Gilded Lotus in Standard and Legacy Decks Exploit (10/2/18)

Mburn7

boopers said:

Just because past past exploit abuses were not punished doesn’t mean that future abuses should not be. There is a long precedence in the gaming industry to punish those who choose to exploit programming loopholes to gain unfair competitive advantage. If D3 is late to act on abusers, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. 

The problem is, when you never enforce a rule (although I'm not sure there is a rule in game against this anyway), you cannot just arbitrarily start enforcing it without warning (see:  American Revolution).
Also, if there is a rule against exploiting bad coding, where is the line?  Why is it ok to intentionally crash someone else's game (now coming back with Sphinx's Decree!) or use a confirmed bugged and overpowered card (Resilient Khenra), but not to tweak an event deck?  All three are giving you easier wins and almost guaranteed losses for whoever faces your deck in the event.  Why is one wrong but the other two ok?

As @GrizzoMtGPQ said, if this was the road that Oktagon wanted to go down, they should have immediately posted some sort of notice that they were aware of the bug and would be punishing everyone who used it.
To @bken1234's example before, it would be like putting a sign on the broken door saying "premises under surveillance" (like many shops have anyway)

boopers

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

I think the line needs to be that if you mod or run software that is not strictly Oktagon code you're a cheater. Anything in the game is fine and is actually like a fun scavenger hunt. Finding little unintended easter eggs like the Tsunami Punch gives this game a little extra color.

By this logic, I could be playing Monopoly (god forbid), and use slight of hand to grab an extra $100 from the bank... and it's not cheating because the bank was too close to me to prevent me from doing that.  No... that is cheating, and everyone you are playing with would be pissed off and justifiably kick you out of the game, and probably never invite you to play again.

Simply using a bugged card like Khenra can in no way be leveled on the same grounds as purposefully going through a 7 step process to knowingly give yourself an advantage that is clearly in violation of event rules. 

Using a low level PW to generate an advantage on your next match isn't against the rules. 

Throwing Decree in your deck to crash your opponents match isn't against the rules (although it is a blatantly dirty tactic that should prevent you from sleeping at night).

Using two or more cards together like Naru, Ruse and doom isn't against the rules. 

Using legacy cards in a standard event is clearly against the rules.  Lumping those kind of examples in with the legacy/standard exploit to try and justify it as "not cheating" is flimsy pretext that everyone can see through... including D3.  

Rhasget

This will set an important precedent so Octagon/D3 have to think on how to proceed.

And by the EULA, you all have agreed on, this could be interpreted as a breach and therefor they have the right to ban abusers.

If they choose to do so is another question.

And I reported several players I faced with exploit decks to bring this to light.
 But I remember atleast one having one very odd card that didn't do any good so I suspect it was a 'story mode deck' so I hope they don't ban on players reports alone.

boopers

Mburn7 said:

The problem is, when you never enforce a rule (although I'm not sure there is a rule in game against this anyway), you cannot just arbitrarily start enforcing it without warning (see:  American Revolution).

Also, if there is a rule against exploiting bad coding, where is the line?  Why is it ok to intentionally crash someone else's game (now coming back with Sphinx's Decree!) or use a confirmed bugged and overpowered card (Resilient Khenra), but not to tweak an event deck?  All three are giving you easier wins and almost guaranteed losses for whoever faces your deck in the event.  Why is one wrong but the other two ok?

As @GrizzoMtGPQ said, if this was the road that Oktagon wanted to go down, they should have immediately posted some sort of notice that they were aware of the bug and would be punishing everyone who used it.
To @bken1234's example before, it would be like putting a sign on the broken door saying "premises under surveillance" (like many shops have anyway)

1) If you don't get a ticket for parking in a handicapped spot 100 times, it does not mean you can't be ticketed for a future offense.  It's against the rules.

2) They did post a notice, it's in the terms of agreement you agreed to when you signed up for the game:

https://d3go.helpshift.com/a/magic-puzzle-quest/?s=privacy&f=terms-of-use&l=en

Prohibited Conduct.  "D3PA reserves the right to determine what conduct violates these restrictions or is otherwise outside the intentions of this EULA or the Game and to take action as a result, which  may include termination of your account and exclusion from further participation in the Game."

bk1234

[MOD MIC ON] Just wanted to say thank  you to everyone so far for keeping this debate productive. It's a great reflection of this community that we can discuss such a heated subject without resorting to attacks. [//MOD MIC OFF]

Tremayne

Disclaimer - I abhore cheaters! And have no intention of cheating in this app or any other app.

The discussion so far has left me baffled in a lot of ways, so I have asked D3/Octagon a question in another thread.

Here is a question I would really like a answer to from anyone in this thread but most of all from D3/Octagon.

What is the check list that all players must perform each and every time they do one or more of the following actions within the app?

1. Save a deck in any slot belonging to a planeswalker 
2. Edit a deck without saving changes
3. Entering an event
4. Existing an event to play in another event or story mode
5. Copying a deck from one deck slot to another slot

I would like to know so that I can comply with the EULA and not be labelled a “cheater”.

As far as I can understand the bug was related to story mode somehow, so must I check my deck each time I have played in story mode?

For just the planeswalker I have played with most recently or all PWs used during the story mode session?

Buizel

I really feel like the post was making fun of punishing players for playing Gilded Lotus, one of the most popular supports in the game. It's not even a very obvious bug. You get some more mana. Why punish over that. 

You guys want to pick apart every single word over the legacy conundrum and not mention how dumb it is to punish for Gilded Lotus.  

Mburn7

Buizel said:

I really feel like the post was making fun of punishing players for playing Gilded Lotus, one of the most popular supports in the game. It's not even a very obvious bug. You get some more mana. Why punish over that. 

You guys want to pick apart every single word over the legacy conundrum and not mention how dumb it is to punish for Gilded Lotus.  

The original post here was a sarcastic commentary on the legacy conundrum.  Bit of a hyperbolic argument, but definitely close enough to the mark to spark a discussion like this.

Froggy

bken1234 said:

Froggy said:

Gotta say, I love the analogies being given here.

Its become humorous.

If the bug was prevalent and the devs were informed and knew of it, why didn’t they post a warning the same minute here in the forums?

Instead they waited it out.

So an analogy: Cop sees robber breaking into a house. He waits outside so he can catch the robber for any and all possible charges. Who knows what he is capable of or what his intentions are.

Why not hit his sirens right away so robber runs and you catch him just on breaking and entering? Oh no! Now you caught much more than that. What’s the point?

I’m not pro or against the exploit. I could care less. I don’t generally score well in PvP. I’m merely pointing out that both sides are at fault. That’s right - BOTH sides. Do punish the abusers. And punish the devs. I think it’s only fair to ask that be done.

I don't think this is a fair analogy. 

The devs didn't raise a warning sign because they needed to find a fix for it. Had they said "don't use it" everyone would have tried to figure out how to do so. 

Had they done that, the appropriate analogy would be --

Security guard is walking through the mall and notices the lock to the outside door of The Gap is broken. Security guard posts a big neon sign on the door where every potential shoplifter can see -- "This lock is broken".

But what the devs and D3 did was more appropriate:

Security guard is walking through the mall and notices the lock to the outside door of The Gap is broken. Security guard immediately notifies the manager of the store and his security company who quietly place a camera to monitor the door until a repair man can fix it. 

Yes, it’s a terrible analogy I gave. That’s sort of the point. They are all terrible analogies. If I were the store manager, I wouldn’t put up a camera to see who steals, just as I wouldn’t put up a neon sign. I’d post a guard at the door until repaired.

But I couldn’t care less as I got nothing out of the exploit.

All I’m saying is they could have easily gone about it better as both parties are at fault here. Those whole willfully abused the exploit and thebdevs for the flawed code.

Volrak

Froggy said:

All I’m saying is they could have easily gone about it better as both parties are at fault here. Those whole willfully abused the exploit and thebdevs for the flawed code.

The devs already get punished.  A game with a reputation for bugs attracts and retains fewer players than one with a reputation for high quality, bug-free code.

Tremayne said:

I would like to know so that I can comply with the EULA and not be labelled a “cheater”.

In this case, avoid taking steps which let you play a standard deck in a legacy coalition event (nothing to do with story mode).  In general, where you discover a non-obvious sequence of steps which allows you to bypass rules of an event, report it as a bug and don't continue to use those steps.

Mburn7 said:

Also, if there is a rule against exploiting bad coding, where is the line?  Why is it ok to intentionally crash someone else's game (now coming back with Sphinx's Decree!) or use a confirmed bugged and overpowered card (Resilient Khenra), but not to tweak an event deck?  All three are giving you easier wins and almost guaranteed losses for whoever faces your deck in the event.  Why is one wrong but the other two ok?

You can decide what's fair for yourself.  You're only in trouble if that conflicts with what D3 see as fair.  There are plenty of positions you can take here, and I'd suggest that aiming for the position as close to the line as possible without getting pinged by D3 isn't the right way to be approaching this.  (For me it's clear - no, it's not ok to include a card in my deck if my motive in doing that would be to exploit a bug in the card's code, and without the bug I wouldn't be including it.)

Thuran

Very interesting discussion.

The biggest question seems to be where to draw the line in defining what constitutes an exploit.

As mentioned above, it was possible to use a flaw in their matchmaking to ensure that almost all matches in a PvP event would be against opponents typically 20-30 levels below your own, making most fights trivial, yet no punitive action was taken.

However this bug was discovered due to how it caused players to be matched against walkers with a hopeless level advantage.

Is it a case if using a hole in the system to your advantage?

yes, but so is playing zendikarsroil, even though youbknew it was bugged, in order to gain an absurd advantage that was never intended to exsist. Can anyone complaining now say with full honesty that they immediately stopped using that card to gain an advantage by abusing an unintended hole in the game?

Yet, I would say that using broken cards, intentionally, is just as bad an exploit, and just as morally reprehensible.

However, this is a competitive game, and if you did not use those advantages, you were also handicapping yourself in the competition, creating a situation like an arms race, where players felt they had to play ZR in order to not be at a disadvantage, creating a situation that forces people to join the exploit.

I know some people talked about using cards from legacy to beat node 5.2, a node designed for those very cards, because if they did not, they would likely fail the objectives and therefore they would not be able to compete properly with the rest of the environment.

If everyone is playing zendikars roil, should everyone be punished for using it to defend themselves?

I didnt have to resort to legacy cards, but I can understand people that go into PvP to face rishkars and omni feel they must use it in order to not be hopelessly outgunned.

So, where is the line drawn?

Should everyone who uses a broken card be punished, since its just as bad an exploit as fixing lvls?

Let me ask: did you use zendikars roil?

Whether you steal an apple or a car, you are still a thief!

Aeroplane

Categorizing poor coding into cheating, exploiting, semi-cheating, unknowingly cheating...etc is impossible. Finding intent from beginners, casual players, veterans..etc wouldn't hold up in any court of law. Well...2.9 was a complete failure anyways and created an unstable environment for coalition events than ever before. Sphynx's Decree needs immediate attention.

span_argoman

Thuran said:

Is it a case if using a hole in the system to your advantage?

yes, but so is playing zendikarsroil, even though youbknew it was bugged, in order to gain an absurd advantage that was never intended to exsist. Can anyone complaining now say with full honesty that they immediately stopped using that card to gain an advantage by abusing an unintended hole in the game?

Yet, I would say that using broken cards, intentionally, is just as bad an exploit, and just as morally reprehensible.

However, this is a competitive game, and if you did not use those advantages, you were also handicapping yourself in the competition, creating a situation like an arms race, where players felt they had to play ZR in order to not be at a disadvantage, creating a situation that forces people to join the exploit.

Your point that people would feel pressured to use an exploit to compete is exactly why developers punish for using exploits. It's to signal that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable.

You're playing in an artificial environment created by the developers. They set the rules for what's acceptable within the game and what isn't. There's the terms of service which is always applicable as long as you are playing their game and the event rules which are applicable for each event.

And Grizzo's argument against erroneous event rules doesn't even hold much water. We're comparing events for which their rules had typo errors or were not updated quickly enough versus a longstanding rule which is well-known and well understood by the community to apply to the game's events. I'd think the differences are immediately evident.

On your side question, I pretty much never used Zendikar's Roil before it was bugged. Even after the bug was found, I only used it a few times to see the effect in action and then went back to not using it again. But then again, I have access to better decks than that without having to resort to exploits.

boopers

So, where is the line drawn?

Should everyone who uses a broken card be punished, since its just as bad an exploit as fixing lvls?

While I appreciate the discussion about the grey zone of gaming ethics, this particular issue is far more black and white. Trying to introduce the nuance that using broken cards is the same thing only serves to muddy the waters. 

Fact: a standard event has a very clearly written rule, stating exactly what sets of cards are permitted in the event. 

Purposefully exploiting a loophole to put a legacy card in your deck is breaking that written rule willfully. It is black and white cheating. 

And before it crops up again, the fact that the event text occasionally had a mistake holds no water... when you go into the event the code has always excluded you from using certain cards to build a deck in standard events. 

There was was never a written rule about not using zendikars roil — or any other broken card in any event.  Whether or not this constitutes exploiting the game is in fact a grey area... i grant this. 

But these are not the same thing. 

Volrak

Thuran said:

Should everyone who uses a broken card be punished, since its just as bad an exploit as fixing lvls?

Let me ask: did you use zendikars roil?

It's way too much effort for it to be worthwhile for D3 to police every possible exploit, especially when in many cases it's not clear-cut whether it's a deliberate exploit or an accident.  I think the only sense in which even the staunchest critic could think all exploits "should" be punished would be a theoretical one.

I also agree with those who've argued there are pretty major differences between the ZR bug and the legacy bug, but since you asked, I wasn't using Zendikar's Roil before it was broken, and didn't start using it after.  But if you've grokked my own "rule" above, you can see even that would not forbid use of bugged cards, as long as the existence of the bug wasn't the determining factor for use.  (Incidentally, following such a rule without also applying self-honesty would be pretty meaningless.)

EvilDead

What a confusing original post.

So due to my personal paranoia, is there or isn't there a bug with Gilded Lotus? I don't want to use it in a deck and
unknowingly create an issue.

Is this thread just a [redacted] regarding the sticky post?



[MOD NOTE} Edited post to remove profanity - bk.[//MOD NOTE]

Mburn7

EvilDead said:

What a confusing original post.

So due to my personal paranoia, is there or isn't there a bug with Gilded Lotus? I don't want to use it in a deck and
unknowingly create an issue.

Is this thread just a [redacted] regarding the sticky post?

There is an actual bug with Guilded Lotus.

That being said, this post is mostly a sarcastic complaint against the sticky post about punishing players who used the Legacy-Cards-In-Standard-Events bug (maybe take some liberty and call it the LICE bug?  Its a mouthful)

HarryMason

Wow. We have members of our community lawyering cheating. If you use cards from a set not allowed in an event, you're cheating. Period . The rules for each event, including what sets are allowed , are clearly stated for all to read . Cheating is not ok. 

EvilDead

Mburn7 said:

EvilDead said:

What a confusing original post.

So due to my personal paranoia, is there or isn't there a bug with Gilded Lotus? I don't want to use it in a deck and
unknowingly create an issue.

Is this thread just a [redacted] regarding the sticky post?

There is an actual bug with Guilded Lotus.

That being said, this post is mostly a sarcastic complaint against the sticky post about punishing players who used the Legacy-Cards-In-Standard-Events bug (maybe take some liberty and call it the LICE bug?  Its a mouthful)

Do you have to use Gilded Lotus with a card I probably don't have anyway? Should we just leave it out?

I'm skerd!

Mburn7

EvilDead said:

Mburn7 said:

EvilDead said:

What a confusing original post.

So due to my personal paranoia, is there or isn't there a bug with Gilded Lotus? I don't want to use it in a deck and
unknowingly create an issue.

Is this thread just a [redacted] regarding the sticky post?

There is an actual bug with Guilded Lotus.

That being said, this post is mostly a sarcastic complaint against the sticky post about punishing players who used the Legacy-Cards-In-Standard-Events bug (maybe take some liberty and call it the LICE bug?  Its a mouthful)

Do you have to use Gilded Lotus with a card I probably don't have anyway? Should we just leave it out?

I'm skerd!

Well, based on the debate we've been having, there is nothing wrong with using buggy cards to your benefit.
As long as those cards are technically allowed to be played in the event, that is.

So play away!!