Trying to understand why

[Aamer Khan]

Why folks exploit in Horizons.

First off, I can understand why it happens in other games. If, for example a game has lots of players competing for resources or some items are just too hard to obtain, I can understand the lure of using an exploit to level the field or not having to wait for years to finally see a rare item. I can understand the lure, but absolutely do NOT condone it.

But what do we have here in Horizons?

We have a system where you can take any or all craft classes to 100 and make literally ANYTHING in game.

We have a system where you can have multiple adventure classes to 100 and pretty much kill anything you want, and with a group any mob in game.
Many of those actually exploiting are multi-classed high level adventurers that never sell their loot nor do they generally participate in the economy. They have high level well teched gear, and even have other players to heal them and assist in pulling large numbers of mobs to them.

Because of the state of the economy, folks would not be likely to buy any of the rares they have even if the did try to sell them. They are a disruptive element in the game for those that are trying to get the very same drops, but I can't believe they can hog ALL spawns of that type of mob. They also don't seem to affect the economy one bit.

Where as I sure don't agree with their actions and do feel they interfere with other trying to enjoy the game, they have never hurt me personally, since I will just move to another spot. Kinda like moving out of a house with lots of mildew, to a new one without.

So, here is the quandary...

Is if for convenience?
This is perhaps the only one that make any sense, as it can take a good amount of time to get certain drops. However, I already have one of the new +150 health armor crystals and it took under an hour to get.

Is it out of jealousy?
This one is very hard to believe, since nothing is out of reach for anyone that tries

Is it simply because they can?
Kinda of like script kiddies that will try and DOS some site, and get giddy enjoyment from such pointless activity.

Is it that they revel in doing what others disapprove of?
Anachronism is all well and good and at times can be a positive step, but in Horizons what could possibly be the point but to irritate others?

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if the accomplishments you can point to, you only got by cheating, then where is the accomplishment?

OH, I get it, you are an accomplished cheater.

[Gothos]

Well Said

[Mordig]

You just beat me to it Gothos.
I couldn't have stated it better myself, Aamer.

BTW. TY again for my level 60 Steel chain armor you gave me a couple of years ago. It went to a good home when I was done with it.

Mordig 100 Warrior/Cleric/Spirit Disciple
Kadith 100/100/94 LUNatic

[gopher65]

Is if for convenience?
This is perhaps the only one that make any sense, as it can take a good amount of time to get certain drops. However, I already have one of the new +150 health armor crystals and it took under an hour to get.

Is it simply because they can?
Kinda of like script kiddies that will try and DOS some site, and get giddy enjoyment from such pointless activity.

I think these are the only 2 types that have existed in HZ since shortly after launch. Convenience makes the most sense.

There are certain activities ingame which are a horrible, long, arduous grind. Some people only feel they have completed a game when they have killed every NPC, completed every quest, explored every cave and dungeon, and obtained every item possible.

It has nothing to do with the person being mean, or wanting to cheat, or anything like that. It is just a form of OCD that almost every gamer has to a certain degree. Some are just worse than others. This is why there are people out there who just cannot for the life of them understand the attraction of video games. They see such games, quite rightly, as dull drudgery. They don't understand the addictive nature of repetitive actions.

This is why boring RPGs like Morrowind exist. So people can experience the same gameplay over and over again while doing nothing of significance. Some people just find this fun. All current MMOGs subscribe to this philosophy of game design; just look at the "grind" inherent to every one of these games. "I know! Lets make them grind for an epic mount by doing the same few once-a-day quests 300 times each! They'll love it!" It seems to be popular among certain types of gamers, so you can't really fault the companies for catering to their customer's demands.

I think many people enjoy these types of activities...to an extent; most will people eventually get bored of them and move on. There are a few though who insist on carrying it way to far. They HAVE to get every item in the game. Every crystal, every comp drop, every possible type of armour combination, every class to max, the biggest plots in the game, etc. The only way to do this is to grind. But everyone --everyone-- finds straight grinding boring. So the only way to satisfy their obsession is to macro and use every exploit they can find.

[Lupine73]

Well I can't say for sure why it is in Horizons, but having read other forums and seeing the behaviors and rationalizations/justifications people have presented for it, I think it boils down to this:

So long as they get what they're after with as little effort as possible, then the end justifies the means.

Of course, the irony is that they'll often defend it by saying they're simply a better/smarter player.

For some, the challenge isn't playing the game, but finding a way to beat the game system itself. I know someone who used to be involved with writing scripts for Final Fantasy XI. He could do anything from warp from one side of a zone (which can be huge in FFXI) to the other in like 5 seconds, insta-warp to the location of a named mob as soon as it popped and get the claim - he was out-botting the "professional" RMT botters to the point that even they were complaining. To him, playing the actual game - doing the quests, following the storyline - was of far lesser interest than finding ways around all that altogether. I don't know how he wasn't banned, to be honest. Though, since SE has seriously started cracking down on RMT and exploiting in that game, he's backed off and doesn't do it anymore.

I never understood it myself. If you're going to play a game... then *play the game*. Cheating, exploiting, buying money or items or power-leveling services, etc. to me, completely forfeits any "achievements" I would otherwise find commendable, because you cheated/bought your way to them. Anyone can cheat; it doesn't require skill - only laziness and a complete disregard for the rules... and others in many cases.

[Peaches]

Its not cheating when a gaming company permits the buying of ingame items, cash. Of course, its cheating when its not endorsed by the gaming company.

[Vahrokh]

1) Just a tip: use more precise thread titles please.

2) "but I can't believe they can hog ALL spawns of that type of mob". They can, they did when I played.

3) There's a mentality about bypassing the established ruleset and mindset.
I don't know you but from your past I could think in D&D terms you could be labelled as "lawful good". There are a lot who are neutral or evil as well.


From their site:

Alignment is central to a D&D character's personality. D&D uses two measures to determine a specific character's ethical and moral attitudes and behavior.

The moral axis has three positions: good, neutral and evil. Good characters generally care about the welfare of others. Neutral people generally care about their own welfare. Evil people generally seek to harm the others' welfare.

The ethical axis has three positions as well: lawful, neutral, and chaotic. Lawful people generally follow the social rules as they understand them. Neutral people follow those rules find convenient or obviously necessary. And chaotic people seek to upset the social order and either institute change, or simply create anarchy.

Most MMO players look like being "neutral", which taken off the book means: "Neutral people generally care about their own welfare".

A minority is "evil": "Evil people generally seek to harm the others' welfare".
Whenever you meet a neutral chaotic (sounds just like a game profile but it resembles humanity in a simplified scale), you'll find one of those who posted in the recent past:

"I do my business, sure some advantage situations are so enticing I will fall for them". "Because most won't resist to the temptation" (read: self justification for a neutral to go beyond the established rules).

Those are the "exploiters because everyone else can exploit" kind of people.

Then there are the chaotic evil: "I see I can exploit a thing: let's do this! Live by the day! Who cares for the others!"

or the lawful evil that might either disapprove of this as it's against their "ruleset" or approve and do it because their ruleset is to do the opposite (and enforce it like their own ruleset) of the community good.

So long as they get what they're after with as little effort as possible, then the end justifies the means

Also called "the path of least resistance".

Read this testament, this "law" players that want to prevail over others follow:

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/featu...ToWinPart1.htm

This is how "lawful" players are looked as

Introducing...the Scrub

...

The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He’s lost the game before he’s chosen his character. He’s lost the game even before the decision of which game is to be played has been made. His problem? He does not play to win.

The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevent him from ever truly competing.


The "ruleset" includes moral principles, what's to do and what not.


Back to the article:

"The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of “honor� or of “cheapness.� The game only knows winning and losing.

A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which ones tries to win at all costs is “boring� or “not fun.� Let’s consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play “for fun� and not explore the extremities of the game. They won’t find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns."

...

Boundaries of Playing to Win

There is a gray area here I feel I should point out. If an expert does anything he can to win, then does he exploit bugs in the game? The answer is a resounding yes…but not all bugs.

I never understood it myself. If you're going to play a game... then *play the game*.

Because you are one of the many players like me (the above article would call them "scrubs") that play "by the rules" and "for the good".

Others, believe they are above you, above the game, beyond law. They are gods. Gods that at whim may decide that their own good and fun is well above others and that might even find it fun to rain storm and lightning over the "sheeps".

Anyone can cheat; it doesn't require skill - only laziness and a complete disregard for the rules... and others in many cases

From the article I linked above:

"A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which ones tries to win at all costs is “boring� or “not fun.�

"The scrub has still more crutches. He talks a great deal about “skill� and how he has skill whereas other players—very much including the ones who beat him flat out—do not have skill."

See, everything and everyone has been classified and studied already.
Many have born as the ants who make the world go ahead, some are bold self promoted godlings who try rule above the ants. Most of them have the temper and the ego but not the skill and quality, few, fewest of them have it and will rule from above. "The powerful, the elite, the important top men".

[Peaches]

Interesting read for sure. I never ever looked at an online game in the terms of winning, anything. I guess I am a social type player, I love to craft and gab. If I were to *win* something, it would be the Title of Social Achiever. Hrmm, so ya, I guess I am winning! DOH!

[gopher65]

Yeah, me either Peaches. The whole concept of winning a persistent game is lost on me. Single player games? I exploit every chance I get. In those games there is a clear path to winning, and you bend every rule to the breaking point to get there. But in online worlds? I just like to explore nooks and crannies and caves and waterfalls and far flung areas. That's pretty much my whole goal. Adventuring levels are a path to achieving that, and crafting is a path to achieving a cool looking house.

[Vahrokh]

Eh eh eh I see no 2600 arena rating WoW players here

In that game, the above is used and abused. People won't feel like cheating by using tricks to know who they have to fight in advance (to prepare counters) or to wear up resist sets made exactly to have the opponents chances = 0.

If Horizons will get success, be ready, people with the "WoW mentality" abound and will come here to win, to win their way.

[Arietna]

I don't understand the mentality of exploiters..

winning? I win every day in Horizons. Mini wins by applying another load of units to my plot. More major wins by completing a building.
I'll WIN my own personal goal when I have got all five construction schools to 100 and personally built my own plot. Then I'll set a new goal.

[Kala]

Something I don't understand is why there's so much hate in this game. No one likes everyone else. Everyone picks sides and starts picking on other people. People get yelled at when you don't agree with them. Or you get lectured (frequently) because you have a difference of opinion. All of a sudden Party A considers you sided with Party B simply because you disagree with a few things Party A has said. And many of Party A's friends consider you at best, misguided in your judgments, and at worst, an evil person playing the game to the detriment of others.

THEN people start going around behind your back and spreading rumors that you're doing something bad, or that you're an alt of someone that other people don't like.

I swear, some days I feel like I'm back in high school when I log in.

[JDexter]

What's the exploit? The OP sounds like he is talking about someone hogging all spawns in an area.

Maybe I am missing something.

[KillerGoon]

Tagging those who do well and enjoy killing boss monsters with the title of "cheater" is a nice way to make your arguement look almost considerable. There are players on both sides of the fence in these cases. Games are meant to be played. Players are meant to seperate from others in terms of those who are good at playing the game and those who are not. Birds of a feather flock together, some eagles and some pigeons. If a circle of friends wants to make killing bosses a regular thing, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to, especially when their opposition isn't considerable competition. If those who complain care so much, they should spend some time working on their characters rather than typing on forums and support sites. If you want something bad enough, do it. Nothing's stopping you. You wonder why "the cheaters" don't share? Why they camp bosses and "Hog" them? It's what they do better than anyone else in the game and it's fun. Those who want "the cheaters" to share are the ones who have put "the cheaters" through a lot of grief, not to complain. So, get your gear made, get some spells scribed, get your schools in shape and get a group together. "The cheaters" have no problem with competition. Just like any other part of life, all you need to do is put in the time and effort to be better than those who are currently the best. Best of luck. Have fun. Give those cheaters a reason to stop doing what they do so well.



-Lettum

[Dhalin]

Depends on which exploit the OP means.

The "Level any craft to Lv100 instantly" exploit, I can certainly understand (but NOT condone!) why someone would do that: Levelling is very tedious and very very very grindy. It is one of the reasons I outright quit on my biped character, I got a craft up to about Lv21, and I am Still working T1 materials, doing the same recipes that I have been doing since Lv5-10ish, and its getting dang boring, boring Boring, BORING...

That is why I have been suggesting ways to make the first craft to Lv100 on bipeds a bit easier, because frankly, grinding for 3 hours to only get a level and a partial just isn't fun when you do the same thing over and over and over again. Gather materials, process them, make some item, deconstruct them, make some more, deconstruct, until you run out of materials, and then do it all over again.... about 50,000 times. Then you switch materials or finished product and do it again.... and again..... and again...... and again.

I really wish they could give us either more quests, or put more trainers in the world near T2/3/4/5 resources so that we can *quest* our craft levels instead of making the same stupid stuff over and over and over again. Okay, so I made 10 broadswords (for example), deconstructed them, and made some more... that's one run. Okay, so 10 more runs and I might have a level, that's a good 120 broadswords.... enough is enough already, dang. And that's just ONE level out of one hundred. By the time you get to Lv100, you just don't feel like doing all of that over and over again for how many craft schools? At least the BUILDER schools, you level while *building* something... the regular schools is all make, deconstruct, make, deconstruct.... oh, you Could pawn that stuff, but half of the stuff you make, the pawn brokers give you absolute laughable gains from it. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna spend 2 hours making swords for a measly 200c ... uh huh. I could get 10 times that amount fighting the pigs right outside of NT for 2 hours straight, TBH.

If there is some other exploit you are speaking of, then I don't know...

BTW: I have no idea how the craft exploit is actually done. Good thing too, I might have been tempted to bump my biped up to T2-3, at least then he could make the stuff he needs for his T1/T2 adventure schools....

[KillerGoon]

Tagging those who do well and enjoy killing boss monsters with the title of "cheater" is a nice way to make your arguement look almost considerable. There are players on both sides of the fence in these cases. Games are meant to be played. Players are meant to seperate from others in terms of those who are good at playing the game and those who are not. Birds of a feather flock together, some eagles and some pigeons. If a circle of friends wants to make killing bosses a regular thing, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to, especially when their opposition isn't considerable competition. If those who complain care so much, they should spend some time working on their characters rather than typing on forums and support sites. If you want something bad enough, do it. Nothing's stopping you. You wonder why "the cheaters" don't share? Why they camp bosses and "Hog" them? It's what they do better than anyone else in the game and it's fun. Those who want "the cheaters" to share are the ones who have put "the cheaters" through a lot of grief, not to complain. So, get your gear made, get some spells scribed, get your schools in shape and get a group together. "The cheaters" have no problem with competition. Just like any other part of life, all you need to do is put in the time and effort to be better than those who are currently the best. "As a new dawn rises over Istaria, may we all band together to meet the challenges!" What better challenge could you ask for Aamer?Best of luck. Have fun. Give those cheaters a reason to stop doing what they do so well.



-Lettum

[Gorek]

Why folks exploit in Horizons.

Because they can.. Simple really eh.

I like the challenge and so I seek no easy route, yes it can be a grind both in crafting and adventuring, but EFFORT = REWARD.

Oh well each to their own.

Regards

[Nayuaka]

Something I don't understand is why there's so much hate in this game. No one likes everyone else. Everyone picks sides and starts picking on other people. People get yelled at when you don't agree with them. Or you get lectured (frequently) because you have a difference of opinion. All of a sudden Party A considers you sided with Party B simply because you disagree with a few things Party A has said. And many of Party A's friends consider you at best, misguided in your judgments, and at worst, an evil person playing the game to the detriment of others.

THEN people start going around behind your back and spreading rumors that you're doing something bad, or that you're an alt of someone that other people don't like.

I swear, some days I feel like I'm back in high school when I log in.

Zur said it far better then I could. I agree with her.

[Lupine73]

I suppose I should have better elaborated on my "ends justifies the means" statement.

Of course people will find the path of least resistance - and that's fine so long as it's done within the rules of the game and isn't adversely affecting anyone else's ability to play the game. If someone has more time, or is simply a better or smarter player than I am, hey great - more power to them; I might well ask them for some advice. However, when it begins going outside the rules and is affecting others' ability to equally play and enjoy the game, then it becomes a problem and is not merely "taking the path of least resistance" anymore. Particularly when it's the result of outright exploiting or cheating.

Mind you, I'm speaking in completely general terms here - not about any one specific behavior. There's no moral dilemma at play here. It's simple... If a given behavior is within the rules, as defined by Vi, or whom ever, fine. If it's outside those rules, it's not fine.

[Theros Ironfeld]

Something I don't understand is why there's so much hate in this game. No one likes everyone else. Everyone picks sides and starts picking on other people. People get yelled at when you don't agree with them. Or you get lectured (frequently) because you have a difference of opinion. All of a sudden Party A considers you sided with Party B simply because you disagree with a few things Party A has said. And many of Party A's friends consider you at best, misguided in your judgments, and at worst, an evil person playing the game to the detriment of others.

THEN people start going around behind your back and spreading rumors that you're doing something bad, or that you're an alt of someone that other people don't like.

I swear, some days I feel like I'm back in high school when I log in.

And thats exactly what happened to me
hense i was driven out of the the game and off this board
the core group of mini ' brad vanguards' that are now inhabiting hz again trying to get their ' vision' of hz pounded into others is unreal