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

GrizzoMtGPQ

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?



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

This is precisely the problem here. It is not at all clear what D3 considers cheating. The TOS does not clarify it. Imagine if you were a player of this game, yet not a forum participant, and found that you could do these things. The game is buggy, the instructions are often wrong, the cards are poorly written and inarticulate, the behaviors of abilities widely shift from release to release, and suddenly you find you have less crystals or pinks or whatever it is they clawed back, deducted without note or warning. I think it’s a sorry state of affairs indeed. If nothing else D3 should state very clearly what the line is that THEY consider cheating. I’m not sure I understand. And don’t go saying your own opinion on it because we’ve all heard each other and taken sides. We need clarity from the top. Not just on this matter but guidance moving forward. If you knowingly use Gilded Lotus to game advantage precisely because it is bugged, is that cheating? Is anything else cheating?

Matthew

Sounds like there are some folks on here who are upset that they might have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Serves them right, I say. Ban the whole crummy lot of them. I don't need to repeat what others have said, except to say that using this was a very deliberate attempt to circumvent the predetermined rules of Standard events. You should absolutely be punished for it if you did it.

If you did happen to use it intentionally and regularly, well, that says an awful lot about your ability to play this game. And also your character, or rather, your lack thereof.

Mburn7

It has come to my attention recently that there is a large group of players rigging the Duel Decks event so that their chosen side wins, by combining dozens of coalitions worth of players and having them all play on one team.  I was not aware of this for the first run of the event, and as a result missed out on a lot of rewards (and an exclusive card) because I chose the "wrong" team.

Is that cheating too?  It certainly goes against the spirit of the event, and it really sucks when players who were not invited to their group find out about it.

I don't want to call anyone out on anything, I'm just curious if people think that using this kind of loophole to get better event rewards is ok or not after the huge debate over the last one.

Laeuftbeidir

Mburn7 said:

It has come to my attention recently that there is a large group of players rigging the Duel Decks event so that their chosen side wins, by combining dozens of coalitions worth of players and having them all play on one team.  I was not aware of this for the first run of the event, and as a result missed out on a lot of rewards (and an exclusive card) because I chose the "wrong" team.

Is that cheating too?  It certainly goes against the spirit of the event, and it really sucks when players who were not invited to their group find out about it.

I don't want to call anyone out on anything, I'm just curious if people think that using this kind of loophole to get better event rewards is ok or not after the huge debate over the last one.

I

 would not go as far as saying "dozens of coalitions",regarding the numbers. As long as it was done to try to break the beta - okay (it's somehow the point of a beta).

Even if it went so far: it had no big impact - the chosen side was most of the time the losing side, and won only marginal, so I assume the devs took care of this. Once duel decks live and I get notice of it, I'll lobby against it.. It's not really cheating, but I see it as not a good sportsmanship and boring on top of that.

bk1234

Mburn7 said:

It has come to my attention recently that there is a large group of players rigging the Duel Decks event so that their chosen side wins, by combining dozens of coalitions worth of players and having them all play on one team.  I was not aware of this for the first run of the event, and as a result missed out on a lot of rewards (and an exclusive card) because I chose the "wrong" team.

Is that cheating too?  It certainly goes against the spirit of the event, and it really sucks when players who were not invited to their group find out about it.

I don't want to call anyone out on anything, I'm just curious if people think that using this kind of loophole to get better event rewards is ok or not after the huge debate over the last one.

You should talk to your coalition leader. You were all invited to that server — he chose not to share it. The server isn’t open to just certain groups of coalitions. It’s open to anyone who can prove they are in the beta, and it was started since those in the beta can only talk about the event with other players in the beta. 

The point of the beta was to see what will happen when it goes live. It makes sense that large groups will join together and stack when it’s live, and this isn’t something the devs probably took into account because the social aspect of this game is always underestimated. 

In the discussion in the week leading up, some players decided to stack for rewards; others played the winning PW just because they found it more interesting and others played the losing PW for the same reason.   

Cooperation and leveraging the the social aspect of the game isn’t cheating. It is what makes this game special compared to other phone games. 

We do it with all events, sharing objectives and deck building advice; coming up with strategies for last minute refreshes, collecting event info for PvE. 

When the event goes live, I won’t be surprised if players use Facebook, Reddit and the Forum to stack sides as well — and they are well within the rules of the event to do so. 

Mburn7

bken1234 said:

Mburn7 said:

It has come to my attention recently that there is a large group of players rigging the Duel Decks event so that their chosen side wins, by combining dozens of coalitions worth of players and having them all play on one team.  I was not aware of this for the first run of the event, and as a result missed out on a lot of rewards (and an exclusive card) because I chose the "wrong" team.

Is that cheating too?  It certainly goes against the spirit of the event, and it really sucks when players who were not invited to their group find out about it.

I don't want to call anyone out on anything, I'm just curious if people think that using this kind of loophole to get better event rewards is ok or not after the huge debate over the last one.

You should talk to your coalition leader. You were all invited to that server — he chose not to share it. The server isn’t open to just certain groups of coalitions. It’s open to anyone who can prove they are in the beta, and it was started since those in the beta can only talk about the event with other players in the beta. 

The point of the beta was to see what will happen when it goes live. It makes sense that large groups will join together and stack when it’s live, and this isn’t something the devs probably took into account because the social aspect of this game is always underestimated. 

In the discussion in the week leading up, some players decided to stack for rewards; others played the winning PW just because they found it more interesting and others played the losing PW for the same reason.   

Cooperation and leveraging the the social aspect of the game isn’t cheating. It is what makes this game special compared to other phone games. 

We do it with all events, sharing objectives and deck building advice; coming up with strategies for last minute refreshes, collecting event info for PvE. 

When the event goes live, I won’t be surprised if players use Facebook, Reddit and the Forum to stack sides as well — and they are well within the rules of the event to do so. 

My point isn't about getting access myself (coalition leader mentioned it to us but has been unable to get an invite code), but more for the ethicality (is that a word?) of it.

The social side of this game has always been a major draw (well, always since Coalitions came out), but have never really had such a direct impact on an event's result.  No matter how big your social network is, your coalition can only have 20 members contributing and getting rewards in any given event.

With the Duel Decks event, that is no longer true.  Having a group of 10 coalitions all choosing the same side gives you an enormous advantage over a single coalition or even over a bunch of random players on Reddit and Facebook when it comes to picking the winning side, and the difference in rewards is big enough that that matters a lot to everyone else.

Again, as I stated before, I'm not looking for anyone to get in trouble.  I'm just curious if leveraging a good social standing to get better rewards is considered morally ok or not by everyone, now that moral and ethical gameplay is at the forefront of everyone's minds.

Brakkis

Seriously, the stacking on Nissa had an almost negligible effect. For the vast majority of the Final Duel, we had to pull out photoshop and measure in pixels how far the bar had moved to one side or the other to see who won. It moved that little.

Nissa just happened to be on the winning pixel side for the last 30 minutes and came out on top.

Mburn7

Brakkis said:

Seriously, the stacking on Nissa had an almost negligible effect. For the vast majority of the Final Duel, we had to pull out photoshop and measure in pixels how far the bar had moved to one side or the other to see who won. It moved that little.

Nissa just happened to be on the winning pixel side for the last 30 minutes and came out on top.

I'm pretty sure the bar wasn't actually moving.  I just noticed Eldrazi didn't have the "your side is winning" thing over it at any point after the first hour or so.

I put "please make the slider bar do something" as one of my comments

bk1234

Mburn7 said:

bken1234 said:

Mburn7 said:

It has come to my attention recently that there is a large group of players rigging the Duel Decks event so that their chosen side wins, by combining dozens of coalitions worth of players and having them all play on one team.  I was not aware of this for the first run of the event, and as a result missed out on a lot of rewards (and an exclusive card) because I chose the "wrong" team.

Is that cheating too?  It certainly goes against the spirit of the event, and it really sucks when players who were not invited to their group find out about it.

I don't want to call anyone out on anything, I'm just curious if people think that using this kind of loophole to get better event rewards is ok or not after the huge debate over the last one.

You should talk to your coalition leader. You were all invited to that server — he chose not to share it. The server isn’t open to just certain groups of coalitions. It’s open to anyone who can prove they are in the beta, and it was started since those in the beta can only talk about the event with other players in the beta. 

The point of the beta was to see what will happen when it goes live. It makes sense that large groups will join together and stack when it’s live, and this isn’t something the devs probably took into account because the social aspect of this game is always underestimated. 

In the discussion in the week leading up, some players decided to stack for rewards; others played the winning PW just because they found it more interesting and others played the losing PW for the same reason.   

Cooperation and leveraging the the social aspect of the game isn’t cheating. It is what makes this game special compared to other phone games. 

We do it with all events, sharing objectives and deck building advice; coming up with strategies for last minute refreshes, collecting event info for PvE. 

When the event goes live, I won’t be surprised if players use Facebook, Reddit and the Forum to stack sides as well — and they are well within the rules of the event to do so. 

My point isn't about getting access myself (coalition leader mentioned it to us but has been unable to get an invite code), but more for the ethicality (is that a word?) of it.

The social side of this game has always been a major draw (well, always since Coalitions came out), but have never really had such a direct impact on an event's result.  No matter how big your social network is, your coalition can only have 20 members contributing and getting rewards in any given event.

With the Duel Decks event, that is no longer true.  Having a group of 10 coalitions all choosing the same side gives you an enormous advantage over a single coalition or even over a bunch of random players on Reddit and Facebook when it comes to picking the winning side, and the difference in rewards is big enough that that matters a lot to everyone else.

Again, as I stated before, I'm not looking for anyone to get in trouble.  I'm just curious if leveraging a good social standing to get better rewards is considered morally ok or not by everyone, now that moral and ethical gameplay is at the forefront of everyone's minds.

My alliance alone has more than 20 coalitions and our server has almost 900 players since it’s open to the public. Many of them post on Reddit and the FB page which has 2K players. There are members of all the groups of coalitions in all of those places. When the event goes live, it will be quite easy for those who want to leverage stacking to do so (on a much bigger and more obvious scale)— and if that isn’t the devs intention, they can observe the behavior and recognize it now change it now. 

It’s not unethical and IMO adds nothing to the discussion at hand. 

Kinesia

This was one of my concerns when the event was first announced from the original description. It was just so incredibly obvious that this would be done.

The dev's need to decide whether they want this or not, they either allow it or they assign sides randomly (which will cause different outrage!). I don't think there is a way to have "sides" without there being issues.

khurram

Mburn7 said:

It has come to my attention recently that there is a large group of players rigging the Duel Decks event so that their chosen side wins, by combining dozens of coalitions worth of players and having them all play on one team.  I was not aware of this for the first run of the event, and as a result missed out on a lot of rewards (and an exclusive card) because I chose the "wrong" team.

Is that cheating too?  It certainly goes against the spirit of the event, and it really sucks when players who were not invited to their group find out about it.

I don't want to call anyone out on anything, I'm just curious if people think that using this kind of loophole to get better event rewards is ok or not after the huge debate over the last one.

This reminds me of someone who once argued, quite passionately, that a coalition managing their roaster before the start of an event ( i.e. swapping out players who feel like they cant perfom to the best of their ability during that event for those who can) was basically cheating and went against the spirit of the whole idea of coalition play. He was quite delightfully proven wrong of course.

Bubbles

Oh great. So I rely on the Game to tell me which cards are valid for an event. I generally have Standard decks and Legacy decks for my most played PWs. And I just pick the one where there is no "invalid card" marker on it. 

Now I find out I was "cheating" due to bad programming? Absolutely not on. If there was an ingame announcement, fair enough. But I haven't been here on the forum in ages, rarely check it and only came here to report a bug (not the Lotus). I lose track which event allows which cards on which day, that's what the game works out for me, so if it is broken and they know it is broken, they can tell the players . Reading through a discussion here is not "telling" players. 

octal9

Bubbles said:

Oh great. So I rely on the Game to tell me which cards are valid for an event. I generally have Standard decks and Legacy decks for my most played PWs. And I just pick the one where there is no "invalid card" marker on it. 

It wasn't this simple to break it.

Mburn7

octal9 said:

Bubbles said:

Oh great. So I rely on the Game to tell me which cards are valid for an event. I generally have Standard decks and Legacy decks for my most played PWs. And I just pick the one where there is no "invalid card" marker on it. 

It wasn't this simple to break it.

It, uh, basically was.  Just needed 1 extra step, really.

Brakkis

Ya'll just need to let this **** go. The horse is dead Jim.

octal9

Mburn7 said:

It, uh, basically was.  Just needed 1 extra step, really.

A crucial step. It's literally the step that takes this from "I chose a deck" to "I put legacy cards in my standard deck"

[Deleted User]

Wow. Sorry guys but this is ridiculous. I have read these arguments over the past week or so and i am appalled. I actually tried really hard not to say anything because i will probably write another novel and its simply a waste of my time. 

Clearly there are different levels of cheating - its a scale. 

However the legacy exploit was the use of cards outside of the established rules. Furthermore, if you're in platinium (or even gold) clearly you know the rules associated with standard. Come on, you've been here a while.. This means you understand how explicitly unfair it is to use legacy cards in standard events. In fact, had you never known the exploit ever existed and you somehow never found out how to implement  the exploit but were a mere victim to it, would you feel the same? Additionally if you knew it was wrong and decided to report players, does this not mean you knew to some degree that it was not right?And that punishment for using legacy cards in a standard event was somewhat appropriate?

Here was my experience, i played against a few legacy decks in standard pvp.. i was angry and felt it was completely unfair (and more so with high stakes events, not your everyday Across Ixalan that refreshes). I felt these people were cheating and they deserved punishment (just being honest). The exploit was discovered and i was informed, i decided not to use it because i might get reported and therefore punished and worst of all my account banned (years of my life of grinding just trashed). Whenever anyone i knew that played the game decided to use this exploit i cautioned them against it but gave them the freedom to make their own decisions. And when i discussed it with other people, the majority believed it was wrong and inappropriate to use as the risks were too high (...And i was a scared little schoolgirl). 

And please dont mix PvE with PvP. If you used legacy cards in standard PvE, i could care less (still unfair but meh). I never have to face/see it and feel like poo-poo. But in a PvP event thats a different story. 

Also, if your in a relatively active coalition, did no one bat an eye? Was there not a single thought of well isnt this wrong? Or what if we get caught/reported? 

And apparently there was a work around for it - so it wasnt the easiest thing to pull off (granted once you knew, it wasnt hard).

Additionally it was not something available to everyone like sphinxes decree. Additionally sphinxes decree doesnt give you an edge in your games like legacy cards (i.e. hour of devastation/boomship/etc etc level advantage in the current standard). Sphinxes decree merely sabatoges unfortunate select individuals. But legacy cards give you a HUGE edge and sabatoge your opponent (not always but generally legacy cards have a strong cost for value element).

And the tennis analogy i saw somewhere, using bugged cards (sphinxes decree) is like using the sun, wind + dust, etc - everyone is affected or can use it. And i am pretty sure in tennis they switch sides at some point so its more fair and not only 1 player is staring at the sun.
The legacy exploit is like bringing your own custom made racket to an event where only a standardized racket is to be used. Another way to think of it is, you used steroids/meds to boost your abilities while others didnt and in general is not allowed. 

And if somehow, you ended up accidently and truly unknowingly using it, thats fine - it happens. 

Honestly, if you used the exploit, its fine too - you knew to some degree the potential risks. Just own it. Think of robbing a bank, you can do, its wrong; but, you decided the benefits outweighed the risks - the end. Its your life, your choice.

If you used the exploit to combat others using the exploit. I can understand this. Its like using green gem conversion loop decks to battle other green gem conversion loop decks. Well the thing is the legacy bug wasnt that rampant (relative to me and others). If 90%+ of my matches were then yes i would probably fight fire with fire but it wasnt even close. So this is truly an unfortunate situation.. i mean it happens and your reason is more justified but still you knew the risks to some degree. Or perhaps you thought D3Go would do nothing about it? I mean it definitely crossed my mind. (But this kind of sucks, especially if at some point you just caved). 

And i think there were some other reasonable/ understandable reasons out there but cant remember them all

And stop using potentially fallible arguments (no offense to anyone), you can spin anything to sound good - thats what tobacco companies do. But that doesn't mean that they are sound arguments or correct for that matter. 

EDIT: RotGP, the rules havent been updated in forever. Most knew this for a very very long time. Therefore this rules section if RotGP is not a sound basis to argue with - it was always going to be (and probably always will be) wrong! But an event with a legacy blue ribbon is legacy... we also know this.. and have known this for a while - it is definitely a more reliable sign/indicator than the rules section. HOWEVER, the differences in information on the forum event schedule and in-game event are valid arguments. 

Tl;dr: Cheating is bad. But for the truly innocent situations - its fine. It happens. Honestly, if you used the exploit, its fine too - you knew to some degree the potential risks. Your life, your choice - just own it. 

Kinesia

Intent.

It's all about intent.

What is the games intent?

What is your intent in relation to that?

Brigby

(Disclaimer: This is my own personal opinion, which may not necessarily be the stance that D3 Go! and/or Oktagon follows.)

The way I see it, the difference between a bug and an exploit is in its accessibility. A bug is a behavior that differs from its intended functionality, however everyone is forced to experience that same behavior.

An exploit is a behavior that differs only because the user performs certain actions, in order to manipulate it into something different from what everyone else naturally experiences.

An example of a fictional exploit would be the following: Playing Card A via normal method causes intended Behavior 1. Adding and removing Card A from a deck multiple times, before going into a battle and playing it via normal method, causes exploited Behavior 2. 

bobby_2613

I've been a MtGPQ since the begining but I've been really casual.  Since last month, I've started to play more but to be honest, I don't event know the difference between Standard/Legacy.  I'm pretty sure people not coming to Forums don't know this too.  So when you're saying there's an exploit, I hear you.  But I don't even know which set are ok or not.