"VTOL-hunting" IS an exploit, now confirmed by support!

[Optima]

Supportcase sent in a while ago by a member of soc:

Case Description
Category: In-world (game play)
Subject of query: Abuse or Harassment
Deposit method:
Details: I have a very simple question...
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Using a VTOL hunting in team have been used a lot lately. You can escape attack by jumping into a VTOL while team-members that are out of range of mob attack are shooting and when mob attack the ones shooting-they jump into a VTOL...in-game this is called pingpong'ing. Nothing wrong with that BEFORE VTOL's that can't be attacked arrived, but now when people use this( I must assume not foreseen exploit) it's ridiculous.

So the very simple question is :
Is this allowed according EULA or is it not?
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And the answer:
(Dec 1, 2010 10:21 PM GMT)

Hi,

Thank you for your patience. I have been informed that our developing team is now aware of problems with the vehicles being used to gain an advantage over others, which makes them exploitable in certain ways and are currently working on a solution to fix this, however we can not offer you an exact time for this to be fixed.

Using exploits to obtain economic advantages is a behaviour which is certainly in violation of the EULA and all participants are obliged to report bugs and exploits when found. If you do not report such exploits or bugs and if you or any other participant is found taken advantage of this situations, you run the risk of getting your account locked.

Kind regards,

Leslie | Planet Calypso Support
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Now i wonder... since you (you=MA/FPC) must have known about this for ages (been a good while since this and other supportcases were sent in...), why did you not publicly state on forums and in the CL that this is a bannable/lockable offence immediately!?!

Did the whole space trapping thing, and alot of other similar situations through time, where people exploit like theres no tomorrow, often blaming it on ignorance teach you nothing?

Again: Some will always exploit whatever they can since they feel theyre "allowed to use whatever means possible to get an edge" to beat the game so to speak.
Somewhere i could maybe understand that standpoint if the "fight" was against MA/FPC. Sadly its not, since any economic advantage you may achieve by using exploits, means other players have to lose more so you can lose less/earn more, it wont decide how much MA pays out, only the distribution.
One sadly cant do much about that "philosophy" i guess, but atleast id like to think its only a small part of players that feel like that.

But by saying nothing when a massive exploit/flaw like this gets detected (and especially since it might have been foreseen that being invincible could be a problem?...) will also always make normal players use it since "well if MA/PFC say nothing, then it must be ok, right?"
Its not really that strange that people adapt to it now is it. They see others doing it without any sanctions, MA/FPC dont react to it, so in the end they do it as well to not be left behind/at@disadvantage, which is where it ends in total fail...

Put those 2 options together, and you got a mix of people exploiting the economy, and the only ones left to pay for it are the ones that dont use it.

So again, like i did in posts in the past, i beg you to change policy on this:

Have the decency to clearly state what we can and can not do when stuff like this comes to your attention!
It cant be that hard to put 10 lines of text somewhere so people know beyond a doubt what theyre allowed to do, or rather especially what not to do, now can it..
At least instead of the insane amount of shit you get, and huge mass of pissed off players after something like this has been going on for months with you knowing it and doing nothing, its gotta be worth it to have someone quickly update the community...

Im aware some bugs etc might not be wise to put on forums yes, but "general" stuff like this i cant see the harm. Not like its a secret to anyone that people do this.

Oh and to mods: I put it in general since this touches a shitload of different aspects ingame (economy, bugs, exploits, dev info etc), but if you feel it should be somewhere else feel free to move it.

 

[HarryBondHole]

I think this is a bug is known for most avatars after some mysterious team globals from the hardest mobs ingame.

The answer from the support case clearly shows that MA does not approve such activity. But since they don't make this official to the community, there will always be people willing to utilize the exploit(imo too).

The only thing that will work is a official statement that avatar getting caught in the act will get banned, and that they actually set some examples if people are caught.

Your thread will certainly put the problem in focus. However I fear that if MA doesn't take this seriously, more people will start exploiting......

 

[kosmos]

Good post. the vtol bug, feature, exploit (insert adjective) is bs. I don't see how this slipped by ma/fpc during testing! Game has had some improvements in the last year but there are bugs and issues that remain that to me would take not much effort to fix but they just remain unfix. It is the straw that breaks the camel back that they say people "could" be banned", but they pretend like the problem don't exist.

kosmos

 

[mastermesh]

the bigger issue here is that any bug/exploit is really a feature until it's reported... and vice versa... because any feature could be considered a bug by someone else if it devalues their assets or gameplay.

should be the other way around... should be some quality control to detect problems before they are released, not after they are released and used.

eula even sort of implies that itself...
http://legal.entropiauniverse.com/legal/eula.xml

MindArk will provide the Entropia Universe System "as is".

THE ENTROPIA UNIVERSE IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS". THE ENTROPIA UNIVERSE IS NOT WARRANTED BY MINDARK TO BE UNINTERUPTED , COMPLETE, ACCURATE OR ERROR OR BUG FREE.

 

[remontoire]

So, was the way pretty much everybody did the launcher system sabotage missions in the crater also an exploit? If no, why not?

 

[Xen]

So, was the way pretty much everybody did the launcher system sabotage missions in the crater also an exploit? If no, why not?

Yep.

But people didn't think that was taking peds from them, so not many complaints.

 

[Menace]

I have a feeling that there will be a shit tonne of pissed off players once others start flying into a spawn and aggro'ing mobs on them. Seeing's the only way to fix this problem is to allow mobs to attack the VTOLs. I mean.... we see it all the time as it is with the driving vehicles.... only now we won't have time to prepare for the onslaught of mobs coming at us until it's too late and that GD shows up right above us.

I say leave the damn bug. If people have that much time on their hands then let em piss around. It's been proven time and time again that the decay you take affects your returns. So they pay 20 PED to kill a mob and recieve 12. They Pay 8 PED to kill a mob and receive 8. It's not gonna make that much of a difference as most of us don't have the time to piss around with VTOLS and are here to stand there and shoot. The smart ones like the evade/dodge/paramedic skills. It's only the stupid ones who think they're getting ahead by not dying.

Menace

 

[mastermesh]

I have a feeling that there will be a shit tonne of pissed off players once others start flying into a spawn and aggro'ing mobs on them.

already lots of that happening to sweaters at Neas. Just a matter of time til vtol owners start realizing they can do similar elsewhere too.

 

[XeroX2]

I have a feeling that there will be a shit tonne of pissed off players once others start flying into a spawn and aggro'ing mobs on them. Seeing's the only way to fix this problem is to allow mobs to attack the VTOLs. I mean.... we see it all the time as it is with the driving vehicles.... only now we won't have time to prepare for the onslaught of mobs coming at us until it's too late and that GD shows up right above us.

I say leave the damn bug. If people have that much time on their hands then let em piss around. It's been proven time and time again that the decay you take affects your returns. So they pay 20 PED to kill a mob and recieve 12. They Pay 8 PED to kill a mob and receive 8. It's not gonna make that much of a difference as most of us don't have the time to piss around with VTOLS and are here to stand there and shoot. The smart ones like the evade/dodge/paramedic skills. It's only the stupid ones who think they're getting ahead by not dying.

Menace

what he said.

 

[Terminator]

VTOL dont aggro mobs to avoid mob trains.

I have a VTOL and I DO DEPLOY IT (and jump into it) when a miner or a car come near me with a mob trains of Troxes. I consider that I paid for that 'protection' feature.


Now, if MA fixes the aggro bug and prevent cars from aggoing dozens of mobs then I'm ok that VTOL dont protect no longer against mobs.

 

[M Rufen Power]

Never knew this was being done ingame seriously. But I'm with what Menace said let them carry on doing it. They are still paying for it in fuel costs however small it might be .

 

[rhogenbe]

I have seen some people do this with SEG's even solo.
For SEG's i would know an nice solution. Give them surface to air missiles/rockets with say 50 to 100 meters of range.
They could hit and miss like any other weapon.

For mobs it will be harder to come up with a solution. Though a starting procedure of say 5 seconds for a VTOL in order to lift of so that is on the ground longer could solve this. Plenty of time for the mob to reach and hit the VTOL.

Cheers
Siam

 

[Oleg]

I have a feeling that there will be a shit tonne of pissed off players once others start flying into a spawn and aggro'ing mobs on them. Seeing's the only way to fix this problem is to allow mobs to attack the VTOLs. I mean.... we see it all the time as it is with the driving vehicles.... only now we won't have time to prepare for the onslaught of mobs coming at us until it's too late and that GD shows up right above us.

I say leave the damn bug. If people have that much time on their hands then let em piss around. It's been proven time and time again that the decay you take affects your returns. So they pay 20 PED to kill a mob and recieve 12. They Pay 8 PED to kill a mob and receive 8. It's not gonna make that much of a difference as most of us don't have the time to piss around with VTOLS and are here to stand there and shoot. The smart ones like the evade/dodge/paramedic skills. It's only the stupid ones who think they're getting ahead by not dying.

Menace

Is you seriously think there is no advantage in being able to hunt any mob in the universe without armour or FAP decay, and without having to worry about being killed, you've failed badly to understand how EU works.

 

[Terminator]

I have seen some people do this with SEG's even solo.
For SEG's i would know an nice solution. Give them surface to air missiles/rockets with say 50 to 100 meters of range.
They could hit and miss like any other weapon.

For mobs it will be harder to come up with a solution. Though a starting procedure of say 5 seconds for a VTOL in order to lift of so that is on the ground longer could solve this. Plenty of time for the mob to reach and hit the VTOL.

Cheers
Siam

Implement a 5 sec delay wont do it.
Just need to have two people in the VTOL, the driver remains inside when the hunter is on the ground.



BTW, how is this more an exploit than wearing an armor? Both cost money and both protect.

 

[ranpha]

Oh I use the VTOL in a similair way ... but then in this situation. When during a two run I reallyyyyyy need to pee .. Jump in the vtol go in the back seat and i can pee .... Now are we considering this as an exploit ?

 

[Yquem]

Yes it can be done to use VTOL as a safe place until a teammate attack the mob or until hunter will move to another location to continue the shooting.

But is it a general exploit too to use your car when hunting. On slow running mobs you can jump into your car and fast drive to the boarder of the radar and from here continue shooting.

I cant see the big difference from this way to hunt than to use the VTOL. Even thou MA make mob attack VTOL both on ground and in air it will still be possible to use verchiles to hunt mobs and avoid decay.

If they should solve this problem then they should transfer all verchiles to planet storage after they have been inactive (like in no one in driver seat) for 3 second.

BTW - what is the problem in hunting in this way - exploit or not? (to save a few peds in armor / fap decay)?? Or 'noob' hunting mobs that ubers find is exclusive for them?

 

[AJack10600]

why should a mob be able to damage a steel spaceship ???

Anyway... what pisses me off that if we "exploit" bugs, we are the idiots, when MA make bugs, they are sorry...

 

[Audrey Cheerful]

Easy solution (I think): Everybody who is aggroed by a mob (that is not stuck) is forbidden to hop into a vehicle. End of effing story.

 

[Deathifier]

So, was the way pretty much everybody did the launcher system sabotage missions in the crater also an exploit? If no, why not?

For that particular mission you still had to get out and push the button and if you tried to do that in the middle of a pile of Harbingers it didn't always work so well.

It was quite amusing to see little fields of empty VTOL's next to some of the launchers, and in some cases the VTOL's passengers being stranded because the driver got shot.

It was also quite cool when others helped out the stranded people, and to see people trying to keep the launch sites clear - everyone was working together even if individuals weren't deliberately trying to.

That said it would have worked quite fine if the Harbingers could destroy the VTOL's.

It would work great if creatures could attack a flying vehicle whilst it is landed (and have a short power-up delay when the driver gets in), at very low altitude (so they can still hit it if it is just lifting off and in melee range) and, if the creature has a ranged weapon, to fire at it (but not chase it) until it moves out of range.

The problem is you can't let the creature chase the aircraft for long because the creature has a pretty much zero chance of ever catching it.

- Deathifier

 

[mastermesh]

Easy solution (I think): Everybody who is aggroed by a mob (that is not stuck) is forbidden to hop into a vehicle. End of effing story.

Lets just turn off the turrets while we are at it... better yet, make the turrets only work if participant gets to them, and manually aims, and then pays for decay for each ammo shot, lol.

 

[Yquem]

For that particular mission you still had to get out and push the button and if you tried to do that in the middle of a pile of Harbingers it didn't always work so well.

It was quite amusing to see little fields of empty VTOL's next to some of the launchers, and in some cases the VTOL's passengers being stranded because the driver got shot.

It was also quite cool when others helped out the stranded people, and to see people trying to keep the launch sites clear - everyone was working together even if individuals weren't deliberately trying to.

That said it would have worked quite fine if the Harbingers could destroy the VTOL's.

It would work great if creatures could attack a flying vehicle whilst it is landed (and have a short power-up delay when the driver gets in), at very low altitude (so they can still hit it if it is just lifting off and in melee range) and, if the creature has a ranged weapon, to fire at it (but not chase it) until it moves out of range.

The problem is you can't let the creature chase the aircraft for long because the creature has a pretty much zero chance of ever catching it.

- Deathifier

... and my guess is that LA owner will be pissed if ppl start to drag there mobs out of the LA to shoot them or maybe even drag them into there own LA ????

I guess this will be an exploit too.

 

[AlphaGeek]

...It was also quite cool when others helped out the stranded people, and to see people trying to keep the launch sites clear - everyone was working together even if individuals weren't deliberately trying to.

Some of it was indeed deliberate. I was keeping two of the silos clear one afternoon, and had been there for some time. A nice fellow from Jurai Blood whose name escapes me now came out and relieved me and carried on with suppressive fire to keep those two silos accessable to sabotuers participating in Operation Hammerhead.

I hope more of the upcoming missions and events are arranged in such a way that colonist cooperation, tactics, and strategy are beneficial as they were during Hammerhead!


Back on subject, though. AJack, why shouldn't a mob be able to bite through an aircraft? Many aircraft are made of lightweight materials to reduce the amount of power needed to stay aloft. I suspect the armor we wear would be made of more substantial stuff than aircraft.

That being said, I don't know whether to call this an exploit or not since all vehicles are working as per design. From a real world viewpoint, it seems that land vehicles should have the invunerability that aircraft have since it's far easier to build an armored land vehicle than an aircraft. Unfortunately, game balance often makes for some pretty funky compromises.

 

[rhogenbe]

... and my guess is that LA owner will be pissed if ppl start to drag there mobs out of the LA to shoot them or maybe even drag them into there own LA ????

I guess this will be an exploit too.

As far as i know this question has been asked once by an LA owner to support. Can't remember the thread and who it was that confirmed it.
If a mob spawns on an LA but is killed outside of an LA or in another LA the LA owner were it spawned still gets the tax.

Cheers
Siam

 

[Yquem]

As far as i know this question has been asked once by an LA owner to support. Can't remember the thread and who it was that confirmed it.
If a mob spawns on an LA but is killed outside of an LA or in another LA the LA owner were it spawned still gets the tax.

Cheers
Siam

cool - thx for the update. I just think how the hell did they progame that (is MA that cleaver that they really did programe this from the start before vehicles make it that easy to make mob trains). If this is the case then a mob that is from a named LA should still give the name in global chat even thou its killed outside its mother LA?

 

[Dante]

cool - thx for the update. I just think how the hell did they progame that (is MA that cleaver that they really did programe this from the start before vehicles make it that easy to make mob trains). If this is the case then a mob that is from a named LA should still give the name in global chat even thou its killed outside its mother LA?

Yeah it should, the mob that spawns in an LA presumably gets a parameter with the LA it belongs to, so when globalled it will probably show the LA according to this parameter.

Unless the mob has this parameter but MA doesn't check the actual parameter but the position of the killed mob (seems unlikely to me)

 

[Audrey Cheerful]

Lets just turn off the turrets while we are at it... better yet, make the turrets only work if participant gets to them, and manually aims, and then pays for decay for each ammo shot, lol.

Hm? What do turrets have to do with the problem at hand? If a mob gets killed by a turret, there will be no loot. That's a big difference to VTOL ping ponging.

 

[Dante]

Hm? What do turrets have to do with the problem at hand? If a mob gets killed by a turret, there will be no loot. That's a big difference to VTOL ping ponging.

I actually don't think it matters at all if you don't have armor decay or whatever in relation to loot. I think returns are related to how much your expenses are, so it shouldn't matter if you don't get armor decay or not, you get the same return %.

Hence I think this "bug" or "exploit" really doesn't give you any advantage other than giving some noobs the smallest chance of getting some uber rare item that only drops from an uber mob every 3 years. Besides that, the ping pong method requires so much time that it's far from "eco"

 

[remontoire]

I have a feeling that there will be a shit tonne of pissed off players once others start flying into a spawn and aggro'ing mobs on them. Seeing's the only way to fix this problem is to allow mobs to attack the VTOLs. I mean.... we see it all the time as it is with the driving vehicles.... only now we won't have time to prepare for the onslaught of mobs coming at us until it's too late and that GD shows up right above us.

This does not follow. Just because mobs attack and aggro on a spawned vtol on the ground does not mean the same mobs should follow a flying vtol that is out of reach, or do so for more than x period of time.

 

[Leona]

Yeah it should, the mob that spawns in an LA presumably gets a parameter with the LA it belongs to, so when globalled it will probably show the LA according to this parameter.

Unless the mob has this parameter but MA doesn't check the actual parameter but the position of the killed mob (seems unlikely to me)

Seems not so unlikely because in example in events the loot from mobs dragged over from other landareas actually count for the event.

 

[Dante]

Seems not so unlikely because in example in events the loot from mobs dragged over from other landareas actually count for the event.

Good point, guess we'll have to find out by getting a global on a mob outside the LA it spawned in

EDIT: misread your post twice in a row lol