Suggestion to wipe clean achievements due to exploits / abuses

[kreisler]

I would like to call upon the devs to perform a wipe on all the achievements players have accumulated over this testing period once the game comes out of beta, as there have been inconsiderate players that have been ruining test games by constantly exploiting known issues that allow the gathering of obscene amount of medals which contributes to the award achievements.

It is obvious that greed in some players have taken over the best of the beta testing spirit and it ruins the atmosphere of the whole game, not to mentioned the hampering on effort of other players who would like to proceed to the later stages of the game. The most obvious being the exploitation of the infamous puny-civ-mini-wonder mechanics, and sincerely hope that this along with other known exploits like the tech transfer issue can be resolved with the upcoming patch on Monday.

It would be good if the devs could award say a 'tester' medal or award for those who participated in this beta along with some other goodies, but strongly call for the wiping and that all players, abusing the system or not, start everything on a clean slate when the full game goes live. I regret and understand that this suggestion can be unfair to the majority of honest players, but it is those who decided to turn to greed and exploit the game that you should condemn at.

[Glinda]

You admit this would be unfair to the majority, but you are still so determined to punish people you don't care? Weird.

[AlibechM]

It does not matter one way or the other, achievements are kind of a joke anyway. I think that what those players that you call 'inconsiderate' did, was shown the exploits and flaws of the game. I hope that will allow the developers to come up with a better and more balanced game that we can all enjoy. That's what alpha and beta periods are for and I'm really glad those are known issues now.

[AlibechM]

I don't know anything about a patch on Monday, where is that info? Thanks

[kreisler]

Glinda: It's a tough suggestion. I'm just suggesting. I myself have achievements, and I'm sure we all have as well, that I have collected through honest testing that I am willing to have it wipe out because it is not fair to all of us honest testers when there are those who gain an unfair advantage through constant abuse of the exploit. Yes i'm determine to punish people who gain unfair advantages for personal gain, so again what's so weird about that? We all know they don't executed the exploit to 'test' the game - it's for the medal glory. At least I acknowledge that this will be unfair to most players, and hence a suggestion, and not just turn a blind eye about it.

I had even one explot abusing tester finally admitting on the chat after much questioning, that the answer on his reason for the exploit, was 'I'm here to win'.

Alibech: I understand testers are here to test for problems in the game; you find one, document it and move on. However, it becomes really unproductive for any tester to keep testing on one same bug in every future same game don't you agree? We know it's already a problem, it's been documented, but yet these inconsiderate testers, out of greed, try to emulate the same problem that they know will ruin the testing games because it's a fast way to earn medals and achievements and other glory factors. Want to test it again? Do it after a fix on it is implemented to see if its doable, not when you know it's still doable in the current fix.

Alpha and beta are here for us all to surface these bugs out and make it known, i agree. I was a tester once for a software giant for many of the games that you play in the past. The most is, we found a bug, we record it, we try to emulate it a couple more times for confirmation, done. This time, it's like is been confirmed and even documented on the forums, but because of the awesome benefits one can get from executing the exploit, you can see it happening in every game. Greed takes over, and spoils the true testing spirit.

Now this irks me and if you've been any of the games when the exploit is executed is because it takes a lot of effort for us testers to even get halfway through the game, but as we all know the puny-civ-mini-wonder exploit always ends any game prematurely. The executor will hoard so much money, have so much power, that it basically tramples on any civ that they feel like crossing over. The abusing civ, because of its obscene level money made, jacks all the market prices for it has the ability to do so. Tester won't be able to do much when all the Great People are all priced above 30K a piece. The involving players will of course gather obscene amount of personal medals and awards in doing so.

Now what i mentioned above is all very important. The game will soon degrade to the point other testers just loses interest; it's human nature - the abuser, being greedy, finds pleasure in doing so and the abused naturally will just give up. And the game will pretty much end prematurely. So most of the time, you will find testers not being able to test the later half of the game. Very few games will make it to the last quarter of the technology, or test any of the late game units.

So yes we are here to test, but can we move on? Luckily the Monday patch is here and I hope it will resolve issues that will allow us to move on.

[AlibechM]

I agree with you on many of your points. I was only talking about the achievements, when you think about it it does not make any difference. Nobody is going to go to your throne room, probably neither do you. Also, if you bother to post them on your Facebook status, it only last hours, so it's really moot imho to be concern about them. I really hope, as you mentioned before, that all the issues affecting the gameplay will be resolved on Monday's patch.

[Jimmy058910]

Lame post, it's a way of rewarding the players for playing in the beta and your telling the Devs to wipe it? They don't do anything special, they unlock things for your throne room. Why care so much to make a thread regarding this, especially as a player?

[gütch]

I'd like to see a mechanic where we can vote to award an achievement to any player in a game. That way we could award a 'Lamer' achievement to any greedy person who regularly abuses a known bug.

[kreisler]

Jimmy: Lame post because you probably are doing the exploit and hoarding all the medals and obviously trying to achieve all the personal achievement awards. French civ in game 188 sounds familiar? Wow under 8 players, just executed 2 Golden Ages and now have close to 6 million. And what, only like 3 days into the game?

Thanks to people like you Great Artist are now almost $90,000 a piece. You break everybody's effort to test the game into the later stages. Every tester is so fed-up with the game because of your self-greed.

And if they don't do anything much, why you bother? Let me suggest for a wipe then, unless you're concern about losing it all, yes? I'm not.

Alibech: It's not so much about who views the achievements. It is obvious that these exploiters are driven by greed for the personal achievement awards, and they exploit these known issues as it allows them to quickly gather all the achievements that they can by doing it. It is about cause & effect, and the reward these exploiters get out of doing the bugs. If you cancel them out, testers are less inclined to do it because the ill-gained rewards are not so apparent anymore, and hence, less abuses. They might still get the pleasure of winning without much challenge, but at least the rate of the abuses happening will be a lot less.

Gutch: Good one haha

*****

This intention of this post is very obvious. If you're for it, you know the pains these greedy exploiters bring to the testing and how it ruins the beta experience & testing spirit. If you are against it, it's obvious you're using those exploits and want to hoard all the ill-gotten achievements, titles and rankings for a show-off.

[Jimmy058910]

You and NeillH make me lolz. I won in big and small civs.

Yes, your playing against me when I'm in a smaller one and for the millionth time... HOW ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO COMPETE? Not to mention, joining that game extremely late with FIVE closed borders already! Give us some credit, you think none of those FIVE closed borders were trying to execute what we did, to compete with the two max player civs?

I honestly feel like you get SO mad that you literally lose sleep at night over it, and I feel bad for you. Like I said, hope I see you in the next game when I am in a big civ so you shut up about it (or maybe you won't?) Also hope Monday's changes do something for you because there are times when your in such a rage I thought you might take your own life!

Fact is, don't hate the player, hate the game. All these 'exploits' were 100% coded in by the devs for a reason, they didn't randomly show up in the coding.

Oh and back to the topic, the medals and achievements shouldn't be wiped

[kreisler]

Jimmy, I think you have the tendency to ignore the implications of your actions on the exploit and how that negatively affects the contributed efforts of all the other testers in the same game.

You are so hell bent on only wanting to win in every game (evidenced by your focused multiple use of the words 'won' and 'compete') that thats all you ever want to achieve in a beta testing. Winning. Obviously by whatever means necessary, even if exploiting known bugs and ruining test games. You yourself have mentioned in the chat room that, quote unquote, 'I'm here to win'.

This is a beta test. We've done and tried testing and confirmed with the bugs you're exploiting, and want to move on to the later stages of the game to test. All you have in mind is just winning, and that's a sad priority in a beta stage test. If you can resort to doing this in a beta test, I don't know what you would do to win when the game goes live.

You're obviously a competitive player, and which gamer isn't, we don't blame you, but remember this is a beta test and our goal is to try new things to surface new bugs. That's the priority and what you're doing just wanting to win by exploiting on the same bugs over and over again that spoils the game and tester's mood early isn't helping. And that's why i said, you are so focused on only winning you forgot what the beta testing spirit is all about.

We don't hate the game. The devs code it without realizing how it would affect the game, hence the beta test. But the bug and its effects are made well known, and it is the testers who keep on exploiting it and spoiling test games are the ones that we hate because they don't contribute anything new to the results other than just fulfilling their own selfish greed.

I call upon testers to support the suggestion to wipe achievements as this gotten out of hand from those selfish few. An ignorant tester once defended that it is not testers fault if they tests these bugs repeatedly as this is a beta tests anyway. So if this is a test, then all the achievements gained is a test too from the bugs they exploit, yes?

And no i won't kill myself or lose sleep over this. Only losers do that, and you could do that since all you want to do is obviously win and not lose. Even in a beta test.

[Jimmy058910]

The devs code it without realizing how it would affect the game, hence the beta test.

You act like they just threw together something and told BETA testers to give it a go. You do know games have to make it through an ALPHA before right? Not to mention, we are in game 188 (I believe) of the beta. You also know this is a STRATEGY game and a big civ can easily win each and every game with strategy, the same as a small civ does. The only reason a small civ is able to win is due to the absolute simple fact that people sell off (and I mean sell off) the two most important things in the game, production and Great People.

I encourage you to play as a small civ against me in a big one so I can prove to you it can be done, all I would need is about 15 of the 50 players to be decent and semi-active...

[kreisler]

Jimmy, yes the game went through Alpha testing and it was a limited test run with a smaller group of people, and this exploit was only made apparent in the recent weeks just about when Beta came through when more people had access to it. Hence, with more people working on it, such exploits have a higher probability to be found and become more apparent, and the devs are constantly working to fix things as beta testers come to report of these problems.

The thing is you do not understand the difference between a tester and a player. Obviously, when you sign up for this, you were signing up as a player, not as a tester. If you want to play competitively, do it when the game is gold and live for public playing. You can be as competitive as you want then, gloat about your winnings & strategies, cheat your way through if it satisfies you. Right now this is in beta testing, and there are testers who want to test the later parts of the game. We are supposed to test for new exploits, not keep working on the same one in the name of winning. If you cannot understand this, you certainly are a player, not a tester.

Yes, the mechanics are not refined, hence the devs are asking us to test it out. They need more people to locate, dig out and problem shoot their own work, which their own team may not see. You apparently have not worked in a real game testing organization before, and know little of the process and relationship between a tester and the developer. And what you are doing have already been tested out. Testers need to work on something new. But then again, you're playing, not testing.

You keep talking about strategies, being active, etc. which clearly shows you're in a competitive playing scene. Again i like to stress this is beta testing. If you're not here to test and contribute to the improvements of the game, you should stay away and not spoil the testing games until the game is finished and ready for public players like yourself.

All you want to is to put up challenges and show that you can win. You're not even concerned a least bit about the testing, and your intentions have now made it very obvious.

[dkk]

It's beta, and after a couple of games I already had the majority of the achievements. Wiping them once the game goes live would be good, especially if more are added. (Gives some people a reason to keep playing.)

Finding ways to break the game is GOOD for the game, but the point should be to IMPROVE the game first, and win somewhere after. I was very pleased when I won my first game, but I also know that it was due to flawed game design that over-rewarded opportunism, which is all fame points are, really.

[AlibechM]

Jimmy, yes the game went through Alpha testing and it was a limited test run with a smaller group of people, and this exploit was only made apparent in the recent weeks just about when Beta came through when more people had access to it. Hence, with more people working on it, such exploits have a higher probability to be found and become more apparent, and the devs are constantly working to fix things as beta testers come to report of these problems.

You are wrong here, this is an old problem and I, that played both alpha and beta, felt that we did not prove our point during alpha so we have to really keep abusing it during beta to prove it. Hopefully it's done now and we can move on. Regarding achievements, I don't understand anymore what is your point, you can not show them to anybody and you know you got them, so what's the difference? I don't think that most people here are playing for achievements (not fun imho) but maybe I'm wrong.

[Jimmy058910]

I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe that the game went through an entire Alpha stage, and 150 beta games before this exploit/cheat/whatever YOU want to call it was noticed/used. I only started a couple weeks ago myself, and have participated in 6 games. 4 of which, small civs won, 2 were big civs. In both big civ wins, there was attempts of this 'exploit' going on, but didn't prevail. One game, I was severely beaten by it, and unlike you, instead of whining uncontrollably... I was thinking of ways to conquer/beat it. This is a strategy game after all... I just know your going to be the guy that says there is always something unbalanced no matter what is changed/fixed/edited.

You know where I stand on the issue... Voyages are totally messed up, Golden Ages MIGHT be 5% too high, Merchants are 100% useless, etc. Have you ever noticed how the Golden Ages match up with the Economic Victories almost perfectly? There's a reason for that...

My way of testing is to simply play and compete. I don't know what your methods are. Remember, this is a beta with thousands of people... this is not an Alpha where every little itty-bitty detail needs to be checked individually, that part is done. If it was an alpha, my methods/testing would be much different (obviously.)

How many bugs are you up to? Assuming not many considering you have 7 posts and 5 of them come in the thread regarding 'Wiping Achievements'. I'm up to two myself. Maybe beat the measly two, and then talk garbage about how I ruin the game, am not a tester, and whatever else.

As I was posting, Alibech proved my first point...

[kreisler]

Alibech: As mentioned to you in the previous post specifically to you, it is not about viewing. If you wipe it, less people are inclined to do it. If you deny access to something, naturally people will not do it because they cannot see the rewards they gained from it. I'm not worried about whether it gets wipe or not. My suggestion to the dev is if this is implemented then dishonest players would be less likely to attempt it because there is no rewards gained from it.

Jimmy: Obviously people here and in the chat room can't get the message through to your thick skull, so i'll leave this to you. You're defending your move when there are so many others in the same game that got pissed off about your actions and yet you really cannot understand your implications and honestly, like said, you can count my posts and decide how many times I make an appearance on the forums and whine, but you are definitely a player, not a tester. You think you're testing but you're not.

The method you use is proven, broken and spoil games. Done and tried. You just have to do it to mess the game up. If you want to do it, do it when the new fix is applied. Is like trying to prove something when someone else has already done it. Everybody knows about it and that's why is pissed at you at the chat room because they know how the game is going to be. All you care is winning. And that's why, as a player, you can never understand. Yes go play, compete and win.

[dkk]

(This forum needs an edit button.)

OK, I missed the "due to exploits/abuses" part to start with. A wipe has its own merits, but one of those is not punitive. Jimmy shouldn't be punished for being competitive, nor Alibech and others for being coordinated. A reset button when a game officially goes live is nice because it gives a sense of equity to the new players coming in, but shouldn't have anything to do with what happened in beta.

The medal/achievement for alpha and beta testers would be nice.

[ahtrap]

I actually wouldn't mind a reset on achievements, but not for the reasons proposed here. I might actually care about looking at the achievements if they were on a per game basis, rather than cumulative. Obviously, not all would be achievable within the context of a single game, but...as Ali says, after a few games, there's no point to achievements. No one who plays "regularly" will really pay any attention to them whatsoever after a few games. And, to extend the thought, there's no disincentive, because any such player really doesn't care that they're being denied that prize.

The whining that was focused on the French in 188 is just setting people up for severe annoyance, because whichever game they are dumped into next, an entirely different group of people, maybe people who don't read the forums, will try to use a similar exploit the next time around. You want to defeat it? Be a part of a small civ yourself, and try a variation on the theme, and that way use the GA/VoD both to deny other small civs, and to compete for yourself, as well as testing out strategies to counteract the exploit.

Who knows, with tomorrow's changes, these concerns can become entirely moot....but if they are made moot, the people playing the game will come up with new methods of winning the game, that will still probably favor a certain balance of active players and relatively smaller civs. As the game now stands, a large civ cannot compete against a well organized small civ, but given the number of games running, a large civ absolutely does have the ability to win. In both 160 and 166, I was part of open borders civs, both of which were the dominant civ in the game. One grew from a smaller entity into the behemoth, and in the other, I started out as part of the behemoth and stayed on top all game. Jimmy can tell you the same tale, of winning as part of a big civ. It really depends on who is in any given game.

Honestly, I think the incessant complaining about the strategy in the in-game chat, and now continuing here in the forum does as much to turn off other players as the use of the exploits themselves.

Really, if it bothers you that much, take advantage of the fact that we all have access to two games at any given time. Maybe you'll get dumped late into a different game, but as you say, if you're just there for testing purposes, and the greater good, you can certainly find a way to contribute.

And, as far as your comment about testing for a software company...we're not paid testers for 2k, I'm guessing the vast majority here are not professional QAers, and even the ones who might be are likely to be here for fun, rather than strictly to test a game. You can wax rhapsodic about the spirit of beta testing, but that's not what 99% of the players are here to do. They're here to play a game, and a subset of any such crowd will be out to win. For you to draw a stark line between, "if you agree with me, you're a good person" and "if you disagree, you're evil" (okay, exaggerated, but really, not by that much), that's very self-serving.

[kreisler]

Ahtrap, I'm not suggesting that everyone becomes a die hard tester and yes i understand this is an unpaid job and i'm not rubbing my experience into this situation, but you must understand that the relationship occuring here is that the devs are providing us an early glimpse into an unpolished game in return that we test the game and report back to them any problems with it. We are given an opportunity here to play-test, not play competitively to win. The latter is for when the game is ready to go live, not in the beta stage.

I understand it is beyond our control that majority of people are here to play and not to test and that is the problem where the use of exploits is uncontrolled. This is the problem here, one must understand this is a beta test.

You must also understand that there are testers here who are trying to contribute to the game. Now there are testers here that are irked with exploiters because their selfish thinking of only winning is hampering testers' efforts in trying to further test other parts of the game.

Why many are pissed off with Jimmy's action is because of this:

Jimmy said he came in late into the game and that he found a place in a small civ. There are other small open civs but he stayed in a closed civ.

But what we are pissed off is his mentally afterwards; his thinking was - OK i'm in a small closed civ, I could switch to another open civ (even if a small one) later but hey now here's an opportunity to take advantage of being in a small closed civ, and there is no way to beat bigger civs unless i use the exploit. I know it's going to ruin the game but who gives a sh*t about the beta test, "i'm here to win" (verbatim). So f*ck all the other players, who gives a d*amn about all of them and their testing efforts, I'm playing to win and who cares if it ruins the game and whatever this testing sh*t is all about.

So eventually the game ended prematurely and the game never shot past 60% of the tech, testers never got to try out late game techs and units or anything else. When testers put in up to 60% effort into the game only to be cut short by someone who wants to win even if they know the exploit they are using is going to ruin the game, this is where we get disappointed. I'm sure anyone can understand this if someone selfish with his own personal agenda comes in and cut short their hard work that they have put into any project, I'm sure anyone will get pissed as well.

Jimmy and the other exploiters will keep defending their act saying that it is the only way to win big civs. They are thinking in the angle of playing to win, not help with any part of the test. What they don't see in a bigger picture is that what they are doing is only ruining games. Yes, it is the only way to beat bigger civs but it is understood that it is a broken mechanic. They could stop using it, but refused to. Because it allows them a guaranteed win, even if it means costing the game and other player's cumulative contribution.

This is the difference between playing and testing.

I will stop commenting on this issue and its related factors and i'm just suggesting that the wipe takes place as a deterent for inconsiderate exploiters to CONSTANTLY use any past, present and future exploits for their personal benefit. I've said my peace.

[can0mark]

Who gives a crap about achievements? It's better that these exploits are used in this phase of the game, rather than when it's actually released.

[Jimmy058910]

Sigh @Kreisler...

Jimmy said he came in late into the game and that he found a place in a small civ. There are other small open civs but he stayed in a closed civ.

I said I came into the game late, and there was already 4 CLOSED and 1 MAX... left me with 3 choices. So yes, I had to compete with 4 other small closed civs at the beginning, as well as two semi-decent large civs that had some pretty decent players within. To say it was easy would be outright wrong. I imagine those two big civs had somewhere in the 15-30 noob/inactive player range, but imagine if they didn't? I would've put my money on one of them. On top of it all, I wasn't the one to even close/propose borders. With all that said, of course I am to blame for everything.

CONSTANTLY, you say? That was my 6th game, and third in a small civ.

Jimmy and the other exploiters will keep defending their act saying that it is the only way to win big civs.

Yes, that's because it is. The sad thing is, I'm wondering if these changes will completely 100% take out the chance of small civs to win, or even form, thanks to the whiners like kreisler. I agree there needed to be changes, but I'd be willing to put money that it will be overkill if they listened to the forum chatter. People play a strategy game and the last thing they think of is strategy, makes a lot of sense to me... first instinct is whine uncontrollably.

Love your 'putting words into my mouth' rant by the way...

I could switch to another open civ (even if a small one) later

Why would that matter to you so much? All my resources would come with me (at no penalty) and the only difference would've been the name of the civ that won the game...

I've said my peace.

Does this mean your done? I hope so. Especially considering the changes could be implemented as I type this.

[VinceM]

I know a lot of players who pushed this game to the breaking point in its various pre-release incarnations. I think of those people not as greedy, but as good beta-testers. My philosophy is that the whole point of beta-testing is to try to break the game with every exploit that you can imagine, so that the programmers can learn from the testers and improve the game.

[Jimmy058910]

The sad thing is, I'm wondering if these changes will completely 100% take out the chance of small civs to win, or even form, thanks to the whiners like kreisler. I agree there needed to be changes, but I'd be willing to put money that it will be overkill if they listened to the forum chatter. People play a strategy game and the last thing they think of is strategy, makes a lot of sense to me... first instinct is whine uncontrollably.

Someone hit the nail on the head

[Sarcerok]

As a rule I am always in support of complete wipes at the end of betas. The OP's points are well taken and I have seen a lot of exploit abuse. I just this morning got my "Destroyer of Worlds" achievement without exploits and am very proud of it. I will miss it but I think an achievement wipe is the right thing to do. I can always get it again in my next game since I have won my last three without the exploits mentioned by the OP.