Winter Wonderland Vault is live

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  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 12,126 Chairperson of the Boards

    @entrailbucket said:

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @entrailbucket said:

    @bluewolf said:
    Do I have specific examples? Not off hand. But there are people who are known to have done stuff with time traveling and still are here.

    Note I was specifically talking about sandboxing and not rolling back. They may or may not roll a significant spender back but I don’t think they’ll be sandboxed at this point. At most they would get a warning.

    I suppose if someone actually hacked the game and gave themselves a ton of 6* shards they might box them. I’m not sure what’s involved in time traveling exactly but I suspect it’s a bit less involved than altering the resources for the account since basically you’re telling the game you can get the daily deal again instead of waiting to the next day.

    Massive aside -- rollbacks are often a more significant punishment than sandboxing, since the rolled-back player sticks around with (oftentimes a MUCH) weaker roster. Eating a rollback from "everybody is 550" to "I have some 450s now" usually causes the player to quit anyway, because they can't win stuff anymore. (Yes, this has happened, and OMG it's the best).

    Even less significant rollbacks are preferable to sandboxing for me, because they still allow for (repeated, often hilarious) revenge. You guys might not care about winning, but players who are cheating to win certainly do! When they lose all their good stuff, we get to beat them up. They usually don't stick around long after that.

    When a player is sandboxed they're just gone forever, and we can't do anything to them anymore. Forcing them to quit is much more satisfying.

    Anyway, unless you know of specific players who did the same thing and got different punishments, I don't know how you can claim that they're treating spenders differently.

    They should use the player names of sandboxed players and make them into seed team inserts! That way they can be collectively punished by the rest of the player base over and over again! 😁

    I know it's impossible for you guys to imagine, but there are players who actually care about winning stuff, and the players who cheat often really, really care about winning stuff. That's why they're cheating!

    So punishing them by removing their ability to win stuff is a real thing, and turning their roster into a punching bag is a way worse punishment than just banning them outright.

    Why would it be impossible for us to imagine that people want to win stuff?

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,957 Chairperson of the Boards

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @entrailbucket said:

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @entrailbucket said:

    @bluewolf said:
    Do I have specific examples? Not off hand. But there are people who are known to have done stuff with time traveling and still are here.

    Note I was specifically talking about sandboxing and not rolling back. They may or may not roll a significant spender back but I don’t think they’ll be sandboxed at this point. At most they would get a warning.

    I suppose if someone actually hacked the game and gave themselves a ton of 6* shards they might box them. I’m not sure what’s involved in time traveling exactly but I suspect it’s a bit less involved than altering the resources for the account since basically you’re telling the game you can get the daily deal again instead of waiting to the next day.

    Massive aside -- rollbacks are often a more significant punishment than sandboxing, since the rolled-back player sticks around with (oftentimes a MUCH) weaker roster. Eating a rollback from "everybody is 550" to "I have some 450s now" usually causes the player to quit anyway, because they can't win stuff anymore. (Yes, this has happened, and OMG it's the best).

    Even less significant rollbacks are preferable to sandboxing for me, because they still allow for (repeated, often hilarious) revenge. You guys might not care about winning, but players who are cheating to win certainly do! When they lose all their good stuff, we get to beat them up. They usually don't stick around long after that.

    When a player is sandboxed they're just gone forever, and we can't do anything to them anymore. Forcing them to quit is much more satisfying.

    Anyway, unless you know of specific players who did the same thing and got different punishments, I don't know how you can claim that they're treating spenders differently.

    They should use the player names of sandboxed players and make them into seed team inserts! That way they can be collectively punished by the rest of the player base over and over again! 😁

    I know it's impossible for you guys to imagine, but there are players who actually care about winning stuff, and the players who cheat often really, really care about winning stuff. That's why they're cheating!

    So punishing them by removing their ability to win stuff is a real thing, and turning their roster into a punching bag is a way worse punishment than just banning them outright.

    Why would it be impossible for us to imagine that people want to win stuff?

    I assumed you were joking when you said they should name the seeds after sandboxed players, because you thought the idea of "getting revenge" for cheating is silly.

    Maybe I was reading too deep into it. If you were being serious...it's not actually revenge unless the player being attacked eats the losses.

  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 12,126 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf said:
    I mean I'm not saying there isn't a line that can be crossed but other players know about multiple instances over the years where a rollback occurred or a warning was issued.

    I think if you get boxed the most common situation is that you are an account that hasn't spent, or spent little, and have fairly minimal community engagement if any, and went over the top with a vault or whatever.

    I mean sure if you maybe spent on VIP or a costume last month and then you went in and gave yourself 1 million hp to clear the first WW vault and got Cosmic Spidey they would probably box you regardless.

    If you do something less egregious and spend a good amount regularly they will probably negotiate with you.

    I think it also depends on how deep under the hood you went, like when they threatened people with rollbacks for the token farming in July, no one got rolled back that we are aware of.

    It's a very old video game, and looking at recent alliance counts we are down thousands of players from pre-Unity, and they want to keep highly engaged spenders in the game if they can. It's as simple as that.

    Well give them an incentive that doesn't include cheating. I have no problem with spenders and high spenders especially being rewarded more than they are right now but the way you talk it is almost though these players have no option but to cheat and the Devs let that happen and everything else is fait accompli. Does the word greed not factor in any of this or is your Omerta not allowed to say? 😁😁

  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 12,126 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 17 December 2025, 18:14

    @Scofie said:
    Can we please not spell out how the cheaters have cheated. I'm sure this is "common knowledge" amongst some, but let's not share it any wider, eh?

    Oh yeah, it's also against the forum rules. So.... stop.

    I agree with this as long as any post agreeing with these cheats is sanctioned.

    @entrailbucket said:

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @entrailbucket said:

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @entrailbucket said:

    @bluewolf said:
    Do I have specific examples? Not off hand. But there are people who are known to have done stuff with time traveling and still are here.

    Note I was specifically talking about sandboxing and not rolling back. They may or may not roll a significant spender back but I don’t think they’ll be sandboxed at this point. At most they would get a warning.

    I suppose if someone actually hacked the game and gave themselves a ton of 6* shards they might box them. I’m not sure what’s involved in time traveling exactly but I suspect it’s a bit less involved than altering the resources for the account since basically you’re telling the game you can get the daily deal again instead of waiting to the next day.

    Massive aside -- rollbacks are often a more significant punishment than sandboxing, since the rolled-back player sticks around with (oftentimes a MUCH) weaker roster. Eating a rollback from "everybody is 550" to "I have some 450s now" usually causes the player to quit anyway, because they can't win stuff anymore. (Yes, this has happened, and OMG it's the best).

    Even less significant rollbacks are preferable to sandboxing for me, because they still allow for (repeated, often hilarious) revenge. You guys might not care about winning, but players who are cheating to win certainly do! When they lose all their good stuff, we get to beat them up. They usually don't stick around long after that.

    When a player is sandboxed they're just gone forever, and we can't do anything to them anymore. Forcing them to quit is much more satisfying.

    Anyway, unless you know of specific players who did the same thing and got different punishments, I don't know how you can claim that they're treating spenders differently.

    They should use the player names of sandboxed players and make them into seed team inserts! That way they can be collectively punished by the rest of the player base over and over again! 😁

    I know it's impossible for you guys to imagine, but there are players who actually care about winning stuff, and the players who cheat often really, really care about winning stuff. That's why they're cheating!

    So punishing them by removing their ability to win stuff is a real thing, and turning their roster into a punching bag is a way worse punishment than just banning them outright.

    Why would it be impossible for us to imagine that people want to win stuff?

    I assumed you were joking when you said they should name the seeds after sandboxed players, because you thought the idea of "getting revenge" for cheating is silly.

    Maybe I was reading too deep into it. If you were being serious...it's not actually revenge unless the player being attacked eats the losses.

    You might be surprised how much it would hurt knowing that your player name is just now the community b.itch.

  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 3,193 Chairperson of the Boards

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @Scofie said:
    Can we please not spell out how the cheaters have cheated. I'm sure this is "common knowledge" amongst some, but let's not share it any wider, eh?

    Oh yeah, it's also against the forum rules. So.... stop.

    I agree with this as long as any post agreeing with these cheats is sanctioned.

    @entrailbucket said:

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @entrailbucket said:

    @DAZ0273 said:

    @entrailbucket said:

    @bluewolf said:
    Do I have specific examples? Not off hand. But there are people who are known to have done stuff with time traveling and still are here.

    Note I was specifically talking about sandboxing and not rolling back. They may or may not roll a significant spender back but I don’t think they’ll be sandboxed at this point. At most they would get a warning.

    I suppose if someone actually hacked the game and gave themselves a ton of 6* shards they might box them. I’m not sure what’s involved in time traveling exactly but I suspect it’s a bit less involved than altering the resources for the account since basically you’re telling the game you can get the daily deal again instead of waiting to the next day.

    Massive aside -- rollbacks are often a more significant punishment than sandboxing, since the rolled-back player sticks around with (oftentimes a MUCH) weaker roster. Eating a rollback from "everybody is 550" to "I have some 450s now" usually causes the player to quit anyway, because they can't win stuff anymore. (Yes, this has happened, and OMG it's the best).

    Even less significant rollbacks are preferable to sandboxing for me, because they still allow for (repeated, often hilarious) revenge. You guys might not care about winning, but players who are cheating to win certainly do! When they lose all their good stuff, we get to beat them up. They usually don't stick around long after that.

    When a player is sandboxed they're just gone forever, and we can't do anything to them anymore. Forcing them to quit is much more satisfying.

    Anyway, unless you know of specific players who did the same thing and got different punishments, I don't know how you can claim that they're treating spenders differently.

    They should use the player names of sandboxed players and make them into seed team inserts! That way they can be collectively punished by the rest of the player base over and over again! 😁

    I know it's impossible for you guys to imagine, but there are players who actually care about winning stuff, and the players who cheat often really, really care about winning stuff. That's why they're cheating!

    So punishing them by removing their ability to win stuff is a real thing, and turning their roster into a punching bag is a way worse punishment than just banning them outright.

    Why would it be impossible for us to imagine that people want to win stuff?

    I assumed you were joking when you said they should name the seeds after sandboxed players, because you thought the idea of "getting revenge" for cheating is silly.

    Maybe I was reading too deep into it. If you were being serious...it's not actually revenge unless the player being attacked eats the losses.

    You might be surprised how much it would hurt knowing that your player name is just now the community b.itch.

    I feel like that would hurt if you use the same handle across multiple games. I don't. But I used to. If I knew my name was a laughing stock in one game, I'd probably stop using it elsewhere.

  • Codex
    Codex Posts: 518 Critical Contributor

    @JoeHandle said:

    @Codex said:
    Kudos for whomever discovered the time traveling "bug". Is this another benefit of unity or has it being going on before unity?

    Time shifting is a basic exploit tactic. Universal in networked/distributed games. Has been applied to MPQ in various ways since it launched.

    I have used the date shifting for Pokémon but did not think it would do something in puzzle quest.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,957 Chairperson of the Boards

    Fwiw here's how the "slap on the wrist" punishment works:.

    They work out whatever day you first did the exploit and set your entire account (roster, resources, tokens, supports etc) back to a snapshot of the day before that.

    So anything you cheated to get is gone, but so is everything you earned from placement or progression rewards during that time, anything you bought during that time, stuff you got from your alliance -- everything.

    Sometimes these exploits aren't discovered for months or years. Some players have lost entire years' worth of progress, thousands in legit spending, and tons of hoarded resources, just like that. So don't cheat. They'll get you eventually, and the longer it takes, the worse it'll be for you.

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 6,774 Chairperson of the Boards

    @Codex said:

    @JoeHandle said:

    @Codex said:
    Kudos for whomever discovered the time traveling "bug". Is this another benefit of unity or has it being going on before unity?

    Time shifting is a basic exploit tactic. Universal in networked/distributed games. Has been applied to MPQ in various ways since it launched.

    I have used the date shifting for Pokémon but did not think it would do something in puzzle quest.

    A year or so ago I traveled back a time zone and the daily deal triggered again for me. But then it didn't happen again for like a day and a half. All I did was travel and my phone's clock got set to the local time.

    Am I not supposed to say that?

    I don't know why anyone would think I'm saying people have to cheat? In my head most people who're highly engaged grind away or spend legit but some find a thing like when we got free tokens in July and go nuts, things like that. Then maybe they'd lose a week of stuff or something but the devs seem to have pulled way back on cool stuff post-Unity because people were exploiting it and they can't stop it.

    If the devs want to box or rollback some of those players who got away with things long ago (like in the Gambit days when a bunch did), go for it. Nowadays it's extremely hard to have a roster based advantage thanks to all the tools and options and favoriting you can pursue to build meta teams fairly quickly.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,957 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf said:

    @Codex said:

    @JoeHandle said:

    @Codex said:
    Kudos for whomever discovered the time traveling "bug". Is this another benefit of unity or has it being going on before unity?

    Time shifting is a basic exploit tactic. Universal in networked/distributed games. Has been applied to MPQ in various ways since it launched.

    I have used the date shifting for Pokémon but did not think it would do something in puzzle quest.

    I don't know why anyone would think I'm saying people have to cheat? In my head most people who're highly engaged grind away or spend legit but some find a thing like when we got free tokens in July and go nuts, things like that. Then maybe they'd lose a week of stuff or something but the devs seem to have pulled way back on cool stuff post-Unity because people were exploiting it and they can't stop it.

    In theory yes, but this isn't how it works in practice. Yeah, in theory if you do something and they catch it right away and shut it off, a rollback only sets you back a week or two -- who cares!?

    What actually happens is that they take months and months investigating this stuff and deciding what to do about it, but you don't get the benefit of that time. So if you cheat in July, they might not put together a list of who did it until October, and might not decide to do anything about it until the next March, but you'd still be rolled back to where you were in July.

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 6,774 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 17 December 2025, 19:42

    Well, like I said, fair enough, ban or rollback the cheaters.

    A different topic: the resettable vault was legitimately mined by one? some? whales who now have a gigantic, months to years, head start on 6s (one has 11 covers for G and 6 for SM) over people who didn't jump on a 12 day vault who might have had the HP to use but not the time, or were pacing themselves, or whatever.

    And the replacement vault ends at 50 shards for each. with no way to "catch up" to those people who jumped on it, at all, in sight.

    BCS is utterly inept and should be embarrassed as they slink out the door of MPQ. Good Farking Riddance.

  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 12,126 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf said:
    Well, like I said, fair enough, ban or rollback the cheaters.

    A different topic: the resettable vault was legitimately mined by one? some? whales who now have a gigantic, months to years, head start on 6s (one has 11 covers for G and 6 for SM) over people who didn't jump on a 12 day vault who might have had the HP to use but not the time, or were pacing themselves, or whatever.

    And the replacement vault ends at 50 shards for each. with no way to "catch up" to those people who jumped on it, at all, in sight.

    BCS is the most inept group of "coders" and should be embarrassed as they slink out the door of MPQ. Good Farking Riddance.

    Same topic: it shouldn't matter if the vault was exploitable. If you chose to do it enough times that it matters, you are a bad guy. Stop blaming the game for the behavior of the players.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,957 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf said:
    Well, like I said, fair enough, ban or rollback the cheaters.

    A different topic: the resettable vault was legitimately mined by one? some? whales who now have a gigantic, months to years, head start on 6s (one has 11 covers for G and 6 for SM) over people who didn't jump on a 12 day vault who might have had the HP to use but not the time, or were pacing themselves, or whatever.

    And the replacement vault ends at 50 shards for each. with no way to "catch up" to those people who jumped on it, at all, in sight.

    BCS is utterly inept and should be embarrassed as they slink out the door of MPQ. Good Farking Riddance.

    They should punish people who were doing the exploit.

    If somebody legit spent the HP into it without doing that...well, we all had the chance to do the same thing. I reset it a few times legitimately myself! I'd probably have done it a bunch more if I knew it was ending early, but those guys didn't know it was ending early either.

    I don't see any problem with a resettable 6* vault though, so hopefully we'll get something like that in the future that isn't affected by the exploit.

  • Hellblazer666
    Hellblazer666 Posts: 423 Mover and Shaker

    Pulled the 40x got both galactus shards. I might cover him by the time I'm 90

  • Gymp28
    Gymp28 Posts: 304 Mover and Shaker

    @Hellblazer666 said:
    Pulled the 40x got both galactus shards. I might cover him by the time I'm 90

    From what I’ve read of your previous comments you’re not playing SCL10.

    You can legitimately hope to cover him in a ‘reasonable’ time if you are. Or if not ‘reasonable’, at least a fairly predictable length of time. I’m nearly at 3 covers, and I’d say that most who have been playing SCL10 with top 100 placement are at about the same place, without any shards from elsewhere.

  • JoeHandle
    JoeHandle Posts: 876 Critical Contributor

    @Gymp28 said:

    @Hellblazer666 said:
    Pulled the 40x got both galactus shards. I might cover him by the time I'm 90

    From what I’ve read of your previous comments you’re not playing SCL10.

    You can legitimately hope to cover him in a ‘reasonable’ time if you are. Or if not ‘reasonable’, at least a fairly predictable length of time. I’m nearly at 3 covers, and I’d say that most who have been playing SCL10 with top 100 placement are at about the same place, without any shards from elsewhere.

    Okay SCL10, t50 or t100 placement, and I am at 2.17 covers, But also not complaining that it will take forever to cover. Intitial figuring was that it would take 13mos x however many 6s are in reward rotation.

    Other offers / sources, and the promised / hoped for generic shards that will feed favorites, will cut that projection down and inject player agency into the process. It's early days in 6land ...

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,999 Chairperson of the Boards

    @JoeHandle said:

    @Gymp28 said:

    @Hellblazer666 said:
    Pulled the 40x got both galactus shards. I might cover him by the time I'm 90

    From what I’ve read of your previous comments you’re not playing SCL10.

    You can legitimately hope to cover him in a ‘reasonable’ time if you are. Or if not ‘reasonable’, at least a fairly predictable length of time. I’m nearly at 3 covers, and I’d say that most who have been playing SCL10 with top 100 placement are at about the same place, without any shards from elsewhere.

    Okay SCL10, t50 or t100 placement, and I am at 2.17 covers, But also not complaining that it will take forever to cover. Intitial figuring was that it would take 13mos x however many 6s are in reward rotation.

    Other offers / sources, and the promised / hoped for generic shards that will feed favorites, will cut that projection down and inject player agency into the process. It's early days in 6land ...

    It will definitely slow down as a 3rd and in a few more moths a 4th and 5th are added. By summer we will only get shards every 5th event for a character.

    KGB

  • Gymp28
    Gymp28 Posts: 304 Mover and Shaker

    @KGB said:

    @JoeHandle said:

    @Gymp28 said:

    @Hellblazer666 said:
    Pulled the 40x got both galactus shards. I might cover him by the time I'm 90

    From what I’ve read of your previous comments you’re not playing SCL10.

    You can legitimately hope to cover him in a ‘reasonable’ time if you are. Or if not ‘reasonable’, at least a fairly predictable length of time. I’m nearly at 3 covers, and I’d say that most who have been playing SCL10 with top 100 placement are at about the same place, without any shards from elsewhere.

    Okay SCL10, t50 or t100 placement, and I am at 2.17 covers, But also not complaining that it will take forever to cover. Intitial figuring was that it would take 13mos x however many 6s are in reward rotation.

    Other offers / sources, and the promised / hoped for generic shards that will feed favorites, will cut that projection down and inject player agency into the process. It's early days in 6land ...

    It will definitely slow down as a 3rd and in a few more moths a 4th and 5th are added. By summer we will only get shards every 5th event for a character.

    KGB

    Maybe, but there is a good chance they’ll activate the favouritable shards in some capacity once the 3rd 6 star releases, though I doubt they’ll be too easy to come by.
    We shouldn’t expect another 6 (after the 3rd) for 3 or 4 months if they stick to their intended release cadence.

  • kuntilanak
    kuntilanak Posts: 288 Mover and Shaker

    @Gymp28 said:

    @KGB said:

    @JoeHandle said:

    @Gymp28 said:

    @Hellblazer666 said:
    Pulled the 40x got both galactus shards. I might cover him by the time I'm 90

    From what I’ve read of your previous comments you’re not playing SCL10.

    You can legitimately hope to cover him in a ‘reasonable’ time if you are. Or if not ‘reasonable’, at least a fairly predictable length of time. I’m nearly at 3 covers, and I’d say that most who have been playing SCL10 with top 100 placement are at about the same place, without any shards from elsewhere.

    Okay SCL10, t50 or t100 placement, and I am at 2.17 covers, But also not complaining that it will take forever to cover. Intitial figuring was that it would take 13mos x however many 6s are in reward rotation.

    Other offers / sources, and the promised / hoped for generic shards that will feed favorites, will cut that projection down and inject player agency into the process. It's early days in 6land ...

    It will definitely slow down as a 3rd and in a few more moths a 4th and 5th are added. By summer we will only get shards every 5th event for a character.

    KGB

    Maybe, but there is a good chance they’ll activate the favouritable shards in some capacity once the 3rd 6 star releases, though I doubt they’ll be too easy to come by.
    We shouldn’t expect another 6 (after the 3rd) for 3 or 4 months if they stick to their intended release cadence.

    Implementation of favorable 6* shards implies the existence of those shops... Wonder how the pull rate and cost are like ..

  • TheGame32x
    TheGame32x Posts: 8 Just Dropped In

    I just love how none of the devs are saying anything on this matter.

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,999 Chairperson of the Boards

    @TheGame32x said:
    I just love how none of the devs are saying anything on this matter.

    The Devs are all being let go at the end of this month as a new team takes over.

    For the last month plus the game has been on total auto pilot as the new team learns how things work. Expecting anything between the announcement around US Thanksgiving and the New Year is a fools errand.

    KGB

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