There are different types of 'exploits'. Just because you wish to
call it an 'exploit' doesn't mean it's not cheating. For example,
exploiting knowledge you shouldn't have to buy/sell stock results in
years in prison.
There is always an implied understanding
in online games that there will be bugs and if you find them you should
not exploit them for personal gain. World of Warcraft banned high end
guilds for exploiting bosses, Guild Wars 2 banned players for exploiting
bad pricing to make high end equipment, and Raiderz wiped a mammoth
amount of items off all their servers as a result of a duping exploit.
The cold hard fact is:
No, you're not so stupid as to 'think it was okay'
'Everybody is doing it' is not an excuse
You don't get to fall back on 'well they should have programmed better'
And you really are a twat if you try to say 'I used it 40x on accident'
If you used it you know what you did, and you know what you did was wrong and actively chose to do it because your personal gain was more important than any semblance of sportsmanship or personal integrity. You truly are the twat of twats.
How I would deal with the problem if I were Mobage:
24 hour maintenance and extension of the event. I would use this time to figure out everybody who used the exploit.
When the event came back, every damn person who exploited the glitch...oh lets say five times to be fair...would happily find themselves with 0 raid points.
This would move up the ranks of every honest person and send a message to people who think it's okay to exploit, and nobody would be banned.
After all, when my teacher caught me 'exploiting' another persons test (they should have covered it if they didn't want me looking) I would have received a zero.
wow i read this article and was wondering what u were talking about but when i read the bug fix i felt gibbed is it even worth competing in this event anymore.
ReplyDeleteReset to 0 points sounds definitely a good solution for this. Sad thing is that I really don't think Mobage is going to do anything to punish the cheaters/exploiters (or whatever).
ReplyDeleteI am saving all my PP. Not going to spend a single one more on this event. What a fast way to ruin a game with a single event...
Concur with the above sentiments. Before this event, I was a big fan of the game; now I'm probably leaving if there's no action to deal with this issue
ReplyDeleteWhile I am still expecting they will do nothing further on this matter, the fact that they described the way the exploit worked in detail may be a sign that they will do something more, rather than trying to sweep this under the rug.
ReplyDeleteDeity Wars, another Mobage game, was wrecked early on by a duping exploit. The worst offenders did get bans, but I don't believe they ever publicly acknowledged either the bug or the bans. That situation was far worse, as people who were not responsible for the duped cards and items were still obtaining them through the market unknowingly - and probably sometimes knowingly as well.
Fixing this issue would be much easier... there are no collateral innocent victims like in the above, so parsing the logs to determine the violators and acting on it should be easier for them to do. Now, will they?
Amen Lucarda, hope someone there at Mobage reads this blog.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100% Lucarda! It was sickening to see my rank dropped precipitously yesterday from 185 to 466. Now I have to spend more pp just to get back to top 300. Today my ranking is much more stable. If there's no foundation to compete fairly, why should we even bother? I love this game and met some great people in my alliance, but I seriously considered quitting yesterday.
ReplyDeleteYep, the worst part (for Mobage) is paying players don't use these glitches a lot of time because they have more to lose if they're banned. But for players who do pay to buy card packs and get those big raider cards/PP to get screwed over by stuff like this, it's tough for them to even want to play.
DeleteLooks like Mobage rectified the situation and took away raid points from cheaters, plus the earned pp and silver. I woke up this morning from having ranked 298 to 198. I am surprised that they didn't drag this on and everyone now can compete fairly for the remaining event.
DeleteYeah, I still wish they reduced them to 0 points. They only removed the 'ill gotten' pts. That's like cheating off another persons test and the teacher saying 'I'll just mark the questions you copied wrong'.
DeleteLuc and et al,
ReplyDeleteGot an email this morning after voting on Mobage's feedback page about action being taken against the exploit/exploit users. They said that we should rest assured they are looking into what action they will be taking and will update us as info becomes available.
Hopefully they will be doing something about it if they bother to acknowledge there is a problem in the first place.
It sounds to me like they are planning something. The truth is, they are afraid to ban because a LOT of top level players abused it.
DeleteSo, instead of banning I feel my response of reducing their point totals to zero works extremely well.
That does sound like the best solution. Rewards honest players, let's the exploiters get something out of it (everything they already harvested, so they can't complain too much).
DeleteI hope they reset exploiter's ratings to zero, but at the same time I'll be annoyed since I already wasted PP trying to keep my spot in 5000-10000. I'll be incredibly annoyed if, having wasted those PP, I end up with a crappy dual-debuff Spiderman when I just wanted Arachne pairs to use in the next event.
ReplyDeleteGot woken up by an oncall page and tons of raid ratings are droppings. One person in my alliance dropped by almost 2 million points.
ReplyDeleteI think it's sad if they are only reducing people back to their pre-glitch numbers. I feel it's too generous.
Deletei actually found a new ver of the glitch yesterday... yes the blitz attack ver... emailed mobage about how to do it and go the lamest response... to bad before they investigate the event will be over =(
ReplyDeleteHello
Thank you for contacting us.
Due to a large amount of inquiries, please allow us some time to investigate the issue.
However, we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Best Regards,
"MARVEL War of Heroes" Support center
They probably are getting flooded though. I imagine their in damage control and auto responses are being sent and they get to them later. They should put a better system in place to prioritize emails but now wouldn't be the time.
DeleteAs long as they learn from mistakes they will get better.
I was around 5k rank before 2nd part of the event, waiting for the enraged bosses to come out to push to top 300 and saving around 30 pp. But after enraged boses came out i found myself droping close to 10k and using almost all pp. Now i only attack 2-3 bosses when attack bar is up and got from 10k to 7k rank. I think they already done something cause wasnt impossible imo to jump 3k ranks with only hiting 2-3 bosess one in 2:30 hours.
ReplyDeleteHalf of the top 8 of my alliance dropped huge amounts of points; I think they're cutting a lot of the exploiters by a large amount
ReplyDeleteHi, I know this doesn't have much to do with the topic at hand, but a team member of mine somehow made a trade go through that I never authorized, so I lost a lot of rare cards. Do you think Mobage would reimburse me and/or ban him?
ReplyDeleteThey won't do anything about it. You would have needed to accept the trade. There isn't really a way for him to 'somehow' make a trade go through without your authorization.
DeleteYou can send an inquiry to mobage and they can tell if his IP hacked you. But chances are you are responsible for the mistake.
Okay, thanks
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was bs I was sitting at 250 and fell to all most 3000 in just a matter of hours. I had to burn 60 pop just to get me back just over a 1000
ReplyDeleteLucarda,
ReplyDeleteI'm considering this event a wash and just farming shards for resources to prep for the next training. Legend has it that there was an exploit for the FF training but after looking around a bit, I can't find specifics. Only that it "has been addressed". In retrospect, it makes sense that I was getting attacked an unreasonable amount during one match. I chalked it up to someone spending mad ca$h.
My question: What kinds of "red flags" should players who play for free (like me) or others look out for during these events? I want to be a good sport and not complain that someone's beating up on me, but want the game to be fair too. Thoughts?
Lucarda,
ReplyDeleteYou are a God amongst men! We were told the difference between right and wrong early in our lives. If you are in your 20's, 30's and beyond and still are struggling with this concept, I really feel sorry for you. It is a slap in the face to the guys who were honestly busting their balls to get to the top that their fellow alliance members were going in and cheating.
Lucarda,
ReplyDeleteThey just announce how they going to deal with cheaters... They give them a free pass...
I don't get it. They admit that they know how are those players that cheated. Rather than punishing them just like you suggested. they want honest player to compete to get a good reward. Their ability to do what's right and wrong got blinded by greed for more money.
Where did they announce? I noticed their rank going down but did anything else happen?
ReplyDeleteNope, nothing is going to happen to the cheaters. I don't even think they took away the raid points they got from using the glitch. My rank hasn't changed at all since it dropped from the massive use of the glitch. Anybody that didn't use the glitch and continues to give mobage money is a sucker.
DeleteI'm 95% sure the raid points got taken away (maybe not for all), just by looking at raid points for my alliance members.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the Glitchers will keep their ill gotten gains (PPPs, etc.) while I will enjoy my brand new MODOK & Green Goblin (via Ultimate Tickets). What's the strategy here?
ReplyDeleteThe strategy is that a lot of paying top level players used the glitch because others did under the argument 'I didn't want to, but if I didn't I would lose my venom because of cheaters.'
DeleteThere was no way to determine if the people were the initial or if they were panicked responders to the activity, in essence acting in self defense.
Now, both were wrong, but Mobage doesn't want to come down harshly on people who in essence 'fought fire with fire.'
They basically decided to side with money and greed. I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone.
DeleteI agree that their raid rating should have been dropped to zero. My goal was for a pair of the web crawlers. I got to rank 500 early on and was maintaining. Suddenly I woke up and I'm down under 3000. It took me over 60 pp to get back over 2000. As the person ranked first in my alliance it aggravates me to no end because I got there honestly.
Delete