Pilot Archive
Thread: Well I knew it was too good to be true
Rhysen wrote:
Personally speaking, I find your attempts to justify something obviously wrong as insulting to my sense of Right vs Wrong. But that's another topic.
The developers can't maintain balance in the game if the characteristics of the items they create are changed through unintended means. If they put in a shield with 1500 f/b capacity, they have certain expectations on how a shield with those characteristic will influece interaction in the game. Especially when taking in consideration the other characteristics of the shield, such as Mass and Energy Maintenance and Recharge rate. When a characteristic gets changed through an unintended means, permanently changed in thise particular situation, their expectations are tossed. Now they have to account for a shield that has 3000 f/b capacity without the appropriate characteristics for a shield of that strength. They have a wildcard in the system. The droid programs can further influence the new shield characteristics. The changed capacity of the shield without an appropriate balancing change in the mass/recharge rate/energy maintenance can mean a ship having defenses completely unintended (larger capacity with the same recharge rate changes the amount of DPS it takes to down the shields).
A couple of wildcards in the system can be ignored if removing them would cause more problems (or take more effort) than it justifies. But that means closing the Exploit that allowed the unintended change before it gets used by the general public. You do know the standard solution to Exploits that have seen use by the general public right?
Rollbacks, Account Closures, Server Outages to do extensive database changes.
Whoa there pilgrim. Put down that pitchfork and torch a moment before you start firing accusations that my judgement of right and wrong is in some way flawed. Let me point out a few items for those that still do not seehow anyone could have thought this was intended.
1. Shields are routinely looted with lop sided values, and thesevalues stick during the RE process. It is these loots that gave me the idea to bgin with.
2. The shield command has been a lasting effect since the expansion was launched. The in game documentation at no point lists this effect as temporary.
3. With little to no in game guidance as to how this command, or truly, any command works, players are left to their own devices to figure out uses for these abilities.
4. I did an extensive search through the currently known issues and bugs, along with the FAQ, and knowledge basein game to try and locate any mention that this command was in some way broken, before trying to gather the rare shield loots that would have been neccesary to actually achieve a 3500/3500+ shield.
The point is, that the manual that shipped with JtL specifically states that RE is to be done with identical parts, yet all that is required, is enough parts of the same RE level. Are shipwrights that RE with eight level eight components that do not happen to share the same name exploiting? I certainly wouldn't say so, but they are most definately achieving better results than if they were using items which shared a common name.
The first time I noticed that the adjust commands were not temporary, I felt that the development team must have had some use intended for this command above and beyond use in space. It isn't my ability to judge right from wrong which is impaired, but rather my over confidence in SOE that leads me to believe that items such as this are an intended part of the system, not some unintended "wild card" like oh, say working around the slicing interface toslice a weapon 50 times.Do you see the distinction to be made here? The RE process is not recursive, meaning you cannot RE a RE'd product. It was this check which struck me most as far as the shield adjust command went, andI felt the developers were preventing unlimited use of suchcommands or unlimitted addition of a 6% bonus for high level items in this way.The shift in question is 40%, and remains so. As I say, this truly didn't strike me as the sort of "wild card" you seem to think it is.
Your view is your own with regards to whether or not this was at any point an intended part of the system. I thank you for the opportunity to respond fully to the opposing view. It is also your perogative to ignore the possibilty that many players may have felt, and possibly correctly so, that this was an intended part of the RE process.Your opinions on my ability to judgeright and wrong are also your own, but I thank you to keep those to yourself.
Tyyylowyspetily wrote:
Rhysen wrote:
Personally speaking, I find your attempts to justify something obviously wrong as insulting to my sense of Right vs Wrong. But that's another topic.
The developers can't maintain balance in the game if the characteristics of the items they create are changed through unintended means. If they put in a shield with 1500 f/b capacity, they have certain expectations on how a shield with those characteristic will influece interaction in the game. Especially when taking in consideration the other characteristics of the shield, such as Mass and Energy Maintenance and Recharge rate. When a characteristic gets changed through an unintended means, permanently changed in thise particular situation, their expectations are tossed. Now they have to account for a shield that has 3000 f/b capacity without the appropriate characteristics for a shield of that strength. They have a wildcard in the system. The droid programs can further influence the new shield characteristics. The changed capacity of the shield without an appropriate balancing change in the mass/recharge rate/energy maintenance can mean a ship having defenses completely unintended (larger capacity with the same recharge rate changes the amount of DPS it takes to down the shields).
A couple of wildcards in the system can be ignored if removing them would cause more problems (or take more effort) than it justifies. But that means closing the Exploit that allowed the unintended change before it gets used by the general public. You do know the standard solution to Exploits that have seen use by the general public right?
Rollbacks, Account Closures, Server Outages to do extensive database changes.
Whoa there pilgrim. Put down that pitchfork and torch a moment before you start firing accusations that my judgement of right and wrong is in some way flawed. Let me point out a few items for those that still do not seehow anyone could have thought this was intended.
1. Shields are routinely looted with lop sided values, and thesevalues stick during the RE process. It is these loots that gave me the idea to bgin with.
2. The shield command has been a lasting effect since the expansion was launched. The in game documentation at no point lists this effect as temporary.
3. With little to no in game guidance as to how this command, or truly, any command works, players are left to their own devices to figure out uses for these abilities.
4. I did an extensive search through the currently known issues and bugs, along with the FAQ, and knowledge basein game to try and locate any mention that this command was in some way broken, before trying to gather the rare shield loots that would have been neccesary to actually achieve a 3500/3500+ shield.
The point is, that the manual that shipped with JtL specifically states that RE is to be done with identical parts, yet all that is required, is enough parts of the same RE level. Are shipwrights that RE with eight level eight components that do not happen to share the same name exploiting? I certainly wouldn't say so, but they are most definately achieving better results than if they were using items which shared a common name.
The first time I noticed that the adjust commands were not temporary, I felt that the development team must have had some use intended for this command above and beyond use in space. It isn't my ability to judge right from wrong which is impaired, but rather my over confidence in SOE that leads me to believe that items such as this are an intended part of the system, not some unintended "wild card" like oh, say working around the slicing interface toslice a weapon 50 times.Do you see the distinction to be made here? The RE process is not recursive, meaning you cannot RE a RE'd product. It was this check which struck me most as far as the shield adjust command went, andI felt the developers were preventing unlimited use of suchcommands or unlimitted addition of a 6% bonus for high level items in this way.The shift in question is 40%, and remains so. As I say, this truly didn't strike me as the sort of "wild card" you seem to think it is.
Your view is your own with regards to whether or not this was at any point an intended part of the system. I thank you for the opportunity to respond fully to the opposing view. It is also your perogative to ignore the possibilty that many players may have felt, and possibly correctly so, that this was an intended part of the RE process.Your opinions on my ability to judgeright and wrong are also your own, but I thank you to keep those to yourself.
My view is my own, most definately. When something doesn't look right to me, I simply walk past it and continue about my business. If I had known about this prior to the change, I prolly would have submitted a CSR ticket (not a bug report) to make sure it was known. Because at first glance it looks wrong.
Shields are routinely looted with lopsided shield values. Droid programs exist that can change how the total max value is distributed. They do not change the max capacity of the shields. There is no droid program for that and there'd prolly be a Shield Overload program if there was an intention for something to do that, with accompanying balances. Which brings me to a question: If the same method could have been used to RE a blaster that had it's damage values changed using Weapon Overload, would you believe it was intended that you'd be able to RE those altered values?
Probably not. Because mostadults would find something like to look wrong. And that's why the previous poster and "one of the premier PvP pilots on the bria server" got blasted. I assume, erring on the safe side, to be dealing with adults who know when something looks right or wrong. Attempting to justify something that looks wrong after it's corrected ignores1 thing:
- If it were intended, it would have never been changed and there'd be no discussion.
If you're an adult, you not supposed to need guidance on the minutia of every single thing to tell you Right from Wrong. But I don't have any particular problems with people being confused in the lack of guidance on the minutia. I do have issues with trying to justify it after the intent is made clear through a statement or a change with craptacular things like "Apparently the people in this thread like nerfed loot and weak RE'd shields...". And even your own "Especially given the absolute garbage that most looted shields really are." implies that everything a pilot needs should be lootable with no need for a shipwright, a profession created expressedly for providing the ships and components for pilots. Which, given that fact, is also pretty obviously wrong. Or do you honestly believe that the intent is for a person to waste over 5 million resources achieving Master Shipwright so they can RE loot for everyone? Why have schematics for all the components then?
Oh and another thing you're quite wrong about. The rating system is there for people to express their opinion on the content of a post. "Degrading, inflammatory, disrespectful, personaly insulting, or otherwise completely inappropriate" is what the "Report abuse to moderator" link is for.
Tyyylowyspetily wrote:
Rhysen wrote:
Personally speaking, I find your attempts to justify something obviously wrong as insulting to my sense of Right vs Wrong. But that's another topic.
The developers can't maintain balance in the game if the characteristics of the items they create are changed through unintended means. If they put in a shield with 1500 f/b capacity, they have certain expectations on how a shield with those characteristic will influece interaction in the game. Especially when taking in consideration the other characteristics of the shield, such as Mass and Energy Maintenance and Recharge rate. When a characteristic gets changed through an unintended means, permanently changed in thise particular situation, their expectations are tossed. Now they have to account for a shield that has 3000 f/b capacity without the appropriate characteristics for a shield of that strength. They have a wildcard in the system. The droid programs can further influence the new shield characteristics. The changed capacity of the shield without an appropriate balancing change in the mass/recharge rate/energy maintenance can mean a ship having defenses completely unintended (larger capacity with the same recharge rate changes the amount of DPS it takes to down the shields).
A couple of wildcards in the system can be ignored if removing them would cause more problems (or take more effort) than it justifies. But that means closing the Exploit that allowed the unintended change before it gets used by the general public. You do know the standard solution to Exploits that have seen use by the general public right?
Rollbacks, Account Closures, Server Outages to do extensive database changes.
Whoa there pilgrim. Put down that pitchfork and torch a moment before you start firing accusations that my judgement of right and wrong is in some way flawed. Let me point out a few items for those that still do not seehow anyone could have thought this was intended.
1. Shields are routinely looted with lop sided values, and thesevalues stick during the RE process. It is these loots that gave me the idea to bgin with.
2. The shield command has been a lasting effect since the expansion was launched. The in game documentation at no point lists this effect as temporary.
3. With little to no in game guidance as to how this command, or truly, any command works, players are left to their own devices to figure out uses for these abilities.
4. I did an extensive search through the currently known issues and bugs, along with the FAQ, and knowledge basein game to try and locate any mention that this command was in some way broken, before trying to gather the rare shield loots that would have been neccesary to actually achieve a 3500/3500+ shield.
The point is, that the manual that shipped with JtL specifically states that RE is to be done with identical parts, yet all that is required, is enough parts of the same RE level. Are shipwrights that RE with eight level eight components that do not happen to share the same name exploiting? I certainly wouldn't say so, but they are most definately achieving better results than if they were using items which shared a common name.
The first time I noticed that the adjust commands were not temporary, I felt that the development team must have had some use intended for this command above and beyond use in space. It isn't my ability to judge right from wrong which is impaired, but rather my over confidence in SOE that leads me to believe that items such as this are an intended part of the system, not some unintended "wild card" like oh, say working around the slicing interface toslice a weapon 50 times.Do you see the distinction to be made here? The RE process is not recursive, meaning you cannot RE a RE'd product. It was this check which struck me most as far as the shield adjust command went, andI felt the developers were preventing unlimited use of suchcommands or unlimitted addition of a 6% bonus for high level items in this way.The shift in question is 40%, and remains so. As I say, this truly didn't strike me as the sort of "wild card" you seem to think it is.
Your view is your own with regards to whether or not this was at any point an intended part of the system. I thank you for the opportunity to respond fully to the opposing view. It is also your perogative to ignore the possibilty that many players may have felt, and possibly correctly so, that this was an intended part of the RE process.Your opinions on my ability to judgeright and wrong are also your own, but I thank you to keep those to yourself.
You never see these kinds of exploits in the known issues list, or even hear about them in game or on the boards. Why? Because most people who use them know they're doing something wrong and don't tell anyone just in case it makes it to a devs ears and gets fixed. You see it all the time in any mmo. You never go to a shipwright and ask for a shield RE and have them tell you "wait, before i do that, here's what you need to do to get the best possible shields....."
You also never hear people say (and i doubt they ever think) "hmm, i wonder if this is intended, i got some pretty uber gear out of it. I think i'll ask the devs if they meant it to be this way"
Message Edited by Curzon on 12-17-2004 09:57 AM
Rhysen wrote:
You prolly got1 starred for attempting to justify an Exploit. I would have done it to you myself.
The droid programs aren't meant to make permanent changes to the components nor meant to be used to make permanent changes to them. That's why there are routines to return the component to normal. That's why Shipwrights can make components focusing on specific characteristics at the cost of possible improvements of other characteristics.
Your justifications would be amusing if it weren't for my suspicions that you truly can't recognize Right from Wrong when your interests conflict. I mean come on. The droid/FC in your ship changes the shield characteristics through software and then you pull the shield out of your ship, away from the droid's/FC's influence. And then have the component hacked apart and mixed with parts from other components to make a completely new component. And the changes made are supposed to remain valid?
Think your justifications of an exploit are stretching things a bit here?
Rhysen wrote:
My view is my own, most definately. When something doesn't look right to me, I simply walk past it and continue about my business. If I had known about this prior to the change, I prolly would have submitted a CSR ticket (not a bug report) to make sure it was known. Because at first glance it looks wrong.
Shields are routinely looted with lopsided shield values. Droid programs exist that can change how the total max value is distributed. They do not change the max capacity of the shields. There is no droid program for that and there'd prolly be a Shield Overload program if there was an intention for something to do that, with accompanying balances. Which brings me to a question: If the same method could have been used to RE a blaster that had it's damage values changed using Weapon Overload, would you believe it was intended that you'd be able to RE those altered values?
Probably not. Because mostadults would find something like to look wrong. And that's why the previous poster and "one of the premier PvP pilots on the bria server" got blasted. I assume, erring on the safe side, to be dealing with adults who know when something looks right or wrong. Attempting to justify something that looks wrong after it's corrected ignores1 thing:
- If it were intended, it would have never been changed and there'd be no discussion.
If you're an adult, you not supposed to need guidance on the minutia of every single thing to tell you Right from Wrong. But I don't have any particular problems with people being confused in the lack of guidance on the minutia. I do have issues with trying to justify it after the intent is made clear through a statement or a change with craptacular things like "Apparently the people in this thread like nerfed loot and weak RE'd shields...". And even your own "Especially given the absolute garbage that most looted shields really are." implies that everything a pilot needs should be lootable with no need for a shipwright, a profession created expressedly for providing the ships and components for pilots. Which, given that fact, is also pretty obviously wrong. Or do you honestly believe that the intent is for a person to waste over 5 million resources achieving Master Shipwright so they can RE loot for everyone? Why have schematics for all the components then?
Oh and another thing you're quite wrong about. The rating system is there for people to express their opinion on the content of a post. "Degrading, inflammatory, disrespectful, personaly insulting, or otherwise completely inappropriate" is what the "Report abuse to moderator" link is for.
Rogue1970 wrote:
What good did your post do? Flaming my intentions rather than stating your opinion doesn't impress me at all.
Actually my INTENTIONS were to point out that now ALL Shield loot is completely worthless. Loot was nerfed, not RE'ing.
I can craft a shield to beat anything you loot by 20-50% easily now. RE'ing a shield is now a complete waste of my time unless I'm hunting for a disk.
You may think I was justifying it, but in essence I was not. I have never used this method to RE shields, as I could craft far superior shields on my own, albeit their mass may have been an issue at times - I can adjust other components in a custom job to make up for that issue easily.
The only reason I can see for justifying the change was the REWARD cert 8 2433 front/back shield. Even then I don't fear the implications of that being RE'd as it takes 2 of them to get the ideal RE'd shield in the 3-4k front/back range. It actually accelerates their decay out of the system.
So in essence if this was intended by the original developer (I know it'smerely an assumption on my part) and changed by a current developer, they devalued the value of all shield loot.
Also who are you to say what the droid programs are meant to do?
Do you work for SOE?
I can recognize right from wrong, so don't try insulting my intelligence or honor. You do not know me. My input in this thread was meant to provoke discussion and the possibility that this was actually a good thing for the game, pilots and shipwrights.
I don't know if I am right in my assumptions, but neither do you - so don't come in here with your holier than me attitude unless you can be aconstructive part of the discussion.
For the record, I am a Master Shipwright and a Master Pilot, and I have never advocated any loot changes or feared them. I know my craft and I know Pilot - other than capacitors shipwrights who don't like the loot system the way it was are only greedy inept fools. Loot is not better than crafted 99% of the time - period. Now it's even worse.
Why even fly with space loot in the state is in now? Some people are thinking this already. The fun is gone without cool rewards and loot.
The Nerf Loot whining Shipwrights are destorying their own business - who are they going to craft or RE for if nobody flies?
Tyyylowyspetily wrote:
You still cannot see any viewpoint beyond your own, which really does not surprise me. You're a rather abrasive fellow aren't you?
You seem to have missed the central point in my allusion to the lopsided shield loots. The different values may equal be equal in their total to other loots, but when RE'd, offsetting values front and back, most certainly do increase the overallcapacity of the shields above the averages found on the shields in general. I have looted shields with values that differ by over 1000 points of strength, front to back.
Are we to understand that by your standards, if a shipwright is going to RE a shield that is looted, they must first load that shield into a ship, launch, and land, in order to ensure that both sides are equally distributed, so as not to be exploiting the RE system?
The problem it seems to me, was primarily with the potential RE values on the reward shields, not on loot. Even using this method, most level 8 looted shields would not exceed a value of 1900ish front and back. Exceptional loots would get you to around 2700ish. The problem, if a 3500 strength shield is truly game breaking (which I have a hard time buying into), could have been solved with a scalpel, rather than a chainsaw, simply by removing the RE number from all reward items. The rewards are by and large, overpowered, and do not need further improvement from an RE. Seems like a more appropriate fix to me.
There is no mention of this in the patch notes. Nothing along the lines of "fixed shield crafting exploit", no mention even of "fixed droid command adjust shields". There is nothing in the anouncement section of the forums, nor any mention in any official source as to whether or not the current change in the adjust command is intentional, or yet another mistake.
The one point you make just doesn't pass muster, because things change all the time that are not intentional. Is it intended that factories became bugged after a recent patch?Was it intentional that smugglers could not pull their tools from crates until this latest update?
The bold font really doesn't make you any more credible, nor does dismissing an opposing view without adressing specificcounterpoints. In addition to excercising (note- not passing)judgement, adults are capable of reasoned discussions and do still require some guidance. At no point during your growth cycle will you suddenly find that you learn through the process of osmosis. What looks wrong to you may in fact not look wrong to someone that has less experience in playing an MMO. This one happens to be my first. I am apparently not the only one that did not see "exploit" written all over this. I've seen posts by shipwrights that truly did not know they were doing anything that anyone else might potentially view as an exploit. I saw the potential to get higher performance out of the RE process, and was excited. I had somedoubt as to whether or not the system was as intended, and did not wish to get myself, nor anyone else into trouble, soI took steps to research it just to be 100% sure that there was nothing wrong with using this command to enhance an RE attempt. Those steps turned up no information on the subject, and the only people to comment on this at all so far are players, like you, and like me. This, I find disgusting. If this was viewed as an exploit, it should most certainly be mentioned in the patch notes, so that players have the chance to destroy any items which might earn them sanctions. If this is not viewed as an exploit, some sort of official confirmation of that would also be nice, so that discussions such as this become uneccesary.
The idea that an opposing view cannot recievebetter than a onestar grade because it is well presented, well written, and pertinent to the discussion at hand, is IMHOa bit narrow. There are various levels of any offense, some which require a report to a moderator, and others that do not.But hey, go ahead and sound off, if you feel that everytimesomeone disagrees stronglywith a point, that post should be given a rating which would drop it past the filters many would otherwise be able to use to be able to get rid of posts like "/first".
I have no idea how well Ostat PVP's, but he takes out the vette solo in a A-Wing with 1 gun and no armor.
Switch that to Y-wing with one gun and no armor and I might be impressed.
Corvettes are nothing to kill if you know what you are doing.
what i am conserned about most is stuff like this scaring away other people from pvping. overts in space are far to uncommon, i can fly around all day looking for a fight not find any declared imperials. and when i do find one and promply kill him, he shows back up covert and afraid.
Message Edited by S-1-l2-H-C on 12-15-2004 10:18 PM
Hey...at least they show up again. Of the few rebels I've fought in space,none have returned for a rematch.
I know there's no way to prove that it was obvious, but if you compared the bonus REing would give, say, boosters or capacitors to the bonus REing reinforced shields would give, the difference was just enormous. Too big to be intentional. I was delighted by the ingenuity that went into REing these shields, but I never had to make a judgment as to whether this was an exploit--it was clear from the start.
Kassuff wrote:I have no idea how well Ostat PVP's, but he takes out the vette solo in a A-Wing with 1 gun and no armor.Switch that to Y-wing with one gun and no armor and I might be impressed.
Corvettes are nothing to kill if you know what you are doing.
done that too, but it was a longprobe with two guns, not that the extra gun was needed.
Elan_Nossirah wrote:
Looks like they stealth nerfed the loophole that let you use shield adjust to boost the front and back shields on two different components and then RE them for max potential.
Shield adjust no longer seems to be a permanent command and resets as soon as you land. I also noticed another peculiarity since the patch went live today. I had some looted shields, all of them had differing values for F/B. As soon as I loaded them into my ship it seemed like the average was taken from both F/B and applied to both making the numbers even. I tried this with about 6 other shields I had(I was hoping to RE them using the shield adjust loophole) and it did the same to all of them.
I'm not really complaining about this though. I thought it was a cool little work around to get some better shields but I guess you could call it an exploit. At least I was able to do it once with a set of shields that are now about 4k F/B =]
'sploiter.
Tyyylowyspetily wrote:
I had somedoubt as to whether or not the system was as intended, and did not wish to get myself, nor anyone else into trouble, soI took steps to research it just to be 100% sure that there was nothing wrong with using this command to enhance an RE attempt.