There is no such thing as harmless cheatingâŠAnyone who clicked the same âcollect mailâ more than a few times are culpable regardlessâŠIt may be the correct thing to ban the big spenders, but the gem stockpilers who knew what they were doing was wrong(hoping they could spend them later), should also be sanctionedâŠMaybe not as harshly, but a punishment none the less.
Possibly an account regression of say 25% (Hero level was 1000 and now reduced to 750).
200 mails is intentional and 3k matches are not?
It can not be true that you believe this after realizing to yourself that there was something wrong with a few defenses won
I can see where youâre coming from and respect this view but donât really agree. I donât get angry about exploits that doesnât affect the rest of the community or present any real advantage. Iâm OK with the response being to take away the things gained.
At the same time, I wouldnât have abused this âjust for funâ because as I mentioned above, the degree of punishment usually depends on how bad a day someone else is having. I like to assume other people are having very bad days.
1 Like
It has been fascinating to watch this thread evolve with the ebb and flow of valid arguments and some contributors modifying their views based on some of those debates. I find myself questioning some of my positions as well. That is what makes this forum so intriguing.
As I have mentioned earlier in this thread, I have always taken a rather Draconian position on cheats/exploits. I have participated in games that collapsed due to such behavior. The exploitation never started out egregiously but often propelled to that point due to developer apathy. This led to more and more disregarding of the rules, a lack of confidence from the player base, and then the doom of said games.
I believe the developers are sending a message that they will not be apathetic regarding bad behavior. I do have to admit that consistency going forward on their part will be critical.
GOW is not a zero sum game but is becoming more so every day. Events have limited leaderboard places and thus limited rewards. An exploit can lead to a player getting an unfair advantage and an ability to âbuyâ his/her way to the top of the leaderboard on a particular event.
This is a wake up call to all players that the developers are intent on trying to keep the game integrity intact. Letâs just hope they are able to mete out equal justice going forward.
2 Likes
I saw Player X get banned. Then unbanned within 48 hours. I saw confirmation from the devs that guilds in Bracket 1 and 2 used an Exploit during Februaryâs GW.
Iâve attempted to get clarification about using the Gnome Exploit. Iâve also asked if trophy Exploits were banable offenses. Both requests were ignored.
This was all in the past though even if some of it wasnât a so distant past. Iâm hoping that the ACTUAL purpose of this thread is a declaration. If a player uses any Exploit what so ever. Then they risk having their account banned from the game.
2 Likes
Gnome exploit? No idea what that is. I guess Iâm out of the loop on that one too.
Possibly Gnome Juggling, getting a reroll on the type of the gnome that showed up in your battle, at the risk of the gnome disappearing entirely. As much as I know that was fixed a long time ago.
With some restraint, I suggest escalating exploits that get reported but not acknowledged. This is kind of grey hat, so itâs risky.
Some would say if theyâve ignored the exploit it must be OK. I donât trust my account with that. But if I knew a subtle way to manipulate things that didnât seem quite right, and I couldnât get a dev to confirm or deny my suspicion, Iâd pick a trusted party and explain it to them. It has to be someone I know isnât going to exploit it to a bannable extent. My goal: I want them to reproduce the exploit, then report it too.
Then we spread the bug to more trusted parties. Sooner or later, if every dang guild leader is asking the devs whatâs up, somebodyâs going to get tired of ignoring it. Either that, or every dang guild [that you spread it to] is going to be using it, and eventually it becomes a de facto feature of the game too difficult to remove without affecting player sentiment.
Itâs risky. Sometimes âyou told so and so how to do itâ is the bannable offense. But it bothers me if itâs true that a player with significant community clout can report an exploit with no response. Iâm susceptible to risking my account on larks once I start feeling my account doesnât matter in the grand scheme. It feels like the only time anything in this game gets addressed is after the players assemble with torches and pitchforks. Thatâs not doing much to make me feel like any community clout I hold is long-term important.
I guess a thing Iâm dancing at is there are a few people who can say, âI donât need this game, this game needs me.â I think itâs a muscle that can be flexed ethically, if one is careful.
1 Like
cant quote for some reason⊠but In reference to your fun facts post while accurate, you are missing the point. Using Exploits to âstealâ from other players is acceptable, âstealingâ from the publisher is not. its obviously the victim/source that determines if actual enforcement is applied, not the exploiting action itself.
3 Likes
If you visit a casino, and a slot machine is broken and gives you the jackpot every single time you roll it, ans you roll it like 100 timesâŠ
- You wonât get any cash in the hand.
- Youâll win a private visit to the back room with 2 very BIG bouncers.
Just sayingđ
Every person who exploited should be banned, or none should. It doesnât make sense to reward the ones who didnât spend the gems.
3 Likes
Yeah, I havenât been able to find any public case law but this is my hunch.
Gambling is heavily regulated.
In the actual games of skill, such as poker or blackjack, you can and will be escorted away from a table if the casino has proof youâre using strategies like card counting. If you win enough, youâre going to be escorted away even if they donât have the proof. Their house, their rules.
For the games of chance like slot machines, there are honest-to-goodness certification tests for how they pay out. The software or mechanisms within them must be licensed to function correctly, or they are not considered legal gambling devices. The casinos know exactly how much the machines should pay out, and they are very good at statistical analysis. If a machine pays out in suspicious circumstances, your winnings are generally held while an investigation happens. You can kick and scream all you want, if they can convince a regulatory body they have reason to believe there was a software flaw they will have the courtâs side. At best, if you prove there was a flaw, then the gambling device wasnât a legal gambling device, so you might âwinâ for your efforts an accusation that you are trying to claim illegal winnings.
So Iâm pretty certain if itâs determined you won based on a software flaw, youâll likely find yourself not just sans winnings, but unable to return to the casino. If you feel like itâs unfair, youâre free to file a lawsuit, but they have more money than you so the odds arenât in your favor.
I canât find specific cases to back this up, itâs a tricky field. The most visible cases were situations where the gambler knew a reliable exploit, and most of them end up in jail. Thatâs⊠actually the most analogous case to what happened in GoW, so think pretty hard about that.
If, instead, we pick the innocent scenario where somebody accidentally encounters a slot machine error, I donât see anything definitive. I see a few cases of casinos proving software errors erroneously reported prizes in situations that were clearly not winning spins. I see a few cases where the casino canât seem to prove that as definitively. Almost all of them seem to be settled out of court, which means no one can discuss the details.
1 Like
Stealing from a player is kind of hard to prove. You can set up easy GW Def for me and most would never know. Stealing thru a mail glitch is very easy to prove. There will always be people cheating in game and most will get away with it because for the most part many will never know someone cheated. For me if someone has to cheat to get say a power orb or 1500 gems then I guess they needed it more than I did. My Mortgage will still get paid and life will go on. I would say if they get caught cheating there will be some form of punishment given and you and I probably wonât know about it. Just because we do not know about it does not mean someone was not punished. I would not make any excuses for people taking advantage of a glitch giving a bunch of free gems because there is no excuse for it. Again the people banned did it in excess of 100 times not 5 or 6 and their hand got tired.
If a player is banned every Trophy they ever got gets deleted is my understanding. I could be wrong but it looks to be the case.
It is 50% of lifetime total whilst with that guild (confirmed by devs).
I have to cast doubt in your claimed coding knowledge. Whenever software/system engineers are working on upgrades and/or performance changes, they generally do so on development stations featuring the active source code currently operating the system, enhanced by the coding changes. They test, test, test and test before signing off the latest code for live activation. Then they may either switch over to the new system or download the patch in scheduled downtime. Code doesnât just become buggy for no reason. Cause and effect due to variable or parameter changes that werenât cross referenced with EVERY incidence throughout the code is generally the reason. The simple truth is that the devs are throwing so much event content at the game that their quality system is simply unfit for purpose. Weekly weapons and troops, new pets, factions (more troops), dooms, classes and so on. The frequency of bugs seems to have escalated proportionally to the additional content and thatâs what can happen when you donât/canât ensure sound coding integrity. Engineers would not switch over to a system that they havenât validated and tested to failure. FACT. If youâre condoning bugs and validating them based on your âknowledgeâ of coding, then your an amateur at best, with very little knowledge of how things work in industry. IS09001 for example.
EDIT.
As coding changes go, this was an incredibly simple change to make and test. You script a mail sending ONE mail containing a message and 10 gems to each account. To test, simply run the script, open a test gems account and press the claim button. Run again and press the claim all button. Simple as that. Instead, it wasnât coded or tested by a proficient individual and as a result, what was meant to be a global message and small gift, has ended up being an issue that some foolishly chose to exploit and
in some cases, merit a permanent ban. I do not agree that the spend/did not spend distinction is in any way relevant. Non spenders didnât accumulate thousands of gems without the intention to cash them in at some point. The gem deficit option to be repaid as suggested by some sounds reasonable bearing mind that the game developers have undeniable responsibility for this chaos.
3 Likes
How many bug testers do you think a typical, non-AAA game company employs? If you think a thousand, youâre well off the mark. If you think a hundred, still way off. Bug testers will catch a lot of bugs, but they will NEVER have the same level of âunlimited monkeys mashing unlimited keyboardsâ power that the playerbase does. It is not economically feasible to hire enough bug testers to match the playerbase for chaos.
You might think âitâs simpleâ because you know about the bug now and can see it in retrospect, but in coding work, you canât know ahead of time what kind of bugs will show up, or how to trigger them, regardless of how simple it may seem.
While I think of IP2 as an Indie (Soonâą Nindie). I think of 505 as a Triple A Publisher.
505 is in charge of QA. 
505 games has 151 employees. Doesnât look like they have thousands of bug testers either.
1 Like
You donât need thousands of bug testers to code and test an elementary piece of routine coding like this. This is undergraduate stuff that many a teenager could handle. As I pointed out, and you have blatantly ignored (as you do with many contributions from your peers), this code required minimal testing. Run twice, press two buttonsâŠdone. Also, any software engineer worth his salt will cross test every aspect of the code associated with any parameters he has change; thatâs standard FAT. He will then run the code on the actual live platform whilst in attendance so that he can sign off the SAT. Yes the odd anomaly can occur but they are rare and dealt with at once. Based upon how you are arguing the point from some some deluded idea that you know about coding you then attempt defending your opinion and the devs mistake by construing some loosely related counter approach. If you canât test and ensure the quality of your product, you donât release it to the consumer. Thatâs simple business acumen. If you donât have sufficient coding and testing personnel to deal with incessant and ambitious change schedules, you rethink, replan and accommodate ONLY the changes you can release with full confidence and QA. Minimise the bugs by being realistic about what you can deliver with integrity and thus maintain and nurture consumer confidence. Quality product delivery encourages positive recommendation and business growth. Repeated errors do the opposite. I work in CEI so this is a fundamental concept to me and my colleagues. If we did this, people would lose their jobs and client confidence would be severely damaged. You simply cannot continue to deliver substandard products to the consumer and expect no regressive consequences from a business perspective. This is a fairly simple gameâŠa few hours a day of actually playing it by someone employed by 505 would be adequate in terms of testing bugs reported by the player base, instead of asking for videos/screenshots etc while sipping a latte. Thousands of testers? Câmon. Thatâs hilarious.
2 Likes