Abuse of flag mechanics 2 - decision needed

[Wang]

Im going to be viewed as bias im sure.  This isnt about leniency, and being timid in my opinion.

 

We know this is game breaking, the person who did it knew it was game breaking.  They are not the first people to think of doing this at all.  They are the first person to do it though.

 

As stated a player like this is not wanted in our community.  

 

I wont weigh in with specific judgement, all i really want is the true offended caught for this.  Follow the gold, if that doesnt produce then follow the ip and if that doesnt produce follow the credit card information to purchase the accounts.

 

The person behind all this, and their main account needs to discovered and named.  Or this is just a fruitless exercise.

[CptEdwardKenway]

Account ban and every other account attached to this account or IP of everyone involved to it and flip of Misteriosa to the british nation.

 

It's a massive abuse of an exploit and everyone has to report exploits and not use and abuse them. They agreed it the moment they bought this game.

Edited March 9, 2016 by CptEdwardKenway

[Vernon Merrill]

Sorry... Just pointing out that cheating is not ok. Maybe for you it is, but hey, don't bitch when it happens to you I guess.

[Captain Alexander]

HeyHey account - Midshipman 1 day old

NeverDie account - Midshipman 5 day old

 

It's more than obvious that both accounts are bought as alt's and need to track the owner of it to be able to punish him.

[Captain Tylor]

This is EARLY ACCESS.

Is finding exploits not part of the testing?

 

Exploit should be noted by developers as a known issue that no longer need "testing", hence if anyone else tries the same, they should be punished from now on. 

Edited March 9, 2016 by MadGelo

[Jager]

I believe we should have for a short time until a perm soloution comes about a rank implementation on buying flags. Weather this is Lt. Commander + or something else it needs to be there to at least delay shit like this happening.

 

These two accounts should be banned temp or perm doesn't matter, on top of that if this second account is only new and also midshipman it is still strange to see that he managed to have enough gold to purchase a 150k flag after 5 days. Not only that but why did he not buy it with this account if he made it legit? Why go though all the trouble of a alt account to troll if the gold was legit made after playing for 5 days.

 

There must be at least 1 other person behind all of this, this person either owns one or both of these alt accounts. I wouldn't be surprised to find that both alts had different Ip's though and belonged to two players not one.

 

So Admins please follow the gold trail or ip trail and whatever punishment you decide after this first time i will be happy with.

 

Jags

This is EARLY ACCESS.

Is finding exploits not part of the testing?

 

Exploit should be noted by developers as a known issue that no longer need "testing", hence if anyone else tries the same, they should be punished from now on. 

Finding exploits is part of testing, but abusing them to gain is not, if you find a exploit you are meant to report it not abuse it like these guys did

[Selak]

I agree with others that neverdie and heyhey are alts and that they are not the start of this chain.  Neverdie had to get the gold or items to sell to make the gold from somewhere.  That needs to be investigated if at all possible.

 

Also the heyhey account appears to be an account that was created just to carry out that exploit.  I think at the very least that the alt account needs to be banned from the server (or game if you can not ban it from a specific server) for some time.  Personally I learn further towards permanent for the alt at least.

 

For the future, I think that it should be stated that all accounts found to be involved will be banned from the game. 

 

I also agree that a rank restriction needs to be put in place before flags can be purchased.  For deep water ports i think the fifth rank is a good minimum.  As for the shallow ports, maybe make it rank 3 before you can buy flags to contest those ports.

[Vogue]

Permanent ban the ip/account involved.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Vogue

[DarkFenix]

There's only one response to a deliberate and egregious abuse of an exploit. Ban the alt account, ban accounts all the way back up the chain up to and including the main account. Furthermore name and shame the person involved.

 

This should be the response to any exploit at blatant as this one, regardless of the person or faction perpetrating it.

 

Let's remember that this was not a 'good samaritan' using an exploit to draw attention to it and report it to the developers. It was timed and done quietly, they knew they were cheating.

Edited March 9, 2016 by DarkFenix

[randommexi]

I guess i'm alone in this.  but, was there something in the terms of service that he violated?  did he cheat or use a game mechanic that is in the game?  what rule did he break?

 

based on what I can see, he did nothing wrong except block a flag pull on a port that was an intended target.  why cant someone else buy a flag for the same port?  wouldn't that solve the problem then?

obviously you can only have one port battle for the port at a time, but why cant there be 10 assault fleets for the same port?  i'm confused.  don't punish a jerk for being a jerk.  fix the problem so it doesn't happen again.

 

also these lame port battle time windows need to be address.  they are way too short.

[CptEdwardKenway]

Using exploits is illegal and a reason for a permanent ban. You accepted and agreed that when you buy this game. Is that clear enough?

[Kayin]

Hello,

 

I am the leader of KotO and one of the leaders of the Pirate Coalition. 

 

I have discussed this with our players and we would like to suggest the following -

 

As this is the 'first' case of this happening (As far as I know) and there has yet to be an 'official' ruling on it being against the rules then I would suggest lenient action against the players. 

 

You should state very clearly that this and any other version of flag abuse (Defined) is strictly against the rules. 

 

If it is broken again in the future after this warning has gone out, the player who bought the flag should be vac banned.

 

+1 There is no official ruling on this i would warn the accounts involved in never doing it again and do an official ruling on it.

[Jorge]

+1 There is no official ruling on this i would warn the accounts involved in never doing it again and do an official ruling on it.

 

+1 

[Zeal]

I vote perma ban for accounts involved otherwise they will just come back and do it again until the mechanics are fixed

[En3ko]

Hello,

 

I am the leader of KotO and one of the leaders of the Pirate Coalition. 

 

I have discussed this with our players and we would like to suggest the following -

 

As this is the 'first' case of this happening (As far as I know) and there has yet to be an 'official' ruling on it being against the rules then I would suggest lenient action against the players. 

 

You should state very clearly that this and any other version of flag abuse (Defined) is strictly against the rules. 

 

If it is broken again in the future after this warning has gone out, the player who bought the flag should be vac banned.

 +1 too much  british in rage, my opinion is a warning would be enough, also mechanics would be changed about the flag and a lot of things more out of this topic

[Powderhorn]

Leniency due to there "not already being a rule in place" sets a precedent for "You can always get away with getting caught once."

[Jim]

Sadly there are more problems realated to this issue.

 

Exploit is obvious, and for such exploit ban on account is justified.

But really there is problem with alts in general, on one side we get more money into our beloved game but on the other hand this is game braking on multiple levels - i think whole portbattle mechanics and nation/diplomacy need reworking.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Jim

[Slamz]

Neverdie is also midshipman, thus likely another alt.  Did he earn the money (unlikely), or was it transferred there also?

 

This will have to be tracked back to a real player before any real punishment can be doled out. The fact that it was an alt giving to an alt seems to imply that they knew they were doing something bad, though. This was planned.

 

--------------

 

In the criminal justice system, there's a concept of degrees of murder:

 

Manslaughter: accidental death.

3rd degree murder: intentional murder in a moment of heated emotion, such as finding your wife in bed with another man.

2nd degree murder: intentional murder, not premeditated and not with any particularly good excuse, such as a bar fight.

1st degree murder: intentional and premeditated.

 

 

This looks like a "1st degree exploit". Not just casually testing but actually setting up an alt to give to an alt to intentionally grief and then delete the alt, trying to hide the trail (and then having an alt that gave the cash for an extra layer of protection).

 

This should carry a more severe penalty than a "2nd degree exploit" or "exploit in the heat of the moment".

 

The prosecution suggests this was done intentionally with malice and forethought.

 

 

As this is alpha, I would not necessarily perma-ban all accounts but I would reset their XP to 0. "Thank you for testing, you can now re-test the lower level ranks while you're at it." (If they turn out to be low level, I would additionally issue a 7 day ban.)

 

If this was release I would have suggested a permanent ban for all Steam accounts.

 

If they had not gone to the trouble of hiding their main account(s), I would have suggested a much lighter "just alpha/testing/lols" penalty.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Slamz

[Musuko42]

don't punish a jerk for being a jerk.

 

Absolutely punish for being a jerk; the devs can't write a totally inclusive list of actions that are ban-worthy, as it'd be as long as your arm, and constantly being added to. We'd never keep up.

 

What they can do is recognise that the actions of a few people have made the game less enjoyable for a larger number of people, and consider what they need to do for the game to be enjoyable for the largest number of people possible. When you think in those terms, the answer becomes simple.

 

Really, it should be easy for people to think "is this a cheaty dick move?" before they do something. And if they are incapable of thinking that way, then do we really want to play with them?

 

Perhaps the devs can do something like GTA5 does: consign exploiters and cheaters to their own seperate server, where they can be dicks to eachother at their hearts' content.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Musuko42

[Slamz]

...I would also consider reducing the penalty if the offending player(s) showed up at this Tribunal and admitted guilt and described who they are and what they did and that they knew it was wrong and that they are very sorry.

 

You have 24 hours to comply...

 

Making the admins weasel out your primary account = full penalty.

[Slamz]

did he cheat or use a game mechanic that is in the game?  what rule did he break?

 

A big point for me is that he did this with an alt and then deleted that alt, and had the money transferred from another alt.

 

That implies he knew it was wrong and knew they would come looking for him.

 

He just didn't factor in that this sort of thing might persist in logs after character deletion.

 

 

It would be slightly different if this was some legitimate trader alt or a grudge or something and the guy stood up and said, "What? I thought that was legit." Clearly he thought it was wrong and took steps to hide his actions.

[Jorge]

This will have to be tracked back to a real player before any real punishment can be doled out. The fact that it was an alt giving to an alt seems to imply that they knew they were doing something bad, though. This was planned.

 

--------------

 

In the criminal justice system, there's a concept of degrees of murder:

 

Manslaughter: accidental death.

3rd degree murder: intentional murder in a moment of heated emotion, such as finding your wife in bed with another man.

2nd degree murder: intentional murder, not premeditated and not with any particularly good excuse, such as a bar fight.

1st degree murder: intentional and premeditated.

 

 

This looks like a "1st degree exploit". Not just casually testing but actually setting up an alt to give to an alt to exploit a bug and then delete the alt, trying to hide the trail (and then having an alt that gave the cash for an extra layer of protection).

 

This should carry a more severe penalty than a "2nd degree exploit" or "exploit in the heat of the moment".

 

The prosecution suggests this was done intentionally with malice and forethought.

 

 

As this is alpha, I would not necessarily perma-ban all accounts but I would reset their XP to 0. "Thank you for testing, you can now re-test the lower level ranks while you're at it." (If they turn out to be low level, I would additionally issue a 7 day ban.)

 

If this was release I would have suggested a permanent ban for all Steam accounts.

 

If they had not gone to the trouble of hiding their main account(s), I would have suggested a much lighter "just alpha/testing/lols" penalty.

 

Lol, To convict someone legally has to be a written rule, if not written no condemnation. First write the laws.

[BallsOfSteel]

Post Captain minimum rank to take flag, 1 month ban to the players involved, first warning , lifetime ban second occurence, 1 month ban on clan taking ports  where member has been in the clan in excess of 31 days.

[Jack Marslow]

1. Ban the alt account and the British captain that gave him the money

2. Follow the IP addresses to the real accounts

3. Name and Shame

4. Ban the real accounts. 

Edited March 9, 2016 by Jack Marslow

[Captain Comery]

We need to nip this issue in the butt sharpish. If this is an exploit we need it patched and this player made an example. Maybe don't turn him pirate but reset his stats and prohibit contact with his nation for 2 weeks plus prohibit contact with the second person permanently. We must come down harsh to set an example

May I also suggest a public apology to the admin and other staff as a humiliation tactic. This will make others think twice next time they do this.