How would the community like the Devs to handle bug abuse?

[Procne]

I don't think wipe is necessary, in its standard meaning. Simply disallow travel between current servers and new ones. What happens in beta, stays in beta. Lock new players out of current servers so that they don't have to deal with results of bugs and sudden mechanic changes. Yes, this will make old servers slowly die. Once enough people leaves them THEN you can wipe it.

Actually, you can keep up with this model - when there is critical change in game's mechanics you can apply it to the new servers only and let old ones slowly die and replace them over time

This is what i am thinking. They do not need to do a full wipe, just when this game goes into commercial launch, they need to lock the current worlds, and keep them for "BETA TESTING ONLY", were current players still have access to them, new content is added to the current servers days / weeks before the commercial servers to "Test the new content" to ensure no bug abuse / broken mechanics are introduced, like "any normal game has".

Again, people say its only 2 devs, etc, they need to make up there mind, make the game big and throw more money at it, or keep it just as an experiment project which it currently clearly is.

I didn't have "test" servers on my mind. I was hoping for something like Travian's model. There are many separate worlds, which last about a year each. Each starts with large population which slowly declines over time. New players are locked out from old worlds, and then those servers are reset. Big changes are applied only to the new worlds created. A great circle of life.

Honestly I can't see many people playing on Plymouth in 6 months. HnH has shown it many times, that server population decreases with its age.

[G1real]

I would like to see people who use bugs to their own advantage to be punished appropiately, so this game can actually be taken serious.
I understand it's basically H&H2, as much of an experiment as that was, and it's quite obvious people/the devs are unwilling to change any of the more obnoxious mechanics to attract a bigger playerbase.

That's fine and all, it's their game. It doesn't make me want to spend money on it though.

I didn't have "test" servers on my mind. I was hoping for something like Travian's model. There are many separate worlds, which last about a year each. Each starts with large population which slowly declines over time. New players are locked out from old worlds, and then those servers are reset. Big changes are applied only to the new worlds created. A great circle of life.

Honestly I can't see many people playing on Plymouth in 6 months. HnH has shown it many times, that server population decreases with its age.

It's generally because there's no/a too far away goal that things die out. I mean, face it, aside from pointless griefing and the response to it, there's not much to do.

[L33LEE]

Honestly I can't see many people playing on Plymouth in 6 months. HnH has shown it many times, that server population decreases with its age.

This is all related to game content.

They can add a few changes, and watch the life of plymouth extend by a great margin, and the life of any of the servers.

First remove the invisable walls, introduce churches to repel the darkness so living in the darkest of places is habitable, make the "out side of the darkness" like the starting ground of the server, were 0% purity exists, and over time if you wish to get to "end game biles" and such, you should be forced to move into the harshest parts of the server in the deepest darkness with the toughest dark creatures of the night with a church in your walls to keep your settlement safe.

This game should have "stages", were people should start the world outside the darkness, live there for 2-3 months, building stats, biles and more, before they venture deeper into the game and the darkness to rebuild and grow, were only there higher purity crops can be grown, and fierce stats can achieved.

Again, it all has to do with the current stage of development of the game, in reality this game should still be in the alpha stages, were we are almost at a commercial launch, with a fully functioning power selling cash shop, it really is fun to witness, it is a first in my 20 years of beta testing games. Again, everything comes down to the devs, and how they want the game to be. The games current lifespan of playability is about 3-4 months then you will become very bored, unless you really just a happy casual, we are talking ofcourse of 99% of the gaming world here.

This games life in reality is about 2-3 weeks, beyond that its just "reinforcing your walls" or "building mega high biles to rape villages to dust", and when biles > defences, its obvious which most people do.

[jwhitehorn]

Bug abusers should have 1 week to 1 month game suspensions followed by account closures for their 2nd strike. Same as any other MMO IMO. What could be cleared up is what exactly is or is NOT a bug abuse. 1X1 fields, impenetrable authority objects, building in mines, destroying bells on p-claims etc. etc. All very controversial "bugs" but yet there is still an "argument" for the way they currently work.

Maybe fields SHOULD only take 1 tile with how hard it is to defend yourself.?

Maybe Authority objects SHOULD NOT be killable (still need to be able to walk through them) due to the claim mechanics.?

Maybe building in mines SHOULD be allowed if the object doesn't require light?

Maybe you Shouldn't be able to kill things on your own P-Claim if its a bell?

The problem is that most of the bugs people complain about have a counter-argument that the solution to said "bug" may be a meeting in the middle. I think as a community we should stand together and ask for swift action against obvious "bugs" that have no counter argument (permadeath when swimming, walking through mountains, instant travel with broken summoning mechanic) All those things were just bad and I don't think anybody ever had a good reason for those to exist. People found tampering with things such as that should be dealt with. Those in the grey area with their 1x1 tiles and fields in mines should continue to tread carefully but I think any action before a formal response to the solution is premature.

Chief PeePooKaKa
MM Tribe

[colesie]

I think bugs are bugs and if they hurt other players/their bases unfairly then they should not be used. Example: the ram bug in Haven. It will never be fixed but Dis chose not to use it for a very, very long time specifically because it was game breaking. We only recently used the bug to retaliate against AD because they were using it against us left right and centre. Just because it hasn't been fixed yet doesn't make it super lame to use against someone else. Fight your battles legitimately or forever be a ******.

Some bugs I will use, this is true. Tanning glitch is an example of one of them. But I draw the line at using bugs to kill other players.

[jwhitehorn]

I think bugs are bugs and if they hurt other players/their bases unfairly then they should not be used. Example: the ram bug in Haven. It will never be fixed but Dis chose not to use it for a very, very long time specifically because it was game breaking. We only recently used the bug to retaliate against AD because they were using it against us left right and centre. Just because it hasn't been fixed yet doesn't make it super lame to use against someone else. Fight your battles legitimately or forever be a ******.

Some bugs I will use, this is true. Tanning glitch is an example of one of them. But I draw the line at using bugs to kill other players.

Sounds like we agree 100% then. Although I would argue that 1x1 fields allow more fields in a smaller area, therefore, more food, therefore, harmful to the players of PMP you killed/sieged. But this just goes to show the slippery slope. One man's "bug" is another mans "advantage". Even in your example you conceded on using this "ram bug" but somehow you using it was more justified because you didn't do it first.

Chief PeePooKaKa
MM Tribe

[colesie]

I think bugs are bugs and if they hurt other players/their bases unfairly then they should not be used. Example: the ram bug in Haven. It will never be fixed but Dis chose not to use it for a very, very long time specifically because it was game breaking. We only recently used the bug to retaliate against AD because they were using it against us left right and centre. Just because it hasn't been fixed yet doesn't make it super lame to use against someone else. Fight your battles legitimately or forever be a ******.

Some bugs I will use, this is true. Tanning glitch is an example of one of them. But I draw the line at using bugs to kill other players.

Sounds like we agree 100% then. Although I would argue that 1x1 fields allow more fields in a smaller area, therefore, more food, therefore, harmful to the players of PMP you killed/sieged. But this just goes to show the slippery slope. One man's "bug" is another mans "advantage". Even in your example you conceded on using this "ram bug" but somehow you using it was more justified because you didn't do it first.

Chief PeePooKaKa
MM Tribe

The reason why we used the ram bug was because AD made their walls impenetrable due to another bug with authority objects. They surrounded their entire wall with statues making it unrammable. They then proceeded to use the ram bug to unfairly break into every village they wanted to by placing rams 100+ tiles away from their walls making ram checks nearly impossible and on top of this, they were impenetrable. The reason why we retaliated was because they were using it on our allies and then finally on us. We used the bug, but we only used it against AD's satellites and AD specifically from underground; them being the main users of said bug.

It was about as justified as you could get.

[JinxDevona]

This is what i am thinking. They do not need to do a full wipe, just when this game goes into commercial launch, they need to lock the current worlds, and keep them for "BETA TESTING ONLY", were current players still have access to them, new content is added to the current servers days / weeks before the commercial servers to "Test the new content" to ensure no bug abuse / broken mechanics are introduced to the live / public servers, like "any normal game has".

This sounds like a good idea. Those that don't want to stay in a closed beta testing server can have a limited amount of time to switch servers and stay locked out of the original server(s). I think there are many who would love to test new content to find the bugs (can remember Alice crashing server repeatedly with bugs ). I think it would also be in the best interest of devs to have us testers get the kinks out of content before it goes to the other servers and we see forums blow up with complaints of bugs.

As for bug abuse, someone stated that even 1x1 fields can be abuse because it allows others to produce more, therefore giving them advantage. Well, I can see this. It is so hard to determine what levels of bug abuse there are and what should be done about them. What about in game mods. They could be chosen by the devs, given the ability to transport around the map to check on things. They would be able to ban people, etc. It would have to be fair, trusting people. It could actually solve some other issues as well, such as language, verbal/racial abuse, harassment, etc. Yes some is part of the game, but we all know there is a line that can be crossed and if a person could call on a mod, the mod could use their judgement in the situation to determine what to do. Mods could kill several birds with one stone.

What is bug abuse? Maybe we should answer the simpler question before answering the bigger ones. Abusing known bugs that gives a player unfair advantage and/or hurts other players?

[TeckXKnight]

What about in game mods. They could be chosen by the devs, given the ability to transport around the map to check on things. They would be able to ban people, etc. It would have to be fair, trusting people.

In-game mods would have to be paid and have to adhere to a strict ethics code and ruleset. People are putting a lot of money into a game for the chance to have the freedom to mold the world and one another; any infringing on these rights would anger almost everyone and so the mods would have to professional all of the time. I'd also advise they be invisible, muted, and, unfortunately, not allowed to play the game or share the details of their travels with anyone aside from staff. The critical information they observe casually would be lethal to players if it were leaked in any way. Essentially invisible guardians who teleport onto players and sweep out horrific offenders and gross bug abuse. That's if something like that was ever done though.

[Kaol]

To be honest it wouldn't be such a problem if the devs were a little more active. How hard can it be to fix a bug like 1x1 fields? How hard is it to make certain items not buildable inside mines? I think with the game in a commerical state, the devs ought to up the priority of bugfixing.