regarding punishment for exploit

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I can sincerely say that you'd kill the game to gain satisfaction.

 

Whilst his punishments may be somewhat over the top to let everyone keep the gear without balancing those that didn't exploit somehow with equivalent gear could have a fairly detrimental effect on the game also for reasons I've touched on earlier.

 

In terms of punishment I personally don't care too much so long as balance is brought back either by stripping the ill gotten gear/gains or bumping those that didn't get it.

 

A ban won't cut it if it's a day or a week or a month if they all come back with their ill gotten gains and ruin the balance again.

 

If it was only a small minority then no big deal but that amount of people doing it is quite ridiculous. As someone else pointed out just take a look around fleet at the gear or achievements of other level 60's to get a feel for how bad it is.

 

Also I don't think I remember ever seeing a new op being so hard to find a group for so soon after release. Some argue difficulty ( I don't buy it, most ops were hard at launch and everyone was still fast forming groups to just give them a go even when they were bugged and couldn't even be finished like DF/DP on launch ) though I would more wonder if it's everyone being locked out after exploit ( assuming it locks you out, I assume it does, I've not done it? ).

[euroDSMtuner]

So what happens to those who might have done it once and all their other 198 gear was acquired via ultimate comms? They just gonna destroy everything 198 in ones whole account? My guess it's there is gonna be a 30 day suspension, or else you will have to pay a certain amount in CC to unlock your toon. Since they decided not to fix this after it was reported to them in the PTS, they cannot place all the blame solely on those who acted human and not like a preachy goodie two shoes and used the exploit. I highly doubt they are gonna span the ban hammer in this case, but will deal out a recoverable punishment in order to keep people around while making sure the message is clear that any exploits in the future with result in a permaban. Edited January 9, 2015 by euroDSMtuner

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I'm giving my opinion, it's an open forum and I live in a country where we have the freedom of speech. In my opinion people are completely over reacting, in every direction and in every way, people are over reacting. I was simply stating that, as I am allowed to do.

 

Cut the freedom of speech crap. I didn't say you weren't allowed to post your opinion I just pointed out why even bother if your whole opinion is that people shouldn't care so much as to bother their displeasure in the first place?

 

Any post you make is fairly hypocritical when you it with ...

 

Sit back, play the game and just be you, playing the game.

 

Take your own advice perhaps?

 

Sit back, play the game and just be you, playing the game.

A number of SWTOR people are also key leaders on the Shadow Realms team, I think we aren't their most important project at the moment.

SWTOR is an active product with paying subscribers and a healthy bottom line due to the cartel market, so they have moved on the the next big thing. Most of the Devs are probably looking to move on to a new title with more promising results just like some of their peers have already begun to do.

 

They have started checking out because they are looking for their "next big thing," They don't truly care about SWTOR anymore.

 

Pfft stop talking nonsense. If you can't back it up with any semblance of proof that the same developers etc. are moving to work on that game and that they don't care about SWToR then you should not post such drivel.

[Kirazy]

Whilst his punishments may be somewhat over the top to let everyone keep the gear without balancing those that didn't exploit somehow with equivalent gear could have a fairly detrimental effect on the game also for reasons I've touched on earlier.

 

In terms of punishment I personally don't care too much so long as balance is brought back either by stripping the ill gotten gear/gains or bumping those that didn't get it.

 

A ban won't cut it if it's a day or a week or a month if they all come back with their ill gotten gains and ruin the balance again.

 

If it was only a small minority then no big deal but that amount of people doing it is quite ridiculous. As someone else pointed out just take a look around fleet at the gear or achievements of other level 60's to get a feel for how bad it is.

 

Also I don't think I remember ever seeing a new op being so hard to find a group for so soon after release. Some argue difficulty ( I don't buy it, most ops were hard at launch and everyone was still fast forming groups to just give them a go even when they were bugged and couldn't even be finished like DF/DP on launch ) though I would more wonder if it's everyone being locked out after exploit ( assuming it locks you out, I assume it does, I've not done it? ).

 

Actually difficulty is a very good reason. The 16 man level 60 operations are very difficulty due to the 2nd boss in Ravagers, and the third boss in Temple of Sacrifice. The mechanics must be executed perfectly and everyone needs to be on point. You can't half *** it. This is already hard enough in 8man, 16man is substantially more difficult. Some bosses are cakewalk easy (the first boss in each operation, for example), and then some are ridiculously challenging due to mechanics. Underlurker and Bulo in Story mode in my opinion are a fair candidate for Hard mode for how tight the DPS check is in Underlurker, and how coordinated you need to be with Bulo.

 

Gear won't help with those. And I'd suggest most people aren't organizing pug runs because the operations are new and so the guilds are running Story mode as part of their regular progression cycle as opposed to Hard mode, and so there are far fewer people available to do Story mode in a pug setting. Further, because the exploit locks you out of the operation, anyone who exploits will be unavailable for a regular raid. These are all temporary conditions that'll change, probably starting to improve immediately after the exploit is patched.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

So what happens to those who might have done it once and all their other 198 gear was acquired via ultimate comms? They just gonna destroy everything 198 in ones whole account? My guess it's there is gonna be a 30 day suspension, or else you will have to pay a certain amount in CC to unlock your toon. Since they decided not to fix this after it was reported to them in the PTS, I highly doubt they are gonna span the ban hammer in this case.

 

Correct if I'm wrong because I've not actually run the exploit or even attempted much in the way of the ops yet because of it but aren't the comm gear and the HM drop gear ( token gear ) able to be differentiated against?

 

Also there would be logs of people buying gear with Ultimate Comms vs drops if they had to dig further. I know this from dealing with CS on things in the past where it's not given me the correct item and they could trace it back to a bug in their log to give me the correct item.

[Kirazy]

So what happens to those who might have done it once and all their other 198 gear was acquired via ultimate comms? They just gonna destroy everything 198 in ones whole account? My guess it's there is gonna be a 30 day suspension, or else you will have to pay a certain amount in CC to unlock your toon. Since they decided not to fix this after it was reported to them in the PTS, I highly doubt they are gonna span the ban hammer in this case.

 

I would expect most, if not all of the punishments that are called for in this thread to be ignored. They probably won't do very much, if anything with gear obtained. That would involve hellish hours to manually remove items from players. And this assumes they can determine which mod came from which item and how that item was obtained. They won't do blanket item removals. I guarantee it.

 

I expect if ANY gear is removed, it'll be tokens and crafting materials. Again, if that.

 

I'd expect bans of some duration, and not much else.

[Andryah]

By the way, yes, the players have an equal say in the matter. If the punishment is seen as too severe, subscribers will take off and find other games to play.

 

And subscribers are the biggest spenders on the CM.

 

Players have NO SAY in what Bioware does, when they do it, or how they do it. SWTOR is not a democracy, not even a representative democracy. Players do have a courtyard (called the forum) to pontificate and opine, but it is devoid of any authority over the game or it's players.

 

Players either accept it or they don't. They can choose to play or not play. That's it.

 

And we both know that most threats by players are hollow in nature. They either never leave, or they come back... because they like the game as a whole.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Andryah

[Warrgames]

The most entertaining thing about this whole ordeal is things people are using to try and justify their actions. I just love how players are blaming BW for the fact that they knowingly broke SWTOR Rules of Conduct that they agreed to. Trying to twist the actions to make it seem like they aren't breaking the rules.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Actually difficulty is a very good reason. The 16 man level 60 operations are very difficulty due to the 2nd boss in Ravagers, and the third boss in Temple of Sacrifice. The mechanics must be executed perfectly and everyone needs to be on point. You can't half *** it. This is already hard enough in 8man, 16man is substantially more difficult. Some bosses are cakewalk easy (the first boss in each operation, for example), and then some are ridiculously challenging due to mechanics. Underlurker and Bulo in Story mode in my opinion are a fair candidate for Hard mode for how tight the DPS check is in Underlurker, and how coordinated you need to be with Bulo.

 

Gear won't help with those. And I'd suggest most people aren't organizing pug runs because the operations are new and so the guilds are running Story mode as part of their regular progression cycle as opposed to Hard mode, and so there are far fewer people available to do Story mode in a pug setting. Further, because the exploit locks you out of the operation, anyone who exploits will be unavailable for a regular raid. These are all temporary conditions that'll change, probably starting to improve immediately after the exploit is patched.

 

I don't dispute what you say but things to me at least seem a lot more "stable" than when they were for the DF/DP launch and there were far more PUGS ( 8M/16M ) popping up when those came out and for quite some time afterwards ( despite how buggy they were ) than what we see here.

 

I'm sure there could be other reasons I just find it strange to see such a ghost town of new op pugs, heck there are more old op pugs. Especially as I said with the reasons you can throw at difficulty/bugs etc. were present last time and you could get a pug within 30 minutes easy for months to come last time around.

[Kirazy]

The most entertaining thing about this whole ordeal is things people are using to try and justify their actions. I just love how players are blaming BW for the fact that they knowingly broke SWTOR Rules of Conduct that they agreed to. Trying to twist the actions to make it seem like they aren't breaking the rules.

 

People are responsible for their actions. This is true.

 

That being said, Bioware's response to this exploit is puzzling. It's been weeks. They are patching it on their regular maintenance cycle, instead of either disabling the raid until it's fixed, or hotfixing it immediately. Bioware was made aware of this exploit when it was first discovered, and has done nothing about it until now.

 

For all that players are responsible for abusing the exploit, Bioware has done **** all about it.

[RiVaN_]

Pfft stop talking nonsense. If you can't back it up with any semblance of proof that the same developers etc. are moving to work on that game and that they don't care about SWToR then you should not post such drivel.

 

https://www.shadowrealms.com/

 

Look at this site and tell me if the 4 pictures and names aren't familiar to you.

Proof provided.

Musco Community Manager of Shadow Realms as his job on Twitter as well.

Next?

Edited January 9, 2015 by RiVaN_

[ivanhedgehog]

I agree with that idea.

Removing all the ill-gotten items is nigh impossible, they can't afford permabanning all the subs who exploited and just a 3-day ban won't really make too much a impact for players -- they'd need to ban players for at least a month to make a difference. While my server is not affected too much (less than 5% of level 60 players), I know other servers are hit much harder.

Handing out a free mount, pet, color crystal or something similar to any account who does not have the 16-man HM achievement on any legacy is a nice gesture and will set a better sign for exploiters than a temporary ban ever would.

 

groups have completed the hardmode. why would you screw them?

[Kirazy]

I don't dispute what you say but things to me at least seem a lot more "stable" than when they were for the DF/DP launch and there were far more PUGS ( 8M/16M ) popping up when those came out and for quite some time afterwards ( despite how buggy they were ) than what we see here.

 

I'm sure there could be other reasons I just find it strange to see such a ghost town of new op pugs, heck there are more old op pugs. Especially as I said with the reasons you can throw at difficulty/bugs etc. were present last time and you could get a pug within 30 minutes easy for months to come last time around.

 

Well as I said, between guilds saving lockouts for their characters to do in progression raiding, and the exploit locking people out of the operation entirely, your pool of available characters is already very small.

 

Speaking for myself, I organized/joined a pug run of Ravagers 16m when the operation first came out. As soon as we hit Bulo, and wiped a few times, I swore off pugging Ravagers until the population as a whole, on average, became more familiar with the operation, and I have only run the operations with my guild's progression teams.

 

Pugging has been hell for these ops when I've tried it.

[Andryah]

The most entertaining thing about this whole ordeal is things people are using to try and justify their actions. I just love how players are blaming BW for the fact that they knowingly broke SWTOR Rules of Conduct that they agreed to. Trying to twist the actions to make it seem like they aren't breaking the rules.

 

/Agree.

 

Though the forum membership is chewing on both end of this noodle with their extreme positions.

 

The funny part to me is players thinking they actually have any say in this one way or the other. Bioware will decide, and it will be what it will be. All any single player can do is appeal a conviction, if they receive one and feel it is unjust. Everyone else are simply unarmed bystanders gawking, rubber-necking and starting egg throwing fights.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

That being said, Bioware's response to this exploit is puzzling. It's been weeks. They are patching it on their regular maintenance cycle, instead of either disabling the raid until it's fixed, or hotfixing it immediately. Bioware was made aware of this exploit when it was first discovered, and has done nothing about it until now.

 

See I have no problem with this as long as they DO take action to remedy the situation. Like I've said I don't care about punishment or reward as long as the issue it has caused ( disparity in gearing ) is fixed somehow. To leave the bug and let people continue exploiting for almost a week after they announce it and still do nothing to them would have to be the stupidest thing I would ever have to have witnessed to date in this game.

[AdrianDmitruk]

Do you run operations? Do you organize operations? Like, I can't even. As someone who regularly organizes pug runs, I can't care less about someone's gear as long as they meet min-reqs. The only time I care is when, after several wipes it becomes VERY clear who can't do the job. And then it's almost always not a gear issue, but a learn-to-play issue. I invite based on first-come, first-serve. Rarely make gear inquiries.

 

I joined many PUG ops on my server between about 2.6 and 2.10 as I wanted to get my toes wet in PVE. Some ops leaders shared your attitude; others did gear inspections and weighted gear...more heavily than strictly necessary. People who are non-exploiters are now at a competitive disadvantage finding a spot in a PUG led by someone in the second group.

 

Why are you talking about 186 stuff? Operations drop 192 or 198 gear, not 186. The exploit concerns the operations only, not flashpoints. 186 is equivalent to the former Arkanian, and is something you want to get out of about as fast as you can possibly manage. Which is not difficult at all. Before the exploit was common knowledge I was in full 192 with set bonuses. If you run the ops gearing is easy. The exploit largely benefits players who suck at raiding.

 

I did mention that I spent all of December focusing on my PVP toon...

 

I am far more active in PVP than PVE, to the point where I felt that lack of experience with particular fights' mechanics shut me out of the latter. "LF DPS, must be geared and know fights..." well the latter is pretty much going to shut me out. I finally got back into raiding a little bit when Bioware buffed early endgame rewards to make it sufficiently forgiving for the community to be willing to teach people who were new to the content its relevant mechanics. Of course I also do have the responsibility to L2P and accept that, but there must be someone to learn from. However considering that I two-shot the Dread Council fight, in a full PUG, having never done that content before--in such a manner that describing it would lead to "video or it didn't happen"--which sadly I could not have foreseen the epic need to record -- I think we can conclude I have the capacity to L2P specific fights that I previously hadn't done.

 

It was only after New Year's that I got around to working on my second toon, my main PVE toon, whom I intended to gear up for the PUG raiding that I'd been doing a few months before. I went to spend basic comms and found I couldn't even buy 10 gloves to rip out the mods for anymore. I'd been so busy PVPing on my main that I hadn't even set foot in a 60 HM yet. I did, however, notice when doing the 3.0 storyline while leveling said PVE toon that there were multiple ops, so I figured maybe the easier one dropped 186 gear that hopefully was better than the terribad comm gear.

 

Also, how the hell am I supposed to know FPs don't have their own exploits when Bioware sits on them for this long and doesn't do anything, and isn't transparent? You say that 192s and up are in doubt, but looking at the utter dearth of properly itemized gear dropping from FPs, let alone basic comms, I figured the good schematics were literally only REable from the ops. On my server there's a flood of optimized enhancements but literally zero unlettered mod 36s on GTN, as of last night.

 

So it appears my knowledge of where PVE gear comes from is off by one tier. I'm sure you've seen far, far worse issues of L2P, especially considering where I've been

Edited January 9, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk

[Kirazy]

See I have no problem with this as long as they DO take action to remedy the situation. Like I've said I don't care about punishment or reward as long as the issue it has caused ( disparity in gearing ) is fixed somehow. To leave the bug and let people continue exploiting for almost a week after they announce it and still do nothing to them would have to be the stupidest thing I would ever have to have witnessed to date in this game.

 

I expect any solution/punishment they put in place will be mostly, if not entirely, automated. As such that narrows what you can expect to actually happen. Removal of gear is complex enough I don't expect that to happen via an automated process, and they've allowed the exploit to remain long enough that it is VERY widespread among the level 60 raiding population (the nature of the exploit is such that it spreads almost like a virus). And even among level 60 casuals, because it is so easy. So the pool of people that they'd have to manually go in and correct is ENORMOUS. It would be expensive to correct that manually due to the man hours that would be required.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Look at this site and tell me if the 4 pictures and names aren't familiar to you.

Proof provided.

Next?

 

No? Please elaborate. I am looking for something stating that "EA no longer wishes us to support the SWToR MMO for a game that isn't an MMO" but I fail to find it.

 

Bioware also managed to launch Dragon Age Inquisition recently and the new expansion to SWToR not long after that, is that kind of like giving up on SWToR also?

[LordArtemis]

I have an opinion, my opinion is Who cares and why does it matter so much, it's just a game. That is my opinion and seeing as this is a free and open, public forum I am allowed to voice that opinion.

 

Well, luckily for you you also have the freedom to respond to posts with nothing that resembles or takes the form of a proper response.

 

Your statement has nothing to do with the statement you quoted. Perhaps you quoted the wrong one?

[ivanhedgehog]

Personally I feel stripping all the ill-gained gear and any achievements they earned because of it and banning them for 1-2 weeks is enough. Anything less would not be acceptable.

 

if they do that they also need to update their resumes...for when they get laid off.

[Kirazy]

I joined many PUG ops on my server between about 2.6 and 2.10 as I wanted to get my toes wet in PVE. Some ops leaders shared your attitude; others did gear inspections and weighted gear...more heavily than strictly necessary. People who are non-exploiters are now at a competitive disadvantage finding a spot in a PUG led by someone in the second group.

 

In my experience the second type of ops-leader you mention is a minority. Even on freshly minted 55's and 60's I've had no trouble finding a pug that would allow me to start doing operations on that character. Don't need to be ideally geared to run operations, just gotta overcome the fear of doing them and take a risk.

 

 

 

I did mention that I spent all of December focusing on my PVP toon...

 

I am far more active in PVP than PVE, to the point where I felt that lack of experience with particular fights' mechanics shut me out of the latter. "LF DPS, must be geared and know fights..." well the latter is pretty much going to shut me out. I finally got back into raiding a little bit when Bioware buffed early endgame rewards to make it sufficiently forgiving for the community to be willing to teach people who were new to the content its relevant mechanics. Of course I also do have the responsibility to L2P and accept that, but there must be someone to learn from. However considering that I two-shot the Dread Council fight, in a full PUG, having never done that content before--in such a manner that describing it would lead to "video or it didn't happen"--which sadly I could not have foreseen the epic need to record -- I think we can conclude I have the capacity to L2P specific fights that I previously hadn't done.

 

It was only after New Year's that I got around to working on my second toon, my main PVE toon, whom I intended to gear up for the PUG raiding that I'd been doing a few months before. I went to spend basic comms and found I couldn't even buy 10 gloves to rip out the mods for anymore. I'd been so busy PVPing on my main that I hadn't even set foot in a 60 HM yet. I did, however, notice when doing the 3.0 storyline while leveling said PVE toon that there were multiple ops, so I figured maybe the easier one dropped 186 gear that hopefully was better than the terribad comm gear.

 

Also, how the hell am I supposed to know FPs don't have their own exploits when Bioware sits on them for this long and doesn't do anything, and isn't transparent? You say that 192s and up are in doubt, but looking at the utter dearth of properly itemized gear dropping from FPs, let alone basic comms, I figured the good schematics were literally only REable from the ops. On my server there's a flood of optimized enhancements but literally zero unlettered mod 36s on GTN, as of last night.

 

So it appears my knowledge of where PVE gear comes from is off by one tier. I'm sure you've seen far, far worse issues of L2P, especially considering where I've been

 

You can RE from Comms gear, which is where the 186 schematics are coming from. Same for the 192 schematics. The exploit has undoubtedly accelerated the rate at which the 192 schematics are learned, but aside from moving up the time table on major milestones in that process not much else has been affected. The effects of the exploit are being overstated by those who don't understand it.

[ivanhedgehog]

Perhaps you meant a nerf?

 

nope, a purple power pony of perpetual punishment as a companion.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I expect any solution/punishment they put in place will be mostly, if not entirely, automated. As such that narrows what you can expect to actually happen. Removal of gear is complex enough I don't expect that to happen via an automated process, and they've allowed the exploit to remain long enough that it is VERY widespread among the level 60 raiding population (the nature of the exploit is such that it spreads almost like a virus). And even among level 60 casuals, because it is so easy. So the pool of people that they'd have to manually go in and correct is ENORMOUS. It would be expensive to correct that manually due to the man hours that would be required.

 

I thought so too but then it all depends on what identifying flags ( for lack of a better word ) there are in the logs to show what is exploit and what is not.

 

For all we know it could be as simple as they can readily see anyone who has achievement and gear but didn't actually kill the boss ( this would make life simpler ) as it didn't set a certain register or something and almost seems it would be quite likely. I guess I'm not entirely sure on this because I'm not 100% on how the exploit works ... I'm just assuming there would be some differential between someone who has done it legit vs someone who has not in logs.

 

On that someone mentioned it was for final boss only or is it for all bosses? That being the case if it's final boss only ( and you can skip all others ) then it would be pretty simple to spot the people with a final boss kill/achievment or gear piece but missing all the others.

 

One you can identify the players the rest is easy.

 

You remove everything ( gear, GTN, lockers, Companions, anything I'm forgetting ) that has level 198 mods in it ( or is 198 itself ) ( or 192 though that could be going too far as it's SM I believe? ) and also token's, mounts, RE schems basically anything that CAN drop from a HM op.

 

This means that you may lose things you were legally entitled to including shells you purchased but there in lies the punishment.

 

This ideally could be easily enough scripted as long as you get the initial list of players to begin with.

[Preston_Violent]

so.. nvm solution 1 = LOL , and solution 2 = more LOL

 

Bulk of the exploiter are, obv, raiders, and most likely subs.

 

Do they really want to ban subs and lose money?

 

 

Good to know raiders are as few as vocal, isn't? So BW can certainly afford to ban them

[RiVaN_]

No? Please elaborate. I am looking for something stating that "EA no longer wishes us to support the SWToR MMO for a game that isn't an MMO" but I fail to find it.

 

Bioware also managed to launch Dragon Age Inquisition recently and the new expansion to SWToR not long after that, is that kind of like giving up on SWToR also?

 

Musco, Woods, Hood and Dobson.

All SWTOR team members now working on Shadow Realms, a game that is being marketed by BW as being the next big thing in multiplayer online gaming.

If you don't understand that work on this project is a segway out of SWTOR you are just being naive and if you think they aren't paying more attention to that game then I don't know what else to tell you. You'll just have to figure it out for yourself.