One thing Bungie does right (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 01:16 (3234 days ago) @ cheapLEY

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.