Customer Service Clarification Requested: What Constitutes an Exploit?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by gotwar, Jan 4, 2018.

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  1. Rorietoo New Member

    Karthanon, thanks for not being sanctimonious or sarcastic. Wish you the best. ;)
  2. scapegoat New Member

    I wish players would stop making up their own definitions to DBG's overly vague rules. Everybody positing an answer in this thread, without a link to an actual Dev post, is just guessing. And that is exactly what got so many people into trouble and exactly what the OP is trying to avoid in the future.

    Schadenfreude is a helluva drug.
    Rorietoo likes this.
  3. Chelsith New Member

    You're eLawyering to try to get your guildmates unsuspended, and it's not going to work. Sad!
  4. Chelsith New Member


    Absolutely nobody who was suspended thought what they were doing was some vague edge case. They all knew it was an exploit, 100% of them knew this, hence rushing to exploit it before the inevitable quick fix (up to and including parking bots outside to speed it up.) All of this stuff about looking for named mobs before dropping, or the existence of a bard being an exploit (that was a particular highlight from the tear-drenched OP) is obfuscation. They cheated, they got caught, they got a light punishment. That's the end of it. No vagueness required.
  5. AnzoRagespirit Augur

    Buncha whiners, the lot of ya...."waahhhh they punished me for using an exploit that as an ADULT I should have known better to use".

    Buncha snowflakes who want their participation trophy's for being internet warriors trying to justify an obvious bug that was, yes, cause by the dev team.

    Yes this " exploit" has been in the game for years but honestly most if us true players have never used it. I personally HATE running the same mission more than once a week. And what do you truly gain from it...fake stuff and fake money, that gets you a one week suspension...oh boo hoo darn you lost like $2.50 worth of game time.

    Play the game right and don't be stupid and you'll do fine, I promise.
    Chelsith likes this.
  6. Roxxlyy Augur

    Any bug or otherwise unintentional mechanic that can be manipulated to gain extra/atypical in-game advantages or benefits is considered to be an exploit.

    Performing an action that allows you to bypass a lockout timer is an exploit. The timer is an implemented mechanic intended to create a downtime that players have to wait through. Skipping this wait allowed players to repeatedly collect loot, giving them an unintentional advantage. Regardless of how long the ability to do this was in the game, this should be fairly clear cut.

    If you come across an exploit, you can report it using /bug. If you repeatedly use it to gain unintended benefits, you'll likely have to face consequences for your actions.
  7. Lily Augur

    This still doesn't answer the question of dropping an HA if a named mob didn't spawn, and requesting again. Since nothing was gained prior to dropping the HA (no XP, loot or currency), is it ok to bypass the lockout timer to try again for the hunter mob?
  8. Intenso Augur

    Why not just roll them all back before expansion went live and not suspend them? Prob be worse
  9. scapegoat New Member

    How were we supposed to know that this was a bug and not intentional? We didn't skip any lockouts because you didn't apply any lockouts. How are we supposed to know what you intend?

    And more to the point: why would you let something go on for 3+years and expansions, and STILL have it in game right now on many many tasks, and then ban people out of the blue without any warning? 3 years you have been letting people do this, so why would anybody think it was wrong?
    Caell likes this.
  10. PathToEternity pathtoeternity.pro

    Unless my math is wrong, $2.50 worth of game time is 120 hours.
  11. scapegoat New Member

    If YOU don't notice your mistakes for 3+ years, why would you expect us to know that they were a mistake?

    Please, at the very least, fix your errors so more people don't fall into your trap.
    Caell likes this.
  12. gotwar Gotcharms

    Thanks for the response, Roxxlyy.

    That doesn't answer what I was asking, though. I think everyone understands Daybreak's stance on obtaining loot by circumventing a lockout.

    To give a better explanation, there are a number of instanced missions that have a chance to spawn a certain collectible (little shiny yellow things linked to achievements) or a rare npc (that have the potential to drop loot, and are a required part of hunter achievements). These are random and do not spawn every time the instance is ran. They also spawn prior to the end of the task, at a fixed point before the loot chest would be opened and items gained.

    So to clarify this in a simple way, is it OK to drop a task and re-run that instance as long as the chest is unopened and no loot is obtained?
  13. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    If you drop it before completion you are not bypassing the lockout, therefore it is fine.
    Chelsith likes this.
  14. Waywardson New Member

    Thank you Roxxlyy for finally coming out and clearly stating that bypassing a lockout timer is an exploit from DBG perspective and the EULA. That will definitely clear up things for the player base.

    That being said, the '/bug' of bypassing lock outs has been reported for about 4 years so that portion of your arguement/position does not hold any water whatsoever. I personally know of four people that have been sending in that /bug report over that time frame. If I know four, how many have actually reported the issue , one hundred, one thousand, how many?

    As such, SOE/DBG's developer complacency in not modifying mission design with a task lockout on spawning the chest is the crux of this issue DESPITE knowing of the issue for many years. If the fines/penalty to the Fell Foilage mission issue were to go to a real life court, I expect it would be classified under entrapment in taking time/money from paying customers during the time of the imposed suspensions. This is further complicated by the providing a statement days later that what was being done is considered by DBG as an exploit under vague over-generalization.

    What makes knowing about the ongoing issue poignant is that ff this had been the first time this had ever happened, and it was a completely new issue, then I could see and accept that reaction with the suspensions. However the fact that this has been a know bug on the development side for so many years and design practices were never changed to prevent it from happening, it also makes DBG partially accountable for the situation.

    From someone who deal with customers on a daily basis, here is some advice on how this should have been handled from a PR perspective that would have made a clear statement to the player base while not driving even more people away from this game:

    First, apologize that SOE and DBG have been ignoring the problem for years.

    Second, make a statement the DBG is not SOE and that the practice of bypassing lock outs is not acceptable to DBG from this point forward (and you better make sure that you are clear on if/when it is ok if someone is collecting ground spawns or hunting names in instances without finishing the mission or not, otherwise even that is not acceptable based on your statement above).

    Third, because this is a NEW policy that is contrary to past practice of the company running EQ and tacit acceptance of bypassing lock out timers that has been known about and not dealt with for so many years, that from this point forward, any violation for abuse of bypassing lock out timers (old of current content) will follow standard DBG suspension policy, which to my understanding is one week for first offence, two weeks for the second offence and so on until the account is banned.

    Finally, your developers need a 'talk'in to'. They need to stop designing missions as they have been doing for years and rather make sure that in order to spawn the loot chest that a lock out is applied.

    Repeating known faulty design practices for so many years is what created the opportunity to do it and years of silence by both SOE and now DBG without changing how the missions were created is the true culprit. The lack of changes to typical design practices or even a simple clarifying statement of acknowledgement of the issue along with a declaration of being unacceptable would have not created this problem in the first place. In fact, the lack of any response despite KNOWING OF THE ISSUE FOR YEARS actually implied tacit acceptance of the practice (whether the people of their current high horses want to accept or not).

    A final thought, is the DBG dev that created the ROS missions without a lockout timer applied when the chest spawns also getting a 7 , 14 or 21 day suspension without pay?
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  15. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    [IMG]

    Edit: to make G-Rated for our poor, victimized “New User”. But the point remains unchanged ^ . ^
  16. scapegoat New Member

    Roxxlyy, will you please police this guy and ban him for calling me names and generally non-productive trolling?
  17. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion

    Cool opinions
    Chelsith likes this.
  18. Millianna Augur

    Please forgive me, but is DBG ever going to take responsibility for their own errors? Especially when the issue is addressed in one aspect of the game and pushed live in another.

    As player, How do I determine what is left in the game intentionally and what was simply an oversight? That’s the point of thread and more clarification is required.
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  19. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion


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  20. Millianna Augur

    This post violates the forum rules.
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