News: PSA Event Exploits

[Tei]

Please stop blaming MA for this and making excuses for exploiters that they 'have hard time knowing what is allowed or not'....
We are not talking about some new player continually using vehicle to hunt because he saw someone else flying away when mobs spawn on him...
The exploit discussed in this thread was not an accident because of 'unclear what is allowed and what is not'.
It was deliberately planned in order to work around very clearly stated objective.
Those who exploited that way knew very well that this is an exploit and not intended way to complete objective.
No need to water down their responsibility.

 

[Tei]

I am one of those who were blocked for the exploit with Gems in PvP. You can add me to all the Halls of Shame.

I had uncertainty in how the mechanics of re-execution of the main Resource Mayhem track work. Progress in bonus missions is part of the main mission (line Bonus Objectives x/10). What will happen to it when we complete the Main track and take the main Resource Mayhem mission again? From the description of the quest there is no complete and unambiguous understanding.
I was going to carry out the main RM track to the end, and, possibly, do it again, and did not want to lose the opportunity to get the Rare Token.

I do almost every Mayhem on Redulite mode, manually, fundamentally without using bots/macros. And I can’t get a Rare Token since 2021.
Resource Mayhem is a rare chance for me to finally get a Rare Token.
I felt that it is very risky to complete the main track before all bonus missions were completed. In this regard, I wrote a detailed question to Ludvig|MindArk with a request to clarify this mechanism: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/cdf-resource-maym.299698/post-3944870
According to the answers of the players, it became clear that many of them understand the mechanics of the RM even worse. But there was no official answer.

Therefore, I decided on the quick and guaranteed completion of this bonuss mission with the help of PVP (by the way, on the advice of senior comrades).
And yes, I realized that this was not an honest way. I will not pretend.
The most stupid thing is that I do a lot of craft and most likely would have fulfilled this bonus-mission in a month and a half. But the peculiarity of this mission is that it depends on good luck, unlike all the others, it is impossible to fulfill it guaranteed even by making a lot of effort.

I want to add more.
A similar way to fulfill the missions to obtain something is freely promoted by the official representations of Next Island and Toulan. They are not opposed to the players to receive progress using a refine/unrefine of crystals and/or from a partial return in near successes in craft process. Perhaps they simply reconciled with this, realizing that it is impossible to prohibit and fight. This is the problem of the MA platform, not PP. In terms of meaning, this is exactly the same dishonest way to fulfill missions as with the help of PVP.

I got the first lock for 9 years of the game. I am used to being very careful and protecting myself from any potential violations. For this reason, I still do not use bots/macros in Mayhem, even when it became MainStream.
It was an idiotic act. The reasons for which I described above, but I do not want to justify myself.

I apologize for my ugly English.

At least you have balls to admit it unlike others.

 

[Jhereg]

Greed can make you do stupid stuff for sure

At the bare minimum any progress/rewards that were gotten via the exploit should be reversed.

 

[Aeolus]

Its the same for everyone and has nothing to do with exploiting part.

Gem mission status should be reset to be completed the "intended" way. Otherwise, honestly, its just worth to take 3 days off vs going through all the losses and frustration that other participants had/are going rn (as Lethal pointed out). It will incentivize even further exploiting (of this and future events) and disrespect the effort of those who legitimately completed that part.

Of course, the corresponding bonus mission must be reset.
But I just pointed out a curious fact that seems unbalanced.

 

[Jhereg]

By the way, a curious fact, for those who call to deprive the awards of those who are locked for Gem exploit.
The completion of any bonus missions is the deprivation of itself 200 Mayhem Tokens. Since you get 100 points of RM progress without receiving 200-210 Mayhem Tokens, as in the usual turn-ins.
That is, having completed all bonus missions, the player deprives himself of about 2000 Mayhem Tokens.
It seems that this is some imbalance of the mechanism (which is easily corrected by the addition of 200 tokens to bonus mission rewards).

The bonus missions are only there to unlock the rare token ( small progress on chain as well)

Since there's no hand ins, there's no reason to give any mayhem tokens as well...The rare token is the reward for completion

 

[lethal]

For anyone trying to defend based on the terms not being clear. "Find 1,000 PED of gems when crafting" Is the requirement to complete
gemologist. Therefore, anything done with the intention to complete the mission without finding the gems while crafting would be
considered an exploit. Games are riddles with bugs and coding errors almost always, even games made by multi billion dollar companies.

While Entropia is an RCE game and has to be extra cautious around bugs that can make or lose real money, they are not equipped to
avoid all bugs at all times. They can do better than they do right now, but even if the game was very well designed and maintained, then
it's still possible someone uses an exploit to gain an unfair advantage over those who are playing legitimately. This isn't the court of law
nor can it possibly be, so MA should use their judgement and discretion with feedback from the community to decide on guilt in cases like
this. Don't get into semantics over theoretical situations that are extremely unlikely to happen or you're just obfuscating problems that
basic common sense can solve.

I'll definitely be a bit more wary of those who are taking this approach for argument in this thread as there are mainly 2 types of people who do this .

1: Those who want to look for loopholes so they can use exploits themselves then claim to be victims.
2: Those who stir the pot solely to create problems. (This is a public thread and if you actually want a deep discussion over semantics you would need to have an in depth private conversation.

 

[Aeolus]

The bonus missions are only there to unlock the rare token ( small progress on chain as well)

Since there's no hand ins, there's no reason to give any mayhem tokens as well...The rare token is the reward for completion

I partially agree. Then there is another, even more correct option - not to give progress points into the main RM track. In order not to deprive Mayhem Tokens of those who do not follow the Rare Token, but accidentally completes the bonus missions (and this is inevitable).

 

[Suza]

I understand the frustration at the gems condition being extremely luck based. I regularly craft level 12 amps and a large variety of items that cost 10 or more ped per attempt, yet I have had multiple times of not getting 1k ped of gems in one month. I'm currently sitting at 300 ped of gems found and already completed the main track 4 days ago all from my own crafts that I turned in and haven't stopped crafting since aside from some occasional mining. That being said, we unlucky ones unfortunately may be forced to do something very expensive to fulfill this condition like craft 50+ ped crafts on full red, which is still not guaranteed, just like 10x or more the gem rate per cycle of clicking on green. It's by far the most expensive bonus mission to brute force on average although someone with average luck will have naturally completed it once they finish the main track so long as they are crafting things that are 2+ped to do so.

I see where the temptation came from because of this, I have also not looted a rare token naturally ever having completed a few years of redulite tracks. The 2 I have gotten in the past and used were from the old style placement mayhems. Of course using an exploit like this circumvents the potential crazy expenses involved in getting the gems and should be punished. I'm dreading the things I might have to do to get the gems

I did the 200 ped (x10) claims on Monria with Terra Amp 9's and completed the 50x50 with D-Class amps... My luck was in the toilet as I ended up over 5k ped down when the missions were done. I crafted 12k ped nanos on EP3 condition... no gems... I well understand your pain.

 

[Gopher]

I see this as mindarks fault, not the guys who got banned

1. It was that easy mindark shud have see that coming
2. If its the pvp exlpoit then people still pay a toxic shot + risk to get looted by someone who does not know(and does that guy get a ban too for just minding his Business?)
3. How do i know i dont exploit stuff by mistake...
4. People pay other people to get killed on cyrene for the Mission token isnt that a exploit too then ?

If the mechanic of a game allows you to do Things, then i rly dont see the exploit...
Things become rly stupid lately
During twen stage 1 i got banned for Training(i had mob ads on me because they ninja spawned)someone in a pvp zone, we where fighting for the spawn, there is a official Statement that says you are allowed to train people in a pvp zone.

Fix the game/missions and stop banning people

Dont get me wrong , it just looks stupid af if Things like lootable Border mining, low HP in lootable,or rocket launcher Bug still exist

Common sense makes sure you don't exploit stuff by mistake.

 

[Temptress]

This is a really silly and easily avoidable mess with just the slightest effort beta testing.. these repeated oversights in a RCE are a little concerning.

 

[slick27]

I understand the frustration at the gems condition being extremely luck based. I regularly craft level 12 amps and a large variety of items that cost 10 or more ped per attempt, yet I have had multiple times of not getting 1k ped of gems in one month. I'm currently sitting at 300 ped of gems found and already completed the main track 4 days ago all from my own crafts that I turned in and haven't stopped crafting since aside from some occasional mining. That being said, we unlucky ones unfortunately may be forced to do something very expensive to fulfill this condition like craft 50+ ped crafts on full red, which is still not guaranteed, just like 10x or more the gem rate per cycle of clicking on green. It's by far the most expensive bonus mission to brute force on average although someone with average luck will have naturally completed it once they finish the main track so long as they are crafting things that are 2+ped to do so.

I see where the temptation came from because of this, I have also not looted a rare token naturally ever having completed a few years of redulite tracks. The 2 I have gotten in the past and used were from the old style placement mayhems. Of course using an exploit like this circumvents the potential crazy expenses involved in getting the gems and should be punished. I'm dreading the things I might have to do to get the gems

Bulk my gems came from abrer and yes on condition but it was 4 emeralds total and 1 diamond from tech gizmo recycle. Mu wise massive amount it's just the TT side hasn't came out for me. Thought I'd pass this information along as I'm tapping out mission .

 

[lethal]

Bulk my gems came from abrer and yes on condition but it was 4 emeralds total and 1 diamond from tech gizmo recycle. Mu wise massive amount it's just the TT side hasn't came out for me. Thought I'd pass this information along as I'm tapping out mission .

Large scopes and attachments on red are a good way to get the gems, but that still takes a good amount of luck. You have to get a multiplier on condition, which takes a lot of attempts on average and is very volatile. I've done about 200 attempts on green of extender p15 and p20 without a single multiplier. Translate this scenario to clicking on red with abrer BP and that's equivalent to 1600 attempts as the multiplier rate is the same per success, but the success rate is 1/8th. 1600 attempts of abrer on average will lose you 22.9* .1 (Average loss on sib bp) +1.85 of markup= 4.14 ped of loss per attempt. 4.14*1600=6624 PED of loss, which in my case wouldn't have even resulted in 1 gem drop. You should count your blessing that you made it out with 4 emeralds and a diamond unless you did like 4,000 attempts or something, in which case that would probably be fairly common.

 

[lethal]

I did the 200 ped (x10) claims on Monria with Terra Amp 9's and completed the 50x50 with D-Class amps... My luck was in the toilet as I ended up over 5k ped down when the missions were done. I crafted 12k ped nanos on EP3 condition... no gems... I well understand your pain.

The gems can be really tough. I did 11.9k ped of lp 15 (1700 attempts) and have now sunk over 40k ped crafting gizmo 8 on top of crafting level 12 amp, level 10 amp, extender p15 and p20, and bc-85 regularly through the event all for 2 garnets. I think a serious crafter will on average get a couple thousand ped of gems crafting like this for a few weeks based on my millions of ped cycled crafting, but that's just on average. GL with the gems though, we all need it lol

 

[SamanthaFlynn]

Disclaimer: I'm currently on a self-imposed ped-cycling ban over other matters not related to Mayhem and the only specifics I know about this event are those laid out in this thread. Given that, my two cents is probably worth less than two cents, but as someone who knows C++, I felt sort of compelled to throw those two cents in as no more than three lines of code could've prevented this entire disaster.

First, there's simply no defending the subversion of the requirement due to lack of clarity because it is impossible to misinterpret "Find 1,000 PED of gems when crafting". It just doesn't get much clearer than that.

In the same breath....

How in the horribly coded hell do you miss something that simple MindArk?

This is not your first Mayhem, nor was it the first Mayhem where you've disciplined players over exploits not as straight-forward as this. The clarity of that requirement, finding 1,000 ped worth of gems when crafting, is all too simple to code unless that code is a pile of badly formatted spaghetti hell all contained in a single file. I can already tell that the platform knows what you just killed, found, or crafted because whenever you global or HOF, the message that comes up tells you how much and where it came from.

In C++, this could've been accomplished by a single IF statement. Making certain assumptions:

if (loot.source == "blueprint") { gemMission.Progress = gemMission.Progress + LootValue( gem ); }

And that line would've went into whatever function handles the transfer of loot to a player, filtering the results of all other kinds of loot out from being counted towards the mission.

I think maybe it's time for MA to end Mayhem with this one and maybe focus on the Unreal thing going forward.

Botching an event is one thing.

Screw up something that big and EU may never recover.

 

[Mos Craciun exista]

ban that ppl by 180 days and make an example for the rest.....do not encourage the exploit ...

ty

 

[Msturlese]

I am one of those who were blocked for the exploit with Gems in PvP. You can add me to all the Halls of Shame.

3 day lock is just a Spank.
this is the same mechanic that is used for Toulan Adrenal looting
that is used to complete Zyn tukano "loot sweat".
so we all know that "acquiring" an item via refinement, looting or crafting in the game is considered the same.

The funny thing is that you are one of the most active crafters so probably you would loot them in one week anyway lol

i still think that lootable is stupid but it is in fact a "minor exploit". i would anyway adding to the temporary ban add a "reset the gem quest" punishment so it is to be repeated looting them via craft.

NOW, for Devs side,
remove the "lootable in PVP" flag from Gems, developers, so ppl are not tempted.....
add adrenal to loot tables on toulan
let people sweat and not "crate, uncrate" to complete zybn tukano
(i will not add more flaws to the list)...

 

[Msturlese]

ban that ppl by 180 days and make an example for the rest.....do not encourage the exploit ...

THAT PEOPLE account for 75% of annual invoice of the company.... 3 day ban is a 24.500 € loss for MA...
sometimes you win
sometimes u loose
sometimes u loose a lot

 

[Nanashana]

I am one of those who were blocked for the exploit with Gems in PvP. You can add me to all the Halls of Shame.

I 100% agree that the Gem bonus mission is one that's setup to be the gatekeeper of the Rare Token, I managed to complete my Gemologist mission legitimately with some considerable luck crafting EP4, and Recycle Condition clicks. Took about 8k ped in tt loss alone - which is a significant amount, and I got super super lucky.

Feels like the most cost effective way right now to complete this given current prices is simply crafting EP4 on quantity and praying for gems, selling outputs and repeating - but that's again risky and could cost a lot. Crafters who already click large numbers of high TT blueprints (Amps, etc...) have the best shot probably at completing the mission cheaply as they're already going to be making these clicks.

 

[Sulje]

The exploit was invented at Cyrene as the sweat gathering requirement for some mission was to loot some ridiculous amount of sweat, I reported that on multiple places and it just got ignored. Not to mention various other exploits recorded and reported completely ignored.

Time to reopen old cases maybe as this is repeating offense.

 

[slick27]

Large scopes and attachments on red are a good way to get the gems, but that still takes a good amount of luck. You have to get a multiplier on condition, which takes a lot of attempts on average and is very volatile. I've done about 200 attempts on green of extender p15 and p20 without a single multiplier. Translate this scenario to clicking on red with abrer BP and that's equivalent to 1600 attempts as the multiplier rate is the same per success, but the success rate is 1/8th. 1600 attempts of abrer on average will lose you 22.9* .1 (Average loss on sib bp) +1.85 of markup= 4.14 ped of loss per attempt. 4.14*1600=6624 PED of loss, which in my case wouldn't have even resulted in 1 gem drop. You should count your blessing that you made it out with 4 emeralds and a diamond unless you did like 4,000 attempts or something, in which case that would probably be fairly common.

To be honest I did over 4k attempts this month but you fail to calculate that it drops high mu blueprints which I sold around 4 to 5k ped worth roughly. But it's certainly the hardest mission to do and even tech gizmo recycle which normally a good easy way getting garnets just wasn't playing ball with me. Kinda glad ma took action on the cheaters though. The drops do appear wave based though so I don't think it's about solid numbers.

 

[Msturlese]

Guys if i am not misreading... open box in RDI A is a LEGIT way to loot gems.....
1. get a thunderbird or firewall (L)
2. get a 500 / 700 dps squad
it will cost much less (actually RDI is BEP or small profit)

 

[MikeH]

Guys if i am not misreading... open box in RDI A is a LEGIT way to loot gems.....
1. get a thunderbird or firewall (L)
2. get a 500 / 700 dps squad
it will cost much less (actually RDI is BEP or small profit)

Not working

 

[Nanashana]

Guys if i am not misreading... open box in RDI A is a LEGIT way to loot gems.....
1. get a thunderbird or firewall (L)
2. get a 500 / 700 dps squad
it will cost much less (actually RDI is BEP or small profit)

Already confirmed that does not progress either mission

 

[LordVoldemort]

100% mindarks fault for poor coding. Add another 110% for poor mission design.

I’m still stupefied that the main mission can be repeated as many times as you want.

 

[Rechinul]

I am one of those who were blocked for the exploit with Gems in PvP. You can add me to all the Halls of Shame.

I had uncertainty in how the mechanics of re-execution of the main Resource Mayhem track work. Progress in bonus missions is part of the main mission (line Bonus Objectives x/10). What will happen to it when we complete the Main track and take the main Resource Mayhem mission again? From the description of the quest there is no complete and unambiguous understanding.
I was going to carry out the main RM track to the end, and, possibly, do it again, and did not want to lose the opportunity to get the Rare Token.

I do almost every Mayhem on Redulite mode, manually, fundamentally without using bots/macros. And I can’t get a Rare Token since 2021.
Resource Mayhem is a rare chance for me to finally get a Rare Token.
I felt that it is very risky to complete the main track before all bonus missions were completed. In this regard, I wrote a detailed question to Ludvig|MindArk with a request to clarify this mechanism: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/cdf-resource-maym.299698/post-3944870
According to the answers of the players, it became clear that many of them understand the mechanics of the RM even worse. But there was no official answer.

Therefore, I decided on the quick and guaranteed completion of this bonuss mission with the help of PVP (by the way, on the advice of senior comrades).
And yes, I realized that this was not an honest way. I will not pretend.
The most stupid thing is that I do a lot of craft and most likely would have fulfilled this bonus-mission in a month and a half. But the peculiarity of this mission is that it depends on good luck, unlike all the others, it is impossible to fulfill it guaranteed even by making a lot of effort.

I want to add more.
A similar way to fulfill the missions to obtain something is freely promoted by the official representations of Next Island and Toulan. They are not opposed to the players to receive progress using a refine/unrefine of crystals and/or from a partial return in near successes in craft process. Perhaps they simply reconciled with this, realizing that it is impossible to prohibit and fight. This is the problem of the MA platform, not PP. In terms of meaning, this is exactly the same dishonest way to fulfill missions as with the help of PVP.

I got the first lock for 9 years of the game. I am used to being very careful and protecting myself from any potential violations. For this reason, I still do not use bots/macros in Mayhem, even when it became MainStream.
It was an idiotic act. The reasons for which I described above, but I do not want to justify myself.

I apologize for my ugly English.

Aeolus, Well done !
Atleast u prove to have some balls, and to step foward, while other are acting like they have 3 days Holidays! I do understand your frustration, but still as other have said, you are a damn Crafter ! I wouldnt seen you needed to do a such thing. But i do appreciate the courage to speak what u have to say! Well done. Not saying its a Trick what uve done, but atleast the attitude is good.
Hopefully u will complete it in time on the "Right way"!

I see this as mindarks fault, not the guys who got banned

1. It was that easy mindark shud have see that coming
2. If its the pvp exlpoit then people still pay a toxic shot + risk to get looted by someone who does not know(and does that guy get a ban too for just minding his Business?)
3. How do i know i dont exploit stuff by mistake...
4. People pay other people to get killed on cyrene for the Mission token isnt that a exploit too then ?

If the mechanic of a game allows you to do Things, then i rly dont see the exploit...
Things become rly stupid lately
During twen stage 1 i got banned for Training(i had mob ads on me because they ninja spawned)someone in a pvp zone, we where fighting for the spawn, there is a official Statement that says you are allowed to train people in a pvp zone.

Fix the game/missions and stop banning people

Dont get me wrong , it just looks stupid af if Things like lootable Border mining, low HP in lootable,or rocket launcher Bug still exist

And where the Mechanic of a game Tells you -> If you want to Loot Gems while crafting and Recycle 20k Ped Nano Cubes -> Go in PVP kill your mate, your wife and u will Succeed without any COSTS?! (while us, others whos trying to play honest have massive looses completing this missions)

We spend Real MONEY to get these missions done, and you guys considering its FINE to skip the lane, and go directly by the results? (NO Wonder why half of your soc is gone in Team Building, as a whole Family -> Mates - Wifes and rest. )

You telling me a Player with level 400 SWORDSMAN struggling to understand the game Mechanics ? (I would say its not the case, they are just taking advantage of the SYSTEM!) And Yes, I do consider the 3 Days Team Building too short.

Usually you see them around here, they have an opinion about everything, now... its very quiet around here. Whats the matter? Ran out of opinions ? They are hiding ?


We can see People here, have balls to say what they have done.... apart if they are rats, they wont say a thing!

Please stop blaming MA for this and making excuses for exploiters that they 'have hard time knowing what is allowed or not'....
We are not talking about some new player continually using vehicle to hunt because he saw someone else flying away when mobs spawn on him...
The exploit discussed in this thread was not an accident because of 'unclear what is allowed and what is not'.
It was deliberately planned in order to work around very clearly stated objective.
Those who exploited that way knew very well that this is an exploit and not intended way to complete objective.
No need to water down their responsibility.

They are trying to deflect the actual situation, to MA. While they have cheated and have taken benefit out of this, they put the blame on MA.
Quite impressive army here trying to defend Ubers whos taking benefit of the exploits.

 

[LordVoldemort]

Aeolus asked Ludwig if he finished the main mission and took it again before finishing the bonus missions whether or not his progress toward a rare token would be lost.

There was no response.

The poor coding allowed looting the gem in PvP to progress the mission.

THEN Mindark says something. When we need an answer we can’t get it or we get something generic. Poor coding, poor mission design and we can add poor communication.

 

[Rawr66]

3 day ban over a few workdays is hardly a punishment imo... it's just a warning shot.
If it would be a punishment it would have spanned over a weekend... even if it was just a 2day ban if it was the weekend it would have been a punishment.

 

[Mike Kaffeslukarn Morazi]

The bonus missions are only there to unlock the rare token ( small progress on chain as well)

Since there's no hand ins, there's no reason to give any mayhem tokens as well...The rare token is the reward for completion

I assume that MindArk will reset / take away any progress in the Gem bonus-mission?
That mission is an implemented bottle-neck to make sure people cycle enough PED to not inflate rare-tokens.
If their progress in that mission is not taken away - More people can exploit it, take a 3-days time-out from a temp-ban, then claim their rare-tokens. That would severely harm the economy.

 

[Iceman2003]

I 100% agree that the Gem bonus mission is one that's setup to be the gatekeeper of the Rare Token, I managed to complete my Gemologist mission legitimately with some considerable luck crafting EP4, and Recycle Condition clicks. Took about 8k ped in tt loss alone - which is a significant amount, and I got super super lucky.

Feels like the most cost effective way right now to complete this given current prices is simply crafting EP4 on quantity and praying for gems, selling outputs and repeating - but that's again risky and could cost a lot. Crafters who already click large numbers of high TT blueprints (Amps, etc...) have the best shot probably at completing the mission cheaply as they're already going to be making these clicks.

No you are not correct. From event start I did 815 clicks on d-class (11p click), 170 clicks of level 5(12,5p click) and 706 click on different terra amps from 50p per click to 100p per click resulting 0 gems. To be onest last gem I looted was february when monthly on avg Im doing almost 4k clicks on amps.

 

[Nanashana]

No you are not correct. From event start I did 815 clicks on d-class (11p click), 170 clicks of level 5(12,5p click) and 706 click on different terra amps from 50p per click to 100p per click resulting 0 gems. To be onest last gem I looted was february when monthly on avg Im doing almost 4k clicks on amps.

No, you _still_ have a much higher chance than most which is what I was getting at, unless someone wants to go full degen mode gambling, your approach is the only sane way of completing this mission it's just still heavily RNG gated.