Greetings, glorious adventurers! If you're joining in our Alpha One spot testing, please follow the steps here to see all the latest test info on our forums and Discord!
Options
The Problem of Duplicating Items
ArchivedUser
Guest
Duplicating items (or "duping") is when players exploit a bug/mechanic of the game to instantly create a free copy of an item. It PvE games it is an annoyance that can ruin an in-game economy. In a PvP game like AoC it can ruin the entire game. If players can create 100 items in a few hours that were supposed to take a few weeks to make (for example, siege catapults), it will make the game all but unplayable.
A prime candidate mechanic for duping exploits in this game is the "mail" system, particularly when your items are mailed to you after your building is destroyed.
The exact mechanic for duping items isn't really the point though. Players will find these exploits, and they will abuse them. These exploits will only need to be live for a matter of a few days for large 300+ person guilds to take full advantage of them.
Knowing duping is all but certain to occur, I hope IS has plans to counter it. The most simple brute force solution is to tag every item worth duping with a unique ID with encoded data detailing who made it, when it was crafted, what server it was crafted on, and the current owner of the item. When the server detects two items with identical IDs, one of the items is permanently deleted from the game world. The ID is logged so action can be taken against players responsible for mass duping.
There are likely much more elegant solutions, but "we will just make sure there are no ways to duplicate items" isn't a viable option. There are too many players who are too good at identifying and abusing these exploits for this game to not have a way to detect and correct the inevitable cases that will surely arise.
A prime candidate mechanic for duping exploits in this game is the "mail" system, particularly when your items are mailed to you after your building is destroyed.
The exact mechanic for duping items isn't really the point though. Players will find these exploits, and they will abuse them. These exploits will only need to be live for a matter of a few days for large 300+ person guilds to take full advantage of them.
Knowing duping is all but certain to occur, I hope IS has plans to counter it. The most simple brute force solution is to tag every item worth duping with a unique ID with encoded data detailing who made it, when it was crafted, what server it was crafted on, and the current owner of the item. When the server detects two items with identical IDs, one of the items is permanently deleted from the game world. The ID is logged so action can be taken against players responsible for mass duping.
There are likely much more elegant solutions, but "we will just make sure there are no ways to duplicate items" isn't a viable option. There are too many players who are too good at identifying and abusing these exploits for this game to not have a way to detect and correct the inevitable cases that will surely arise.
0
Comments
All games claim to combat those issues...with varying levels of success.
In the meantime though we can all enjoy Monster Hunter Online and Sea of Thieves
MAYBE Anthem . . . but the publisher behind it
On one hand the old phrase "if you didn't cheat you didn't want it bad enough" comes to mind.
On the other, I don't see the point. It's a video game with hopefully no play-to-cash mechanics. Sure your character can gain all that extra gold, as mentioned tanking the economy of that product (supply/demand and all), and buy cool new gear.
However, if having the coolest gear is all someone is going to play this game for, I just feel sad for them.
If it were me, that is the type of system I would implement. If you don’t think it’s a helpful suggestion, either present your own better suggestion, or ignore the thread. Either would be more helpful than what you just contributed.
Irony: calling a thread unhelpful while failing to contribute anything helpful.
Well done sir!