regarding punishment for exploit

[Kirazy]

Wait, I can learn a schematic for a low-endurance, high-stat mod from ripping out the high-endurance mods from the comm gear and REing it? That doesn't make sense.

 

There are literally no unlettered 36 strength mods available from the basic vendor that I found. Not coincidentally, no unlettered 36 mods on my server.

 

So how the hell do I go about learning schematics for 186 unlettered mods? My cybertechs need to get busy. Presumably I don't have to run ops. I don't necessarily have to have instant 198s, but I know a steaming pile of **** (basic comms gear) when I see one. If I replace a gear slot, I expect the gear to actually be an upgrade.

 

Perhaps from the other source of 186 gear? Nightmare commendation vendors and those being REable. Who knows. Regardless, so that you may fully understand: 186 gear does not drop from any of the level 60 operations. And so that you understand that BIS 186 mods is not a result of the exploit: The exploit is present ONLY in the level 60 operations. And only one of them, but I won't say more on that.

 

Your concern with 186 schematics and BIS 186 mods/enhancements is not warranted as it is not related to the exploit at all.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

again, i hope you dont mind playing a dead game. you'll be following the exploiters to the game across the street eventually.

 

Heh so removing all ill gotten gains from those that ill got them at a possible cost of whatever they stupidly put them into will kill the game? Get realistic.

 

you're assuming such a db query exists and it can be used to ban players without having to export a list.

furthermore, having the final boss achievement and not the others is not proof positive that you exploited.

furthermore, having all hm boss achievements is not proof positive that you did not exploit on alts or perpetuate the exploit.

 

Yes I am assuming or that it could be created more to the point - that is stating the obvious is it not? I am clearly not stating for fact it exists because if I was I would be a developer and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

Also I've never spoken of banning anyone except those people that discovered then spread/sold this exploit in the first place. Looking through reddit it seems it's fairly obvious who they are also.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I hardly think even banning every person that participated in this exploit would make the game dead...I mean we are talking about hardcore HM Ops raiders, right?

 

Not exactly a huge portion of the community.

 

I certainly do not want to see the game lose ANY players...but this game could likely suffer the loss of every raider it has and would probably hardly flinch....IMO of course.

 

No we are talking about a sizeable portion of the community, possibly more level 60s have done so than haven't.

 

I know for instance that on another toon that is in a large conquest guild just about everyone was doing it and on multiple toons to the point everyone would end up locked out and from what I gather people who had toons in other guilds the same thing was occuring to the point if you weren't the one doing it like me you were the odd one out ... it's quite unprecedented this level of cheating to be honest.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

This assumes that Bioware is willing to eliminate legitimately acquired gear. I frankly doubt that. You and those like you are more than willing to hope and pray that Bioware does this, but I doubt they will to a reasonable degree of confidence.

 

If it is removing legitimate gear from someone who has gained gear etc. using illegitimate means then I think the punishment suits the crime personally.

 

No bans or anything like that, just setting back the status quo the best they can and if that means people who did cheat lose some legit gear as a result well then they shouldn't have cheated should they?

 

Those that haven't cheated and thus wouldn't show up wouldn't lose anything and those that haven't cheated and have no gear gain nothing.

 

The balance remains, not many would quit over losing gear when they know damn well they cheated and risked it to begin with and the game goes on. Hopefully with fixedo perations so more pugs pop up and the new operation popularity etc. is to what I expected and I'm not off playing other games so soon after new content launch ( only really playing SWToR at the moment waiting for opportunity to do operations and my usual GTN marketing stuff which is my fav thing in this game ).

[Preston_Violent]

No we are talking about a sizeable portion of the community, possibly more level 60s have done so than haven't.

 

I know for instance that on another toon that is in a large conquest guild just about everyone was doing it and on multiple toons to the point everyone would end up locked out and from what I gather people who had toons in other guilds the same thing was occuring to the point if you weren't the one doing it like me you were the odd one out ... it's quite unprecedented this level of cheating to be honest.

 

Then may they all be stripped of their gear, separate mods and crafting stuff. And may they all rage away from swtor. Episode 7 will bring fresh blood anyway, just have to wait it out

[Pagy]

Heh so removing all ill gotten gains from those that ill got them at a possible cost of whatever they stupidly put them into will kill the game? Get realistic.

no you said remove any hm drop item. in either case, people will quit en masse. game will die. and your righteous indignation can keep you warm as you wait for queues in a game no one plays.

 

im not saying its right to exploit, just saying this is what will happen. I'd love to say "wait and see" except i cant imagine bw is that stupid. i predict nothing will happen.

[Theeko]

Even if a game knew about the bug ever since before it came out, isn't it really hard to fix it sometimes if its really complicated and not try to abuse it at all, so why bother even doing it if you know its wrong to do. Also I think this violates it as well so not sure why they don't just lock all these posts, especially this one for having 50+ pages.

 

Consequences of violating these Rules of Conduct, including revocation of your Account, are the same as for violations of the Terms of Service. Please see the Terms of Service for more detail.

 

"Exploit any bug in the Service to gain unfair advantage in the game and/or communicate the existence of any such bug (either directly or through the public posting) to any other user of the Service."

Edited January 9, 2015 by Theeko

[Kirazy]

If it is removing legitimate gear from someone who has gained gear etc. using illegitimate means then I think the punishment suits the crime personally.

 

No bans or anything like that, just setting back the status quo the best they can and if that means people who did cheat lose some legit gear as a result well then they shouldn't have cheated should they?

 

Those that haven't cheated and thus wouldn't show up wouldn't lose anything and those that haven't cheated and have no gear gain nothing.

 

The balance remains, not many would quit over losing gear when they know damn well they cheated and risked it to begin with and the game goes on. Hopefully with fixedo perations so more pugs pop up and the new operation popularity etc. is to what I expected and I'm not off playing other games so soon after new content launch ( only really playing SWToR at the moment waiting for opportunity to do operations and my usual GTN marketing stuff which is my fav thing in this game ).

 

You assume they can perfectly filter exploiters from non-exploiters. This is not likely. False positives always happen. And if the punishments you suggest hit someone who is entirely innocent, you generate a customer service request, assuming the player doesn't throw in the towel over your draconian and disproportionate measures.

 

So with these draconian punishments, as has been mentioned in this thread, you are going to have a customer service nightmare over people who were (and undoubtedly weren't) wrongly actioned against who want all of their gear back.

 

Honestly a lot of the people in this thread who advocate really huge punishments I think overstate the severity of the exploit and its related impacts. To wit, your punishments are disproportionate relative to the actual exploit itself.

 

Fortunately Bioware, for all people flame them and rage at them, is a sensible company and their measures I'm sure will be in-line with what is warranted.

[Pagy]

I hardly think even banning every person that participated in this exploit would make the game dead...I mean we are talking about hardcore HM Ops raiders, right?

 

Not exactly a huge portion of the community.

 

I certainly do not want to see the game lose ANY players...but this game could likely suffer the loss of every raider it has and would probably hardly flinch....IMO of course.

you either dont understand how the exploit worked, or assume people that dont raid would have no reason to get free loot that far exceed what they can access.

 

assuming "only raiders" used it isnt an assumption i would leap to.

[Kirazy]

I hardly think even banning every person that participated in this exploit would make the game dead...I mean we are talking about hardcore HM Ops raiders, right?

 

Not exactly a huge portion of the community.

 

I certainly do not want to see the game lose ANY players...but this game could likely suffer the loss of every raider it has and would probably hardly flinch....IMO of course.

 

Uh, no. We're not talking about only hardcore HM Ops raiders. The potential pool of exploiters is anyone with a level 60 character. You don't even have to be a raider to participate in the exploit. There is no effort required to reap the benefits of the exploit. As such, probably more level 60 characters (and thus all associated characters on the account) have participated in the exploit than have not.

[ZETA_SCORPII]

I personally don't want to see a sizable chunk of Harbinger's raiding community gone, whether it be via bans or people quitting. This bull**** is all on BioWare and nothing is gonna happen without having a negative affect on more than just those who used the exploit. Many of those who used the exploit are the ones who organize raids on a frequent basis and help "noobs" get good gear carrying them through SM Ops.

[Andrellma]

As I've said before, if BioWare actually hands out any punishments, it will almost certainly only be against those who held the instances open with the intent of enabling the exploit. The average user who took advantage of this cheat will likely face absolutely no consequences.

 

That said, while I am not calling for this by any means, even if every single player who used the cheat even once got a lifetime ban, they'd get no sympathy from me.

[Genghistwelve]

Looks like all the exploit threads were involved in a 14 car pileup.....

 

Dare we say that weeks after experiencing no reward for exploit threads on the forum, Bioware just fixed the problem and now nearly the entire community is exploiting this exploit thread.

 

Everyone has gone about this the wrong way:

 

 

There are ways of telling whether she is an exploiter.

 

"Are there?" you ask? "Oh well, tell us," you say?

 

Tell me. What do you do with exploiters?

 

[AdrianDmitruk]

Perhaps from the other source of 186 gear? Nightmare commendation vendors and those being REable. Who knows. Regardless, so that you may fully understand: 186 gear does not drop from any of the level 60 operations. And so that you understand that BIS 186 mods is not a result of the exploit: The exploit is present ONLY in the level 60 operations. And only one of them, but I won't say more on that.

 

Your concern with 186 schematics and BIS 186 mods/enhancements is not warranted as it is not related to the exploit at all.

 

Ah, it appears my confusion stems from the basic comms vendor now selling (crappy versions of) the old NiM stuff. Now there are 186 schematics floating around that use both new mats, for level 58s, and the old ones, REd from 55 NiM stuff. The new ones, utilizing the new mats, are crappy so the old ones can retain some sort of relevance. Never thought of that as I never did NiM content.

 

I guess that is a reason, albeit one I find not compelling, for there to be literally no properly itemized mod to rip from a piece of gear you purchased 10 copies of as was the case before 3.0.

Edited January 9, 2015 by AdrianDmitruk

[mbfhl]

1) 3 days is not nearly enough to punish the exploiters. Hell, if I knew it was only 3 days, I'd start exploiting right now. Anything shorter than a month is not an acceptable punishment.

2) Taking away the gear is nearly impossible. Players could strip the mods and send it to alts, and based on previous encounters with CS, they don't seem to be able to track mods after they are pulled out. Mats can be sold off to crafters and become untraceable.

IMO, they should ban players for longer than a month, maybe even leading into to the next raiding content, as well as permabanning all the players that contributed to spreading the exploit, especially those talking about it in fleet chat and the ones selling the secret for credits. Also, it would be a nice gesture to offer an exclusive pet or mount to all players that were honest and did not exploit.

 

You want them to permaban Zorz? Gosh you're retarded Jerba.

Edited January 9, 2015 by mbfhl

[Andryah]

You assume they can perfectly filter exploiters from non-exploiters. This is not likely. False positives always happen. And if the punishments you suggest hit someone who is entirely innocent, you generate a customer service request, assuming the player doesn't throw in the towel over your draconian and disproportionate measures.

 

So with these draconian punishments, as has been mentioned in this thread, you are going to have a customer service nightmare over people who were (and undoubtedly weren't) wrongly actioned against who want all of their gear back.

 

Honestly a lot of the people in this thread who advocate really huge punishments I think overstate the severity of the exploit and its related impacts. To wit, your punishments are disproportionate relative to the actual exploit itself.

 

Fortunately Bioware, for all people flame them and rage at them, is a sensible company and their measures I'm sure will be in-line with what is warranted.

 

/Agree.

 

And I would add that triggering false positives and acting on them creates bigger loss of trust and good will with the broader player base then any "escapes" that elude action.

 

Bioware got severely reamed by players on reddit some time back, over a wave of bans that in fact included some false positives.

 

Wouldn't it be poetic if some of our proposers of draconian measures were in fact caught by a false positive and actioned exactly as they petitioned? Ooopsie.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Andryah

[MeNaCe-NZ]

no you said remove any hm drop item. in either case, people will quit en masse. game will die. and your righteous indignation can keep you warm as you wait for queues in a game no one plays.

 

How has anything I have said to date come close to being righteous indignation? Unless you're a member of the guild that may or may not have caused all this fuss that I then suggested that should all be perma banned. I can see then maybe how you could view that as such but meh, game won't die for that, no one will miss them much.

 

Yup if you are a cheater you should lose anything you may have been able to gain cheating because it's quicker doing that then it is trying to prove if it was legit or not. If it's HM gear that you COULDN'T have possibly got cheating then that's not in the same boat obviously.

 

If you truly think this game would die over such things you are delusional.

[LordArtemis]

No we are talking about a sizeable portion of the community, possibly more level 60s have done so than haven't.

 

I know for instance that on another toon that is in a large conquest guild just about everyone was doing it and on multiple toons to the point everyone would end up locked out and from what I gather people who had toons in other guilds the same thing was occuring to the point if you weren't the one doing it like me you were the odd one out ... it's quite unprecedented this level of cheating to be honest.

 

I would bet it is not a substantial portion of the overall playerbase.

 

Note, the point I made is just to stand against the notion that "ban the exploiters, the game dies" or "raiding dies". The latter is perhaps barely plausible, but the former is just not being realistic.

 

This game is dominated by casual players that have likely never stepped foot in an Operation, never mind an end game flashpoint. And I think this is the substantial majority of the playerbase at present.

 

I would note, however, that based on the studies I have seen hardcore players, though a minority in most games are the most loyal players. Casuals dominate the playerbase in most MMOs, but they are very transient in nature.

[LordArtemis]

you either dont understand how the exploit worked,

 

Certainly possible, I really dont.

 

...or assume people that dont raid would have no reason to get free loot that far exceed what they can access.

 

Well...sure. And in that way I suppose one could say they are affected.

 

assuming "only raiders" used it isnt an assumption i would leap to.

 

Wasn't the exploit located in a HM Op? I assume the actual exploiters are raiders for the reason if I am correct. Are they the only guilty parties....likely not. But they are the exploiters, unless you are saying that casual folks were carried into the HM Op. I suppose that is possible, but I find that highly unlikely.

Edited January 9, 2015 by LordArtemis

[Infernixx]

I would bet it is not a substantial portion of the overall playerbase.

 

Note, the point I made is just to stand against the notion that "ban the exploiters, the game dies" or "raiding dies". The latter is perhaps barely plausible, but the former is just not being realistic.

 

This game is dominated by casual players that have likely never stepped foot in an Operation, never mind an end game flashpoint. And I think this is the substantial majority of the playerbase at present.

 

I would note, however, that based on the studies I have seen hardcore players, though a minority in most games are the most loyal players. Casuals dominate the playerbase in most MMOs, but they are very transient in nature.

 

Eric's own post states:

 

Without being specific, there is an exploit which has been present for a couple of weeks, that unfortunately has become more widespread than we typically see. It is being openly discussed in-game as well as other channels.

 

So, I wouldn't be at all surprised that it's a sizable percentage of the player base. Nor would I be surprised that it's not just raiders(HM or otherwise) that took/is taking part in the exploit. Especially considering how it works and the lack of effort needed to make it work. Literally, if you can make your character walk forward and right-click something, you can make it work.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

You assume they can perfectly filter exploiters from non-exploiters. This is not likely. False positives always happen. And if the punishments you suggest hit someone who is entirely innocent, you generate a customer service request, assuming the player doesn't throw in the towel over your draconian and disproportionate measures.

 

Why are people wasting extra character typing the words "you assume"? Of course I assume, that's a given.

 

These are idea's / concepts / call it what you will on possible ways they could go about resolving the situation without banning everyone ( which really fixes nothing of the issues the gear has/will cause in the long term ).

 

Yes false positives happen, again that's a given ( one I addressed earlier in fact ) and if there are a few customer service requests of innocent people unfairly targeted than that's fine. They shouldn't have left the bug open so long if they wanted to avoid that. They can investigate those and remedy the error.

 

Also if there is a means for BW to identify those who did and did not exploit content I am fairly certain BW wouldn't go ahead with gear removal unless they were certain the means of identification were accurate. They wouldn't want to risk removing everyone's gear after all.

 

Besides that - looking at the earlier progression thread for the server this has mostly occured on there aren't actually that many people who have cleared the content legitimately. If I am correct in my assumptions of it being just 1 boss then that would limit it to maybe less than 20 people of which 8 may possibly find themselves removed for causing all this in the first place.

 

So the list of innocent people that could be effected is relatively small.

 

Fortunately Bioware, for all people flame them and rage at them, is a sensible company and their measures I'm sure will be in-line with what is warranted.

 

Which would be removal of all gear that was illegally gained and a small punishment for doing it in the first place right? Or are you saying they should keep it and no to a small punishment? Putting aside how much work you think it is for BW to do noting that ...

 

Honestly a lot of the people in this thread who advocate really huge punishments I think overstate the severity of the exploit and its related impacts. To wit, your punishments are disproportionate relative to the actual exploit itself.

 

seems to imply the ill gotten gains aren't that much or it isn't as far reaching as some would assume in which case it wouldn't also be an easier task to track one would think?

 

Also I've heard comments of it only being one gear piece but people fail to realise what can be stripped out of a gear piece and sent back to mains via legacy gear. It's not hard to fathom, based on how easy you've made this exploit sound, how many people run this numerous times to full 198 Mod/Enhancements if it does come only from 1 piece ( and whatever else may come from the drop, I've not run it and wouldn't know ).

 

This bull**** is all on BioWare and nothing is gonna happen without having a negative affect on more than just those who used the exploit.

 

Bah wake up, no one forced those players to exploit gear. If they do get punished they they certainly had it coming and if they want to throw their toys out of the cot and quit like little children then good riddance.

[LordArtemis]

Eric's own post states:

 

 

 

So, I wouldn't be at all surprised that it's a sizable percentage of the player base. Nor would I be surprised that it's not just raiders(HM or otherwise) that took/is taking part in the exploit. Especially considering how it works and the lack of effort needed to make it work. Literally, if you can make your character walk forward and right-click something, you can make it work.

 

Fair enough. It sounds as if casuals could certainly be involved as well if that is the case.

 

So perhaps the group is sizable after all.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Bioware got severely reamed by players on reddit some time back, over a wave of bans that in fact included some false positives.

 

Oh no a bunch of players ( many who deserved the ban ) decided to talk negatively about us on reddit whilst the majority of the law abiding community carried on their merry way and continued to give us money. Whatever shall we do? How about we never ban anyone ever again as we don't want to anger the might reddit beast who might "ream" us again. Lol wake up.

 

And well being how many people CANNOT complete the content legitimately to get the said gear currently I can't see there being many legitimate people getting punished if my concept of a fix/punishment were to come to pass. If you think that there are somehow 1000's of people who have this gear legitimately then by all means show me the error of my ways because progression tracking says otherwise.

[Lekkarion]

It's normal Bioware, somethings broken and it gives an edge to the players, that gets fixed quickly. Somethings broken and makes the game harder (like DP SM having Nightmare mechanics turned on, Ravager 16m SM dropping 8M loots, etc...) Well they take a long time to fix that. Ability lag, that's going on what two years now?

 

That being said this bug should have been fixed before the expansion went live. But then again there's a pretty long list of things that should have been fixed before the expansion went live.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Note, the point I made is just to stand against the notion that "ban the exploiters, the game dies" or "raiding dies". The latter is perhaps barely plausible, but the former is just not being realistic.

 

This game is dominated by casual players that have likely never stepped foot in an Operation, never mind an end game flashpoint. And I think this is the substantial majority of the playerbase at present.

 

I would note, however, that based on the studies I have seen hardcore players, though a minority in most games are the most loyal players. Casuals dominate the playerbase in most MMOs, but they are very transient in nature.

 

Yes I can agree to most of that and it is far more realistic than what a lot of doomsayers seem to think would occur.

 

Also to your last point the more hardcore players are going to be your more vocal also. I wonder though with the amount of people who have used this how many actively participating in this thread used it themselves and still try to somehow defend or mitigate their actions or the punishment they deserve in that it should never happen because it would be the death of the game.

 

To play devil's advocate somewhat though I would think Perm banning everyone who gained anything from this would certainly be a step in the wring direction and serve no one any good. Whilst it wouldn't kill the game it would certainly make end game content very boring due the sudden lack of players heh.

 

I don't see this occurring anyway and am in no way in favour of it except for a small handful of players who not only exploited it but tried to profit off it and shared it around in the first place ( as far as spreading it to other servers even ). Hopefully those people go.