They do not punish their players when they don't actually cheat.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/use-of-in-game-glitch-could-lead-to-punishment-for-division-players/

The problem with enforcing a code of conduct is that it requires the player to read the developer's mind, as to what's a 'known issue or bug', which is entirely unreasonable. All players know is what the came code allows them to do.

Fouling is against the rules in Basketball right? But if you are down a point with 12 seconds left, you're going to intentionally foul their worst shooter, hope he misses his free throws, and then hope you gain the lead on your next possession. You can never fault someone for using the rules to their advantage. It doesn't matter what was intended, all that matters is what the rules actually are.

So, thanks Bungie. Seriously.

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They do not punish their players when they don't actually cheat.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/use-of-in-game-glitch-could-lead-to-punishment-for-division-players/

The problem with enforcing a code of conduct is that it requires the player to read the developer's mind, as to what's a 'known issue or bug', which is entirely unreasonable. All players know is what the came code allows them to do.

Fouling is against the rules in Basketball right? But if you are down a point with 12 seconds left, you're going to intentionally foul their worst shooter, hope he misses his free throws, and then hope you gain the lead on your next possession. You can never fault someone for using the rules to their advantage. It doesn't matter what was intended, all that matters is what the rules actually are.

So, thanks Bungie. Seriously.

I'm completely confused as to why that particular fuckup doesn't get fixed properly. According to the story, a mode introduced LAST WEEK, which was supposed to drop rare loot at a rate of once per week, is being exploited to drop rare loot unlimited times. They've implemented a hotfix (and though there is another workaround, I'm assuming another hotfix is inbound)... but they're not sure how to handle the fact that the gear's already out there.

Um... instead of 'punishing' the players, why not just go through the gear, and remote all but one instance of the new, rare, loot? Assume anyone who has multiple pieces has done it successfully at least once, leave them the one piece - delete everything else. Why is this not an option?

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Um... instead of 'punishing' the players, why not just go through the gear, and remote all but one instance of the new, rare, loot? Assume anyone who has multiple pieces has done it successfully at least once, leave them the one piece - delete everything else. Why is this not an option?

I don't know much about the game, but maybe you can get these drops elsewhere? Like, how do you prove you got your Hawkmoon by pushing off Atheon? Maybe you got it during a nightfall? They might not track the item source.

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They do not punish their players when they don't actually cheat.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/use-of-in-game-glitch-could-lead-to-punishment-for-division-players/

The problem with enforcing a code of conduct is that it requires the player to read the developer's mind, as to what's a 'known issue or bug', which is entirely unreasonable. All players know is what the came code allows them to do.

Fouling is against the rules in Basketball right? But if you are down a point with 12 seconds left, you're going to intentionally foul their worst shooter, hope he misses his free throws, and then hope you gain the lead on your next possession. You can never fault someone for using the rules to their advantage. It doesn't matter what was intended, all that matters is what the rules actually are.

So, thanks Bungie. Seriously.

Do these players really think they are doing nothing wrong? Should we really be ok with or actively encourage players to get away with whatever they can? Yes, the game should have been coded and tested better, but do players really have zero intelligence as to what is and isn't allowed. Should they have zero responsibility for their actions? Even when those actions, as the article notes, are having a significant negative effect on other players?

Fact is, there are rules actually in place. Those in charge say that this wall glitching is not allowed, thus the potential for punishment. That something is physically possible does not always mean it is allowed. In basketball, killing the opposing team with plastic sporks is also physically possible, but is similarly not allowed. (At the very least there would be a large fine...)

Insisting that every possible possibility be defined as allowed or disallowed is... over burdensome. I think we should do our best to define the rules / code the game but also encourage sportsmanship and a sense of fair play to help govern instances that slip through the... walls... :)

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They do not punish their players when they don't actually cheat.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/04/use-of-in-game-glitch-could-lead-to-punishment-for-division-players/

The problem with enforcing a code of conduct is that it requires the player to read the developer's mind, as to what's a 'known issue or bug', which is entirely unreasonable. All players know is what the came code allows them to do.

Fouling is against the rules in Basketball right? But if you are down a point with 12 seconds left, you're going to intentionally foul their worst shooter, hope he misses his free throws, and then hope you gain the lead on your next possession. You can never fault someone for using the rules to their advantage. It doesn't matter what was intended, all that matters is what the rules actually are.

So, thanks Bungie. Seriously.

I'm completely confused as to why that particular fuckup doesn't get fixed properly. According to the story, a mode introduced LAST WEEK, which was supposed to drop rare loot at a rate of once per week, is being exploited to drop rare loot unlimited times. They've implemented a hotfix (and though there is another workaround, I'm assuming another hotfix is inbound)... but they're not sure how to handle the fact that the gear's already out there.

Um... instead of 'punishing' the players, why not just go through the gear, and remote all but one instance of the new, rare, loot? Assume anyone who has multiple pieces has done it successfully at least once, leave them the one piece - delete everything else. Why is this not an option?

I don't have an answer for you, but I can say that the exploit has ruined the game. The gear gap is so huge that players who refuse to exploit have nearly zero chance in the pvp of the dark zone, and when you join a group to do the missions, it takes over an hour just to find a group that doesn't want to exploit for the loot. I thought the game was about having fun, not getting look after 20 minutes of sheer boredom, but no, apparently people only want the loot.

I think it's at a point where they either rollback the servers and destroy all of that loot or have to introduce a non-exploitable easy loot system to get everyone up to a much higher level of loot than the exploiters have just to get everyone back on even footing again.

The sad thing is that the core exploits all involve mobile cover letting players clip through walls - why they don't just disable that is beyond me.

Um... instead of 'punishing' the players, why not just go through the gear, and remote all but one instance of the new, rare, loot? Assume anyone who has multiple pieces has done it successfully at least once, leave them the one piece - delete everything else. Why is this not an option?

I don't know much about the game, but maybe you can get these drops elsewhere? Like, how do you prove you got your Hawkmoon by pushing off Atheon? Maybe you got it during a nightfall? They might not track the item source.

Well, the light level (gear score in The Division) of the gear can only be gotten from this particular boss fight.

I don't have an answer for you, but I can say that the exploit has ruined the game. The gear gap is so huge that players who refuse to exploit have nearly zero chance in the pvp of the dark zone, and when you join a group to do the missions, it takes over an hour just to find a group that doesn't want to exploit for the loot. I thought the game was about having fun, not getting look after 20 minutes of sheer boredom, but no, apparently people only want the loot.

This is actually an interesting point regarding the darkzone PvP. I'm curious though what mechanisms are in place to prevent a new player who picks up the game months from now from being killed in a similar fashion by players who have been playing since the beginning and have sweet gear.

I think it's simply a game design flaw if that huge gear differential can create game breaking situations.

Once again, the 'investment' element ruins yet another video game.

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When you make a game that revolves around loot, and especially revolves around giving it out slowly, you can't get mad at players for using anything and everything to give them an advantage to gain loot faster.

Bungie didn't get pissy and "punish" players for abusing 3oC farming against Draksis during that first week. Instead they said, hey enjoy it while it lasts, but it's getting fixed soon.

I'm with Cody on this one. If you didn't design your game around shitty loot-driven systems, this wouldn't be a problem.

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I don't have an answer for you, but I can say that the exploit has ruined the game. The gear gap is so huge that players who refuse to exploit have nearly zero chance in the pvp of the dark zone, and when you join a group to do the missions, it takes over an hour just to find a group that doesn't want to exploit for the loot. I thought the game was about having fun, not getting look after 20 minutes of sheer boredom, but no, apparently people only want the loot.

This is actually an interesting point regarding the darkzone PvP. I'm curious though what mechanisms are in place to prevent a new player who picks up the game months from now from being killed in a similar fashion by players who have been playing since the beginning and have sweet gear.

I think it's simply a game design flaw if that huge gear differential can create game breaking situations.

Once again, the 'investment' element ruins yet another video game.

The Dark zone PvP is gated by gear score, so anyone with less that 163 gear score is in Dark Zone A, while anyone over 163 is in Dark Zone B. I guess they could add another gate for 210+ or something... That would be a big help. Or they could do the math and figure out what the highest possible "didn't exploit" gear score is and gate it there. That would make more sense.

But yes, the game is not particularly well designed as far as "endgame progression" goes. Getting to level 30 was super fun, but then you're stuck in this sort of half fun loop of recycling old content or exploring the dark zone where maybe someone will gank you (or you them), but with the high level loot out in the wild, the dark zone isn't really fun at all. You're doing your thing and a super high gear score guy shows up and either kills everything for you (nice, but removes all challenge) or kills you (mean, and there's nothing you can do about it because of his super high power level).

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The Dark zone PvP is gated by gear score, so anyone with less that 163 gear score is in Dark Zone A, while anyone over 163 is in Dark Zone B. I guess they could add another gate for 210+ or something... That would be a big help. Or they could do the math and figure out what the highest possible "didn't exploit" gear score is and gate it there. That would make more sense.

I don't understand why they just don't do that. Seriously, it's the best solution.

Gear Set armor [gear goes green (common) > Blue (??) > Purple (Superior) > Yellow (High End) > Teal-ish (Gear Set).

There are several different ways to get Gear Set (named b/c combos of a particular gear set gives a bonus when worn together). They can drop from bosses, can be purchased for credits (glimmer) or phoenix credits (strange coins), and drop from the Incursion.

Instead of Light Levels, there are gear scores. a lot of the in-world drops of gear sets are from 193?-204 GS. 214 GS drops from the hard mode incursion (you actually get a 193 drop from the boss every time, and ONE 214 per week). The Challenge mode will drop a 214 from the boss, and a 240 ONCE per week.

The first workaround was that if the host of your party hadn't completed it yet, the entire party got the weekly drop again. The second problem was that the boss was only supposed to be damaged by placing explosives, but it did take a minimal amount of bullet damage. Since there were no checkpoints (you had to start completely over on a wipe), ppl found a way to glitch into the room before the adds spawned and just shot it to death. It took a long time, but it worked.

That same day, they hotpatched it to where it did not take bullet damage, and once the boss took ANY damage, adds would spawn.

Now, using one of the character skills (deployable cover), you can glitch through walls and gates. So ppl are using this skill to get outside the map and shoot sticky bombs at the boss, without worry of it shooting back. Once the boss is dead, you go back through the normal way and pick up the loot.

It will be hard to patch the sticky bombs, b/c of the mechanics of the encounter. The entire encounter revolves around planting C4 and blowing up the boss. Explosive damage is an in-game mechanic (as well as shock and fire damage). The only way i could see them fixing this is either making it harder to get out of the map, making the geometry around the boss impenetrable to weapons, or giving the boss a ridiculous amount of health points such that the sticky bomb wouldn't even put a dent in it (and then scale up the C4 damage to compensate).

if they punish ppl, they will be the biggest hypocrites.

There is a low level paramedic-themed backpack that came with the season pass. It grants you +2 med kits (carry total goes from 5 to 7). You can equip this back at a restock station, get your 7 med kits, then switch to your better backpack.

Likewise, there is a low-level Police backpack that gives +75% ammo capacity. You can do the same exploit.

There is a gas mask perk called "rehabilitated." It would heal you @ 2% per second when taking special kinds of damage (shock, burning, flashbang). Problem was, once it was proc'd it never stopped, so you could flashbang yourself and never have to use a med kit again, b/c you were constantly regenerating health.

There is a chest piece with a perk called reckless. it states that you deal 13% more damage, but you will receive 10% more damage. This chest piece is broken, I allows you to deal more damage, and TAKE LESS DAMAGE.

MASSIVE employees have used all of these exploits on their official Twitch stream.

Additionally, Massive's community manager got called out yesterday for playing with glitchers on his stream. One of the people he was playing with was also streaming, and ppl could see his gear when he was swapping out. He had dozens of 240 items, which is not possible less than a week after Incursions dropped. Which means the ppl their official community manager was streaming with had used exploits to get gear.

I personally don't care that someone was able to game the system that was in place (as long as it doesn't involve hacking). But for them to insinuate that something might happen to these ppl when the developers are publicly guilty of it themselves is hilarious and infuriating.

I predict that they do nothing, and are only trying to scare ppl into not doing it anymore until they can patch it out

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if they punish ppl, they will be the biggest hypocrites.

There is a low level paramedic-themed backpack that came with the season pass. It grants you +2 med kits (carry total goes from 5 to 7). You can equip this back at a restock station, get your 7 med kits, then switch to your better backpack.

Likewise, there is a low-level Police backpack that gives +75% ammo capacity. You can do the same exploit.

There is a gas mask perk called "rehabilitated." It would heal you @ 2% per second when taking special kinds of damage (shock, burning, flashbang). Problem was, once it was proc'd it never stopped, so you could flashbang yourself and never have to use a med kit again, b/c you were constantly regenerating health.

There is a chest piece with a perk called reckless. it states that you deal 13% more damage, but you will receive 10% more damage. This chest piece is broken, I allows you to deal more damage, and TAKE LESS DAMAGE.

MASSIVE employees have used all of these exploits on their official Twitch stream.

My point exactly. How are players supposed to know which of these unintended rule interactions are 'cheating' and which are just being clever?

Back when field scout was awesome I'd sometimes switch it off for stability on my Thunderlord after I picked up the heavy ammo, thereby gaining both the extra ammo and stability. Seemed like a clever thing to do.

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Fyrewulff said it best...

Summary:

- Microsoft sells map pack pass for Halo 4, which allows you to get all of Halo 4's DLC for free. Comes with the LE or separate for 25$.

The LE also allowed you to access all 8 specializations earlier than the rest of the userbase.

- Near launch, they add an offer where you if you play in the first two weeks the game is out, you'll get a code emailed to you to unlock the 8 specializations early.

- Fast forward to the 9th. They release the first map pack. People figure out that if you have that specializations code from playing in the first two weeks, the game lets you download the first map pack for free. Microsoft admits it's a mistake. Even their Xbox twitter support admits it was a mistake.

- Then a day later they just make up shit out of their ass with this press release that all the journo sites gladly regurgitate with no question:

As an additional reward to those customers that participated in our "14 Day, Buy and Play" program (which ran from Nov. 6 – Nov. 20), we are providing complimentary access to the Crimson Map Pack for a limited time, through Tuesday, December 18 at 9am UTC/GMT.There were some initial complications with the distribution of the "14 day, Buy and Play" reward tokens, and so we decided to provide the additional reward of complimentary access to the Crimson Map Pack, for a limited time, as a "thank you" to our customers that contributed to the success of the "Halo 4" launch.
Except if you google "14 Day, Buy and Play" it doesn't exist outside of their news story, nobody ever heard that the free maps were on offer before today for redeeming that code. They will not be reimbursing pass buyers for anything.

If you bought the map pass? According to Microsoft's canon, you just paid 25$ for 20$ worth of maps.

Worst part of all (for me) was that when people in a state of disbelief turned to 343 industries to see how they would react to Microsoft's claims, 343 put on a plastic smile and totally went along with the whole thing. Killed a lot of goodwill and trust, and they've never done anything to remotely imply that it wasn't "the plan all along".

"When Students cheat on exams it's because our School System values grades more than Students value learning." NdGT

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When you make a game that revolves around loot, and especially revolves around giving it out slowly, you can't get mad at players for using anything and everything to give them an advantage to gain loot faster.

Why not?

Why does a developer lose the ability to enforce the rules they made in the game they made just because you don't like their rules? Does using "anything and everything" include killing other players with plastic sporks? Not their in game avatars, the actual players. It's a game with a loot system, the universal unlimited get out of jail and consequences card in gaming, so "anything and everything is justifiabl", right?

Personally, I think players should have the responsibility to play with fairness and sportsmanship. And those that don't should be punished. And when what is and isn't fair comes into question, they should err on the side of caution, especially when not doing so negatively and adversely effects the experiences of other players.

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Why not?

Why does a developer lose the ability to enforce the rules they made in the game they made just because you don't like their rules? Does using "anything and everything" include killing other players with plastic sporks? Not their in game avatars, the actual players. It's a game with a loot system, the universal unlimited get out of jail and consequences card in gaming, so "anything and everything is justifiabl", right?

Oh come on. Seriously? You know that's not even close to a legitimate comparison. In fact, it's down right dumb. Yeah, playing a loot game gives you a license to murder actual people, that's exactly what I was saying. Don't be thick.

Also, see the other posts in this thread about the community managers and developers using other exploits on their streams. They haven't exactly fostered a culture in which using exploits in frowned upon, so any punishment they dole out at this point would just be bullshit hypocrisy.

Personally, I think players should have the responsibility to play with fairness and sportsmanship. And those that don't should be punished. And when what is and isn't fair comes into question, they should err on the side of caution, especially when not doing so negatively and adversely effects the experiences of other players.

This is just the BXR argument all over again. At the end of the day it's the developers' responsibility to test their games and make sure stuff like this doesn't occur. At the highest levels of any competitive activity, sportsmanship doesn't really factor into it. So long as the "rules" (in this case, the game itself) allow it, it will be used. It's not right or fair, but that's the way it is, and punishing the players seems like a bad way to try and fix the dev's mistake.

When you make a game that revolves around loot, and especially revolves around giving it out slowly, you can't get mad at players for using anything and everything to give them an advantage to gain loot faster.

Why not?

Why does a developer lose the ability to enforce the rules they made in the game they made just because you don't like their rules? Does using "anything and everything" include killing other players with plastic sporks? Not their in game avatars, the actual players. It's a game with a loot system, the universal unlimited get out of jail and consequences card in gaming, so "anything and everything is justifiabl", right?

Personally, I think players should have the responsibility to play with fairness and sportsmanship. And those that don't should be punished. And when what is and isn't fair comes into question, they should err on the side of caution, especially when not doing so negatively and adversely effects the experiences of other players.

It's one thing to enforce the rules. It's entirely another to not tell people what the rules are or that you're going to enforce them, and then retroactively punish people for doing something you've now decided is against the rules.

The long version, as this relates to gaming, is - hey, aren't you're supposed to be writing something right now?

Distractions aside, a video game was designed by someone using computers. A game is, quite literally, just a collection of rules. So if you can do it in a game, it's permissible because if it wasn't allowed, they should have changed the rules (code) not to allow it. Slightly more nuanced is the understanding that games have "how they were intended to be played" and "bugs that allow you to play in a way other than how they were intended to be played." Given. But the developers can patch the game and fix the bugs (and Massive has been doing that), literally changing the rules that govern the game on the fly.

But rather than fix the rules to not allow behavior that is other than intended gameplay, Massive is stating that they're going to just punish people who do something they don't like. Retroactively. It's like outlawing cutoff jean shorts because full length jeans were never intended to be anything other than full length, and then arresting everyone who ever posted a picture of themselves on Facebook wearing cutoff jean shorts. And this simile holds up because in the world of code, it is totally possible to just make it so you can't cut denim.

It's a bad precedent to set up: Telling your players you may punish them in the future for things they did in the past, just because you decided you don't like it. With something like clipping through walls, that's a pretty clear bug, but what about loot items that are bugged to give you ever-replenishing health (this actually existed in the game)? Yes there's a bug, but if that's the only item you have for that slot you're telling your players that - even if they were not aware of the bug - you might punish them for it.

Imagine if Bungie came out tomorrow and said "hey you know how you can activate the Field Scout perk on your machine gun before picking up heavy ammo, then once you've collected the heavy ammo you can swap field scout for another perk while keeping the extra ammo? Well we're going to punish any player who's ever done that, starting next week."

It was pretty ridiculous. They knew it was bullshit, we knew it was bullshit. They knew that we knew that it was bullshit. Not admitting it just made everyone involved look unbelievably childish.

Why not?

Why does a developer lose the ability to enforce the rules they made in the game they made just because you don't like their rules? Does using "anything and everything" include killing other players with plastic sporks? Not their in game avatars, the actual players. It's a game with a loot system, the universal unlimited get out of jail and consequences card in gaming, so "anything and everything is justifiabl", right?

Oh come on. Seriously? You know that's not even close to a legitimate comparison. In fact, it's down right dumb. Yeah, playing a loot game gives you a license to murder actual people, that's exactly what I was saying. Don't be thick.

You (where "you" applies to anyone reading this conversation) are accepting of slipping through walls and ruining other players' PvP but not murder via spork. Ok, fine. Forget the sporks. Let's dial it back until we find the most extreme thing you will accept and the most mild thing you won't. What is the dividing line or reason that the former is acceptable and the latter isn't? Where and why does "anything and everything" actually end?

Also, see the other posts in this thread about the community managers and developers using other exploits on their streams. They haven't exactly fostered a culture in which using exploits in frowned upon, so any punishment they dole out at this point would just be bullshit hypocrisy.

Agreed.

Personally, I think players should have the responsibility to play with fairness and sportsmanship. And those that don't should be punished. And when what is and isn't fair comes into question, they should err on the side of caution, especially when not doing so negatively and adversely effects the experiences of other players.

This is just the BXR argument all over again. At the end of the day it's the developers' responsibility to test their games and make sure stuff like this doesn't occur. At the highest levels of any competitive activity, sportsmanship doesn't really factor into it. So long as the "rules" (in this case, the game itself) allow it, it will be used. It's not right or fair, but that's the way it is, and punishing the players seems like a bad way to try and fix the dev's mistake.

At the highest levels, the consequences of unsportsmanlike conduct (or at least getting caught at being unsportsmanlike) become the most severe. Fines, disqualifications from million dollar prizes, being banned from halls of fame, being kicked out of a competitive activity all together. And yet you don't want the video game player to have one ounce of responsibility for their actions?

Yes, it is a developer's responsibility to protect their players from exploits. Even a small mistake can, if not caught, affect the experiences of thousands or millions of your players. And yes, we should chastise developers for failing. But as a player, I think we also (at the very least) have the responsibility of not inflicting exploits on other players. The difference is, it is often extremely difficult for the developer to completely fulfill their responsibility. And it is often extremely easy for the player to fulfill theirs.

And yet so many excuse away the responsibility of players and place 100% of the blame on the developers... :(

If something a player does isn't fair and isn't right then... it is the developer's fault!? Above, you asked if I was being serious. I now pose that same question.

And yet so many excuse away the responsibility of players and place 100% of the blame on the developers... :(

If something a player does isn't fair and isn't right then... it is the developer's fault!? Above, you asked if I was being serious. I now pose that same question.

If you're a game dev, and your game has an exploit, you have to assume 100% of players who find the exploit will use it. If you don't assume that, you're incompetent and living in a fantasy land.

Welcome to the real world.

When you make a game that revolves around loot, and especially revolves around giving it out slowly, you can't get mad at players for using anything and everything to give them an advantage to gain loot faster.

Why not?

Why does a developer lose the ability to enforce the rules they made in the game they made just because you don't like their rules? Does using "anything and everything" include killing other players with plastic sporks? Not their in game avatars, the actual players. It's a game with a loot system, the universal unlimited get out of jail and consequences card in gaming, so "anything and everything is justifiabl", right?

Personally, I think players should have the responsibility to play with fairness and sportsmanship. And those that don't should be punished. And when what is and isn't fair comes into question, they should err on the side of caution, especially when not doing so negatively and adversely effects the experiences of other players.

It's one thing to enforce the rules. It's entirely another to not tell people what the rules are or that you're going to enforce them, and then retroactively punish people for doing something you've now decided is against the rules.

But, did the players suspect that what they were doing was against the rules? If they were perfectly innocent then sure. But if not...

The long version, as this relates to gaming, is - hey, aren't you're supposed to be writing something right now?

Heh. The point of storing the Xbox was to allow me to make some content instead of only consuming it. This evening, I've chosen to make a point. :p

As for the rest, you see the nuance, it seems, but only from a great at distance. :(

A few things:

1. Chiefly, you left out mistakes in the programming or reduced them down to a meaningless and ignored "given." Can the developer perfectly define the rules of the world they give to players? No. Not really. Not in practicality. Nearly all evidence across decades of game development tells us that bugs, crashes, and exploits will always exist. I cannot think of any game I have ever owned that is coded to absolute perfection. Demanding something of developers that is basically impossible for them to deliver greatly hurts your examples.

2. Yes, there is the risk that something players thought was ok turns out not to be and they get punished for it, but how often does that really happen? Has it ever happened? A player should use common sense and sportsmanship to guide their actions. It's not like I have hard data to back this up, but I'd guess that relying on an honest sense of sportsmanship has rarely steered players wrong. (Well except when they are losing to less honest player, in any event...)

3. If we were discussing players being punished for something they honestly did not know was wrong then I'd be firmly on the players' side in this debate. Unfortunately, so far in this debate the main player action we've discussed is pushing through a wall they know they shouldn't be able to in order to damage a boss in a way they shouldn't be able to in order to get loot more frequently than the developers stated they were supposed to. As much as you or anybody else wants this to be about poor innocent players who were retroactively punished without a hint that their actions might bring consequences... that's not what is happening. At all. In what we are actually discussing, each and every player likely knew exactly what they were doing and that it was almost certainly be frowned upon. Instead of a hypothetical situation, why not talk about the one that's actually before us?

And yet so many excuse away the responsibility of players and place 100% of the blame on the developers... :(

If something a player does isn't fair and isn't right then... it is the developer's fault!? Above, you asked if I was being serious. I now pose that same question.

If you're a game dev, and your game has an exploit, you have to assume 100% of players who find the exploit will use it. If you don't assume that, you're incompetent and living in a fantasy land.

Welcome to the real world.

But the assumption is already wrong. I reported at least a dozen people during the Great Shadow Shot Debacle but did not use the glitch myself. I also never superbounced, sword flew, BxRed or hid outside a map. You're down to at least 99.99999999% and I can't be the only player in all the world to have played fair.

In your world, do three wrongs make a right? Because one hundred apparently do. :(

Imagine we discussed things that are actually happening vs ones that (probably!) won't.

That, and it'd be a lot easier to talk about legitimately fuzzy cases once we get past the notion that the player is never ever in the wrong...

You (where "you" applies to anyone reading this conversation) are accepting of slipping through walls and ruining other players' PvP but not murder via spork. Ok, fine. Forget the sporks. Let's dial it back until we find the most extreme thing you will accept and the most mild thing you won't. What is the dividing line or reason that the former is acceptable and the latter isn't? Where and why does "anything and everything" actually end?

You (where "you" applies to anyone reading this conversation) are accepting of slipping through walls and ruining other players' PvP but not murder via spork. Ok, fine. Forget the sporks. Let's dial it back until we find the most extreme thing you will accept and the most mild thing you won't. What is the dividing line or reason that the former is acceptable and the latter isn't? Where and why does "anything and everything" actually end?

It actually ends at the game itself. If the game allows it to be done, it's fair game (at least until the developers make a statement when the exploit is discovered saying, "Starting now, people caught using this exploit will be banned/suspended/etc." Punishing people retroactively isn't a good way to deal with this.

At the highest levels, the consequences of unsportsmanlike conduct (or at least getting caught at being unsportsmanlike) become the most severe. Fines, disqualifications from million dollar prizes, being banned from halls of fame, being kicked out of a competitive activity all together.

Not when it's within the actual rules of the sport being played. See Cody's basketball analogy. Coaches and athletes will use everything to their advantage as long as it's not technically against the rules.

If something a player does isn't fair and isn't right then... it is the developer's fault!? Above, you asked if I was being serious. I now pose that same question.

I'm completely serious. I don't even play The Division, so I have no skin in the game, but this doesn't even sound like that big of a deal. It'd be the equivalent of people being able to get Raid drops without running the raid, and get them multiple times. That's not that big of a deal. It's a video game. If they want to punish players for using the exploit now, after making a statement saying they would do so, then fine, I don't have any issue with that. But punishing them retroactively is a shitty thing to do in my book, especially (as we've covered) the developers themselves have been seen using known exploits.

And that's what I'm really driving at here. I think using this exploit is a crappy thing to do, and I probably wouldn't do it. But I think the mere fact that there is debate about it in this thread means it isn't objectively wrong for folks to have done it. Games will always have bugs, and players will always try to exploit those bugs to their own advantage. And for the most part, folks aren't using this exploit to intentionally be shitty to other players. That's the real difference between this and say Superbouncing and BxR. Those things were primarily used against other players in a competitive environment. Yeah, having gear from this exploit can and will be advantageous against other players in the Dark Zone, but big deal. Give it a month, and player that has just hit level 30 will be in the exact same position against someone who has farmed the Incursion naturally for a month.

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Imagine we discussed things that are actually happening vs ones that (probably!) won't.

That, and it'd be a lot easier to talk about legitimately fuzzy cases once we get past the notion that the player is never ever in the wrong...

The fact that my example isn't happening does not make it any less fair of an example, IMO. But fair enough, let's look at an example of something that actually did happen: the Loot cave. Players found an exploit that gave engrams at a faster rate than Bungie intended. How about double or triple dipping for PoE treasure keys? Shoving the Templar off the platform? These are all examples of players going outside the predicted behaviour to achieve unintended results. Not once did Bungie punish those players. They fixed THEIR mistake, laughed it off, and moved on. And that's exactly how those situations and others like them should be handled IMO.

To be clear, I have no sympathy for people doing deliberate hacks/mods/network manipulations to gain any form of advantage. But that's not the level of behaviour that we're talking about here. We're talking about players engaging the in-game systems and mechanics in ways that give results beyond what the developers intended. Rules in any videogame are defined by 1 thing and 1 thing only: what does the game allow the player to do. I totally get that these Division players are going outside Ubisoft's intended designs. Ubisoft should fix the problems with their game and move on. I have a huge problem with PUNISHING players for engaging with these workarounds.

You (where "you" applies to anyone reading this conversation) are accepting of slipping through walls and ruining other players' PvP but not murder via spork. Ok, fine. Forget the sporks. Let's dial it back until we find the most extreme thing you will accept and the most mild thing you won't. What is the dividing line or reason that the former is acceptable and the latter isn't? Where and why does "anything and everything" actually end?

It actually ends at the game itself. If the game allows it to be done, it's fair game (at least until the developers make a statement when the exploit is discovered saying, "Starting now, people caught using this exploit will be banned/suspended/etc." Punishing people retroactively isn't a good way to deal with this.

But punishments, preannounced / pre warned punishments are ok. Thus the player takes some of the blame and consequences.

At the highest levels, the consequences of unsportsmanlike conduct (or at least getting caught at being unsportsmanlike) become the most severe. Fines, disqualifications from million dollar prizes, being banned from halls of fame, being kicked out of a competitive activity all together.

Not when it's within the actual rules of the sport being played. See Cody's basketball analogy. Coaches and athletes will use everything to their advantage as long as it's not technically against the rules.

But there are still consequences. You are giving the other team two free, unobstructed shots. More importantly, if a player commits too many fouls they get banned from the game. This is in stark contrast to video game players having zero responsibility and consequences for their actions.

If something a player does isn't fair and isn't right then... it is the developer's fault!? Above, you asked if I was being serious. I now pose that same question.

I'm completely serious. I don't even play The Division, so I have no skin in the game, but this doesn't even sound like that big of a deal. It'd be the equivalent of people being able to get Raid drops without running the raid, and get them multiple times. That's not that big of a deal. It's a video game. If they want to punish players for using the exploit now, after making a statement saying they would do so, then fine, I don't have any issue with that. But punishing them retroactively is a shitty thing to do in my book, especially (as we've covered) the developers themselves have been seen using known exploits.

I mostly agree... It is very hard to justify retroactively punishing for an offense that you the developer failed to prevent.

And that's what I'm really driving at here. I think using this exploit is a crappy thing to do, and I probably wouldn't do it. But I think the mere fact that there is debate about it in this thread means it isn't objectively wrong for folks to have done it. Games will always have bugs, and players will always try to exploit those bugs to their own advantage. And for the most part, folks aren't using this exploit to intentionally be shitty to other players. That's the real difference between this and say Superbouncing and BxR. Those things were primarily used against other players in a competitive environment. Yeah, having gear from this exploit can and will be advantageous against other players in the Dark Zone, but big deal. Give it a month, and player that has just hit level 30 will be in the exact same position against someone who has farmed the Incursion naturally for a month.

I agree this exploit is less in your face unsportsmanlike than something like BxR. I'm much more tolerant of things that can't be used against fair playing players.

But the assumption is already wrong. I reported at least a dozen people during the Great Shadow Shot Debacle but did not use the glitch myself. I also never superbounced, sword flew, BxRed or hid outside a map. You're down to at least 99.99999999% and I can't be the only player in all the world to have played fair.

Tone is everything, and I want to preface this post to say that I'm not in attack mode--I'm in total curiosity mode. But before I begin, though, I'd just like to point out that he said if you're a DEVELOPER, you have to ASSUME that if there's an exploit in your game, 100% of the people will use it. He's not saying that 100% of people actually will exploit whatever. It's the assumption from a design standpoint to try to ensure that your game is as non-exploitable as possible.

Now, onto my curiosity! You're telling me you literally never superbounced or sword flew or BxRed or hid outside of a map at all ever? Like not even by yourself in a custom game or with one other friend in a custom game? Or are you just saying not in matchmaking or against other people? If you literally never did any of those at any time anywhere at all, that's just crazy to me!

I was similarly VERY much against BxR and superbouncing in-game, especially in competitive play. First of all, Bungie outright said it was cheating. Second, there were ways to beat BxR and BxB, and it was oh so satisfying to turn that around on people (especially in tournaments). Sweet, sweet satisfaction.

But holy cow, for real? Even with all I just said, I TOTALLY used those techniques alone in custom games, with some friends in custom games, and even sometimes when playing "competitively" with friends in custom games just for laughs. As for matchmaking, I only superbounced if someone was using it against me first. You want to bounce onto the roof on Zanzibar? Assuming you don't peek and get sniped by me first, I'm coming up there to destroy you. That's about all I'd do that for.

Imagine we discussed things that are actually happening vs ones that (probably!) won't.

That, and it'd be a lot easier to talk about legitimately fuzzy cases once we get past the notion that the player is never ever in the wrong...

The fact that my example isn't happening does not make it any less fair of an example, IMO. But fair enough, let's look at an example of something that actually did happen: the Loot cave. Players found an exploit that gave engrams at a faster rate than Bungie intended. How about double or triple dipping for PoE treasure keys? Shoving the Templar off the platform? These are all examples of players going outside the predicted behaviour to achieve unintended results. Not once did Bungie punish those players. They fixed THEIR mistake, laughed it off, and moved on. And that's exactly how those situations and others like them should be handled IMO.

Eh. Using an example that will never happen to make a point is... a bit questionable, but whatevars. :)

It's funny, I think I could find examples of me speaking out against all those exploits you mentioned. I'm on record for calling the loot cave one of the dumbest things I've ever seen players do. I actively spoke out against double dipping the treasure keys, even to people in my fireteams. And I always disliked shortcutting Raids, felt it deprived me of the complete experience.

Now, were any of those ban able offences? Nah. But a lot of that has to do with the way each of those Destiny exploits stayed pretty well within the limits of completely normal gameplay. People shoot into caves at enemies. People throw grenades at bosses. People standing in the Oracle sniper platforms, etc. Purposely crossing a loading zone is slightly more of a stretch, but ultimately it was legitimately driving a Sparrow through playable areas of the maps. This is in contrast to using some physics glitch to force ones self into an area you were not legitimately supposed to be.

To be clear, I have no sympathy for people doing deliberate hacks/mods/network manipulations to gain any form of advantage. But that's not the level of behaviour that we're talking about here. We're talking about players engaging the in-game systems and mechanics in ways that give results beyond what the developers intended. Rules in any videogame are defined by 1 thing and 1 thing only: what does the game allow the player to do. I totally get that these Division players are going outside Ubisoft's intended designs. Ubisoft should fix the problems with their game and move on. I have a huge problem with PUNISHING players for engaging with these workarounds.

You say that rules are defined by one thing... but the history of gaming very easily proves you wrong. Maybe you'd like your one rule to be real, maybe the world would be a better place if it were true, but there are thousands upon thousand of gamers who have been banned for exploits. And there are dozens of developers who have handed out such bans... Including Bungie with Destiny. Idling or actively not participating in a Strike or Crucible, something very easily allowed by the programming of the game, can get you banned from specific activities and eventually all of Destiny. And I absolutely support that.

Now, onto my curiosity! You're telling me you literally never superbounced or sword flew or BxRed or hid outside of a map at all ever? Like not even by yourself in a custom game or with one other friend in a custom game? Or are you just saying not in matchmaking or against other people? If you literally never did any of those at any time anywhere at all, that's just crazy to me!

And, if he truly never did it, he missed a lot of fun in Halo 2. I wasn't as deep into it as a lot of folks, but swordflying out of maps and superbouncing to the top of Zanzibar was fun. Spent so much time swordflying on Headlong, and it was always fun to play BxR allowed custom matches with friends.

And there are dozens of developers who have handed out such bans... Including Bungie with Destiny. Idling or actively not participating in a Strike or Crucible, something very easily allowed by the programming of the game, can get you banned from specific activities and eventually all of Destiny. And I absolutely support that.

Yes, but only AFTER they made a statement saying they would do so. And really, that's the heart of the matter, I think.

But the assumption is already wrong. I reported at least a dozen people during the Great Shadow Shot Debacle but did not use the glitch myself. I also never superbounced, sword flew, BxRed or hid outside a map. You're down to at least 99.99999999% and I can't be the only player in all the world to have played fair.

Tone is everything, and I want to preface this post to say that I'm not in attack mode--I'm in total curiosity mode. But before I begin, though, I'd just like to point out that he said if you're a DEVELOPER, you have to ASSUME that if there's an exploit in your game, 100% of the people will use it. He's not saying that 100% of people actually will exploit whatever. It's the assumption from a design standpoint to try to ensure that your game is as non-exploitable as possible.

It seems more fair to say that somebody will exploit an exploit... not that everyone will. Might just be the oddness of language biting us there though. :)

Now, onto my curiosity! You're telling me you literally never superbounced or sword flew or BxRed or hid outside of a map at all ever? Like not even by yourself in a custom game or with one other friend in a custom game? Or are you just saying not in matchmaking or against other people? If you literally never did any of those at any time anywhere at all, that's just crazy to me!

Keep in mind a few things:
1. I got Xbox Live fairly late in Halo 3's life and didn't really play it that much. Reach was my game.
2. I was the kind of person who used an Assault Rifle because the shotgun, sniper rifle, and (Halo 1) pistol felt unfair. Similarly, I didn't use Thorn during its overpowered days. Fair play and beating an opponent without a massive advantage is something I've always done... even when it wasn't cheating in any way and wasn't a smart way to approach an encounter in any way.
(I did use Armor Lock a lot though... that's fine, right? :p )

Superbounced? No. Not that I recall and certainly not intentionally.
Sword Flew. Oh, perhaps at some point in a custom game just to try it. But I generally disliked Custom Games. I like my game rules fair and predictable, you see.
Hid out of a map? Nope. Completely not my style. Every once in a while I fall off the side of a Destiny map into an out of bounds zone that I'm able to recover from... but always by complete accident...

I was similarly VERY much against BxR and superbouncing in-game, especially in competitive play. First of all, Bungie outright said it was cheating. Second, there were ways to beat BxR and BxB, and it was oh so satisfying to turn that around on people (especially in tournaments). Sweet, sweet satisfaction.

But holy cow, for real? Even with all I just said, I TOTALLY used those techniques alone in custom games, with some friends in custom games, and even sometimes when playing "competitively" with friends in custom games just for laughs. As for matchmaking, I only superbounced if someone was using it against me first. You want to bounce onto the roof on Zanzibar? Assuming you don't peek and get sniped by me first, I'm coming up there to destroy you. That's about all I'd do that for.

For the most part, custom games seemed to be for people who no longer wanted to play normal Halo... and I liked playing normal Halo. Some may recall that I'm not much of a fan of Forge either because it lead to random maps that I did not know being constantly rotated into matchmaking.

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Best unintended mini-game Destiny had, IMO.

Some may recall that I'm not much of a fan of Forge either because it lead to random maps that I did not know being constantly rotated into matchmaking.

Now there's something we can agree on! Forge maps in matchmaking was awful. ): There could have at least been a playlist with only default "real" maps.

and it was always fun to play BxR allowed custom matches with friends.

Just kill me now. I'm not sure you can even imagine how against cheating with friends in custom games with strange rules I am. :p

Just regular matchmaking for me please. :)

Best unintended mini-game Destiny had, IMO.

I didn't even care all that much about getting keys, but that race to see how many times I could get that chest open was some of the most fun I've ever had in Destiny.

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and it was always fun to play BxR allowed custom matches with friends.

Just kill me now. I'm not sure you can even imagine how against cheating with friends in custom games with strange rules I am. :p

I only used it in custom games where everyone understood that it was allowed. We never did it that often, though.

Just regular matchmaking for me please. :)

Keep in mind, Halo 2 hit when I was in high school. It was a revelation, and hit at the perfect time. I put more time into online Halo 2 than the rest of the Halo games combined. I joined an HBO clan (Forerunners for life!), and we were all about custom games. We all rolled as pink Elites. We spent a lot of time Warthog jousting, and played a gametype on Blood Gulch where one person used a Wraith while the rest of the people drove around in Warthogs. It was aimless fun with a lot of Warthog jumping and and randomness. And of course, we played tons and tons of Fist Ass Xtreme on Lockout.

Damn, sometimes I really miss the good ol' days of Halo 2. None of the other Halo games ever quite lived up to that.

SRL was really fun, but it didn't even come close to the unintentional racing they created with opening a key chest multiple times. I'm not sure what it was, but it was intense in a way that SRL never matched.

I'd love to see more SRL, though!

It was pretty ridiculous. They knew it was bullshit, we knew it was bullshit. They knew that we knew that it was bullshit. Not admitting it just made everyone involved look unbelievably childish.

The especially bizarre part is that the cover story sort of sounds worse than the reality. The reality was that they made a simple mistake that was fixed in a timely manner; the cover story was that they were deliberately unfair to multiple major portions of their fanbase.

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