Token Pull Exploit (3/27/17) *Updated (4/12/17)
Comments
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As this post hits one full month without an official response, I take it the plan is to ignore it until it falls away. @Brigby have the developers somehow forgotten this issue, or is my assumption on the mark?0
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@BrigbyThe rockett said:Almost 1 month since the last "update". Anything?
Has the exploit been fixed?
is D3/Demi taking any action on the cheaters?
if so, roll backs? Sandboxed?
Any more comments that an official D3/Demi would like to add? Something. Anything.
Can we have an official response here on whaat will the game developers do with people that have been using said exploits please?0 -
This too has PASSED!
Thread lock expected0 -
Can we get an update on what is being done please?
Remember players who have not used any exploits are still competing with this who have.0 -
I didn't cheat, but I don't really see how anyone that did cheat impacts me... There are crazy whales that already have everything, new players just starting and every point between... If someone just flooded their roster with 20 5* covers They probably wrecked their own scaling in PvE and outstripped me in PvP MMR plus lost out on the fun of playing the game.
Just being handed 20 or even 100s of 5* covers would be neat for a while, likely INCREASE my PvE clear times and make PvP quite a bit more boring and would ultimately remove motivation to play if I was fully in the 5* tier (playing the same team against the same teams picked from a small pool of possible heroes)
So, I guess the issue people have is just the principle of the thing, which I agree with... in principle they could sandbox anyone who used this exploit or just delete their accounts, I'd be fine with either, however the whole point of this game is to make money, it would be ludicrous to expect a phone game to refuse money from players that aren't impacting the game for other players based on principle. The only way it would make any sense to do anything on d3/demi's end is if they thought other paying customers would avoid the game or not contribute money because of it.
Along the same lines, an official response explaining how business works and saying "get over it" would probably do more harm than just ignoring the thread and relying on people's short attention span to ensure it gets forgotten.
It sucks, but honestly I think waiting for a change or a fix that would actually impact your game experience and getting ignored is worse... (see: most of the other threads
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MissChinch said:
I didn't cheat, but I don't really see how anyone that did cheat impacts me... There are crazy whales that already have everything, new players just starting and every point between... If someone just flooded their roster with 20 5* covers They probably wrecked their own scaling in PvE and outstripped me in PvP MMR plus lost out on the fun of playing the game.
Just being handed 20 or even 100s of 5* covers would be neat for a while, likely INCREASE my PvE clear times and make PvP quite a bit more boring and would ultimately remove motivation to play if I was fully in the 5* tier (playing the same team against the same teams picked from a small pool of possible heroes)
So, I guess the issue people have is just the principle of the thing, which I agree with... in principle they could sandbox anyone who used this exploit or just delete their accounts, I'd be fine with either, however the whole point of this game is to make money, it would be ludicrous to expect a phone game to refuse money from players that aren't impacting the game for other players based on principle. The only way it would make any sense to do anything on d3/demi's end is if they thought other paying customers would avoid the game or not contribute money because of it.
Ummm no. Just because you feel it has not impacted you specifically does not therefore make that true of everyone else. While yes there are whales who have everything they either put in the hard work or the money to acquire those resources. When competing against whales I don't think anyone has an issue with the LEGITIMATE advantage that they rightly have.
As a long time player and someone who is fairly competitive in PVP the cheats have definitely gained an advantage that impacts me (and many others). If someone cheats to get a better roster it impacts the honest people who have grinded for it and or paid for it by taking away reward placements that they would have otherwise achieved if people had not cheated.
The principle is equally important as is the issue of D3 basically condoning cheating through inaction but there are also real in game consequences to other players when someone cheats.
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OJSP said:
You might not be affected, but everyone in same bracket as these exploiters are impacted. The might have an easier time in events, even one rank gained by them is one rank lost by others, I don't understand how you could say that. "As long as I am not affected, I am fine with this?" Is that your view? They could be taking your t10, 50, 100 or help to push your alliance score out of t100.MissChinch said:I didn't cheat, but I don't really see how anyone that did cheat impacts me...
More 5* covers do not give an advantage in PvE, and if it did your slice is only 1000 people. People taking advantage of this exploit did not impact anyone's PvE standing (except possibly actually hindering the people that abused it).
If your stance is that this impacts PvP with more people getting higher points, this has been debated ad nauseam (re: cupcakes) and the result is that more people scoring higher amounts to more points all around and more progression rewards to be had by everyone.
I don't understand how you came to your conclusion of "As long as I am not affected, I am fine with this?" When what I said was that I'd be fine with the accounts being deleted or sandboxed, but don't get that confused with the fact that its non-impacting.
Whining that its not fair is fine, I understand, but drawing some connection to it impacting the gameplay of someone who didn't cheat just isn't the case and only serves to make the whole claim sound a bit crazy. I'll sign the petition to get everyone who abused this banned, but its silly to feign outrage on some basis that its impacting my game.
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Maybe it's not impacting YOUR game (directly), but if cheaters are using their ill-gotten BHs to make their sniping easier, then they are impacting the games of those who play high level PVP.MissChinch said:OJSP said:
You might not be affected, but everyone in same bracket as these exploiters are impacted. The might have an easier time in events, even one rank gained by them is one rank lost by others, I don't understand how you could say that. "As long as I am not affected, I am fine with this?" Is that your view? They could be taking your t10, 50, 100 or help to push your alliance score out of t100.MissChinch said:I didn't cheat, but I don't really see how anyone that did cheat impacts me...
More 5* covers do not give an advantage in PvE, and if it did your slice is only 1000 people. People taking advantage of this exploit did not impact anyone's PvE standing (except possibly actually hindering the people that abused it).
If your stance is that this impacts PvP with more people getting higher points, this has been debated ad nauseam (re: cupcakes) and the result is that more people scoring higher amounts to more points all around and more progression rewards to be had by everyone.
I don't understand how you came to your conclusion of "As long as I am not affected, I am fine with this?" When what I said was that I'd be fine with the accounts being deleted or sandboxed, but don't get that confused with the fact that its non-impacting.
Whining that its not fair is fine, I understand, but drawing some connection to it impacting the gameplay of someone who didn't cheat just isn't the case and only serves to make the whole claim sound a bit crazy. I'll sign the petition to get everyone who abused this banned, but its silly to feign outrage on some basis that its impacting my game.
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At this point, I'm still unclear on what the nature of the exploit was (people have special software or phone functions on newer phones allowed this?), how it was done, what the results were (more BH's? re-rolling legendary pulls?), who actually did it? what is the big deal? If we cant post about it on here, please feel free to message me.
I'm falling into the same camp as Misscinch where I don't see where I've been affected. I'm still finishing in T10 or T25 in both PVE and PVP and the same names in front of me as before and after the exploit was discovered and "solved". Unless these same folks from the mega-alliances that have always outperformed me have been cheating for many years now, I don't see a difference? All this is to me is a hullabaloo over principle. Sorry if you feel you are personally being affected by cheats edging you out of the placement you feel you are entitled to.0 -
MissChinch said:
More 5* covers do not give an advantage in PvE, and if it did your slice is only 1000 people. People taking advantage of this exploit did not impact anyone's PvE standing (except possibly actually hindering the people that abused it).
If your stance is that this impacts PvP with more people getting higher points, this has been debated ad nauseam (re: cupcakes) and the result is that more people scoring higher amounts to more points all around and more progression rewards to be had by everyone.
Both of these points are fundamentally flawed and without sounding like a jerk I would be very curious to see your roster and know where you usually rank in PVE and PVP and at what SCL...
For PVE yes 5* scaling is a pain but in the top SCL's it is still 5* rosters that are taking the top prizes. So yes cheating to get a much better 5* roster or even 4* roster by abusing bonus hero re-rolls is a huge issue and negatively affects everyone else that plays in the SCL of the cheaters.
This has nothing to do with cupcakes or "more people getting higher points". If I play PVP for placement I am directly competing against the player in my shard. If one of them has cheated and has improved their roster artificially it makes everyone else's job of placing harder. It is not a matter of losing out on the placement people "feel they are entitled to" it is a matter of being honest and not cheating and then competing against someone who has manipulated the pull system so that they artificially have a better team to compete against you with.
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To me, it's a question of integrity, not so much lack of placement. I really don't care how people edged up over me in placement using the exploit, I care that the devs identified it, and do not take a stance of "This is an egregious disregard for the rules of the game, we absolutely WILL punish people we identify as cheaters." instead of the current "We reserve the right to possibly, if we feel like it, maybe do something if we want".
I used to play Halo 2 competitively on xbox live (think what you will of me), but when it came out that every top player got there by cheating, the pool of players plummeted. There was no extra tokens or rolls associated with placement, just bragging rights. Only twice did I ever actually play against cheaters, but it was the principal. Bungie didn't immediately address it, and competitive play lists lost integrity, then participation.
Bungie later came out with their "Ban Hammer" stance, but it was too little too late. Neither I, nor any of the guys I played with, returned to the competitive lists. You don't have a lot of opportunity to show your integrity, and you can lose it very quickly.
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I just want to know what the penalty for blatantly and proven breaking the game rules is. And if they will be enforced of course. Because, if we're having rules that are disrupting whatever balance the game has left (remember remember, scaling and mmr) and the people that break them are ALLOWED to keep playing with us that decided to not exploit bugs to gain an upper hand, I find no reason to keep playing fairly, and i am given grounds to cheat like they did and not be reprimanded.
I will call as an example the Blizzard Corp., which decided to ban the best worldwide alliance in their game because they cheated ONCE.
[Edit: @Brigby ]
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The Grand Tokens Gate... Does it still going !?0
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OJSP said:@MissChinch I asked for a clarification. To answer your question further: It depends.. I just got my Dr Strange and Thanos champed in the last month. I am now finishing my pve clears in 40-45 minutes again and grinding in 50 with watching 10 intercepts a day. I can imagine if they used the exploit to build up their 5*s, they are gaining a lot of advantage. I might not get 1st all the time, but I am now able to compete with the soft cappers and other players again. I still lose to people with Black Bolt though..
There are definitely situations like you mention where more 5*s could decrease time, especially the much talked about cases where people were stuck with an ineffectual OML dealing with 5* scaling with no good 5* options. I should have mentioned that as a case where it would have helped personal performance.I can sympathize on principle, no one should cheat and be rewarded and no one should feel like by not cheating they will be disadvantaged.
We're all making assumptions on how prevalent taking advantage of this exploit was relative to the entire customer base... Without seeing more information I find it extremely hard to believe that this exploit would skew the population badly enough to have an impact of the 1000 people in your slice, furthermore the top ranking players in PvE at least are determined by time far moreso than roster strength, its the same people in the top 20 all the time, rosters are good but not maxed 5*s (I see less softcapped 3*s when I peruse the rankings than I did 6 months ago)
As far as PvP goes, if 1 in every 1000 players abused this to the degree that they're championing 5*s I can see it having a miniscule impact on placement (by displacing everyone they leapfrogged by a spot) and a small positive impact on all scores. (This would be indistinguishable from someone legally just spending a bunch of money and whaling their roster via buy clubs)
Like I said I can completely get on board with being pissed on the principle that cheating is bad and should not be rewarded, I can also get on the complain train that's making the case that this will exacerbate the next cheating incident. I'm all for no warnings and account deletion, though if there were no other considerations I'd probably feel sandboxing is the right way to do it.
I just don't agree with framing this as some kind of penalty inflicted on those who didn't cheat, a nerf to a character you have, a buff to a character you don't, a change in any mechanic or a bug that slips by has a bigger impact (didn't have a good team that could take advantage of the countdown damage bug, well that put you at a much more severe disadvantage from a zero sum perspective.) I just think emphasizing that sullies the good argument to be had on principle.
Now if I was at all involved with d3 or demi from a financial position I would make the case that its flat out immoral to jeopardize my investment by purposefully turning away customers that want to pay for the product because other customers were upset about their free video game. That decision should come down to dollars and cents as I believe d3/demi are obligated to first treat this as a business and minimize investor risk/maximize investor gain.
For all of those reasons I don't expect there will be a resolution to this that most of the people left following the thread will find acceptable (my money is on ignore-to-death)
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I don't understand the "I'm personally unaffected by this exploit therefore it is a non-problem" sentiment.
Is it a matter of "no names have been named therefore the cheaters are all imaginary" or simply "why should I care if other players lose to cheaters as long as I still rank high"?
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OJSP said:
But of course they were going to improve their personal performance. They didn't use the exploit to complete their 5*s collection.. it's to make them stronger. They knew exactly what to do, who to get and how to use them to their advantage.MissChinch said:I should have mentioned that as a case where it would have helped personal performance.
That's definitely not the case for the overwhelming number of people I've heard talk about collecting 5*s... its anecdotal, but a common theme is PvE scaling sucks, matches take longer... theres a definitive cliff you fall off of into 5* MMR where you only see 2 champ 5*s...Unplanned and un-calculated the 5* transition seems like its got more pitfalls than the 3 or 4* transition, and doing them wrong had literally months worth of performance hampering implications (the hole might be easier to climb out of now with the generous increase in resources). Just dumping 30 5* covers on a random roster at 3* or 4* tiers might sound like a benefit, but it would wreck their ability to obtain resources for quite a while.
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PvP brackets are 500 players...Just sayin'!0
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MissChinch said:
That's definitely not the case for the overwhelming number of people I've heard talk about collecting 5*s... its anecdotal, but a common theme is PvE scaling sucks, matches take longer... theres a definitive cliff you fall off of into 5* MMR where you only see 2 champ 5*s...
Unplanned and un-calculated the 5* transition seems like its got more pitfalls than the 3 or 4* transition, and doing them wrong had literally months worth of performance hampering implications (the hole might be easier to climb out of now with the generous increase in resources). Just dumping 30 5* covers on a random roster at 3* or 4* tiers might sound like a benefit, but it would wreck their ability to obtain resources for quite a while.
MissChinch said:We're all making assumptions on how prevalent taking advantage of this exploit was relative to the entire customer base... Without seeing more information I find it extremely hard to believe that this exploit would skew the population badly enough to have an impact of the 1000 people in your slice, furthermore the top ranking players in PvE at least are determined by time far moreso than roster strength, its the same people in the top 20 all the time, rosters are good but not maxed 5*s (I see less softcapped 3*s when I peruse the rankings than I did 6 months ago)
As far as PvP goes, if 1 in every 1000 players abused this to the degree that they're championing 5*s I can see it having a miniscule impact on placement (by displacing everyone they leapfrogged by a spot) and a small positive impact on all scores. (This would be indistinguishable from someone legally just spending a bunch of money and whaling their roster via buy clubs)
You are talking about that you "hear" the 5* transition is difficult and also talk about seeing softcapped 3*'s on PVE leaderboards so I think this is a strong indication of the SCL's you play (you avoided my question earlier).
What I can tell you is that in SCL 8 this Exploit makes a big difference both in PVP and PVE. If you could just as a thought experiment look at it from the following perspective:
SCL 8
Player A 3 5* champions between levels 450-460
Player B 3 5* champions between levels 450-460
After the exploit
Player A 3 5* champions between levels 450-460 (no exploit)
Player B 3 5* champions between levels 470-480 (exploit)
Both player A and B continue to be in the same shards for PVP and PVE as they were before...Player B has undeniably gained an advantage in both areas.
You also seem to propose that this exploit was carried out by players with little knowledge of the game, how to use characters, and the effects of scaling. Would your opinion change if (as is the case here) that it was carried out by many skilled players who knew exactly what they were doing and how to exploit their advantages? The situation I proposed above would not negatively impact scaling for PVE as any slight increase in enemy levels is more than balanced by how much stronger a 5* gets every 10 levels. Also for PVP both Player A and B are both seeing double 5*,s all the time so there is no change in scaling, the difference being Player B has a much stronger 5* team to deal with the opposition. In both cases Player B is also now faster in PVE and PVP due to their characters being able to do more damage in a shorter amount of time (same number of moves/AP required for more damaging skills and match damage).
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The terrible part is that they said clearly in the OP that they CAN identify those using the exploit. They have now placed themselves into a position where they now have to act on those people they already told us they can identify. It isn't the gray area there was before... where there were people they suspected of cheating... they clearly said they can identify them.
They don't have to name them, but they should say that they are doing "Punishment" to the identified group of abusers (cheaters) as is dictated in their terms of service agreement.
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SangFroid said:
MissChinch said:
That's definitely not the case for the overwhelming number of people I've heard talk about collecting 5*s... its anecdotal, but a common theme is PvE scaling sucks, matches take longer... theres a definitive cliff you fall off of into 5* MMR where you only see 2 champ 5*s...
Unplanned and un-calculated the 5* transition seems like its got more pitfalls than the 3 or 4* transition, and doing them wrong had literally months worth of performance hampering implications (the hole might be easier to climb out of now with the generous increase in resources). Just dumping 30 5* covers on a random roster at 3* or 4* tiers might sound like a benefit, but it would wreck their ability to obtain resources for quite a while.
MissChinch said:We're all making assumptions on how prevalent taking advantage of this exploit was relative to the entire customer base... Without seeing more information I find it extremely hard to believe that this exploit would skew the population badly enough to have an impact of the 1000 people in your slice, furthermore the top ranking players in PvE at least are determined by time far moreso than roster strength, its the same people in the top 20 all the time, rosters are good but not maxed 5*s (I see less softcapped 3*s when I peruse the rankings than I did 6 months ago)
As far as PvP goes, if 1 in every 1000 players abused this to the degree that they're championing 5*s I can see it having a miniscule impact on placement (by displacing everyone they leapfrogged by a spot) and a small positive impact on all scores. (This would be indistinguishable from someone legally just spending a bunch of money and whaling their roster via buy clubs)
You are talking about that you "hear" the 5* transition is difficult and also talk about seeing softcapped 3*'s on PVE leaderboards so I think this is a strong indication of the SCL's you play (you avoided my question earlier).
What I can tell you is that in SCL 8 this Exploit makes a big difference both in PVP and PVE. If you could just as a thought experiment look at it from the following perspective:
SCL 8
Player A 3 5* champions between levels 450-460
Player B 3 5* champions between levels 450-460
After the exploit
Player A 3 5* champions between levels 450-460 (no exploit)
Player B 3 5* champions between levels 470-480 (exploit)
Both player A and B continue to be in the same shards for PVP and PVE as they were before...Player B has undeniably gained an advantage in both areas.
You also seem to propose that this exploit was carried out by players with little knowledge of the game, how to use characters, and the effects of scaling. Would your opinion change if (as is the case here) that it was carried out by many skilled players who knew exactly what they were doing and how to exploit their advantages? The situation I proposed above would not negatively impact scaling for PVE as any slight increase in enemy levels is more than balanced by how much stronger a 5* gets every 10 levels. Also for PVP both Player A and B are both seeing double 5*,s all the time so there is no change in scaling, the difference being Player B has a much stronger 5* team to deal with the opposition. In both cases Player B is also now faster in PVE and PVP due to their characters being able to do more damage in a shorter amount of time (same number of moves/AP required for more damaging skills and match damage).
I play PvE in SCL8, in slice 4 or 5... It was pretty common to see softcapped rosters in the top 10 (not all dominating it) and more rare to see someone in the midst of the 4-5* transition with one or two high 5*s on their roster. Softcapped rosters seems less frequent in the past 4-5 months, vaulting has made it harder to evenly progress, I'm assuming that's the cause.My understanding of the exploit was that it was not an unlimited number of 5* pulls, but it was the ability to selectively pull only 5*s from your queue and pass on the 4*s. This assumption could absolutely be incorrect, but it would amount to only CP/LTs on hand during the exploit. It sounds like I'm ballparking that number far lower than the people outraged by the cheating. I'll agree hitting 550 on all 5*s, or simply rostering dupes of equal level is going to result in the cheater seeing much better personal results and being able to climb for longer, or grind out pve longer (though I cant imagine that was much of an issue)
The tops of my (SCL8) brackets look generally the same as they have for a while in PvP, so I haven't landed in any thus far that have been over-run by what would look like mega whales, so its not been an impact to me, however its possible that all these cheating juggernauts are just queuing way before I am. PvE scores have risen dramatically in the last 4-5 months, but the scores are up pretty uniformly and rosters don't look any different in the top 20, though I haven't been keeping close tabs. I simply don't attribute that to abuse of this exploit.
I have a lower opinion of the average person that took advantage of this, I'm picturing them going on to less reputable forums figuring this out and I'm envisioning 20-40 of the first available 5*s being pulled, I simply don't see that as a major gain for the vast majority of rosters out there... I see it as a short term inefficiency in both PvE and PvP. In the case where someone very knowledgeable of the games mechanics and in the process of hoarding where they get hundreds of specific legendary covers, I certainly see them getting a personal advantage. The impact of this epidemic in SCL8 slice 4 has been negligible (and it was unnoticeable in slice 5 a few months ago)
I think I'm in agreement on the main issue that cheating is reprehensible and I'm all for them being banned without warning, but I'm just not buying into the argument that it was an impact to those that didn't cheat... it sounds like whining because someone else got something you wanted and didn't pay for it (which I can also get behind, I'm selfish and that's no fair, but... lifes not fair sometimes). I still think asking D3/Demi to jeopardize their revenue by taking a stance on it should be a business decision, and one that takes into account forum outcry only at it applies to their investors risk. (ex: immoral to put their investors/owners at risk, not immoral to let us non-cheaters hanging in a video game)
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