Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Exploitation Action Promises
Its_Me
Member, Alpha Two
I have been suggesting for weeks that we need to give the devs time to handle the exploits but honestly at this point, the lack of both action and communication on the devs part is beginning to feel like they are just putting time between the exploit and any action they might be taking to lessen the public outrage against inaction or weak action on their part. This feeling seems to be building within the community as I have heard it from quite a few testers.
The last time Steven addressed exploits on Discord was on Wed Jan 8th. He stated at this time that they would have exploit actions ready before the next week and there has been complete silence, not even an update to say they are still working on this after they passed their promised deadline of action.
In the meantime, the biggest guild exploiting the war dec system on Vyra (which absorbed players from a guild that was also involved in the duping exploit) has been setting up their defense campaign in discord claiming not to know it was an exploit while simultaneously leveling new character and rebranding under the guild name ‘Waiting’.
I think it is a bit odd to plead not guilty while taking a lot of measures to hide your guilt. I wonder how many new accounts were purchased during this time to funnel gold and materials to as they seem to be pretty proactive with limiting any possible penalty while crying about their innocence?
When this guild discovered that they could spam war decs cheaply against other guilds and do little to nothing to gain fast xp, gold and rewards, their pattern of behavior changed suddenly with declaring war against the entire server. The fact that most of the playerbase was screaming that this was an exploit and did not follow suit, points to this being an exploit and the excessive spamming of war decs (100+? ) in this short period of time, points to their lack of innocence.
There are a fair number of us that watched the exploitation over Christmas that have spent little time in test since this, waiting to see how Steven handles the newest exploits, including the war dec situation.
The lack of participation is not about leverage or anger, it is about the desire to back a developer that demonstrates that they care about exploitation in the game they are developing and will actively handle it. Far too many games have suffered permanent damage from exploits after launch where developers were lax throughout test.
This wait and see approach has now turned into weeks and sadly, some have already moved on to other games to test or play. While this game certainly does not need every tester, the developer does need the faith of his community and that appears to be beginning to wane with the lack of action and passage of a promised action deadline without any communication update.
Will Steven keep the promises that he made to us last November when he warned players to report anything that they feel might be a bug that could be exploited and not partake in it and that he would deal with exploiters harshly? Or will Steven allow the offenders to hide behind the ‘we didn’t know it was an exploit’ when the exploit was obvious to the overwhelming majority of his players declared it an exploit, reporting it as one, and refrained from the using the same thing to gain an unfair advantage in xp, gold and other rewards over others just as Steven requested in Nov.
Also of importance, will Steven continue with his pattern of transparency and provide numbers and figures and action taken or will he hide and give a generic ‘we dealt with some people’ answer since it has been several weeks and this cooldown period might minimize outrage toward inaction or weak action on his part?
I think the latter would be a big mistake on the Stevens's part as he would be mistaking trust and patience in him doing the right thing with tolerance, and not a lot of testers will tolerate those that intentionally exploit, even in testing.
Setting aside all the other suggested exploiting taking place since Dec 20 including another dupe, I understand that this guild is putting pressure on Steven suggesting they are not guilty of exploiting because there was no timer. If Steven allows this, it will be a punch in the gut to all his ethical testers that did what he asked, reported the issue and refrained from partaking in the situation and trusted Steven to handle this appropriately.
I get that some of these guilds have a relationship with the devs and some of the players in these guilds have spent $2500 on their Phoenix Initiative package but if treatment on exploitation is based on who you know, this will be worse PR than the Narc situation.
I hope that Steven provides an update soon and even more importantly, that he and the rest of the dev team do what is right and stand by the promises they made to this community and handle exploiters harshly and not brush them or their actions under the rug.
The last time Steven addressed exploits on Discord was on Wed Jan 8th. He stated at this time that they would have exploit actions ready before the next week and there has been complete silence, not even an update to say they are still working on this after they passed their promised deadline of action.
In the meantime, the biggest guild exploiting the war dec system on Vyra (which absorbed players from a guild that was also involved in the duping exploit) has been setting up their defense campaign in discord claiming not to know it was an exploit while simultaneously leveling new character and rebranding under the guild name ‘Waiting’.
I think it is a bit odd to plead not guilty while taking a lot of measures to hide your guilt. I wonder how many new accounts were purchased during this time to funnel gold and materials to as they seem to be pretty proactive with limiting any possible penalty while crying about their innocence?
When this guild discovered that they could spam war decs cheaply against other guilds and do little to nothing to gain fast xp, gold and rewards, their pattern of behavior changed suddenly with declaring war against the entire server. The fact that most of the playerbase was screaming that this was an exploit and did not follow suit, points to this being an exploit and the excessive spamming of war decs (100+? ) in this short period of time, points to their lack of innocence.
There are a fair number of us that watched the exploitation over Christmas that have spent little time in test since this, waiting to see how Steven handles the newest exploits, including the war dec situation.
The lack of participation is not about leverage or anger, it is about the desire to back a developer that demonstrates that they care about exploitation in the game they are developing and will actively handle it. Far too many games have suffered permanent damage from exploits after launch where developers were lax throughout test.
This wait and see approach has now turned into weeks and sadly, some have already moved on to other games to test or play. While this game certainly does not need every tester, the developer does need the faith of his community and that appears to be beginning to wane with the lack of action and passage of a promised action deadline without any communication update.
Will Steven keep the promises that he made to us last November when he warned players to report anything that they feel might be a bug that could be exploited and not partake in it and that he would deal with exploiters harshly? Or will Steven allow the offenders to hide behind the ‘we didn’t know it was an exploit’ when the exploit was obvious to the overwhelming majority of his players declared it an exploit, reporting it as one, and refrained from the using the same thing to gain an unfair advantage in xp, gold and other rewards over others just as Steven requested in Nov.
Also of importance, will Steven continue with his pattern of transparency and provide numbers and figures and action taken or will he hide and give a generic ‘we dealt with some people’ answer since it has been several weeks and this cooldown period might minimize outrage toward inaction or weak action on his part?
I think the latter would be a big mistake on the Stevens's part as he would be mistaking trust and patience in him doing the right thing with tolerance, and not a lot of testers will tolerate those that intentionally exploit, even in testing.
Setting aside all the other suggested exploiting taking place since Dec 20 including another dupe, I understand that this guild is putting pressure on Steven suggesting they are not guilty of exploiting because there was no timer. If Steven allows this, it will be a punch in the gut to all his ethical testers that did what he asked, reported the issue and refrained from partaking in the situation and trusted Steven to handle this appropriately.
I get that some of these guilds have a relationship with the devs and some of the players in these guilds have spent $2500 on their Phoenix Initiative package but if treatment on exploitation is based on who you know, this will be worse PR than the Narc situation.
I hope that Steven provides an update soon and even more importantly, that he and the rest of the dev team do what is right and stand by the promises they made to this community and handle exploiters harshly and not brush them or their actions under the rug.
3
Comments
Intrepid are getting valuable data from players right now, and their staff are all working on things. Rather than fixing bugs that are a result of systems only being partially implemented, the developers are working on finishing those systems.
Re-tasking developers to perform a short term fix for something that has a long term fix planned is not a good idea in a testing environment. It may be a good idea if the game were live, but not during a test.
That is what you and I should want them to be working on, even if it means there are bugs in the test that go unattended for a while.
Our goal here is to get the game as good as it can be for launch, not to make the game better tomorrow.
This is a golden opportunity for Steven to stand by his word and show his true colors for how Intrepid will deal with exploiters, botters and cheaters.
As I have stated before, you seem to post just to get your numbers up and appear to be dead set focused on hitting that 16k number, even with unproductive posts. 🤦♀️
Where at in my post did I suggest that this is about 'having fun playing ashes' or even begin to give off that impression?
I specifically stated that this is about believing in a developer and trusting them to keep promises they have made to the community and following through on issues that greatly impact the game we have invested money in and are spending time to help test and develop.
I have repeatedly stated in many posts that we as tester are not simply here to play a game or treat this as a finished product, we are here to test so I find your entire reply a bit strange.
I look at testing in games more like an unpaid employee than a gamer. I need to have belief in and respect for, a company I work for and I expect a healthy environment where all us unpaid employees are all treated fair and equal. If one of my job requirements is to refrain from a specific action that my employer has stated they will take action against and I watch my coworking doing it and the action having a negative impact on those around them and the product I am also working on, I trust in good faith that my employer will act. This is what many of us have had for several weeks now, faith in the devs to follow through with their promises and not ignore, condone, excuse or brush off exploitation in this alpha. (Please understand this is an analogy, I am not suggesting that testing is a job. )😉
Your attempted lecture with the odd statement that I should not be re-tasking developers to perform a short term fix for something that has a long term fix and reference to fixing a bug is just that, odd.
Did you read my post before responding? If not, at least read the last sentence where I am simply asking for open communication and for Steven to handle the promises he made on Dec 25 and again on Jan 8.
Congrats on your 15,864 post. 🤦♀️
I find it amusing that other people give a shit about my post count. I don't.
Cool, then you agree with me on the point you seem to be arguing.
Why are you arguing that point then?
You can look at it how ever you want.
The problem is, if you look at your relationship with Intrepid differently to how they look at their relationship with you, your expectations will not line up with reality.
You may have noticed, your expectations are not currently lined up with reality. This is probably because of the way you are looking at your relationship with Intrepid.
Us testers do not know much about game development, generally speaking. All you need to do is look at the people whining that Steven said exploiters will be dealt with to get an idea of why it isn't in their best interests to inform us of much.
The truth is, you have a valid issue to bring up if these issues are still present in summer. You do not have a valid issue to bring up in regards to a minor issue with a major in game system that is still in development, when the issue first came up leading in to the holiday season, and we are only just now coming out of said holiday season.
You simply do not have a valid complaint right now. Your current dissatisfaction is akin to a Karen demanding to speak to the manager.
I am not arguing any point, I am arguing you MAKING the strange point in reply to a post that had zero to do with it. 😲
If my expectations is for the devs to be fair and honest and handle exploits as they stated they would do, we do align.
The only thing that lacks reality are your posts in this thread. Please stay on topic and refrain from strawman arguments that derail the topic.
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
No, I have a valid issue to bring now now, after the date Steven promised exploit action would be taken and there has been nothing but silence.
So now you turn exploiting in the game which Steven has stated he takes very seriously and will handle with harsh punishments into a minor issue? 🤣
No, my point is that a developer should follow through with what they promise their community in regards to handling exploitation and if the timeframe they provide for doing this changes, communicate this with the community. Pretty simple concept which has nothing to do with a Karen.
You have not been close to having a valid response to anything I have said, you are twisting and strawmanning your way through the entire thread. I see now why so many others you have replied to have suggested you be banned or suspended, your actions appear to be intentional trolling to derail topics to get closer to that 16k number.
Congrats on your 15,866th post. 🤣
A well-known maxim attributed to Niccolò Machiavelli (from The Prince) advises rulers to commit necessary harm all at once rather than in small increments. While phrased slightly differently depending on the translation, it is often summarised as:
The rationale, according to Machiavelli, is that concentrating the negative or harmful actions in a single episode shortens the duration of public anger or resentment.
I would recommend Intrepid follows this advice and deals with the exploiters harshly. It will do very well to prevent people contemplating exploiting in the future at the cost of others' enjoyment of the game, if they see harsh penalties at this crucial moment in the history of Ashes.
I watched the live stream from the 11th and did not see this mentioned.
I just went back over the transcript and cannot find it. The stream is almost 3 hours long so I might just be missing it so if you have a time stamp, this would be great.
The stream you saw this mentioned in, was it the one on the 11th with a lot of RP stuff where Steven was giving away mounts, having people find him and even doing a wedding?
I have, it just isn't what you want to hear - even if you know it to be true.
It isn't a strange point.
Also, as it wasn't posted in a post that quoted you, it wasn't a direct reply. It was a post adding to the discussion in general.
When the game is live, this is a valid expectation to have.
At that time, it is an expectation I fully support, as well.
However, in a live game, fixing bugs that would be exploitable in a live game is not always an immediate priority. They are only a priority if they are preventing the developer from getting the test data they are current after. If all they are doing is making a handful of testers enjoy the process a little less, then there is no immediate urgency. No, this is just you being mistaken - like any good Karen usually is.
A few points.
There was a statement of a date they would attempt to follow through. There was no promise to do so, just a statement that this would be the attempt.
Second, that date has not yet past.
So, you are altering the comments that Intrepid made, making them much more definate than they were when said, and you are complaining that something that they said would happen soon hasn't happened yet.
And then you have the balls to say you aren't being a Karen.
Are you starting to see why I am saying that the issue is you yet?
It was in reply to a post that I made, the initial post that started this thread. There was no discussion at the time, just your reply to my post which did not address any of the actual points made in my post, it was just another one of your odd white-knightish posts where you attempt to derail a topic. 🤣
Here, let me help you with the definition of the word promise according to both webster and oxford: "a declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified"
I suggest you pull up a visual picture of this months calendar to help you with this. The statement was made on Jan 8th that exploit actions would be ready before next (which is now last) week.
No, you are once again just very very confused on what you read and/or are intentionally attempting to derail yet another topic with lies and strawman arguments. You have a very definitive pattern which many other posters have pointed out. I would not normally give your weird rabbit hole comments the time of day but hey, you are giving free bumps to the thread so......
Oh, I think I and many others on the forum see you and your agenda very clearly. 🤣
Let me make my point again, not for you as you appear unwilling or incapable of comprehending it, but for anyone you managed to twist into misunderstanding it.
Steven, you assured us back in November that you take exploits in alpha seriously and warned players that if they use them, they would be dealt with harshly. You indicated on December 25th that spamming war decs was exploitive and it would be addressed. On Jan 8th, you stated that exploit actions would be ready before last week. As we are past the deadline you volunteered for this, please update the community that this is still being worked on and that you intend to keep the promises you made to the community with handling exploitation and exploiters harshly.
Soon we will find out, hopefully they're able to take care of said players, but if a wipe is needed than so be it and this is another reason when you find a game changing exploit, it's never ok just to keep using it for the sake of "Testing" You actions not only affect you, but everyone else's time invested on the server for your own selfish purposes.
There has been more than one important exploit going on since the Dec launch so they are likely addressing more than just the war dec I focused more heavily on in this thread.
I also think Steven has his hands full in trying to figure out how to fairly reprimand a guild that intentionally spammed war decs for rewards .
Do you penalize the leader that declared all the wars and the people present during the time of the wars? Do you penalize anyone that accepted rewards? Or do you penalize the leader spamming the decs and just attempt to remove the benefits gained by everyone else in the guild?
When removing the tangible gains such as gold, do you also remove freeholds that were purchased from the gold made from the spamming?
While it might be easier to track tangible gains and remove some of it, how does he deal with the intangibles like the excessive xp gains?
Let's say that Steven decides to focus on taking action against the person spamming the war decs and then just removing as much of the unfair rewards gained from this exploit that he can. This would take some tracking, including figuring out all the excessive free xp each player in the guild gained from the exploiting and removing this from each player. Is this even possible? After taking action against the person that was spamming the war decs, does he also delete the character(s) that this person leveled in preparation of this punishment? How about the alt accounts purchased to funnel exploit gains to, do the devs dig in and attempt to find these and take action on these accounts as well?
I sympathize with Steven being in this position of having to babysit unethical testers but he made it clear that he would act harshly against exploiters so a lot of eyes are on him right now to see how he handles this.
If Steven refuses to follow through on his promises of harshly handling exploiters or his actions are considered weak, some players that sat back and did the right thing while one guild benefited, will reconsider their righteous actions when the next exploitable bug surfaces wondering if they too can get away with some exploiting. Steven talks a lot about risk vs rewards and some of his players are using this concept against him when it comes to exploits and actually seem to be winning.
Too many of us have seen how exploitation grows exponentially in both testing and a launched game when developers are lax in handling it so we hope Steven is taking the most recent exploits very seriously.
While I think the spamming of war decs will be a difficult one to handle, throwing up his hands because this situation is difficult to fairly take action on or worse yet, hiding behind a lame excuse such as action will not be taken because it was grey area and there wasn't a timer in place (wasn't grey for 99%), will only promote more exploiting. I fear the latter will also result in lost confidence in Steven as a developer by a significant number of his supporters.
I do not care if Steven takes longer to figure this out, it just needs to be communicated that this is still being worked on as the deadline he gave for action has come and gone and good faith based upon promises without action, only lasts so long.
Granted the reply came after someone was suggesting a ban on dupers so not certain if this applies toward any other exploit, but it is an update nonetheless.
I hope they don't ban me for finding a dupe exploit, testing, and then reporting it. That would be lame. Especially since I'm seriously looking at the TQAT job position and thinking of applying.
The way I read that is that the actions will be ready (not performed, ready) by the week following what ever he was just talking about - or knowing Steven, thinking about but didn't say.
When someone says the next week, they mean the week after what they are talking about (or in Steven's case, thinking about). They don't mean the week after the current one.
If you are talking about something that you plan on doing the current week, you are not going to say it will be done "before the next week". You are going to say "this week".
Sure, Steven worded it a little weird, and you can use that as an excuse for why you misread it, but the above remains true, and you remain a Karen.
Like so many people on this forum have repeatedly stated, you appear to have some serious issues going on there bud, HCP or ODD level issues.
You are the type of person that during a downpour when someone mentions the rain is needed, you will argue it is sunny while holding your umbrella over your head. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Congrats on your 15,876 post. 🤣
They do not ban for testing, they ban for duping. If you had to repeat the steps a couple times to be able to provide all the details to report it to the devs and then deleted all the duped materials like a tester would, you are fine. Now, if you repeated the exploit and kept all the duped materials and profited from the exploit, you should be banned.
edit: I saw red flags with your comment but after looking at history, I hope the devs look very closely at your account.
A bug/exploit was reported on Jan 5th on how to dupe gear/weapons/glint/materials via a zombie exploit and just yesterday (after the announcement exploit actions were coming for duping), you commented on this old report that you were 'able to replicate'.
This sounds like an intentional act of exploiting a known and reported bug and attempts at damage control yesterday by commenting on that report and today in this thread. If you did replicate this exploit reported weeks ago and did not delete ALL of the armor and weapons and other dropped materials that resulted from the dupe, I hope they ban you immediately.
Steven has stated that if you 'find' a bug to report it and not abuse it, he has never stated that players should look through bug/exploits already reported to the dev team and try to replicate them as this is just exploiting something already reported before it can be fixed. 🤦♀️
And what I keep trying to do is figure out why I should give a shit what a guild does when it comes to exploits. Espically when we are talking about a game in alpha.
It makes no difference to me what they exploit, it's a race and them winning by 1 hour or 10 hours makes no difference, the end result is the same.
In fact them punishing the exploiters makes no difference to anyone not in a guild around equal size or larger then the guild in question. Solo players, small groups, large groups, and small guilds have no recourse against large guilds anyways.
This is not to say the devs should not have acted by temp banning the exploiters, but followed it up with statements to reassure, if nothing to ensure players that the integrity of the game will be kept intact, and that they take pride in thier work, and will not let others undermine what they are trying to accomplish.
But as for do I care if a group that already has a massive advantage in every aspect of the game has a slightly more massive advantage. No I don't because it makes no difference to me.
That is compounded by the fact that the devs let people exploit the game and haven't punished them, so apparently they don't care either.
I will simply attach the comment that the Developer of Ashes of Creation made regarding the exploitation that took place last November in test:
No, if it is raining and someone says it is raining, I will agree. If it is snowing and someone says it is raining, I will correct them - even if they try and argue that they are the same as it is both water falling from the sky.
If someone means "this week", they are not going to phrase it "before the next week". If those words are the words the person uses, there is more to what they are saying (or meaning) than "this week".
You are still at this???? 🤦♀️🤣
Okay, let me ask this question.... Your boss comes to you on Wednesday and tells you that they need something from you on their desk before the beginning of the next week. When do you have to have the report on your boss's desk? (Just give me a day, do not throw your usual spin on this, just the day)
Congrats on your 15,877 post.
I would ask for clarification - because as written that is not a properly defined timeframe. I don't operate at work on time frames without them being properly defined. I would ask for a specific and exact date - I only ever give my staff specific and exact dates for this exact reason (I will often give then a colloquial term like this weekend, next weekend, what ever and then follow that up with the proper date to avoid confusion).
What I wouldn't do though, is make the assumption that my take on what my boss means in your scenario to be correct, and get upset if it turns out to not be - considering it was written in an ambiguous kind of way. For all my many faults, I'm not enough of a Karen to do that.
Feel free to note though, things are actually happening based on the time frame that I took that post to mean.
This is wild, you did exactly what I bet someone you would do, EXACTLY. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ 🤣🤣🤣
Congrats on your 15,880, I am guessing productive ones are in the single digits.
Well yeah, what did you expect?
I'm not going to change my reasoning just because you asked a question, am I?
A lot of my posts on these forums have been directly in reply - such as is the case with you here.
If you consider replying to what you are saying to be unproductive, then you may be close to right here.
Awesome dude, thanks.
Just as I was concerned might happen, Steven appears to have taken the coward route on handling all of the exploits and hid behind generics to cover his ass. 😒
Given what people are reporting (the leader spamming all the war decs is still in game) and Steven's refusal to acknowledge if he even addressed or took action on this, everything points to Steven failing to keep his word to his community.
As Steven has stated, the game is not for everyone but at this point, he should probably just update his tagline to 'the game and/or the developer might not be for everyone'....