'Grandfathered' Iso Exploit *Updated (08/31/16)

Stax the Foyer

I'm thrilled with the amount of ISO I got. If some folks got twice as much as I got, and they get to keep it, I'm okay with that too.

If some folks did it 3+ times, that might be worth looking into, but if it ends up that some people get to keep their windfall because it's not worth the developers' time to play ISO police, I'm okay with that decision. I still have way more ISO than I did on Sunday.

Warbringa

I am not ok with some players receiving far more iso than they should and others not getting it. There is no "bank error in your favor" outside of Monopoly. If you found $5000 in your checking account that was not yours and you spent it, you would be on the hook for giving that $5000 back once the error was resolved. Same issue here. I think that people didn't consider the implications of spending the "extra" iso or ignored the implications. Either way you have responsibility in this as well by spending it, knowing that such a large amount of iso appearing twice (or more) was a glitch. I do understand someone with multiple devices hitting the claim reward button due to syncing issues but once all that iso appeared you had to understand something was not correct. I also understand a newer account where the iso received wasn't very much could have been spent without really realizing they were double dipping but for most accounts where you received over 100,000 iso the first time and that same amount again....I have no sympathy if you spent all that and are now complaining about the possibility of a rollback. Perhaps if you are lucky they will compensate you with something if they do a rollback but they wouldn't be required too.

Secondly, they did not call everyone cheaters. They simply said that anyone who was able to take advantage of the exploit, on purpose or by accident, will have some sort of adjustment to their account most likely. It is technically and exploit in that some people were actually using as such and probably raking in tons of iso whereas the vast majority did it on accident. They should have probably used the world bug/glitch instead of exploit as I think that is why so many posters seem offended but calling it an exploit is technically correct too since there are players no doubt exploiting it.

8punch

i dont think D3 can claim the iso back legally.

if people used this twice, so on tablet + phone ,without noticing, then why should d3 claim iso back?

for example. they stated when you logged in that you get rewards based on your ranking. it does not specifly said what the rewards are or how many you can claim.

that there is a forum here does not mean anything. people are not legally binded to read this forum.

so assuming people login on phone then on tablet and get double the iso then its all fine. a judge would simply say there is a reason of doubt. which means people could not have known that they would get the iso twice. ofcourse when you use it like 8 times. then the judge would say you exploit it. but if using the game on phone and on tablet is legally okey, then why should it be the customers fault?

D3 made the mistake and the people who play it, didnt play the game differently then any other time they used the combo of tablet or phone.

so i dont think people that got iso twice dont need to be to afraid of any harsh actions taken against them.

i just hope everybody else will get now iso twice as well. more iso is always welcome

Crnch73

For those people who spent it the extra iso, it is purely greed. Nothing more. I can't phantom how someone can think that they deserve double the rewards. My alliance members were posting their ranks and how much iso they got.

If you got more, you got an unfair advantage. If you legitimately weren't greedy, than you would have left the extra iso in your account and reported it just like an honest person would do when the bank gave you extra money at the atm.

For those who spent the extra iso, you can't give it back. You can try to earn it back, but that would give you an unfair advantage. The minute you spent it, you got an unfair advantage and thus why I feel the people who spent the extra iso has to be reverted back to before the update.

You are right though, if I got the extra ISO, I wouldn't report it, but I wouldn't spend it either until maybe 2 weeks later. I am not going say I am an angel.

The only problem I have with your theory is this: your use of the word "greedy." As I have said before, I have been burned before by the game "resetting" or having a poor sync, and when I signed in, I had lost rewards I already earned and had to re-earn them. The true mistake I made was this: I did not check to see if my previously leveled character was still leveled.

For example... when I signed in and got the reward initially, I maxed out my 3* human torch. Now, when I got the "mistake" ISO, I didn't check to see if 3* torch was still maxed. what did I do? I maxed out whatever 2* characters needed it, leaving enough ISO to re-max 3* torch later, and then went to sleep because I was exhausted. Woke up today to find my human torch was still maxed, and so were the 2* characters. I admit my mistake, but it was not a decision made out of greed. Is ignorance an excuse? Certainly not. But you can not fit every single incident under the same canopy by saying everyone was greedy. I will obviously let CS handle whatever happens to me, but I will not ever say this was out of greed. This was me being tired and oblivious, and that's all it was.

Warbringa

8punch wrote:

i dont think D3 can claim the iso back legally.

if people used this twice, so on tablet + phone ,without noticing, then why should d3 claim iso back?

for example. they stated when you logged in that you get rewards based on your ranking. it does not specifly said what the rewards are or how many you can claim.

that there is a forum here does not mean anything. people are not legally binded to read this forum.

so assuming people login on phone then on tablet and get double the iso then its all fine. a judge would simply say there is a reason of doubt. which means people could not have known that they would get the iso twice. ofcourse when you use it like 8 times. then the judge would say you exploit it. but if using the game on phone and on tablet is legally okey, then why should it be the customers fault?

D3 made the mistake and the people who play it, didnt play the game differently then any other time they used the combo of tablet or phone.

so i dont think people that got iso twice dont need to be to afraid of any harsh actions taken against them.

i just hope everybody else will get now iso twice as well. more iso is always welcome

Pretty sure the account minutia fine print when you sign for an account pretty much gives them just about all authority to do whatever they want. You agreed to the following when you signed up for the game:

Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods. The Game may include “virtual currency,” consisting of coins, points or similar items that may be earned or obtained through the Game or otherwise purchased by you using actual (‘real world’) currency, subject to applicable law. The Game may also include “virtual goods,” consisting of digital items such as commodities, abilities or other goods that may be earned or obtained through the Game or otherwise purchased by you using actual or virtual currency, subject to applicable law. We can manage, regulate, control, modify or eliminate virtual currency and/or virtual goods, including the price thereof, at our discretion, and will have no liability to you or any third party for any of such actions. You have no right, title, or interest in or to any virtual goods or virtual currency except the following: a limited, personal, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to use, solely within the Game, virtual goods and virtual currency that you have earned, purchased or otherwise obtained in a manner authorized by us. You agree that the transfer of virtual currency and virtual goods is prohibited except where expressly authorized in the Game. Also, outside of the Game, you may not sell, redeem or otherwise transfer virtual currency or virtual goods to D3PA, any other user of the Game or any other party. You agree that all sales of virtual currency and virtual goods are final and non-refundable, unless we or the applicable Mobile Platform Operator decides in its sole and absolute discretion to provide a refund. You agree that in the event that this EULA, your account or the Game is terminated for any reason, which may include, without limitation, our discontinuation for any reason of the applicable portion of the Game, you will forfeit all virtual currency and virtual goods, and we will have no liability to you for such forfeiture.

This glitch/bug/exploit, whatever you wish to call it, will fall under the point that they will say it was not authorized and was an erroneous transaction therefore they have all rights to fix, manage and control such errors as they see fit.

CubRob

dsds wrote:

Crnch73 wrote:

BraneDedDev wrote:

You guys playing the innocent victim are hilarious. You are fully aware that you don't get multiple max bonuses... no doubt your entire alliance achieved this. I hope they ban your accounts.

"I spent the extra, I had no idea!" "It's not my fault, but I decided to max some 4*" Nobody believes that... aren't you embarassed?

Now those that got it but didn't spend the duplicate and those that didn't receive extra get to pay for it.

I bet if it happened to you, you'd be saying that you thought you deserved it. Most likely, you were initially mad that you didn't get the extra reward. Now, you are playing high and mighty and saying that everyone should get burned, especially since that doesn't involve you! Phew! Thank whatever god you pray to that you didn't get extra ISO, otherwise you'd have to get off your throne of lies.

or maybe take into consideration there ARE innocent mistakes in life that don't require extreme punishments.

For those people who spent it the extra iso, it is purely greed. Nothing more. I can't phantom how someone can think that they deserve double the rewards. My alliance members were posting their ranks and how much iso they got.

If you got more, you got an unfair advantage. If you legitimately weren't greedy, than you would have left the extra iso in your account and reported it just like an honest person would do when the bank gave you extra money at the atm.

For those who spent the extra iso, you can't give it back. You can try to earn it back, but that would give you an unfair advantage. The minute you spent it, you got an unfair advantage and thus why I feel the people who spent the extra iso has to be reverted back to before the update.

You are right though, if I got the extra ISO, I wouldn't report it, but I wouldn't spend it either until maybe 2 weeks later. I am not going say I am an angel.

Based on the fact that there are about 50 logged into this forum including bots, I would say that less than 1% of the player base know about or ever read this forum. Also, most of the player base is not involved in heavily organized and knowledgeable Alliances. Even if they were, the announcement from D3 regarding the 'exploit' was sent when the majority of US players would be at work or on the way home and they wouldn't have any knowledge that there was a problem.

The in-game screen explanation of the new program just says "you will receive past rewards". That is literally all of the knowledge of the program that millions of players would know. So, why would any of the vast majority of the player base think it was a glitch when they got another batch of ISO or that the reward wouldn't come in multiple installments? I have no problem with D3 rolling back the extra reward, but to blanket call everyone out as a cheater or greedy is wrong.

loslupus77

As someone who has his second installment of 867k iso waiting to be claimed, it would have been nice that devs would have been more forthcoming with their handling of this issue. Instead of posting a message in a game's forum, which only a small percentage of players read (casual players maybe only when having problems), if possible, they should have put out hot fix, which would have resulted in in-game pop-up when opening the app about what the bug is and how it could be avoided. If someone still would have exploited the bug afterwards, it would have been done on purpose or by someone illiterate. Anything in-game would have helped the damage control of this bug and transferred the responsibility of exploiting the bug from devs to players. Now they just put out a post in forums and apparently went to bed hoping the issue would go away would. Granted they wrote their post rather quickly, but the tone of it was (or could easily be interpreted as) condemning towards players. This isn't the first time I'm lamenting their communication skills and most likely won't be the last time.

R108 was the best thing that has happened in a game for a long time (ever?) and to ruin it's allure by not testing it properly is really a shame.

dsds

Crnch73 wrote:

For those people who spent it the extra iso, it is purely greed. Nothing more. I can't phantom how someone can think that they deserve double the rewards. My alliance members were posting their ranks and how much iso they got.

If you got more, you got an unfair advantage. If you legitimately weren't greedy, than you would have left the extra iso in your account and reported it just like an honest person would do when the bank gave you extra money at the atm.

For those who spent the extra iso, you can't give it back. You can try to earn it back, but that would give you an unfair advantage. The minute you spent it, you got an unfair advantage and thus why I feel the people who spent the extra iso has to be reverted back to before the update.

You are right though, if I got the extra ISO, I wouldn't report it, but I wouldn't spend it either until maybe 2 weeks later. I am not going say I am an angel.

The only problem I have with your theory is this: your use of the word "greedy." As I have said before, I have been burned before by the game "resetting" or having a poor sync, and when I signed in, I had lost rewards I already earned and had to re-earn them. The true mistake I made was this: I did not check to see if my previously leveled character was still leveled.

For example... when I signed in and got the reward initially, I maxed out my 3* human torch. Now, when I got the "mistake" ISO, I didn't check to see if 3* torch was still maxed. what did I do? I maxed out whatever 2* characters needed it, leaving enough ISO to re-max 3* torch later, and then went to sleep because I was exhausted. Woke up today to find my human torch was still maxed, and so were the 2* characters. I admit my mistake, but it was not a decision made out of greed. Is ignorance an excuse? Certainly not. But you can not fit every single incident under the same canopy by saying everyone was greedy. I will obviously let CS handle whatever happens to me, but I will not ever say this was out of greed. This was me being tired and oblivious, and that's all it was.

Well there is always exceptions, but majority of the folks who used the extra iso, i am pretty sure can be labeled as greedy. Really it's not a bad word to call someone. That is just how we are brought up and it is in our nature to do that. Most people would take the extra bonus, i am certain of it. Even me I would take the extra if given the chance knowing that there might be a chance to be caught. However now we know for sure you will be caught so obviously not doing that, it's not gambling anymore since 100% sure you will be caught. It's just our nature or how we are brought up. I am just saying that people understood that it was unfair and they took the gamble and now must accept the consequences, that's all.

Here's what I don't get. If my phone didn't sync properly or save to facebook, I would do exactly the same actions I would do before. Why would it be any different? For instance if I leveled up 3* torch first, i would do it in exactly the same order because let's face it, most people put thought into how to level there characters and the first time they did it must have been at least 80% correct. So when one of your characters is already leveled like before, I think you would know something was wrong and that there was a glitch. In that instance, if you decide to continue that is your decision to take the gamble and that would be called greed. Very very rarely do people completely change their decisions and not level a single character that they leveled in the first instance.

Crnch73

dsds wrote:

Well there is always exceptions, but majority of the folks who used the extra iso, i am pretty sure can be labeled as greedy. Really it's not a bad word to call someone. That is just how we are brought up and it is in our nature to do that. Most people would take the extra bonus, i am certain of it. Even me I would take the extra if given the chance knowing that there might be a chance to be caught. However now we know for sure you will be caught so obviously not doing that, it's not gambling anymore since 100% sure you will be caught. It's just our nature or how we are brought up. I am just saying that people understood that it was unfair and they took the gamble and now must accept the consequences, that's all.

Here's what I don't get. If my phone didn't sync properly or save to facebook, I would do exactly the same actions I would do before. Why would it be any different? For instance if I leveled up 3* torch first, i would do it in exactly the same order because let's face it, most people put thought into how to level there characters and the first time they did it must have been at least 80% correct. So when one of your characters is already leveled like before, I think you would know something was wrong and that there was a glitch. In that instance, if you decide to continue that is your decision to take the gamble and that would be called greed. Very very rarely do people completely change their decisions and not level a single character that they leveled in the first instance.

I understand. The only reason I didn't do Torch again was that I thought to myself "I will just do it in the morning. I saved enough ISO to re-do it and I am not going to play anymore tonight". So when I logged back on this morning, and saw that Torch was indeed leveled AND so were the 2* covers, I knew something was up. However, it was obviously too late and that is why I contacted CS

Fightmastermpq

dsds wrote:

Crnch73 wrote:

BraneDedDev wrote:

You guys playing the innocent victim are hilarious. You are fully aware that you don't get multiple max bonuses... no doubt your entire alliance achieved this. I hope they ban your accounts.

"I spent the extra, I had no idea!" "It's not my fault, but I decided to max some 4*" Nobody believes that... aren't you embarassed?

Now those that got it but didn't spend the duplicate and those that didn't receive extra get to pay for it.

I bet if it happened to you, you'd be saying that you thought you deserved it. Most likely, you were initially mad that you didn't get the extra reward. Now, you are playing high and mighty and saying that everyone should get burned, especially since that doesn't involve you! Phew! Thank whatever god you pray to that you didn't get extra ISO, otherwise you'd have to get off your throne of lies.

or maybe take into consideration there ARE innocent mistakes in life that don't require extreme punishments.

For those people who spent it the extra iso, it is purely greed. Nothing more. I can't phantom how someone can think that they deserve double the rewards. My alliance members were posting their ranks and how much iso they got.

If you got more, you got an unfair advantage. If you legitimately weren't greedy, than you would have left the extra iso in your account and reported it just like an honest person would do when the bank gave you extra money at the atm.

For those who spent the extra iso, you can't give it back. You can try to earn it back, but that would give you an unfair advantage. The minute you spent it, you got an unfair advantage and thus why I feel the people who spent the extra iso has to be reverted back to before the update.

You are right though, if I got the extra ISO, I wouldn't report it, but I wouldn't spend it either until maybe 2 weeks later. I am not going say I am an angel.

I completely disagree with this. We are the exception, not the rule. My wife plays far more casually than I do and would absolutely be an innocent victim if she had logged in from her phone to play last night. She doesn't read the forums, the pop-up notes in-game, or hell - even her alliance chat most of the time. Why wouldn't she just assume that she was meant to get the reward twice? What casual player would assume the game is broken? Haven't they given out multiple single token rewards for anniversary and other similar events in the past? Why wouldn't you assume the same here? We all know, because we were all over the forum mashing F5 on our browsers all day yesterday waiting for it to go live, but casuals like my wife went about their day without ever thinking twice.....they logged in when they were in front of the TV and said "oh cool, a new thing in my match-3 game, neat" and probably didn't give it much more thought. Most of these players don't even care enough to make the effort to exploit the game in the first place.

I agree that people out there exploited this and have gotten an advantage as a result. But why should you care? How is it any different from someone going and spending $1000 on Mother Lodes and accomplishing the same thing? Why should other players deserve compensation beyond maybe a friendly "hey, thanks for not taking advantage of us" token or small bonus?

evade420

Has anyone gotten a resolution from CS yet. I've gotten as far as giving them all the details and they've responded saying that I'm being escalated ( to another department) I'm assuming.
I would just really like to know if I can keep playing the game or if I'm going to be rolled back and loose progress if I do.

Linkster79

The developers have now backed themselves in to a corner over this issue by the wording of the announcement. By calling it an exploit they are stating that anybody who claims the reward twice has done so by going out of their way to find and use a loop hole. If they had said that it was a bug that has affected a large percentage of the player base they may have had more options in dealing with it. As it stands after the fiasco that was the LT exploit they now have to ban or roll back every user that has benefited. I'm sure at the time they stated that anybody caught using exploits in the future would be banned regardless if how much they have spent.

If this issue had have been classed as a bug then options may have been to roll back users, let those affected keep the iso and gift those not affected their grandfathered rewards again to level the playing field and keep everyone happy.

Really admins this is a bug and not an exploit like you have stated and threatening those that have been affected by this bug is not the done thing, especially as the player base has put up with innumerable long term bugs in the past that have adversely affected them. It's like saying that all players who used Vision when those powers were borked were using exploits and should be punished.

Emu

Reading through this thread is funny. I see a lot of people throwing around accusations and name-calling (not to say there aren't some civil and well-considered arguments in here too). I'm one of the people that accidentally triggered the glitch from playing on my iphone and ipad. I did hit the claim button because I thought it was just the sync issue that we've all seen many times in the past. After I hit it I saw that my ISO skyrocketed so I immediately submitted a ticket and haven't touched that ISO. I know my opinion doesn't amount to much in this discussion, but I think that if they can see who got the double-ISO and who didn't, they should just double everybody who only got it once, leave the 2-claim players alone, and sandbox anybody that got it more than twice. If they roll back my account and I lose any covers that I earned (I got all 5 Spider-Woman covers from PVE), I'm going to be PISSED. Even if they only deducted the ISO from my account, that's kind of **** too. Everybody is claiming fair and unfair... If they roll back my ISO without adding my SHIELD Level back, now I'm being pushed back because of a glitch. I was holding onto a mountain of tokens, covers and ISO while waiting for this update. If they rolled me back, I lose all of that progress and am actually being punished for a programming mistake. I'd be basically worse off than if I hadn't played the game at all yesterday, Now I already lost those SHIELD levels when the ISO triggered, but if I get to keep the ISO, then I can live with that.

The players that you guys are worrying about cheating are already way ahead in the game based on how much they spend. You may not realize it but there are players who spend thousands of dollars a year in this game (I've been in buyers clubs where someone has spent $500 and then turned around and went into another buyers club to do it again). Do you think they care about that ISO? No, because they already have more than they'll ever spend of it. All this extra ISO is going to do is close the gap between the top players and the lower-mid tier (and it still won't make it a close race).

So, maybe lets all chill out on the verbal abuse of others. I know that some people claimed it maliciously, but how do you know who did it on purpose and who did it on accident? You don't. And it sounds like the devs aren't sure who did either (unless they did it multiple times). Wouldn't the best solution be to level the playing field in the positive and not the negative?

Emu

Linkster79 wrote:

The developers have now backed themselves in to a corner over this issue by the wording of the announcement. By calling it an exploit they are stating that anybody who claims the reward twice has done so by going out of their way to find and use a loop hole. If they had said that it was a bug that has affected a large percentage of the player base they may have had more options in dealing with it. As it stands after the fiasco that was the LT exploit they now have to ban or roll back every user that has benefited. I'm sure at the time they stated that anybody caught using exploits in the future would be banned regardless if how much they have spent.

If this issue had have been classed as a bug then options may have been to roll back users, let those affected keep the iso and gift those not affected their grandfathered rewards again to level the playing field and keep everyone happy.

Really admins this is a bug and not an exploit like you have stated and threatening those that have been affected by this bug is not the done thing, especially as the player base has put up with innumerable long term bugs in the past that have adversely affected them. It's like saying that all players who used Vision when those powers were borked were using exploits and should be punished.

I agree that this is clearly a bug, but most exploits are. It can be called an exploit based on the intent of how it was triggered. The people that did it on purpose, used an exploit... those of us it just happened to experienced a bug. It's really a matter of semantics when you think about it. But I do agree that them blanket calling it an exploit as opposed to a bug places the offense on the players. It's a way of posturing. The way they worded it, they didn't do anything wrong... all the players did.

ClydeFrog76

Such a shame that this is tarnishing an otherwise great launch of an awesome new feature.

fmftint

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

Such a shame that this is tarnishing an otherwise great launch of an awesome new feature.

Considering the type of bugs that routinely go unnoticed, does this one really surprise you?

AE_Fios

In case you're new here and wondering how this is going to turn out:

-They will fix the glitch in the next few days

-They will allow the accounts that used the exploit to keep the extra ISO

-They may ban a handful of accounts that used the exploit more than twice, provided they are not paying customers

-There will be no communication about this issue after the glitch has been fixed

ClydeFrog76

fmftint wrote:

ClydeFrog76 wrote:

Such a shame that this is tarnishing an otherwise great launch of an awesome new feature.

Considering the type of bugs that routinely go unnoticed, does this one really surprise you?

Not in the slightest. Still a shame though.

dsds

Here's looking at the situation at another angle. If there's no way to tell who intentionally did this and who didn't. Does it matter the intention? Let's look at the situation as what this has caused. There are 4 classes of people that are affected

1.) Very likely cheater, those who claimed it more than 3 times are clearly exploiting it. Of course there may be some extreme exceptions but it seems most agree that if you claimed it three times, you are likely doing it on purpose. So we don't care what happens to them. They should be punished

2.) People who claimed it twice and didn't use the extra iso. Seems totally by accident and legit. If they still have iso, why not just deduct it back? It's always hard to take something back even if it was done by mistake. D3 just take the lashes and take back the ISO, but these people will continue to play because deep down, they know they don't deserve it.

3.) People who claimed it twice and used the extra iso. There is some grey here. However, most people would have noticed that they already got the reward once. The excuse these people are using is that they thought the sync problem occurred again. But when they level the same characters, they would have known that they got extra iso, and that there was no sync problem, it was a bug on the shield rank thing. It is a similar problem but not the same. If they continued to level other characters, that is wrong and unfair to everyone else. It's easy to tell what you should get for your grandfathered shield rank. When you claimed your reward the first time, you would see your rank and what you would get when you go up to the next rank. So when you claim again and it's 10 times the amount you would get for the next rank, you must have known something was up. I really don't have any sympathy for those that used the ISO. Roll them back to before the update. I think that is a very light punishment to be honest. There's no way around this. Even if you grant everyone double iso, this group would still have gained an advantage for a day or two. There is no other way to be fair except to roll them back. A few innocent ones may be harmed. But looking at this situation, whatever they choose, someone will be harmed. It was deliberate action that most took and knew what was happening. You can claim it all you want, I am not believing you.

4.) The people who didn't get the extra iso. We are all being punished for what happened. First we don't get the ISO. Secondly we are fighting group number 3 with their boosted characters for placement. Even if group 3 is rolled back to before the update, we may end up losing the reward that we should have deserved on a certain rank because group 3 used ISO they didn't deserve to do better. Whether it was by accident or on purpose, we are punished for it. Even if the developed do nothing and just leave it as it is. Group 4 will be at the most disadvantage.

I don't blame groups 2,3, and 4 for what happened, the blame lays clearly on the game/update itself. But this is the reality of the situation. By doing nothing group 4 will be harmed a lot and that is where the majority of the player base is.

spectator

Easiest fix without causing and uproar is just to double everyone's grandfathered iso who did not get hit with the bug.