Token Pull Exploit (3/27/17) *Updated (4/12/17)

TLCstormz

So, wait......people are CHEATING, as in somehow getting more tokens than everyone else?

Or........EXPLOITING the token pulling system?

I mean, last time we had a warning like this last year, people were purposely getting additional LTs, right? I hope this current incident is as severe as that, for this notice to go up.

maguirenumber6

People caught cheating should be banned, and their covers, iso and HP placed into a special pool to be fought over by all the law-abiding players

Tony_Foot

DrDevilDinosaur wrote:

alphabeta wrote:

Are you going to cross reference those utilising this exploit with the previous one and consider the pattern of behaviour in deciding how to proceed?

For those who play clean the integrity of the game is important and a pattern of cheating deserves severe treatment not the light touch the previous issue got.

Pretty sure this will get cross referenced to their sales logs, just like before.

Would you seriously do any different? I'm not pointing the finger at anyone but would you ban someone that is spending the equivalent of a supercar per year on the game? They are the least likely to gain much from doing it anyway, they are already at the top. I wouldn't ban those players I'd take away the ill gotten gains and that's it. The bans would be a direct result on how little they spent because in all likely hood the probably have the most to gain. No huge spender would have been doing this.

Lampo

I didn't know what this was up to now, but what if I didn't come to the forum?
If there is a glitch and I take advantage of it, is it my fault or programmers' fault?

DrDevilDinosaur

Tony Foot wrote:

No huge spender would have been doing this.

You must be new here.
Welcome to Marvel Puzzle Quest, where the currencies are made up, and the points don't matter.

whitecat31

People using this exploit should be banned. None of this rollback ****, or beatings with wet noodles. Follow your FAQ and ban people. Cheating should be easily detectable.

ZeroKarma

TLCstormz wrote:

So, wait......people are CHEATING, as in somehow getting more tokens than everyone else?

Or........EXPLOITING the token pulling system?

I mean, last time we had a warning like this last year, people were purposely getting additional LTs, right? I hope this current incident is as severe as that, for this notice to go up.

The last time around, people weren't getting extra LT's. They were re-rolling LT's to get purple every time around. That was fixed and there was "punishment" of a sort. This is not the same thing, but I think it's a similar concept and a predictable loophole that should have been easily foreseen.

For the previous exploit, it should have been reasonably obvious that someone would notice if you were drawing 80-100% 5* from LT's. (Honestly, given the RNG in this game, I'd investigate anyone who actually gets even the stated odds, LOL)

If people were caught doing the same type of thing...again...then they should be out of the game. Two strikes and you're out.

OneLastGambit

DrDevilDinosaur wrote:

Tony Foot wrote:

No huge spender would have been doing this.

You must be new here.
Welcome to Marvel Puzzle Quest, where the currencies are made up, and the points don't matter.

I disagree, think like a lawman. The quickest way to determine if there is even a chance that somebody did this is to ask...What would they gain?

Whales play without thought to expense anyway so what would they gain from this exploit that they don't already get from their infinite wallets? nothing. It's not whales doing this, It's more than likely people in the middle somewhere.

DFiPL

OneLastGambit wrote:

DrDevilDinosaur wrote:

Tony Foot wrote:

No huge spender would have been doing this.

You must be new here.
Welcome to Marvel Puzzle Quest, where the currencies are made up, and the points don't matter.

I disagree, think like a lawman. The quickest way to determine if there is even a chance that somebody did this is to ask...What would they gain?

Whales play without thought to expense anyway so what would they gain from this exploit that they don't already get from their infinite wallets? nothing. It's not whales doing this, It's more than likely people in the middle somewhere.

The wealthy also don't get wealthy by being profligate. Stark Salaries may be rounding errors to them, but that doesn't immunize them from the temptation to make use of exploits. Especially if they play at a level where having less than a 550 means being behind the proverbial 8 ball.

broll

Lampo wrote:

I didn't know what this was up to now, but what if I didn't come to the forum?
If there is a glitch and I take advantage of it, is it my fault or programmers' fault?

I think that depends.

If the glitch is you log in and have more ISO then you should, then I wouldn't fault the player, they might not have even noticed the difference.

If the glitch requires you to do some very specific mobile gymnastics and they do it many times, then yeah the player should be punished with a ban.

It's the difference between a bank error in your favor and a flaw in the bank's security system...

LifeofAgony

Ban them all, hold true to the EULA.

Agent XLII

Exploiting and cheating are different. I don't condone either but a ban for exploiting is nonsense. Just revert said player back to a point before the first exploit was utilized.

If you have ever baked a cake or participated in the old cupcake **** to climb, you used a form of exploitation yourself so drop your pitchfork, quit being a hypocrite, and worry about yourself.

kyo28

astrp3 wrote:

I play on an iPhone and an iPad and sometimes I will finish a session on one device, pull my tokens, and quit. Then when I switch to the other device, I find that it hasn't registered the token pulls and I have to pull them again . I've even had this happen after I went back to the main screen before quitting (I've also lost money this way when I buy something on one device then switch to the other and find it didn't register my purchase).

A bit off topic but I'm confronted with the exact same problem: I often switch between iPhone and iPad, and sometimes between those switches, the system didn't register the last pulls I did or the last champing I did. Then I need to redo it on the other device and the results are basically the same but it's a hassle.

Playing a small node with a throwaway team might resolve the issue, but keeping in mind that I more often than not switch 3-4 times per day, well, that's a lot of pointless nodes getting started just to save my game to the server.

I've heard that games which are integrated with Apple's Game Center don't suffer from such problems. As such, pretty please, D3, can you integrate Game Center in MPQ?

LifeofAgony

Game Center was phased out of iOS 10. That's a non-starter at this point.

kyo28

LifeofAgony wrote:

Game Center was phased out of iOS 10. That's a non-starter at this point.

I think, but correct me if I'm wrong, that even though the Game Center App has been removed, the Game Center connectability is still very much there. For example, when I open Marvel Future Fight, I can click on a game center logo and see the achievements. Also, every time I log into the game, I get a message saying I'm logged into Game Center. Switching over to another device transfers my data perfectly back and forward then.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7666933?start=0&tstart=0
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/14/apple-kills-the-game-center-app-but-the-service-will-continue/

ZeroKarma

Agent XLII wrote:

Exploiting and cheating are different. I don't condone either but a ban for exploiting is nonsense. Just revert said player back to a point before the first exploit was utilized.

If you have ever baked a cake or participated in the old cupcake tinykitty to climb, you used a form of exploitation yourself so drop your pitchfork, quit being a hypocrite, and worry about yourself.

I hope you aren't trying to compare the use of a standard game mechanic (last team that you win with is your defensive team) with willfully using phone settings to change the likelihood of draws. There is no similarity whatsoever. It would be like saying a 3rd party app that exploits the code to give you infinite HP would also be ok.

Manipulating your pull rates through the use of an outside mechanism like this is 100% cheating. It adversely affects other players and isn't harmless in the slightest. The majority of the people putting money into this game do not do this and they are at a distinct disadvantage when facing opponents with inflated 5* champs.

The very least that D3 should do is roll back the first-time guys, ban the second-timers AND do a review of the events that those people participated in to see how they impacted other players' placement and recompense accordingly.

Nightglider1

Agent XLII wrote:

If you have ever baked a cake or participated in the old cupcake tinykitty to climb, you used a form of exploitation yourself so drop your pitchfork, quit being a hypocrite, and worry about yourself.

That's not even an apples-oranges comparison. It's more like apples-canoes.

nonnel1

ZeroKarma wrote:

The very least that D3 should do is roll back the first-time guys, ban the second-timers AND do a review of the events that those people participated in to see how they impacted other players' placement and recompense accordingly.

If cats had thumbs to point upward, they would all do so in your direction ZK.

Can't wait to see people banned or at least rolled back

DaveR4470

kyo28 wrote:

I think, but correct me if I'm wrong, that even though the Game Center App has been removed, the Game Center connectability is still very much there. For example, when I open Marvel Future Fight, I can click on a game center logo and see the achievements. Also, every time I log into the game, I get a message saying I'm logged into Game Center. Switching over to another device transfers my data perfectly back and forward then.

You're absolutely correct. But... Apple hasn't been exactly enthusiastic about pushing GC since getting rid of the app. It may be a case where Apple is leaving the infrastructure in place, to avoid annoying a ton of people who do use it for gaming connectivity, but don't necessarily see it as an ongoing "feature" to play up.

SunCrusher

I was wondering how long it would take to see something like this happen here like it's happened in so many other TCG/CCG-flavored mobile games with RNG-related pulls / rolls / draws / whatever the name being used. Amazingly, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty long while.

I hate to be the 'the sky will fall down' person in this conversation, but here are my 2 cents:

If you DON'T punish these people enough so that it actually matters to them / hurts them and dis-incentivizes them from cheating, then the problem will simply grow until this entire game's infrastructure starts breaking down on itself.

I say this because the mentality of those who are the first in line to exploit or even commit outright fraud is largely egocentric and this is why a slap on the wrist will do nothing.

"I'm only doing this because I'm 'collecting'! I'm not trying to be competitive and my 'collection' isn't affecting anyone else!"

"I shouldn't be punished because I was clever enough to figure this out! It's the devs' fault, not mine and if they don't fix it, then I can just keep on being clever!"

"I shouldn't be punished because the game is unreasonably expensive to keep up with and the game deserves to lose money!"

insert other 'clever' excuses made by people who don't give a **** for the world outside of their own personal bubble

It will encourage (oooh, no consequences but all the rewards! why not?) and even force (that's not fair!) people who normally wouldn't do such a thing to start cheating themselves and /or look for more bugs to exploit.

Especially in terms of feeling 'forced', it will largely be the people who have invested enough honest time and effort and / or (or even especially) money because they literally have something to lose and who in the world wants to commit that much of everything only to lose out to people who are cheating?

For those who refuse to give in, the frustration will provoke people who still want to play honestly to pack their bags and leave.

Combine the two and there goes the reputation, funding, and community all in one go and considering that I'm taking the time to post this when I should be getting my coffee before my graveyard shift, I am not joking.

That said, my negativity comes from: Been there, seen it, gave up on trying to explain how cheating and exploiting actually DOES hurt a game's infrastructure and the other players who are in it, watched an entire community burn out, and watched as the game collapsed in on itself.