as a new "meta" is completely unheard of in any game I have played. It will create an air of suspicion, and finger pointing that a lot of users may not want to deal with.

I believe if there was ever a time for pitchforks it's now, because a never ending application of band-aids seems like a poor choice for this major exploit.

Moon Roach

I've gone for "thinking about it".

It helps that this has come to light between seasons, for right now I'm pretty much done with competitive play. DDQ and maybe up to 300 - 400 in events for the token and HP, but I can't find the desire to do more.

The impending Holiday helps too. I wonder how many will taper off their play and won't come back after the break.

(Well off-topic, but the mention of Holiday reminded me of this.)

Dauthi

Moon Roach wrote:

I've gone for "thinking about it".

It helps that this has come to light between seasons, for right now I'm pretty much done with competitive play. DDQ and maybe up to 300 - 400 in events for the token and HP, but I can't find the desire to do more.

The impending Holiday helps too. I wonder how many will taper off their play and won't come back after the break.

(Well off-topic, but the mention of Holiday reminded me of this.)

I agree, it's nice to have some room between seasons to see what D3 is going to do and how I feel about it. I really don't want to waste my time on a this game if it's slowly going to die off. I think for those who played casually it won't matter, but things will change a lot for competitive players.

I played WoW, FF14 (both), Wildstar, (list goes on) for years, and MPQ too shall pass.

Dauthi

OJSP wrote:

Thanks again for clarifying the poll. I voted "no", simply because I still enjoy playing the game.

No problem, I decided to take it as an opportunity to sharpen my original idea.

Dauthi wrote:

I assumed it was superfluous since active forum users are likely active players, but here we go again.

I suppose it depends on how we define active.. I know some who had posted quit threads, who still post comments now and again, usually non productive ones.. (I know because once I see this pattern, I put them on my ignore list)

It's true, usually forum posters are players, but there are a few exceptions. I was OK if the "yes" numbers were bolstered every so slightly though

Unknown

You're really dancing around the ban-hammer, Dauthi.

Lol

CT1888

I'm in the no camp, as a Ftp player, I long ago accepted that there are going to be plenty of players above me, be it time played, cash or other method. Like OJSP I enjoy playing and am making progress, currently chasing 4*s at 1000 is the main goal for me, to keep time spent on the game under control.
If I was up at the sharp end of PVP or had spent serious cash on the game, I'd likely be raging, but as it stands, I can't get worked up over it.

mrflopwelligan

CT1888 wrote:

I'm in the no camp, as a Ftp player, I long ago accepted that there are going to be plenty of players above me, be it time played, cash or other method. Like OJSP I enjoy playing and am making progress, currently chasing 4*s at 1000 is the main goal for me, to keep time spent on the game under control.
If I was up at the sharp end of PVP or had spent serious cash on the game, I'd likely be raging, but as it stands, I can't get worked up over it.

Yeah, exactly. Sums the whole thing up for me. I've been able to finish t50, sometimes t25 in the last few PVE events that I've played, and that was just doing 3 clears and VERY little grinding. All of which fit comfortably into my schedule so it wasn't like I had to change my life to do it (which I REFUSE to do for a phone game). And I've leveled more characters in the last month than I think I have all year.

JVReal

Considering they said from the get-go that they were working on fixing this exploit, this poll is null and void.

"David wrote:

Moore"]Hello everyone,

We are aware of an increase in players using an exploit involving Legendary tokens. We're updating Marvel Puzzle Quest to address this issue as quickly as we can.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36524

firethorne

I went with yes, because that shouldn't even be a question that needs to be asked, but for these devs it is. Any other dev studio I trust would fix competitive exploits, no questions asked. It's part of a series of decision that took a real turn for the worse with the "you're supposed to lose" anniversary that have made lose any trust I have in the game's direction, leadership, and integrity.

I don't know if will be a permanent departure, but the competitive game is over for me for now, and time off is required. If I play at all, it will mainly be DDQ puzzles. I've all but finished getting the 3*s (may have a few random ones i don't care about like bullseye to optimize). Leveling is a slog, there isn't enough ISO, and random 4 and 5* progress seems too slow and sporadic. The fun in the rest of the game just isn't there anymore.

GrumpySmurf1002

I understand the sentiment here, but I voted no.

I wrote not long ago that there is no 'winning' in this game. PvP results are a product of collaboration, PvE results are dictated as much by bracketing as they are performance. The end game here is your own progression. I don't feel like I missed out on rewards because of it. Did I get maybe a T-50 instead of a T-25 because of it in a few PvPs? Probably, but I'm not losing sleep over an extra cover worth 500iso.

I'm also coming from a perspective where I knew the exploit existed, but didn't use it. So it's not like this has changed my entire world. I'm glad they said they'll fix it, but if they didn't, it would be like current state now or two months ago, and I didn't quit then.

I'll also add that I loaded my Steam account with the intent to buy a few covers once the next sale comes around. This isn't deterring me from doing so, because again, it's not like this announcement is a new development. The development (to me) is that they're actually fixing it, which is a positive in my book.

JamieMadrox

Dauthi wrote:

My previous poll was locked because I didn't add an option to announce you are still going to play. I assumed it was superfluous since active forum users are likely active players. I was also under the impression that D3 could see a list of players who have logged in since the poll was cast and extrapolate. The message is to them, after all. Adding a yes may not even give account to all active forum users/players in any case.

I hope this makes it "meaningful" in your opinion DayvBang. I took some time to clarify my original post, too.

I think I speak for all mods when I say "thank you".

Dauthi wrote:

Is D3 going to fix the exploit that has been going on for 2 years now? We know that offenders will be given a second chance if they played a lot or spent a lot (their discretion I guess). We also have been told the exploit can be used, but "lightly" without detection.

Define "fix". Even if they can't plug the hole completely without a complete rewrite of the client, they can still make it a lot harder to perform the exploit and a lot easier to detect those that do.

Dauthi wrote:

This means we have to believe that they can easily find offenders, and will actually pursue finding them. We have to hope this exploit won't create chaos with new features in the game like it did with legendaries. It also means that we may have to use the exploit carefully to stay competitive. I have been here through all the changes MPQ has had, but accepting a game changing exploit into the game as a new "meta" is completely unheard of in any game I have played. It will create an air of suspicion, and finger pointing that a lot of users may not want to deal with.

They can and have been finding offenders for this exploit since it was identified. The difference between then and now is that rerolling tokens 100 times for a is a lot less economical than doing the same for a so it wasn't as big of a problem and they were more easily able to keep on top of it. That said, knowledge is power. For good or bad, this exploit is out there and it's easy for anyone to find out how to do it now. It's also easier for D3/Demiurge to find them and sandbox them; likely doing so automatically.

Dauthi wrote:

I believe if there was ever a time for pitchforks it's now, because a never ending application of band-aids seems like a poor choice for this major exploit.

I think you're wrong. Just about every piece of software out there is full of bugs, holes, exploits, etc and is, at best, a patchwork of fixes applied to code that has existed, in some shape or form, for longer than most care to know.

simonsez

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I think you're wrong. Just about every piece of software out there is full of bugs, holes, exploits, etc

True, but is it normal for a bug to be such a light-speed shortcut to the endgame?

Malcrof

simonsez wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I think you're wrong. Just about every piece of software out there is full of bugs, holes, exploits, etc

True, but is it normal for a bug to be such a light-speed shortcut to the endgame?

The big ones, yes, it absolutely is. There were glitches in games as big as WoW and Everquest back in the day, that would allow a single person so solo kill a Raid mob.. and get all the end game loot they desired. It took MONTHS to patch, and i think the Sleepers Tomb one in Everquest was never patched, they just outright banned anyone who did it, because of the amount of code required to fix it. heck even Candy Crush had for the first few years, a way to get unlimited lives.. and wasn't fixed until very recently.. and extra lives was one of their biggest money makers.

Mercurywolf

Malcrof wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I think you're wrong. Just about every piece of software out there is full of bugs, holes, exploits, etc

True, but is it normal for a bug to be such a light-speed shortcut to the endgame?

The big ones, yes, it absolutely is. There were glitches in games as big as WoW and Everquest back in the day, that would allow a single person so solo kill a Raid mob.. and get all the end game loot they desired. It took MONTHS to patch, and i think the Sleepers Tomb one in Everquest was never patched, they just outright banned anyone who did it, because of the amount of code required to fix it. heck even Candy Crush had for the first few years, a way to get unlimited lives.. and wasn't fixed until very recently.. and extra lives was one of their biggest money makers.

Kerafrym the Sleeper wasn't an exploit. In that instance, several guilds banded together and spent a large amount of time trying to take down a raid boss that was created to be unkillable, and when awakened, once per server, he would go on a massive killing spree and kill everyone on the server. However, he wasn't given invincibility inside the code, just about 1000 times more hitpoints than any other boss in the game. When Sony found out that this, they purposefully took down the servers when the boss was getting close to death. They claimed that they had nothing to do with it, but that was later proven false.

They did eventually reward the players for their feat.

On the other hand: WoW has had some pretty big exploits. In Cataclysm, a group figured out how to basically make it so they could kill anything with one click, player or NPC. They demonstrated this by first walking into a dungeon and solo-killing a raid boss. Then, when they realized the devs were on them, they teleported to the major cities, and just started killing everything and everyone from low level noob to high level end-game raiders and boss npcs. The devs patched that real quickly.

Ultima Online had numerous exploits that gold farmers used to make millions.

Two good sources of information of this are Cracked.com's Biggest Tinykitty Moves in Online games series of articles, or Julian Dibbel's book Play Money (a blogger's year attempting to make money from selling gold in various games. Very interesting read.)

Malcrof

Mercurywolf wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

I think you're wrong. Just about every piece of software out there is full of bugs, holes, exploits, etc

True, but is it normal for a bug to be such a light-speed shortcut to the endgame?

The big ones, yes, it absolutely is. There were glitches in games as big as WoW and Everquest back in the day, that would allow a single person so solo kill a Raid mob.. and get all the end game loot they desired. It took MONTHS to patch, and i think the Sleepers Tomb one in Everquest was never patched, they just outright banned anyone who did it, because of the amount of code required to fix it. heck even Candy Crush had for the first few years, a way to get unlimited lives.. and wasn't fixed until very recently.. and extra lives was one of their biggest money makers.

Kerafrym the Sleeper wasn't an exploit. In that instance, several guilds banded together and spent a large amount of time trying to take down a raid boss that was created to be unkillable, and when awakened, once per server, he would go on a massive killing spree and kill everyone on the server. However, he wasn't given invincibility inside the code, just about 1000 times more hitpoints than any other boss in the game. When Sony found out that this, they purposefully took down the servers when the boss was getting close to death. They claimed that they had nothing to do with it, but that was later proven false.

Was actually talking about the stealth rogue backstabbing him, and him not waking.. on Fennin Ro we had a band of rogues almost kill him without him ever waking, until a GM stepped in.

Man i miss those days.. The day we woke the sleeper.. 1/2 the server threatened to quit.. and our guild fell apart.. but, new expansion came out, all better mobs and loot, and no-one cared about old ST anymore.

XandorXerxes

iTunes had over 100 security vulnerabilities this year - people will keep using it. That's not quite the same analogy, but I'm using an incredibly well known software released by a vendor that people perceive to release high-quality products just as an example of how there will always be bugs in code. More direct examples: Diablo 1 was PvP enabled if you went on public servers. You could hack in and dupe any item by clicking on your belt at the same time you picked something up. Diablo 2 ladders had people who used bots to get to the leaderboards. I'm not convinced half of WoW isn't bots. Lots of people played / play these games.

There will always be people who cheat to get ahead. A lot of those people are never found out, the rest are in jail or politicians (har har). If you were competing with a cheater for the top spot and the cheater won, then I'll feel bad for you. If competition is the only reason you're playing this game, I recommend you find a different game - there are a lot more competitive games out there with a better system of competition than playing against a computer poorly emulating a player.

Unknown

Game breaking exploits aren't common and usually quickly fixed. Usually the so-called exploits are really questionable gameplay mechanisms and usually there's ego trip involved too. An analog in MPQ would probably go like this:

People boost PvP scores in MPQ.

Dev A made a post saying boosting is a clever use of game mechanism (because it sells shields) and totally legit.

Dev B made a post about how nobody could possibly get a PvP score of 5000

OpPayHarder happened and ended with an alliance score of 90000 and quite a few guys scored above 5000 using completely legit techniques.

Dev B banned everyone in OpPayHarder for exploiting because they made him look bad.

3 months later the legend became a guy in OpPayHarder hacked D3's servers and scored 90000 by himself and got the whole alliance banned.

Not counting games like Diablo 1 that was not designed with security in mind, it is rare for a game that takes itself seriously competitively to have extended cheaters. It might not be possible to come up with cheat-proof software, but it's not exactly hard to tell when someone is cheating and then ban them. There are many games dominated by questionable gameplay mechanisms at the top, but it's almost never outright cheating.

puppychow

I picked the last choice. I have to see how effective D3 is in finding/removing exploiters and how this affects gameplay, particularly in pvp. I have a 1,000+ games in my Steam library, so I don't lack alternate forms of entertainment.

XandorXerxes

Phantron wrote:

Not counting games like Diablo 1 that was not designed with security in mind, it is rare for a game that takes itself seriously competitively to have extended cheaters.

To be fair, not much is designed with security in mind. That's how you have things like police cameras shipping that are infected with decade-old worms, talking Barbie dolls that allow people to gather your children's chatter, baby monitors with no security, cars and infrastructure that has their entire systems available with no security, etc.

Please, won't someone think of the children.

If Activision/Blizzard can't get their security and game exploitation under control (including modern games), I'm not really going to expect Demiurge to be perfect.

Also, I think you'd be really surprised how easy it is to beat anti-cheating or security mechanisms. Just yesterday a well-known security vendor revealed it found an exploit that could give a remote attacker total control of the entire network (that their security product was sitting on) just by sending an email - regardless if the email was even read.

GothicKratos

I just wanna say I find it amusing there's double the amount of "no" as there is combined "bye Felicia" votes.

Unknown

I get the feeling that if they do fix this exploit, they won't announce it. It'll not even be in the patch notes. It'll just be released when somebody who is TRYING to do it posts that they keep getting Black Widow no matter how many times they reroll. And I don't think they'd be so willing to post in here, either. ;P

Talking too much about exploits, and what they do about them is not their ways as far as I can tell.