Another comparison (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 01:40 (3234 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

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.