Should We Have a Three Strikes and You're Out Rule in DCUO?

It is pretty obvious recently there have been several instances of players taking advantage of certain things to gain an advantage over other players in the game that are following rules and abiding by them.

In some instance, players doing this have been reported, and what action was taken against them, if any, we may never know. Some of these same players reported, however, have been seen still taking advantage of the game in a similar manner several days latter... which makes some question if anything has been done to resolve the issue.

Some examples discipline, or lack thereof that I reference here are those that are speed hacking, or the recent ban/unban hammer that was levied, as well as those that repeatedly use some manner of cheating to circumvent game mechanics that was not intended to be done.

For the integrity of the game, I implore the DEVs to create a three strikes and your out rule. Anyone caught gaming/cheating the TOS, or somehow manipulating fair game play, would be given three opportunities to either clean up their act, or receive a permaban as a result of their refusal to abide by the rule of law that is supposed to govern us all.

Players would be given three opportunities, the first violation would be a warning, the second, a nice little vacation, but the third strike, would be a permanent lock on the account with little to no opportunity to see it undone.

Each strike could be imposed for any offense, so if you were caught speed hacking, It would be strike one, money glitching or item duplication, you're now at strike two, circumventing mechanics with a clown box, caught again, strike three your out! The strikes would not reset, it would be up to the player to play fairly or face the results when caught cheating.

This kind of stuff has gone on for far too long, and in my opinion, not enough has been done to keep the playing field level for all of us.

Thanks for the long read. Don't forget to give the thumbs up if you are tired of the cheating being overlooked, and demand they do something about it.

I'll add to that public shaming. Especially on the blatant cheating where there is no room for interpretation. A list posted in the forums of all accounts being either on strike 2 or strike 3....and maybe a public auction of their goods. Tarred and feathered and run out of town like the old west sounds good to me.

Reinheld

I think 3 strikes is too many, personally, lol. Remember we're talking about deliberate actions (many times requiring actual programs to be installed), not accidental "I didn't know this was wrong," kind of stuff.

I could go for that very easily. I was just thinking of policy parameters that Dev's could institute to help them be more thorough and fair. If the community was made aware of the parameters, and the Dev's actually followed them, and not some more arbitrary interpretations, then the perception of deceit by players and DEVs alike would hopefully dissipate, making the game more enjoyable to those that are trying to play by the rules.

This is interesting.

How would you feel about a full legue bans? Perhaps only temporary. Like teams in college, if certain members cheat, the whole team takes a hit and gets punished, not just the rule breakers themselves?

I was thinking about all those leagues that routinely glitch.

If they did went with this, maybe have the names on the forums so people know who was banned and what reason. Kind of like the old stockade in the middle of the town for they be humilated by the town folks.

Someone needs to post the video of the GM in Guild Wars taking control of a hacker's toon and committing suicide in town after stripping it naked.

speed hacking is such an obvious cheat too...visually speaking...i know nothing about it except i have played with others and seen it...its glaring to watch...obvious...

glitches are courtesy level cheating for me...you are not using a hack but you are breaking game rules...you should be following all rules and when you find a glitch or exploit tell the devs privately immediately...someday they might fix it...

I think we'd be better served if they moderated the actual game as well as the discord channel is moderated.... I bet ya couldn't spam in there for more than a hot second before ya got booted / ipbanned.

I'd gladly GM for them - if I got to play a super sized Stay-Puft marshmallow man toon and could smash all the gold spammers named FFDFE and gyggygt..etc et al. oh - and those other folk who are using 3rd party software...

I do believe that a wall of shame posting would violate their own forum rules... but, an update like "X number of players were banned / removed for (violation) this week" would kinda show that an effort was made.

LMAO. I have to find this...

It shouldn't need three strikes to ban some1 cheating or exploiting something serious like you know, what happened a few weeks ago... Most of the games out there permanently ban the guys in the 1st time they are caught cheating and give them a vacation the 1st time they exploit a simple thing like a invisible ledge.

In DCUO, to keep paying players in the game, all of the not cheat, not abuse the game, not tell the others to kill themselves rules are ignored, it's not even a question of "We don't have man-power enough to ban everyone saying mean things or don't have the tech to ban all hackers" like PUBG and OW, reported guys are simply not banned even after a GM sees a video or something that kills the entire in-game economy happens. It's not like they can't do what you said, they just don't want to.

this was kind of my first thought when i read your post Adora. While I agree players that blatantly break the rule need to be disciplined if the devs started posting the names of anyone they dealt with it would be the same as one of us coming on here and creating a thread because BADBOY751 (totally made up name to use as an example) was an awful player and we should all stop inviting him to teams. It would sort of defeat the whole purpose..... Punish some one for doing some thing wrong in game and then turn right around and break their OWN rules by publishing those player's names on the forums?

They banned a lot of people during the time capsule glitch, what happened was queues got longer, less people played the game, and they were losing more revenue. So when it comes to DCUO,

One person hacks, it's not okay.
When 100 people hack together its okay.

Not sure the three strike concpet is a great one. Look at the really BIG incident that happened recently and had everyone talking? you know where a pile of players found a way to cheat the system and grab tons of time Capsules for no money. Sadly a lot of them were pardoned and allowed back in game but they stole ?????? Thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from Daybreak in direct violation of the game. REAL WORLD situation they could have all wound up in prison..... If some thing that bad happens and its a players first strike do we really allow them to come back and give them the opportunity to do some thing similar two more times before they get banned for ever?

Not sure exactly what the answer is but I definitely think that daybreak needs to come up with a firmer policy on how to deal with violations and STICK to it.

RNG and money grabs are more detrimental to this game than any exploit ever could be.

Guess It would depend on how many of the league members appeared to be aware of, or caught using the exploit/cheat. I know I had someone scam me a long time ago (when I still had faith in my fellow man), and clipped me for some stacks of bytes in a trade for a plasmic aura or something. I looked the player up on WaveDox, contacted his league leader and let him know that one of his league was out there scamming with their good name right below his crappy scammer one. He kicked him from the league, apologized and sent me the stolen 4 stacks of exobytes...Now while scamming isn't technically cheating, if it were a ban-able offense (is anything ban-able these days?), in this case the scammer's league should not be held at fault.

I'd wager in the case of speed hacking, money glitching, game mechanics exploits, most of the league is aware when someone is doing wrong and if they are not kicking the users out, I'd say they are in 'league' with the cheater and could be held responsible as well.

Reinheld

I stopped being league leader some time ago now, but that is the same mentality I had when I was lead.

If a player did anything in the community to make the league look bad, they had to go. Period.

Keep the faith. All of man is not lost, just a large majority.

This is why there should be account bound ignores and friend options.

At the very least cheaters and hackers should have their names a different color. Kind of like a Scarlet Letter but in game.

There's no dialog but read the comments to get the context.