To GGG: Why I think your OBT intentions are detrimental to the game's future

1. Treat O[BT] not so differently than C[BT] rather than a release.


2. Be reasonable, have disclaimers.


3a. Banning isn't a "solution"; it's an "effect". AKA "Don't over-value bans"


3b. What would I think constitutes a "message sending punishment?"


4. Don't fall prey to the sense of "false security" with DIY solutions.


5. Don't be afraid to engage the community on "controversial" topics by conventional standards (for OBT).

I was originally going to post a reply to the "multiboxing" thread, but my response turned out really long and ended up addressing a totally different topic. The reason I'm making this thread is simple, GGG has shown us our voices matter. While they don't always respond to every post, I do hope I can create some momentum to change a few minds about the way things seem to be going for OBT. I don't expect a response, or for many people in this community to actually understand what I'm about to say anyways, but I don't feel my time or efforts are wasted, which is the only thing that matters to me in the end.

The problem I have is with GGG's expected policy on OBT cheating, client modifications, messing with packets, 3rd party tools, etc... In accordance with many of their posts and what Chris has said on streams, it will result in a ban if you get caught and is more or less stuff that makes them angry. If you create an environment where pushing the game to the max by any means necessary is punished, you are only promoting such behavior for personal gains rather than for the benefit of the game.

I truly believe this is a terrible mistake that will take the game down the same path as so many other games that have tried fighting the "cheating/botting" wars and have lost over the past few decades. Very few, and I can't even name that many off-hand, have fought these wars to the end much less came out victorious (and the definition of victory is highly subjective).

I'll start out with two relevant quotes from Sun Tzu:

"

What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations.

Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting.

What I want them to understand is quite simple: if it's possible to get any meaningful advantage from modifying the client, ggpk files, or playing with packets, they have messed up and will need to work on fixing their design. The only way these things come up though is when people (like me, for example) push the game to the max by any means necessary, especially outside of "intended use".

The course of action of "fixing" it shouldn't mean banning people for it and just saying "don't do it". Fixing it should mean correcting the core issue that lead to it, or leveling the playing field by making it accessible to everyone, thus eliminating any advantage.

For this to work though, you can't have a community of people that are afraid of pushing the limits of the game by any means necessary in fear of getting punished or being publicly vilified. A lot of people here want the best game possible, but how can you have the best game possible if you willingly ignore one of the most important aspects of an online game? I use the word "ignore" here, because saying "don't do this or you'll get banned" is ignoring the issue; it's like sweeping it under a rug.

The more information there is, the better. Everyone being aware of what can or can't be done in a game creates an equal playing field. The whole point of "cheating" is getting an advantage, but if everyone is able to cheat, then no one has an advantage as it's relative. Sure, some people might have more of an advantage than others, but that's a different issue. In the case where everyone can get an advantage it gets fixed, really fast (e.g., public exploits).

Call it a lesson in "101: Getting shit fixed". If you find something that can get you an advantage and you want it fixed, make it public. Talk about it everywhere and ensure the game devs are aware of it. There's more to it though than just dev awareness, it's dev awareness that people are choosing to do this due to their (perceived) flawed design. It is then the their responsibility to understand why people are choosing to do this rather than what they intend them to do. 99% of the time, devs don't follow through with this and ignore the users. So far, I think GGG will be in the 1% that do, as they have shown so far.

With that said though, in order for this game to be as competitively even as possible, to ensure the long term success in ensuring a fair and equal playing field, you don't need "law abiding citizens". You need the people that most people here probably hate the most. People that will push the game to the max by any means necessary should be encouraged for OBT.

If GGG truly wants a 10 year game, and they want to show people they are committed to providing a fair and balanced competitive scene, they need to act sooner, rather than later. They need to understand that, you don't beat cheaters by trying to explicitly stop them (it's been proven that there's no 100% way); you beat them by (re)designing the game so that you implicitly stop them by making whatever they are doing no longer viable or give everyone equal access to such advantages.

The way you accomplish this is by rewarding people they would otherwise punish right now at OBT. Consider real rewards were given for people who found ways to break the game and gain an advantage. Consider a "spoils of war" policy (a lot of details would have to be worked out) where, if you find a way to take advantage of something serious in the game, and report it within a time frame, you get rewarded for it. More importantly, you aren't banned. If however, you don't report it, and are caught by the system, you don't get to keep anything, although, you still won't be banned. There are a lot of creative ways to discourage people after the fact than just banning, which I think in a f2p game is insulting to the game company more so than the user.

It still makes no sense to me why game devs are still so set on disincentivizing people finding real problems with their game and then proceeding to get rid of them (the people). If you know someone is capable of finding flaws in your system, the last thing you want is to get rid of them. You want to keep them around and watch them carefully to understand what you can do better to prevent further things from happening.

If you don't have the infrastructure in place to be able to do this, develop it, asap. There's a lot of creative things that can be done here, but it'd add too much to an already long post, so I'll refrain. Once again, this goes back to the idea of not promoting people from doing these things for personal gains, but rather for the benefit of the game as a whole. People receiving personal gains from helping improve the game, is a different issue, and is 'ok'.

Let me give an analogy. Let's say you go to a pet shop and see a cute puppy. It's just so adorable that you have to have it, so you get it. You take it home but then to your dismay, the cute puppy needs to be fed, barks at night, needs attention, and poops all over the place. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with the territory. It's your responsibility to understand everything that comes with the territory.

I know they are a small team, with limited resources and time. I know they'd rather focus on content and providing an overall gaming experience. Remember the puppy? This is like scooping up the poop. No one really wants to do it, but it has to be done nonetheless, no matter how much you might hate it.

The difference is, do you want to spend 10 years scooping up poop, or do you want to train the dog so you only have to scoop poop for a year or so, then it can do its own thing then next 9? I believe it's possible in context of the game, to compromise certain intentions for the long term benefit of the game. While it's their prerogative, I want to convince the people who are content with scooping up poop for 10 years there are other ways.

Call it short term pain, for long term gain.

I think GGG should draw the line for OBT at malicious intent. That is, people trying to hack accounts, posting malicious links in chat, people attacking the servers or trying to compromise the site, or otherwise try to prevent access to the services by everyone else. Other than that, everything else should be fair game and be allowed to be talked about and discussed in a special section on the forums.

In doing this, you now have a controllable sandbox environment where a lot can be learned and handled. If someone comes up with a creative way to take advantage of the system, they will have a real incentive to not keep it "underground", as they can get personal gain from sharing it with the community/GGG.

Their options would now be: 1) share with the community/GGG and if it's legitimate, be rewarded and continue to look for more things, benefiting everyone in the long run. 2) take advantage of it themselves, but risk getting caught and losing everything. 3) trying to share it with others, but risk someone else performing #1, and ending up empty handed.

The mental hurdle I suspect a lot of people will have to get over is that this is not a "deal with the devil" type of scenario for GGG. This is merely rewarding subject matter experts to ensure the game's future and even and balanced playing field. There will always be creative things to be done and found, but what matters is, the entire community will be looking for them in addition to just enjoying the game.

With that said though, I'd like to put forward the following idea. A new account bound unique amulet for people who willingly contribute to pushing the game to the max by any means. We can call it "Faustian bargain", with whatever flavor text seems fitting. The only effect this amulet has is giving the character devil wings (like Tyrael's, but red). I hope people don't laugh and take that as a joke; I'm quite serious.

It's easy to over look the little things, but the little things do matter. People always talk about not missing the forest for the trees, but the opposite is just as true. Don't miss the trees for the forest.

The special section on the forum would be transparent for everyone to see and read. It would contain all information on everything that's ever been done and thought up as "exploitable" or "advantageous". The reason for this is simple: it's easier to come up with new ideas from existing ideas than from scratch. If I found one particular thing that could be exploited, then someone else might think of how they could apply that to a different part of the game I didn't.

In doing this, GGG gains the community as workforce in helping them understand the scripts, programs, concepts of getting an advantages in game in a way they might not be able to understand themselves. In other words, they should be able to save a lot of time, money, and effort in making a better game in the long run, by making a simple trade of "if you can do it, you can do it" (that is, unless we fix it).

Their part it in all, is taking what the community gives them, in addition to what they observe themselves, and try to design the best possible game such that needing to use anything else 3rd party, is simply not needed. This would involve doing a lot of "little things" they might not think are important, but actually matters to a lot of people.

For example, map hack, zoom hack, brightness hack. They exist. I made them myself (others probably have too, but no one really talks about it since it's taboo). It's possible because whoever designed the current system did not have a "cheaters mind" and never thought along the way, how can people take advantage of how they were implementing the game.

Now, after the fact, GGG could try to stop people, like most games try and fail, from using such tools, and take the "if we catch you using it, we ban you, so don't use it approach". In doing so, they could waste a lot of time and effort trying to enforce "their intention", and ultimately force people to go with the most exclusive cheat providers that can provide the best safety for using such tools, and fight that uphill battle for the next 10 years.

I do understand too, a lot of people are "ok" with game companies that "try, but fail", as long as they are making the "effort", but in reality, that gets old and tiring fast. People end up caring about the end result, either they (the game company) wasn't able to get the job done (99% of the time) or they did (extremely rare). You can cite all sorts of different companies and things they did that worked or didn't work, but it doesn't matter; GGG is GGG and none of them.

Alternatively, they could take what I'd hope to call the new "GGG way" and say, "oh look, we are missing some functionality from our client to allow people that wish to toggle the full reveal of the map and show nearby mobs/items(?). It's not something we had intentions for, but it's something that a lot of our customers want, and we'd rather them not resort to someone else to get such functionality and let them profit simply because it's outside the scope of our initial intentions".

Just imagine, if those three things, which are very important in terms of a competitive edge, were "features of the game", that's 10 years worth of not having to deal with that issue they can spend on other more important things. They don't have to rewrite any code or think of clever ways to detect people using them month after month, year after year. There's no longer any worries about people being able to get an advantage in events, as everyone has equal access and can use it if they choose, when they need it.

It's 2013. Why stick to the same old tradition and mindset that everyone else has for the past umpteen years and try and tackle the same problems they have (and failed to)? This game has already shown some new innovations and changes that most people have only dreamed about their entire life. A skill gem system like FF7? I never thought I'd see such a thing in another game the rest of my life, yet here it is, a reality. Why not innovate on all fronts, including the way "cheating" is handled, rather than just game mechanics.

This is why I quoted Sun Tzu earlier. It's this type of mentality that will set GGG apart from everyone else out there in their own way, and keep people interested in their games and attract more.

A lot of people might not fully understand this, so I'll give you an example that most should be able to relate to. The difference between nugiyen not having a demigods from the 1 week race (26:12:00) and more than likely having a demigods at the end of the race, came down to the game's lack of the previous three "features".

Without a zoom restriction in place, and knowing most PCs can handle zooming out quite a bit further, between him and his team, they would have been able to realize an elemental reflect was "off-screen" and possibly react differently. I say possibly, because everyone was tired, but the point is, if it's visible to everyone and you don't react in time, that's the players fault and not the game's fault.

In his case though, it was off-screen and he was able to attack it due to being a ranged character (wow, a ranged character that plays at a range!) and in essence kill himself due to "poor" intentions by the devs in thinking that people value immersion over staying alive in a competitive environment.

I'm not going to speak for everyone, but I for one don't. If I want to enjoy the immersive elements of the game, I'll play Default with some friends, no worries about dying, max graphics and sound settings and just enjoy myself. If I'm doing competitive play on HC or any other league, I'm turning down all graphics settings, and doing what it takes to ensure I have the best competitive gaming setup possible. I'm talking about fresh PC reboots, no extra apps running, snacks and drinks ready.

In competitive play, I'm not thinking about or worried about the game's graphics or detail. Just on what I need to do to be successful. I feel that GGG isn't quite at the point of understanding this. Competitive play, as Kripparrian has shown, is what will make or break this game (as seen in the peak interest during the 1 week HC race).

Likewise with Zoldyck's death (2:24:00). If spawned monsters were drawn on the minimap, then Kripp and Dime would have known about the mobs that ended up killing him. Likewise with zoom, they would have at least been able to see stuff below the portal. You can argue about tactics and waiting for people all you want, but at the end of the day, the client had the information, but due to developers intent, players were unable to know about them. If a player dies, it should be "their fault" (being too greedy, under-leveled/geared, etc..).

The main take away from all of this is pretty straight forward. I want GGG to create a gaming environment where even though there are a lot of 3rd party tools readily available, and usable if you so wish, there's really no need or benefit in doing so, purely from the standpoint of game design and features.

If someone creates something that a lot of people seem to be interested in, rather than looking at ways to prevent people from using it, look at how it might be possible to make it an integral part of the game. There are many creative ways to integrate things into the game, in ways a lot of people wouldn't expect, no matter what it is. I have a few key ideas for some bigger issues (specifically botting), but that's for another thread.

I believe GGG has a solution to most of this with their League system, which no other game has. The only thing is, they have to be willing to get past a few limiting "intentions" they currently have with it. I'm not going to go into detail about this, but basically it's the difference between providing a game, and providing an entertainment service.

If they did this, and I mean a lot of the things I am advocating for, I truly believe the only things they have to deal with when it comes to 3rd party tools and all that jazz, are flaws in their server implementation, most of which should be found and taken care of during OBT, assuming people are encouraged to do so with the "you can do it, if you can do it" policy.

It's not a matter of simply "allowing cheating, botting, or hacking" in the game and not caring about it. It's a matter of allowing people to do everything they can with what's available out there to solidify the game's design and mechanics for the next 10 years, as well as grow and strengthen their server sided logic for identifying "game design flaw abuse" that isn't reported.

If someone makes something that in essence could ruin the game, and there quite literally isn't anything GGG could do about it to stop it game design wise, I'm not against hard counters to it. The point is though, it'll always be a game of cat and mouse and more than likely, just a waste of time and resources. You can discourage a lot of people, but all it takes is one determined person to crush everything you are putting in place and rendering it useless.

It's impossible to make everyone happy with everything they want, but there's a lot of little things that will make a big difference down the line. If GGG shows intentions on providing these little things to the community, then people will be far less inclined to get them from other places. There's nothing that can be done for the people that choose to regardless, but at least it won't be at the expense of everyone else.

What's most important of all though, is that everyone will hare equal access to it. The playing field can be kept equal, and anything deemed "necessary to compete" can be addressed in game design changes. For this to happen though, GGG needs a very specific segment of the community, one that I think they have been neglecting the entire time. This is only possible with them and while I can only speak for myself, I know at least one is willing to make the contributions necessary to try and help the game.

I know that was long, and some parts certainly could use more details than provided, but hopefully I've presented my main point on the matter and enough supporting arguments for it to make sense to my intended audience.