Alternatively, if Nexon *doesn't* want players to employ this method of farming, then simply remove the ability for them to do so, by eliminating the mechanic where people lose EXP from dying. Problem solved. No longer would Nexon need to unban a legitimate player for employing a clever game mechanics that they themselves have programmed into the game, and of which they have not taken a clear stance for or against its usage in game.
This is the most likely solution. We'd probably see a lot more bots in the high level areas as a result though. And RIP Safety Charms.
You're ported to town to avoid multiple instant deaths. Everything in the game encourages you to gain more exp. They already adjusted several lower level areas' meso drops because "hey guys you shouldn't stay here forever", they also added burning areas and cursed rune effect, making extra exp nearly unavoidable. If you absolutely want to abuse the exp loss, then at least spend a little more time doing it to avoid false detection. Dying repeatedly to actively undo progress is not an intended or encouraged use of the system, and it is mainly used to break ToS, hence the auto-ban being in place. I think that's a clear enough stance.
Make an Arcana farmer. Then it takes much longer to regain the exp, and you wouldn't have to suicide as often. It's pretty clear at this point that you shouldn't be 150 forever. How badly do they have to gut areas, features and skills until people get it.
Nexon does not condone suiciding to maintain your level, and excessive suiciding has, in the past, led to bans because of how it's used by bots and hackers.
Your best bet is, as the GM said, to play the game normally. If you have to ask if something is against the rules, the safest option is not to do it.
Your only option is to keep appealing, but ultimately it's Nexon's decision as to whether you remain banned or not.
But...that's stupid.
It's not in any way abusive for a legit player to use this method.
Just because a bot can do it doesn't mean you should prohibit players.
That's not just indifference to players, it's outright player-hostile.
I don't even play reboot, but banning players for utilizing an in-game non-bug feature to their advantage is utterly ridiculous.
If your auto-ban system is unable to differentiate legitimate player behavior and bot behavior, then don't implement the autoban on that behavior.
It is rare for me to harshly criticize like this, but this is just plain and simple unethical behavior from a game moderation standpoint. If death EXP loss can be "abused", then adjust the system, don't ban players for utilizing it.
Nexon does not condone suiciding to maintain your level, and excessive suiciding has, in the past, led to bans because of how it's used by bots and hackers.
Your best bet is, as the GM said, to play the game normally. If you have to ask if something is against the rules, the safest option is not to do it.
Your only option is to keep appealing, but ultimately it's Nexon's decision as to whether you remain banned or not.
But...that's stupid.
It's not in any way abusive for a legit player to use this method.
Just because a bot can do it doesn't mean you should prohibit players.
That's not just indifference to players, it's outright player-hostile.
I don't even play reboot, but banning players for utilizing an in-game non-bug feature to their advantage is utterly ridiculous.
If your auto-ban system is unable to differentiate legitimate player behavior and bot behavior, then don't implement the autoban on that behavior.
It is rare for me to harshly criticize like this, but this is just plain and simple unethical behavior from a game moderation standpoint. If death EXP loss can be "abused", then adjust the system, don't ban players for utilizing it.
Nexon does not condone suiciding to maintain your level, and excessive suiciding has, in the past, led to bans because of how it's used by bots and hackers.
Your best bet is, as the GM said, to play the game normally. If you have to ask if something is against the rules, the safest option is not to do it.
Your only option is to keep appealing, but ultimately it's Nexon's decision as to whether you remain banned or not.
But...that's stupid.
It's not in any way abusive for a legit player to use this method.
Just because a bot can do it doesn't mean you should prohibit players.
That's not just indifference to players, it's outright player-hostile.
I don't even play reboot, but banning players for utilizing an in-game non-bug feature to their advantage is utterly ridiculous.
If your auto-ban system is unable to differentiate legitimate player behavior and bot behavior, then don't implement the autoban on that behavior.
It is rare for me to harshly criticize like this, but this is just plain and simple unethical behavior from a game moderation standpoint. If death EXP loss can be "abused", then adjust the system, don't ban players for utilizing it.
What on earth r u talking about?? Lol this is nexon dude. They nerfed node drop rate in vj because of botters, they nerfed bishop's hs because of macro HS workers, they nerfed DA's nether shield to the ground because of macro mobbers. They never cared about legit player base when it came to their useless and pointless pursuit of trying to prevent botters. They've always chosen a path of indirectly going after botters in the expense of legit player base, instead of going after botters directly. This is the only kind of game management you're gonna get from this game. Are you honestly that surprised about kanna suicide ban?
And as I said prior, which you completely ignored:
Why are you so adverse to having debates? No one is obligated in this life to agree with everything you say.
There's a difference between disagreeing and baiting for an argument.
I don't feel like arguing with you. You seem to be the type of person that wouldn't mind this thread turning into a 20 page back and forth arguing over the definition of "is".
There's a difference between disagreeing and baiting for an argument.
I don't feel like arguing with you. You seem to be the type of person that wouldn't mind this thread turning into a 20 page back and forth arguing over the definition of "is".
The only one doing any type of baiting here is you. Defend your argument if you stand by it, leave it be if you don't, this is a thread for discussion after all. Casual forum, not an echo-chamber.
iirc the suicide autoban predates reboot kanna farming meta because bots used it way before they did. Suicide abuse by other players to fit a made-up meta isn't a legitimate reason to get rid of a bot deterrent. Do it slower to avoid detection or don't do it at all.
Removing the exp loss entirely would in a way solve both those problems, but should they really have to tweak the game more for people to play it as intended?
iirc the suicide autoban predates reboot kanna farming meta because bots used it way before they did. Suicide abuse by other players to fit a made-up meta isn't a legitimate reason to get rid of a bot deterrent. Do it slower to avoid detection or don't do it at all.
Removing the exp loss entirely would in a way solve both those problems, but should they really have to tweak the game more for people to play it as intended?
But that's just it. Bots are far more sophisticated than they were four plus years ago when this 'deterrent' was implemented. It's highly unlikely that modern bots do not account for this and will simply delay the auto-death process to avoid detection, meaning that Nexon still using this as a method of bot detection is, well, obsolete. Especially when confronted with the fact that the meta changed, and Nexon did not adjust to the new meta or develop their own more sophisticated methods of bot detection. Its a simple matter of Nexon not changing with the times. Nexon knowingly left a mechanism that it clearly accepts will and does ban legitimate players without just reason or cause, leading to a poor customer experience for those players, who are simply trying to make efficient use of their time and maximize their farming throughput.
Further, the entire idea that the game is "intended" to be played a certain way is a flawed argument. Did Nexon intend for EXP to be lost upon death? Yes, therefore someone dying and losing exp is an outcome that Nexon intended to happen. There is no rule saying that one cannot die intentionally, thus no valid arguement to claim that dying purposely contradicts the games "intended" gameplay. At worst you can argue that it exploits an intended outcome to ones own benefit, but then that is true for every trick that makes playing the game easier. An example, if you suicide in chaos pierre to get rid of the colored hat allowing you to hit both red and blue hat Pierre in order to solo... technically "not the intended method of defeating that boss", but its the current meta when you fail to no-split. There's countless examples like this, and none of them are against the rules, so the argument that it doesnt follow the "intended method of gameplay" is a vague and nebulous way of avoiding responsibility and failing to addressing the problem.
If they are going to tell us that the solution is to wait a minimum amount of time before dying again, then what's that minimum time? Should we count to three, five, ten, thirty? Not telling us is the same as saying "I know you can't see or hear it coming, but if you cross this road too soon, one of my drivers will come out of nowhere and hit you, but I refuse to tell you how long to wait before you cross it, even though I know precisely how long you should wait before crossing... "
You could claim that they can't tell us because then the botters would know too, but they already know, even if its by a consequence of trial and error. Its the legitimate players who are suffering from these 'deterrents'. Botters will just make another account and increase the auto-death delay timer, they don't lose anything when they get banned, just a few hours of their computers time. Legitimate players, on the other hand, stand to lose thousands of hours of time invested in a single character.
Would you also claim that a certain number of innocent people getting the death penalty is acceptable because the death penalty is a "deterrent" for violent crime? Exactly how many innocent people getting the death penalty is an "acceptable margin of error"?
To everyone saying "well just follow the rules": at some point you need to ask yourself whether the player is in the wrong or beloved Nexon is in the wrong here. You can't fault someone for using the most efficient method possible to progress, and unfortunately Nexon made it so suicide kanna is that method.
There's a simple fix to all of this. Just make level 200+ mobs drop more mesos. That's it.
Under no circumstances should you have 140 mobs giving more meso/hr than 200+ mobs.
You can't blame a boxer for cutting weight the day before a match, and then gaining it all back after. That's the most effective thing to do and the heads of boxing make it that way by weighing in the night before.
You can't blame students for pulling all nighters when professors give information that will be on the test the day before.
Imagine if I told you we're having a bodybuilding competition, winner gets $10,000. You can only lift 10 pound weights BUT if you wear a pink shirt you can lift 10-50 pound weights. I bet you'd wear the pink shirt. Come competition day you're disqualified because there was a rule in fine print "Anyone caught wearing pink shirts for more than 1 hour will be banned"
To everyone saying "well just follow the rules": at some point you need to ask yourself whether the player is in the wrong or beloved Nexon is in the wrong here. You can't fault someone for using the most efficient method possible to progress, and unfortunately Nexon made it so suicide kanna is that method.
There's a simple fix to all of this. Just make level 200+ mobs drop more mesos. That's it.
Under no circumstances should you have 140 mobs giving more meso/hr than 200+ mobs.
You can't blame a boxer for cutting weight the day before a match, and then gaining it all back after. That's the most effective thing to do and the heads of boxing make it that way by weighing in the night before.
You can't blame students for pulling all nighters when professors give information that will be on the test the day before.
Imagine if I told you we're having a bodybuilding competition, winner gets $10,000. You can only lift 10 pound weights BUT if you wear a pink shirt you can lift 10-50 pound weights. I bet you'd wear the pink shirt. Come competition day you're disqualified because there was a rule in fine print "Anyone caught wearing pink shirts for more than 1 hour will be banned"
Sounds pretty ridiculous right?
I mean I half agree with you, though I think your example is pretty bad... If you read the fine print you would’ve known it’s against the rules.
It is ridiculous that the game is balanced in such a way that lower level mobs are more efficient than higher level mobs (just like how I think it’s ridiculous that level 200+ mobs still only drop level 140 gear because there’s no in-between for Pen/Necro and Faf/Abso gear) but that’s the state of the game we live in.
They should either make higher level mobs better for meso farming or they should make it so you can’t lose exp on death, or that you only lose exp on death post level 200 or something. There are a million other solutions better than banning people who farm using Suicide Kanna.
To the same point though...
Nexon: “Suicide Kanna isn’t intended. Please don’t do it or get banned.”
Player: *Uses Suicide Kanna to farm*
Nexon: *Bans Player*
Player:
Nexon isn’t right and I’m not defending Nexon cause it is really dumb, but it’s also dumb to use Suicide Kanna KNOWING that they’re banning people for it, legit or not, and then complaining that they got banned.
Should they be banned? No. Is it better to suck it up and play it safe than to leave yourself at the whim of Nexon CS? Hell yeah.
But that's just it. Bots are far more sophisticated than they were four plus years ago when this 'deterrent' was implemented. It's highly unlikely that modern bots do not account for this and will simply delay the auto-death process to avoid detection, meaning that Nexon still using this as a method of bot detection is, well, obsolete. Especially when confronted with the fact that the meta changed, and Nexon did not adjust to the new meta or develop their own more sophisticated methods of bot detection. Its a simple matter of Nexon not changing with the times. Nexon knowingly left a mechanism that it clearly accepts will and does ban legitimate players without just reason or cause, leading to a poor customer experience for those players, who are simply trying to make efficient use of their time and maximize their farming throughput.
I do see your point and I agree that Nexon needs to adjust something. But that is not to remove the autoban and cater to every new meta through every new "loophole" players find. But to abolish the widespread meta as it involves abusing a system that wasn't intended to be used to stay at a lower level. Removing the exp loss or setting a limit to how much exp you can lose per level would accomplish this. You wouldn't even need the autoban at that point since bots wouldn't have a reason to suicide either.
Further, the entire idea that the game is "intended" to be played a certain way is a flawed argument. Did Nexon intend for EXP to be lost upon death? Yes, therefore someone dying and losing exp is an outcome that Nexon intended to happen. There is no rule saying that one cannot die intentionally, thus no valid arguement to claim that dying purposely contradicts the games "intended" gameplay. At worst you can argue that it exploits an intended outcome to ones own benefit, but then that is true for every trick that makes playing the game easier. An example, if you suicide in chaos pierre to get rid of the colored hat allowing you to hit both red and blue hat Pierre in order to solo... technically "not the intended method of defeating that boss", but its the current meta when you fail to no-split. There's countless examples like this, and none of them are against the rules, so the argument that it doesnt follow the "intended method of gameplay" is a vague and nebulous way of avoiding responsibility and failing to addressing the problem.
Along with the reasons stated in my previous post, I believe it's entirely fair to assume that losing exp when dying was never intended to be used in this way, bots or not. Yes, losing exp is the intended function after dying, but we're talking about intended use of the function. Not the function itself.
The core goal of the game is to gain exp, level up, move on and get stronger as a result. You are rewarded for this at every turn. There are skills and items to prevent death and exp loss, there are attributes to decrease exp loss upon death. Everything in the game encourages you to gain exp and try not to die. Exp loss is there to make you stay on your toes (and for Nexon to sell charms).
Yes, there are other instances where dying can give you an advantage, which isn't penalized with exp loss. Such as bosses and certain story content. You then lose a life or fail the mission as a trade-off, well within how a boss fight or mission should work. It's no different from preserving lives or waiting out cooldowns by not resurrecting immediately, they've even added a timer to make sure you can't just get carried straight through. Further proving that abusing deaths is not intended.
If Pierre is an issue then there's a suggestion to be made for keeping the hat after resurrecting. I don't particularly disagree with that.
If these particular deaths are also triggering autobans then by all means, remove it or have it only trigger by excessive exp loss.
If they are going to tell us that the solution is to wait a minimum amount of time before dying again, then what's that minimum time? Should we count to three, five, ten, thirty? Not telling us is the same as saying "I know you can't see or hear it coming, but if you cross this road too soon, one of my drivers will come out of nowhere and hit you, but I refuse to tell you how long to wait before you cross it, even though I know precisely how long you should wait before crossing... "
You could claim that they can't tell us because then the botters would know too, but they already know, even if its by a consequence of trial and error. Its the legitimate players who are suffering from these 'deterrents'. Botters will just make another account and increase the auto-death delay timer, they don't lose anything when they get banned, just a few hours of their computers time. Legitimate players, on the other hand, stand to lose thousands of hours of time invested in a single character.
I absolutely agree that something more clear-cut should be done if players fail to understand Nexons intentions even with all the evidence pointing right to it. It's just unfortunate that it has to come to that with literally everything.
Would you also claim that a certain number of innocent people getting the death penalty is acceptable because the death penalty is a "deterrent" for violent crime? Exactly how many innocent people getting the death penalty is an "acceptable margin of error"?
I do see your point and I agree that Nexon needs to adjust something. But that is not to remove the autoban and cater to every new meta through every new "loophole" players find. But to abolish the widespread meta as it involves abusing a system that wasn't intended to be used to stay at a lower level. Removing the exp loss or setting a limit to how much exp you can lose per level would accomplish this. You wouldn't even need the autoban at that point since bots wouldn't have a reason to suicide either.
I get what you're saying, but lets consider something else, like HP Washing. Clearly that was never an "intended" method of gameplay, but it was never penalized or dissuaded by Nexon. Perhaps because it made Nexon plenty of money? I don't recall anyone ever being banned for HP Washing, so it must be the case that being an "unintended method of gameplay" is not, itself, a valid reason to ban people. So why is suicide? Because hackers do it too? Sure, ok, but they HP Washed as well. So it being something that hackers "also" do is likewise not itself a justifiable reason to ban someone.
As for the constantly evolving meta, I would argue that Nexon doesn't get to choose "how" the game is played, that's really up to the players. Nexon's job is to provide boundaries, create an enjoyable experience and protect its customers. What (legitimate) players do within those boundaries should simply be accepted by Nexon. If Nexon cannot accept those actions, then the boundaries need to be redefined, by modifying the code such that that a player is obligated to follow the desired path or otherwise unable to follow a different one. Leaving people the freedom to play a different way and then banning them for doing so is just bad form. Obligations to play the game in a certain way should always be programmed into the game, and never simply "expected" as a matter of "intention", that would be a recipe for player dissatisfaction.
Keep in mind also that a vast majority of players will never reach the level cap, and so in that way I could say that nearly everyone plays the game at "a lower level than what the game intends you to achieve". So simply saying that the intention is to level doesn't really capture the essence of the game. The goal of the game is to bring enjoyment to the players and make a profit doing it.
Along with the reasons stated in my previous post, I believe it's entirely fair to assume that losing exp when dying was never intended to be used in this way, bots or not. Yes, losing exp is the intended function after dying, but we're talking about intended use of the function. Not the function itself.
The core goal of the game is to gain exp, level up, move on and get stronger as a result. You are rewarded for this at every turn. There are skills and items to prevent death and exp loss, there are attributes to decrease exp loss upon death. Everything in the game encourages you to gain exp and try not to die. Exp loss is there to make you stay on your toes (and for Nexon to sell charms).
Game designers aren't the one s who make the game popular or profitable, players are. The success of a game/company is dependent upon player support and satisfaction, and so I would say that player satisfaction should be the core goal of the company and the game, not leveling, and not getting stronger. In fact, I would argue that those are entirely optional. Case in point, some people played the game almost exclusively for the community and social benefits, with no real intention to reach end-game. Should they be banned for not following the designers "intended" gameplay? Ofc not.
Thus the goal is to provide players an environment where they can express themselves in whatever manner they so choose, and while Nexon is free to foster an environment where leveling and getting stronger is *encouraged*, it should never be expected or otherwise mandatory, except when the intended goals of the *player* require it. I.E. If someone wants to solo chaos pap, being a henehoe would not be a productive method towards accomplishing that goal.
Penalizing people for not following a linear path is counterproductive to player satisfaction, and so long as people do not manipulate the game to circumvent the defined boundaries, they should not be penalized for whatever actions they take, especially when those actions are within the confines of normal gameplay.
I absolutely agree that something more clear-cut should be done if players fail to understand Nexons intentions even with all the evidence pointing right to it. It's just unfortunate that it has to come to that with literally everything.
Until Nexon publishes a game play manual, or codes those limitations into the game directly, I would say that Nexon's "intentions" are largely irrelevant.
There have been *many* occasions where player outrage or support have shaped the way the game has developed, or helped direct what actions Nexon took with respect to some event or aspect of the game play, and that's the way it should be. A company that ignores its player base tends to be a doomed company.
It might be the case that Nexon despises suicide Kanna's, but only tolerates them because so much of the player base uses one as a method of farming. But, the fault of that falls to Nexon, because until a player reaches the point where they can farm on a main, in places like Arcana, there are little to no other options for making sufficient meso to progress at a reasonable rate. No one is going to take the least efficient method of progression over the most efficient method simply because Nexon would prefer you choose the less efficient method.
Even with a suicide kanna farming at bye bye, a person could literally farm for 8 hours straight, and then lose all that money trying to starforce their equipment and ultimately end up worse than where they started. I know because it's happened to me many times. For example: I spent over 4 billion meso's in reboot attempting to 17 star a meister ring, starting at 15 stars and ending at 15 stars. That's an entire day of farming, for nothing. I accept it because that's just the nature of RNG, but at the same time, I would hate to imagine how much time I would have spent farming to get the same meso using some method *other* than a suicide kanna, only to have it be a complete waste of time because I got unlucky with the RNG.
Nexon *could* have a system where the success chance on staforce increased by 2% every time you failed, and went down by 2% every time you succeeded (down to the base minimum), so if you succeeded15->16,. but then failed 16->17, your percentage for the next 16->17 attempt would be 32% instead of 30%, and so on, increasing up to, say, a 50% chance. A system like that would reduce the need for a suicide kanna, because it would reduce the amount of time spent farming by reducing the amount of money needed to progress, but that's a different topic altogether.
Oh, It's absolutely hyperbole, but I disagree that it's unrelated. In parallel terms, How many permanent bans given to legitimate players is an acceptable margin of error when it comes to system meant to deter hacking? I say none, but I realize that's a bit idealistic.
Some players, particularly the young, might quit the game after a false ban, others might not want to go through a lengthy appeals process from a company that seems to have betrayed them or otherwise appears incompetent in their ability to differentiate between cheaters and legitimate players, and then there are players who've spent considerable time or money on their character, to which a ban like that might be devastating. In the long run, bans that result in player abandonment is only a bit of lost revenue for Nexon, but so long as they are still making money is it really not worth it to fix the problem?
I'd like to remind you that we are only hearing one side of the story.
OP told us they were banned for suiciding, but offers no proof whatsoever.
If Nexon were banning people just for suiciding on their meso-faming Kannas, we'd have had a LOT more than 1444 accounts banned last week.
You might remember the ban wave we had a few months ago, which turned out to be due to a new detection for hackers auto-solving runes.
"What? How can you ban people for solving runes? The game not only allows it, it requires solving runes all the time!"
Well, yes. People weren't getting banned for solving runes, as such. They were getting banned for solving them faster than humanly possible.
Unfortunately, game lag could cause a legitimate solution to appear too fast to the server, and resulted in some false bans.
Going by the quote from reddit that Aggraphine posted upthread, Nexon is not currently banning "just" for repeated suicide. They ban for doing it under level 140, which is not part of the meta, and they ban for doing it faster than humanly possible.
If OP was suiciding below level 140, then the investigation into their appeal should reveal they were not doing anything illicit, and result in an unban.
If they were suiciding too fast, then either Nexon's criteria fail to take into account some efficient new legitimate method (and the investigation should reveal this), or OP was indeed using a 3rd party tool to save time.
It would be much better if Nexon had the resources to investigate ban appeals faster. And perhaps they could test their new hack detections better before deploying them. But the community needs to be aware that cheaters intentionally flood Customer Support with ban appeals, and also post sob stories on forums and reddit, to muddy the waters and sow panic. They try to get Nexon to just revert all the bans from that detection.
Finally, regarding your point about false bans pushing people away from the game: Definitely.
But also, playing the game and encountering hackers and bots at every step, turns people off (or tempts them to start cheating, too).
The community is constantly demanding that Nexon "do something about botters!" And yet when Nexon does do something, any resulting false bans (or fake stories of false bans) cause the community to scream "Stop banning your players!"
Can't have it both ways.
I'd like to remind you that we are only hearing one side of the story.
OP told us they were banned for suiciding, but offers no proof whatsoever.
True, I use a suicide Kanna myself when I'm in situations where active farming isn't practical or feasible (off times at work, CLP is all full, etc) , and I teleport back into an area only a few short seconds after I've respawned, and I've never had an issue. Clearly I am either too slow, have a good inet connection, or don't fulfill the specific criteria that trigger the ban.
That said, I don't know that I would agree with the idea that the player should be expected to provide proof of their innocence. How could they? Should we as players be expected to record the game every single time we play, on the off chance we get falsely banned? That just seems odd to me, that we would expect the player to offer proof of their own innocence as opposed to Nexon providing undeniable proof of guilt.
If Nexon were banning people just for suiciding on their meso-faming Kannas, we'd have had a LOT more than 1444 accounts banned last week.
That, and I'm quite sure outright bans against suicide kannas would garner significant player outcry, and we've not seen that, so I would tentatively assume that Nexon is either tolerating the use of suicide kanna's, or low-key condoning them, even if reluctantly. Which is as it should be.
You might remember the ban wave we had a few months ago, which turned out to be due to a new detection for hackers auto-solving runes.
"What? How can you ban people for solving runes? The game not only allows it, it requires solving runes all the time!"
Well, yes. People weren't getting banned for solving runes, as such. They were getting banned for solving them faster than humanly possible.
Unfortunately, game lag could cause a legitimate solution to appear too fast to the server, and resulted in some false bans.
I do, actually. It's one of the many reasons I think Nexon should pursue better methods of bot/hack detection. Personally I would suggest that machine learning is the bot detection of the future, but client side input pattern recognition (sequences of inputs that persist over time at precise intervals, etc) is another option, though the downside to that is significant. (for example, it may prevent disabled people who use macro-enabled keyboards from playing the game, including Cadenas and Blasters (jk))
Going by the quote from reddit that Aggraphine posted upthread, Nexon is not currently banning "just" for repeated suicide. They ban for doing it under level 140, which is not part of the meta, and they ban for doing it faster than humanly possible.
I think that statement is important, as it points out that Nexon is aware of the ever evolving meta and does try to take it into account when determining a method of recourse, or evaluating a players actions. I think that's great and worthy of pointing out.
If OP was suiciding below level 140, then the investigation into their appeal should reveal they were not doing anything illicit, and result in an unban.
If they were suiciding too fast, then either Nexon's criteria fail to take into account some efficient new legitimate method (and the investigation should reveal this), or OP was indeed using a 3rd party tool to save time.
Agreed on both counts. As unfortunate as it is, legitimate players getting bans can, if evaluated properly, help refine a detection process by providing special case scenarios to be used in future comparisons.
It would be much better if Nexon had the resources to investigate ban appeals faster. And perhaps they could test their new hack detections better before deploying them. But the community needs to be aware that cheaters intentionally flood Customer Support with ban appeals, and also post sob stories on forums and reddit, to muddy the waters and sow panic. They try to get Nexon to just revert all the bans from that detection.
Having worked in Customer Service, I'm familiar with the sob story defense, poisoning the well, or my favorite the "if I complain enough and accuse enough people of being rude/hostile, I'll get my way" tactic. I empathize with the people who handle the appeals, and only hope that thousands of handled calls from illegitimate players hasn't jaded them to the point that they simply assume that every caller is an illegitimate player trying to pull a fast one.
But also, playing the game and encountering hackers and bots at every step, turns people off (or tempts them to start cheating, too).
The community is constantly demanding that Nexon "do something about botters!" And yet when Nexon does do something, any resulting false bans (or fake stories of false bans) cause the community to scream "Stop banning your players!"
Can't have it both ways.
That's a fair point, but I would say that the very fact that most players feel like the game 'requires' a suicide Kanna is a much more significant factor as to why people start cheating. It's the high cost of end game that drives people in that direction.. In my example above, imagine spending 8 hours farming 4 bil, and then losing it all without achieving any progression, and that's just for a single equip attempting to get two consecutive stars at 30% chance each from 15 to 17, and the current end game meta is 22*. That seems like it would be far more likely to disenfranchise players or push them into feeling like they *have* to cheat just to succeed, because time is the most precious resource in this game, and Maple requires a *lot* of it. It's not unreasonable to estimate thousands of hours of farming (not playing, just farming) are needed to achieve end-game (well, on reboot at least).
When you factor in dailies, legion, alts/mules, quest lines, monster farm, arcane force, droplets, nodes, farming meso, participating in events, etc etc. It can be quite quite daunting and frustrating, especially when you play multiple characters, or worse, play on multiple accounts.
So long as the game requires thousands of hours of farming to reach end-game, there will be hackers. I don't see a way around that. Whether its because the cheating player is an adult with a full time job, a family and simply doesn't have the time the game requires, or because they feel like they are getting left behind when their friends progress faster, or maybe because they are frustrated with an RNG progression meta.
This isn't to say the game should be easy, or even just easier, I don't know that it should be, I'm just pointing out that we don't need to look very far to find reasons why people feel compelled to cheat.
I'd like to remind you that we are only hearing one side of the story.
OP told us they were banned for suiciding, but offers no proof whatsoever.
True, I use a suicide Kanna myself when I'm in situations where active farming isn't practical or feasible (off times at work, CLP is all full, etc) , and I teleport back into an area only a few short seconds after I've respawned, and I've never had an issue. Clearly I am either too slow, have a good inet connection, or don't fulfill the specific criteria that trigger the ban.
That said, I don't know that I would agree with the idea that the player should be expected to provide proof of their innocence. How could they? Should we as players be expected to record the game every single time we play, on the off chance we get falsely banned? That just seems odd to me, that we would expect the player to offer proof of their own innocence as opposed to Nexon providing undeniable proof of guilt.
You misunderstood me.
The details of the ban are between the player and Nexon's Investigation team.
I'm not saying any of it should be posted on the forums. In fact, we have a rule against ban appeal threads.
My issue is with you (and others in this thread) automatically assuming the OP's story is true in every detail. You respond as if they are neither lying nor mistaken regarding the cause of their ban.
That's a fair point, but I would say that the very fact that most players feel like the game 'requires' a suicide Kanna is a much more significant factor as to why people start cheating. It's the high cost of end game that drives people in that direction.. In my example above, imagine spending 8 hours farming 4 bil, and then losing it all without achieving any progression, and that's just for a single equip attempting to get two consecutive stars at 30% chance each from 15 to 17, and the current end game meta is 22*. That seems like it would be far more likely to disenfranchise players or push them into feeling like they *have* to cheat just to succeed, because time is the most precious resource in this game, and Maple requires a *lot* of it. It's not unreasonable to estimate thousands of hours of farming (not playing, just farming) are needed to achieve end-game (well, on reboot at least).
When you factor in dailies, legion, alts/mules, quest lines, monster farm, arcane force, droplets, nodes, farming meso, participating in events, etc etc. It can be quite quite daunting and frustrating, especially when you play multiple characters, or worse, play on multiple accounts.
So long as the game requires thousands of hours of farming to reach end-game, there will be hackers. I don't see a way around that. Whether its because the cheating player is an adult with a full time job, a family and simply doesn't have the time the game requires, or because they feel like they are getting left behind when their friends progress faster, or maybe because they are frustrated with an RNG progression meta.
This isn't to say the game should be easy, or even just easier, I don't know that it should be, I'm just pointing out that we don't need to look very far to find reasons why people feel compelled to cheat.
Again, we have no proof that Nexon considers suicide Kanna to be a form of cheating.
Which by extension means that "requiring" a suicide Kanna doesn't "drive" people to cheat.
However, it is true of any game, that as long as there is any challenge or effort required for it, there will be people looking to cheat.
In some ways this is human ingenuity in action: our problem-solving abilities and general inventiveness are what has allowed us to "cheat" Nature and get to where we are today. However, for a game, one has to willingly accept an arbitrary set of rules and an equally arbitrary goal, and strive for the goal without breaking the rules. Otherwise there is no point to the game at all.
But I digress.
We had hackers long before all those tasks you listed, and back when most players were middle-school students with plenty of free time. As long as Maplestory has more to it than "Welcome to Maplestory, you win!", there will be people looking for shortcuts. Making the game easier, in order to try to reduce the motivation to cheat, will not work. (The game might need to be made easier to attract or keep more players, but that's a different topic).
You misunderstood me.
The details of the ban are between the player and Nexon's Investigation team.
I'm not saying any of it should be posted on the forums. In fact, we have a rule against ban appeal threads.
My issue is with you (and others in this thread) automatically assuming the OP's story is true in every detail. You respond as if they are neither lying nor mistaken regarding the cause of their ban.
It would seem you've misunderstood me as well. At no point did I assert that the OP was innocent.
Again, we have no proof that Nexon considers suicide Kanna to be a form of cheating.
Never said they did.
Which by extension means that "requiring" a suicide Kanna doesn't "drive" people to cheat.
I didn't say it did, the implication was that requiring a player to play for thousands of hours to reach end game can make the idea of cheating attractive.
However, it is true of any game, that as long as there is any challenge or effort required for it, there will be people looking to cheat.
In some ways this is human ingenuity in action: our problem-solving abilities and general inventiveness are what has allowed us to "cheat" Nature and get to where we are today. However, for a game, one has to willingly accept an arbitrary set of rules and an equally arbitrary goal, and strive for the goal without breaking the rules. Otherwise there is no point to the game at all.
I didn't say there would be *no* hackers, the point is that the distribution of hacking increases with the amount of grinding necessitated by the game. There is a grind/hack correlation.
Granted, there will always be hackers, even if the game were super easy, but most people don't hack for no reason, so how about we try and discern *why* people who would normally *not* hack end up turning to hacks (take a recent well known example for instance). I mean, lets be honest, Its almost difficult to imagine that anyone above level 250 is absolutely 100% legit. Not saying there aren't any, there might be, but when you find it hard to imagine... that's not a problem with the players.
But I digress.
We had hackers long before all those tasks you listed, and back when most players were middle-school students with plenty of free time. As long as Maplestory has more to it than "Welcome to Maplestory, you win!", there will be people looking for shortcuts. Making the game easier, in order to try to reduce the motivation to cheat, will not work. (The game might need to be made easier to attract or keep more players, but that's a different topic).
It's unlikely middle schoolers where the ones writing and distributing/selling the hacks.
And the game was grindy even at lower levels back then, so that kind of supports my point here, so... thanks?
There's a difference between disagreeing and baiting for an argument.
I don't feel like arguing with you. You seem to be the type of person that wouldn't mind this thread turning into a 20 page back and forth arguing over the definition of "is".
The only one doing any type of baiting here is you. Defend your argument if you stand by it, leave it be if you don't, this is a thread for discussion after all. Casual forum, not an echo-chamber.
iirc the suicide autoban predates reboot kanna farming meta because bots used it way before they did. Suicide abuse by other players to fit a made-up meta isn't a legitimate reason to get rid of a bot deterrent. Do it slower to avoid detection or don't do it at all.
Removing the exp loss entirely would in a way solve both those problems, but should they really have to tweak the game more for people to play it as intended?
You may not have had the same experience with this user that I have had.
He's a contrarian looking to turn disagreement into a formal debate-style back and forth. This is far from the first interaction I've had with him, and I've seen his interaction with other users in other threads. It has to do with the tone he uses.
That aside...
My point is that it's STUPID to ban players for dying quickly over and over in a row to lower their own EXP. That is a feature of this game, not a bug.
It's utterly irrelevant that the auto-ban predate the "made-up meta" or whatever you're talking about. It's a stupid auto-ban trigger regardless of any current meta, because it's easily reproducible without the use of an malicious tools by any player. It would be like implementing an auto-ban trigger if you sell too many etc items to an NPC, or an auto-ban if you changed channels too quickly. If an average player has a chance of triggering the auto-ban, then the problem is with the auto-ban, not the player. This is game-design 101. Auto-ban is a powerful tool and shouldn't casually detect legitimate players like this.
There is a fundamental flaw with this auto-ban, but Nexon seems to be unwilling to accept responsibility for this design flaw, throw their hands up, and tell legitimate players "We don't condone this behavior" as if that means anything.
This is unethical, period.
Again, I don't even play reboot, I'm just saying this because it is beyond the pale, even for this company to stand by such a flaw.
I didn't say there would be *no* hackers, the point is that the distribution of hacking increases with the amount of grinding necessitated by the game. There is a grind/hack correlation.
No. There is an enforcement/hack correlation.
KMS is way more grindy than GMS (since they have no Kanna or Frenzy) and yet they have way fewer hackers. Why? Because creating an account is difficult, and if you get caught, you can never play Maplestory (or any other Nexon game?) again. Your government ID is linked to your game account. And hacking a video game is a crime you can go to jail for.
In GMS, creating a new account is trivially easy. You got caught? Just start over and hack right back to where you were.
Also, people seem to believe that "botters run free" and they'll never get caught. "Nexon is too incompetent to catch me." That high-profile example you mentioned is just such a case in point. Yes, the temptation was high - but the problem isn't that. The problem is that the deterrent was low.
(And the fact that they only received a slap on the wrist proves they were right in their assessment of the consequences of their actions).
Granted, there will always be hackers, even if the game were super easy, but most people don't hack for no reason, so how about we try and discern *why* people who would normally *not* hack end up turning to hacks (take a recent well known example for instance). I mean, lets be honest, Its almost difficult to imagine that anyone above level 250 is absolutely 100% legit. Not saying there aren't any, there might be, but when you find it hard to imagine... that's not a problem with the players.
"I can't imagine doing that without cheating" is not a reason to accuse others. Yes, it's hard. It's meant to be hard. Making it easy enough that you "can imagine" anyone doing it, defeats the purpose. It's not a game everyone is meant to "win".
It's unlikely middle schoolers where the ones writing and distributing/selling the hacks.
And the game was grindy even at lower levels back then, so that kind of supports my point here, so... thanks?
No, the middle-schoolers were the ones using the hacks. Despite having all the time in the world to grind legitimately, they wanted to go faster. Everyone always wants to go faster. Level 200 used to be "unimaginable" and take at least a year of dedicated grinding. Today it takes a week of casual play. And still you have people saying "it's too slow unless there's a burning project going on". Making things easier will not reduce the cheating, but it will make people "finish the game" and quit due to having nothing to do. We had that problem when 200 became commonplace. That's why all this new content got added.
My point is that it's STUPID to ban players for dying quickly over and over in a row to lower their own EXP. That is a feature of this game, not a bug.
It's utterly irrelevant that the auto-ban predate the "made-up meta" or whatever you're talking about. It's a stupid auto-ban trigger regardless of any current meta, because it's easily reproducible without the use of an malicious tools by any player. It would be like implementing an auto-ban trigger if you sell too many etc items to an NPC, or an auto-ban if you changed channels too quickly. If an average player has a chance of triggering the auto-ban, then the problem is with the auto-ban, not the player. This is game-design 101. Auto-ban is a powerful tool and shouldn't casually detect legitimate players like this.
There is a fundamental flaw with this auto-ban, but Nexon seems to be unwilling to accept responsibility for this design flaw, throw their hands up, and tell legitimate players "We don't condone this behavior" as if that means anything.
This is unethical, period.
Again, I don't even play reboot, I'm just saying this because it is beyond the pale, even for this company to stand by such a flaw.
TL;DR: There is no proof that Nexon is banning people solely for suiciding their Kannas. So getting up in arms about how horrible Nexon is to do so, is a bit premature.
You may not have had the same experience with this user that I have had.
He's a contrarian looking to turn disagreement into a formal debate-style back and forth. This is far from the first interaction I've had with him, and I've seen his interaction with other users in other threads. It has to do with the tone he uses.
That aside...
My point is that it's STUPID to ban players for dying quickly over and over in a row to lower their own EXP. That is a feature of this game, not a bug.
It's utterly irrelevant that the auto-ban predate the "made-up meta" or whatever you're talking about. It's a stupid auto-ban trigger regardless of any current meta, because it's easily reproducible without the use of an malicious tools by any player. It would be like implementing an auto-ban trigger if you sell too many etc items to an NPC, or an auto-ban if you changed channels too quickly. If an average player has a chance of triggering the auto-ban, then the problem is with the auto-ban, not the player. This is game-design 101. Auto-ban is a powerful tool and shouldn't casually detect legitimate players like this.
There is a fundamental flaw with this auto-ban, but Nexon seems to be unwilling to accept responsibility for this design flaw, throw their hands up, and tell legitimate players "We don't condone this behavior" as if that means anything.
This is unethical, period.
Again, I don't even play reboot, I'm just saying this because it is beyond the pale, even for this company to stand by such a flaw.
Why do you insist on prattling on about ethics?
You seem to be one of those people who will never be satisfied with anything nexon does re: bots. They set up an autoban so they don't have to unnecessarily waste man-hours on monitoring every single map on every channel of every server, but that's not good enough for you because it's "unethical" that for every few hundred bots banned by it, five or six legit(or "legit" as we've seen in the past) players get swept up too. They remove the autoban and suddenly, so sayeth you, they're not doing enough to combat hackers and bots.
And just because something is a "feature of the game", doesn't mean it can't be abused. Look at the people who grind up multiple burning characters inside of a single burning event period so they can anvil the frozen weapons. That's a "feature of the game" being abused.
And just because something is a "feature of the game", doesn't mean it can't be abused. Look at the people who grind up multiple burning characters inside of a single burning event period so they can anvil the frozen weapons. That's a "feature of the game" being abused.
You can make another burning character if you delete your first.
That's an intended feature.
And if they want to anvil the weapons, what's the harm? How is that abuse in any way?
If they put in the work to level up the character and want to anvil the rewards, that's their prerogative.
What you're describing isn't abuse in the slightest.
It's clear you have no perspective whatsoever on this.
It seems we have entirely different views on this, but I understand your side of it. Of course any false ban, when actually false, can be very time-consuming and frustrating for the player. But when talking about a solution I don't think blindly removing the filter is the way to go. Instead they should look at why some legit players are getting caught up in it, if those actions align with Nexon's intentions of the game, and if they don't; how to prevent them from doing so.
In my opinion the clearest solution to both issues is to remove the exp loss or limit it.
You may not have had the same experience with this user that I have had.
He's a contrarian looking to turn disagreement into a formal debate-style back and forth. This is far from the first interaction I've had with him, and I've seen his interaction with other users in other threads. It has to do with the tone he uses.
Aggraphine has disagreed with myself and others plenty of times. It doesn't matter. His response to this thread was as civil as any other yet you instantly tried to provoke him. You chill.
KMS is way more grindy than GMS (since they have no Kanna or Frenzy) and yet they have way fewer hackers. Why? Because creating an account is difficult, and if you get caught, you can never play Maplestory (or any other Nexon game?) again. Your government ID is linked to your game account. And hacking a video game is a crime you can go to jail for.
Very true. No denying that. But one could infer from that example that you believe players in KMS *would* hack, if they had some level of anonymity, and didn't have life-altering consequences for doing so. It would be hard to compare KMS players to GMS players, for precisely those reasons.
In GMS, creating a new account is trivially easy. You got caught? Just start over and hack right back to where you were.
I disagree. Clearly there *are* people in GMS that don't hack (in the sense that you seem to mean by the term), and they have the same access to hacks, ease of character creation, and anonymity as those who *do* hack. So why is that?
Plenty of reasons come to mind. The investment of time you've spent gaining levels, money, reputation, or having a rare ign, or having legacy items that are no longer attainable, etc etc. I would expect that even prolific hackers have a "main" account which they (almost) never hack on.
You seem to have this mentality that a hacker/cheater can only be someone who uses a ngs bypass, has hundreds of email accounts, and doesn't really have an account or character they care about. I hope that's not the case, because that would be very jaded.
Not all hackers use telnet and bot farms. Sometimes its something simple, like occasionally using an autoclicker, or using a lag switch. Pretty benign, but still technically just as much a violation of the ToS as someone who intercepts network packets and communicates with the Maple servers through a fake client/trainer.
Also, people seem to believe that "botters run free" and they'll never get caught. "Nexon is too incompetent to catch me." That high-profile example you mentioned is just such a case in point. Yes, the temptation was high - but the problem isn't that. The problem is that the deterrent was low.
(And the fact that they only received a slap on the wrist proves they were right in their assessment of the consequences of their actions).
I expect most anyone else would have had that account, and any other account that logged in under the same IP permanently banned, period. So the deterrent is not necessarily always that low. A few people have been given leniency. Whether for their fame, their contribution to the community, or some other reason, I couldn't say.
"I can't imagine doing that without cheating" is not a reason to accuse others.
I've accused no-one, I've simply stated that its difficult to imagine anyone who does not take an advantage whenever possible. It's like realizing that everyone occasionally drives 5 miles over the posted speed limit, its still illegal and pretty much everyone is technically a criminal, but its generally overlooked, but a cop could, if he wanted, give you a ticket for it. In this way, when someone "cheats", it could be something that is, superficially, perfectly acceptable in nearly every respect, but still "technically" against the rules. A good example would be purchasing a gaming keyboard, mouse or speedpad with programmable buttons., its not technically hacking in the sense that you seem by the term, but it does technically violate the ToS, and could be banned, if Nexon decided to do so.
No, the middle-schoolers were the ones using the hacks. Despite having all the time in the world to grind legitimately, they wanted to go faster. Everyone always wants to go faster. Level 200 used to be "unimaginable" and take at least a year of dedicated grinding. Today it takes a week of casual play. And still you have people saying "it's too slow unless there's a burning project going on". Making things easier will not reduce the cheating, but it will make people "finish the game" and quit due to having nothing to do. We had that problem when 200 became commonplace. That's why all this new content got added.
Maybe. Personally, I've played maple off and on for over a decade, and I've rarely if ever met a person who plays that is not at least out of high school. I've met hundreds of people, and majority have been college students, most of the rest were middle aged people with full time jobs, families, mortgages etc. Maple has never really been a kid's game, even if its graphics seem as though they are meant to appeal to younger audiences. It's way to expensive to be a kids game.
To be fair, that's a heuristic, I'd love to see some actual demographics of players over the years.
Comments
This is the most likely solution. We'd probably see a lot more bots in the high level areas as a result though. And RIP Safety Charms.
You're ported to town to avoid multiple instant deaths. Everything in the game encourages you to gain more exp. They already adjusted several lower level areas' meso drops because "hey guys you shouldn't stay here forever", they also added burning areas and cursed rune effect, making extra exp nearly unavoidable. If you absolutely want to abuse the exp loss, then at least spend a little more time doing it to avoid false detection. Dying repeatedly to actively undo progress is not an intended or encouraged use of the system, and it is mainly used to break ToS, hence the auto-ban being in place. I think that's a clear enough stance.
Make an Arcana farmer. Then it takes much longer to regain the exp, and you wouldn't have to suicide as often. It's pretty clear at this point that you shouldn't be 150 forever. How badly do they have to gut areas, features and skills until people get it.
What on earth r u talking about?? Lol this is nexon dude. They nerfed node drop rate in vj because of botters, they nerfed bishop's hs because of macro HS workers, they nerfed DA's nether shield to the ground because of macro mobbers. They never cared about legit player base when it came to their useless and pointless pursuit of trying to prevent botters. They've always chosen a path of indirectly going after botters in the expense of legit player base, instead of going after botters directly. This is the only kind of game management you're gonna get from this game. Are you honestly that surprised about kanna suicide ban?
There's a difference between disagreeing and baiting for an argument.
I don't feel like arguing with you. You seem to be the type of person that wouldn't mind this thread turning into a 20 page back and forth arguing over the definition of "is".
The only one doing any type of baiting here is you. Defend your argument if you stand by it, leave it be if you don't, this is a thread for discussion after all. Casual forum, not an echo-chamber.
iirc the suicide autoban predates reboot kanna farming meta because bots used it way before they did. Suicide abuse by other players to fit a made-up meta isn't a legitimate reason to get rid of a bot deterrent. Do it slower to avoid detection or don't do it at all.
Removing the exp loss entirely would in a way solve both those problems, but should they really have to tweak the game more for people to play it as intended?
But that's just it. Bots are far more sophisticated than they were four plus years ago when this 'deterrent' was implemented. It's highly unlikely that modern bots do not account for this and will simply delay the auto-death process to avoid detection, meaning that Nexon still using this as a method of bot detection is, well, obsolete. Especially when confronted with the fact that the meta changed, and Nexon did not adjust to the new meta or develop their own more sophisticated methods of bot detection. Its a simple matter of Nexon not changing with the times. Nexon knowingly left a mechanism that it clearly accepts will and does ban legitimate players without just reason or cause, leading to a poor customer experience for those players, who are simply trying to make efficient use of their time and maximize their farming throughput.
Further, the entire idea that the game is "intended" to be played a certain way is a flawed argument. Did Nexon intend for EXP to be lost upon death? Yes, therefore someone dying and losing exp is an outcome that Nexon intended to happen. There is no rule saying that one cannot die intentionally, thus no valid arguement to claim that dying purposely contradicts the games "intended" gameplay. At worst you can argue that it exploits an intended outcome to ones own benefit, but then that is true for every trick that makes playing the game easier. An example, if you suicide in chaos pierre to get rid of the colored hat allowing you to hit both red and blue hat Pierre in order to solo... technically "not the intended method of defeating that boss", but its the current meta when you fail to no-split. There's countless examples like this, and none of them are against the rules, so the argument that it doesnt follow the "intended method of gameplay" is a vague and nebulous way of avoiding responsibility and failing to addressing the problem.
If they are going to tell us that the solution is to wait a minimum amount of time before dying again, then what's that minimum time? Should we count to three, five, ten, thirty? Not telling us is the same as saying "I know you can't see or hear it coming, but if you cross this road too soon, one of my drivers will come out of nowhere and hit you, but I refuse to tell you how long to wait before you cross it, even though I know precisely how long you should wait before crossing... "
You could claim that they can't tell us because then the botters would know too, but they already know, even if its by a consequence of trial and error. Its the legitimate players who are suffering from these 'deterrents'. Botters will just make another account and increase the auto-death delay timer, they don't lose anything when they get banned, just a few hours of their computers time. Legitimate players, on the other hand, stand to lose thousands of hours of time invested in a single character.
Would you also claim that a certain number of innocent people getting the death penalty is acceptable because the death penalty is a "deterrent" for violent crime? Exactly how many innocent people getting the death penalty is an "acceptable margin of error"?
There's a simple fix to all of this. Just make level 200+ mobs drop more mesos. That's it.
Under no circumstances should you have 140 mobs giving more meso/hr than 200+ mobs.
You can't blame a boxer for cutting weight the day before a match, and then gaining it all back after. That's the most effective thing to do and the heads of boxing make it that way by weighing in the night before.
You can't blame students for pulling all nighters when professors give information that will be on the test the day before.
Imagine if I told you we're having a bodybuilding competition, winner gets $10,000. You can only lift 10 pound weights BUT if you wear a pink shirt you can lift 10-50 pound weights. I bet you'd wear the pink shirt. Come competition day you're disqualified because there was a rule in fine print "Anyone caught wearing pink shirts for more than 1 hour will be banned"
Sounds pretty ridiculous right?
I mean I half agree with you, though I think your example is pretty bad... If you read the fine print you would’ve known it’s against the rules.
It is ridiculous that the game is balanced in such a way that lower level mobs are more efficient than higher level mobs (just like how I think it’s ridiculous that level 200+ mobs still only drop level 140 gear because there’s no in-between for Pen/Necro and Faf/Abso gear) but that’s the state of the game we live in.
They should either make higher level mobs better for meso farming or they should make it so you can’t lose exp on death, or that you only lose exp on death post level 200 or something. There are a million other solutions better than banning people who farm using Suicide Kanna.
To the same point though...
Nexon: “Suicide Kanna isn’t intended. Please don’t do it or get banned.”
Player: *Uses Suicide Kanna to farm*
Nexon: *Bans Player*
Player:
Nexon isn’t right and I’m not defending Nexon cause it is really dumb, but it’s also dumb to use Suicide Kanna KNOWING that they’re banning people for it, legit or not, and then complaining that they got banned.
Should they be banned? No. Is it better to suck it up and play it safe than to leave yourself at the whim of Nexon CS? Hell yeah.
The core goal of the game is to gain exp, level up, move on and get stronger as a result. You are rewarded for this at every turn. There are skills and items to prevent death and exp loss, there are attributes to decrease exp loss upon death. Everything in the game encourages you to gain exp and try not to die. Exp loss is there to make you stay on your toes (and for Nexon to sell charms).
Yes, there are other instances where dying can give you an advantage, which isn't penalized with exp loss. Such as bosses and certain story content. You then lose a life or fail the mission as a trade-off, well within how a boss fight or mission should work. It's no different from preserving lives or waiting out cooldowns by not resurrecting immediately, they've even added a timer to make sure you can't just get carried straight through. Further proving that abusing deaths is not intended.
If Pierre is an issue then there's a suggestion to be made for keeping the hat after resurrecting. I don't particularly disagree with that.
If these particular deaths are also triggering autobans then by all means, remove it or have it only trigger by excessive exp loss. I absolutely agree that something more clear-cut should be done if players fail to understand Nexons intentions even with all the evidence pointing right to it. It's just unfortunate that it has to come to that with literally everything. That's unrelated hyperbole and you know it.
I get what you're saying, but lets consider something else, like HP Washing. Clearly that was never an "intended" method of gameplay, but it was never penalized or dissuaded by Nexon. Perhaps because it made Nexon plenty of money? I don't recall anyone ever being banned for HP Washing, so it must be the case that being an "unintended method of gameplay" is not, itself, a valid reason to ban people. So why is suicide? Because hackers do it too? Sure, ok, but they HP Washed as well. So it being something that hackers "also" do is likewise not itself a justifiable reason to ban someone.
As for the constantly evolving meta, I would argue that Nexon doesn't get to choose "how" the game is played, that's really up to the players. Nexon's job is to provide boundaries, create an enjoyable experience and protect its customers. What (legitimate) players do within those boundaries should simply be accepted by Nexon. If Nexon cannot accept those actions, then the boundaries need to be redefined, by modifying the code such that that a player is obligated to follow the desired path or otherwise unable to follow a different one. Leaving people the freedom to play a different way and then banning them for doing so is just bad form. Obligations to play the game in a certain way should always be programmed into the game, and never simply "expected" as a matter of "intention", that would be a recipe for player dissatisfaction.
Keep in mind also that a vast majority of players will never reach the level cap, and so in that way I could say that nearly everyone plays the game at "a lower level than what the game intends you to achieve". So simply saying that the intention is to level doesn't really capture the essence of the game. The goal of the game is to bring enjoyment to the players and make a profit doing it.
Game designers aren't the one s who make the game popular or profitable, players are. The success of a game/company is dependent upon player support and satisfaction, and so I would say that player satisfaction should be the core goal of the company and the game, not leveling, and not getting stronger. In fact, I would argue that those are entirely optional. Case in point, some people played the game almost exclusively for the community and social benefits, with no real intention to reach end-game. Should they be banned for not following the designers "intended" gameplay? Ofc not.
Thus the goal is to provide players an environment where they can express themselves in whatever manner they so choose, and while Nexon is free to foster an environment where leveling and getting stronger is *encouraged*, it should never be expected or otherwise mandatory, except when the intended goals of the *player* require it. I.E. If someone wants to solo chaos pap, being a henehoe would not be a productive method towards accomplishing that goal.
Penalizing people for not following a linear path is counterproductive to player satisfaction, and so long as people do not manipulate the game to circumvent the defined boundaries, they should not be penalized for whatever actions they take, especially when those actions are within the confines of normal gameplay.
Until Nexon publishes a game play manual, or codes those limitations into the game directly, I would say that Nexon's "intentions" are largely irrelevant.
There have been *many* occasions where player outrage or support have shaped the way the game has developed, or helped direct what actions Nexon took with respect to some event or aspect of the game play, and that's the way it should be. A company that ignores its player base tends to be a doomed company.
It might be the case that Nexon despises suicide Kanna's, but only tolerates them because so much of the player base uses one as a method of farming. But, the fault of that falls to Nexon, because until a player reaches the point where they can farm on a main, in places like Arcana, there are little to no other options for making sufficient meso to progress at a reasonable rate. No one is going to take the least efficient method of progression over the most efficient method simply because Nexon would prefer you choose the less efficient method.
Even with a suicide kanna farming at bye bye, a person could literally farm for 8 hours straight, and then lose all that money trying to starforce their equipment and ultimately end up worse than where they started. I know because it's happened to me many times. For example: I spent over 4 billion meso's in reboot attempting to 17 star a meister ring, starting at 15 stars and ending at 15 stars. That's an entire day of farming, for nothing. I accept it because that's just the nature of RNG, but at the same time, I would hate to imagine how much time I would have spent farming to get the same meso using some method *other* than a suicide kanna, only to have it be a complete waste of time because I got unlucky with the RNG.
Nexon *could* have a system where the success chance on staforce increased by 2% every time you failed, and went down by 2% every time you succeeded (down to the base minimum), so if you succeeded15->16,. but then failed 16->17, your percentage for the next 16->17 attempt would be 32% instead of 30%, and so on, increasing up to, say, a 50% chance. A system like that would reduce the need for a suicide kanna, because it would reduce the amount of time spent farming by reducing the amount of money needed to progress, but that's a different topic altogether.
Oh, It's absolutely hyperbole, but I disagree that it's unrelated. In parallel terms, How many permanent bans given to legitimate players is an acceptable margin of error when it comes to system meant to deter hacking? I say none, but I realize that's a bit idealistic.
Some players, particularly the young, might quit the game after a false ban, others might not want to go through a lengthy appeals process from a company that seems to have betrayed them or otherwise appears incompetent in their ability to differentiate between cheaters and legitimate players, and then there are players who've spent considerable time or money on their character, to which a ban like that might be devastating. In the long run, bans that result in player abandonment is only a bit of lost revenue for Nexon, but so long as they are still making money is it really not worth it to fix the problem?
Why have a better system?
Because its better. Isn't that reason enough?
I'd like to remind you that we are only hearing one side of the story.
OP told us they were banned for suiciding, but offers no proof whatsoever.
If Nexon were banning people just for suiciding on their meso-faming Kannas, we'd have had a LOT more than 1444 accounts banned last week.
You might remember the ban wave we had a few months ago, which turned out to be due to a new detection for hackers auto-solving runes.
"What? How can you ban people for solving runes? The game not only allows it, it requires solving runes all the time!"
Well, yes. People weren't getting banned for solving runes, as such. They were getting banned for solving them faster than humanly possible.
Unfortunately, game lag could cause a legitimate solution to appear too fast to the server, and resulted in some false bans.
Going by the quote from reddit that Aggraphine posted upthread, Nexon is not currently banning "just" for repeated suicide. They ban for doing it under level 140, which is not part of the meta, and they ban for doing it faster than humanly possible.
If OP was suiciding below level 140, then the investigation into their appeal should reveal they were not doing anything illicit, and result in an unban.
If they were suiciding too fast, then either Nexon's criteria fail to take into account some efficient new legitimate method (and the investigation should reveal this), or OP was indeed using a 3rd party tool to save time.
It would be much better if Nexon had the resources to investigate ban appeals faster. And perhaps they could test their new hack detections better before deploying them. But the community needs to be aware that cheaters intentionally flood Customer Support with ban appeals, and also post sob stories on forums and reddit, to muddy the waters and sow panic. They try to get Nexon to just revert all the bans from that detection.
Finally, regarding your point about false bans pushing people away from the game: Definitely.
But also, playing the game and encountering hackers and bots at every step, turns people off (or tempts them to start cheating, too).
The community is constantly demanding that Nexon "do something about botters!" And yet when Nexon does do something, any resulting false bans (or fake stories of false bans) cause the community to scream "Stop banning your players!"
Can't have it both ways.
True, I use a suicide Kanna myself when I'm in situations where active farming isn't practical or feasible (off times at work, CLP is all full, etc) , and I teleport back into an area only a few short seconds after I've respawned, and I've never had an issue. Clearly I am either too slow, have a good inet connection, or don't fulfill the specific criteria that trigger the ban.
That said, I don't know that I would agree with the idea that the player should be expected to provide proof of their innocence. How could they? Should we as players be expected to record the game every single time we play, on the off chance we get falsely banned? That just seems odd to me, that we would expect the player to offer proof of their own innocence as opposed to Nexon providing undeniable proof of guilt.
That, and I'm quite sure outright bans against suicide kannas would garner significant player outcry, and we've not seen that, so I would tentatively assume that Nexon is either tolerating the use of suicide kanna's, or low-key condoning them, even if reluctantly. Which is as it should be.
I do, actually. It's one of the many reasons I think Nexon should pursue better methods of bot/hack detection. Personally I would suggest that machine learning is the bot detection of the future, but client side input pattern recognition (sequences of inputs that persist over time at precise intervals, etc) is another option, though the downside to that is significant. (for example, it may prevent disabled people who use macro-enabled keyboards from playing the game, including Cadenas and Blasters (jk))
I think that statement is important, as it points out that Nexon is aware of the ever evolving meta and does try to take it into account when determining a method of recourse, or evaluating a players actions. I think that's great and worthy of pointing out.
Agreed on both counts. As unfortunate as it is, legitimate players getting bans can, if evaluated properly, help refine a detection process by providing special case scenarios to be used in future comparisons.
Having worked in Customer Service, I'm familiar with the sob story defense, poisoning the well, or my favorite the "if I complain enough and accuse enough people of being rude/hostile, I'll get my way" tactic. I empathize with the people who handle the appeals, and only hope that thousands of handled calls from illegitimate players hasn't jaded them to the point that they simply assume that every caller is an illegitimate player trying to pull a fast one.
That's a fair point, but I would say that the very fact that most players feel like the game 'requires' a suicide Kanna is a much more significant factor as to why people start cheating. It's the high cost of end game that drives people in that direction.. In my example above, imagine spending 8 hours farming 4 bil, and then losing it all without achieving any progression, and that's just for a single equip attempting to get two consecutive stars at 30% chance each from 15 to 17, and the current end game meta is 22*. That seems like it would be far more likely to disenfranchise players or push them into feeling like they *have* to cheat just to succeed, because time is the most precious resource in this game, and Maple requires a *lot* of it. It's not unreasonable to estimate thousands of hours of farming (not playing, just farming) are needed to achieve end-game (well, on reboot at least).
When you factor in dailies, legion, alts/mules, quest lines, monster farm, arcane force, droplets, nodes, farming meso, participating in events, etc etc. It can be quite quite daunting and frustrating, especially when you play multiple characters, or worse, play on multiple accounts.
So long as the game requires thousands of hours of farming to reach end-game, there will be hackers. I don't see a way around that. Whether its because the cheating player is an adult with a full time job, a family and simply doesn't have the time the game requires, or because they feel like they are getting left behind when their friends progress faster, or maybe because they are frustrated with an RNG progression meta.
This isn't to say the game should be easy, or even just easier, I don't know that it should be, I'm just pointing out that we don't need to look very far to find reasons why people feel compelled to cheat.
You misunderstood me.
The details of the ban are between the player and Nexon's Investigation team.
I'm not saying any of it should be posted on the forums. In fact, we have a rule against ban appeal threads.
My issue is with you (and others in this thread) automatically assuming the OP's story is true in every detail. You respond as if they are neither lying nor mistaken regarding the cause of their ban.
Again, we have no proof that Nexon considers suicide Kanna to be a form of cheating.
Which by extension means that "requiring" a suicide Kanna doesn't "drive" people to cheat.
However, it is true of any game, that as long as there is any challenge or effort required for it, there will be people looking to cheat.
In some ways this is human ingenuity in action: our problem-solving abilities and general inventiveness are what has allowed us to "cheat" Nature and get to where we are today. However, for a game, one has to willingly accept an arbitrary set of rules and an equally arbitrary goal, and strive for the goal without breaking the rules. Otherwise there is no point to the game at all.
But I digress.
We had hackers long before all those tasks you listed, and back when most players were middle-school students with plenty of free time. As long as Maplestory has more to it than "Welcome to Maplestory, you win!", there will be people looking for shortcuts. Making the game easier, in order to try to reduce the motivation to cheat, will not work. (The game might need to be made easier to attract or keep more players, but that's a different topic).
It would seem you've misunderstood me as well. At no point did I assert that the OP was innocent.
Never said they did.
I didn't say it did, the implication was that requiring a player to play for thousands of hours to reach end game can make the idea of cheating attractive.
I didn't say there would be *no* hackers, the point is that the distribution of hacking increases with the amount of grinding necessitated by the game. There is a grind/hack correlation.
Granted, there will always be hackers, even if the game were super easy, but most people don't hack for no reason, so how about we try and discern *why* people who would normally *not* hack end up turning to hacks (take a recent well known example for instance). I mean, lets be honest, Its almost difficult to imagine that anyone above level 250 is absolutely 100% legit. Not saying there aren't any, there might be, but when you find it hard to imagine... that's not a problem with the players.
It's unlikely middle schoolers where the ones writing and distributing/selling the hacks.
And the game was grindy even at lower levels back then, so that kind of supports my point here, so... thanks?
You may not have had the same experience with this user that I have had.
He's a contrarian looking to turn disagreement into a formal debate-style back and forth. This is far from the first interaction I've had with him, and I've seen his interaction with other users in other threads. It has to do with the tone he uses.
That aside...
My point is that it's STUPID to ban players for dying quickly over and over in a row to lower their own EXP. That is a feature of this game, not a bug.
It's utterly irrelevant that the auto-ban predate the "made-up meta" or whatever you're talking about. It's a stupid auto-ban trigger regardless of any current meta, because it's easily reproducible without the use of an malicious tools by any player. It would be like implementing an auto-ban trigger if you sell too many etc items to an NPC, or an auto-ban if you changed channels too quickly. If an average player has a chance of triggering the auto-ban, then the problem is with the auto-ban, not the player. This is game-design 101. Auto-ban is a powerful tool and shouldn't casually detect legitimate players like this.
There is a fundamental flaw with this auto-ban, but Nexon seems to be unwilling to accept responsibility for this design flaw, throw their hands up, and tell legitimate players "We don't condone this behavior" as if that means anything.
This is unethical, period.
Again, I don't even play reboot, I'm just saying this because it is beyond the pale, even for this company to stand by such a flaw.
No. There is an enforcement/hack correlation.
KMS is way more grindy than GMS (since they have no Kanna or Frenzy) and yet they have way fewer hackers. Why? Because creating an account is difficult, and if you get caught, you can never play Maplestory (or any other Nexon game?) again. Your government ID is linked to your game account. And hacking a video game is a crime you can go to jail for.
In GMS, creating a new account is trivially easy. You got caught? Just start over and hack right back to where you were.
Also, people seem to believe that "botters run free" and they'll never get caught. "Nexon is too incompetent to catch me." That high-profile example you mentioned is just such a case in point. Yes, the temptation was high - but the problem isn't that. The problem is that the deterrent was low.
(And the fact that they only received a slap on the wrist proves they were right in their assessment of the consequences of their actions).
"I can't imagine doing that without cheating" is not a reason to accuse others. Yes, it's hard. It's meant to be hard. Making it easy enough that you "can imagine" anyone doing it, defeats the purpose. It's not a game everyone is meant to "win".
No, the middle-schoolers were the ones using the hacks. Despite having all the time in the world to grind legitimately, they wanted to go faster. Everyone always wants to go faster. Level 200 used to be "unimaginable" and take at least a year of dedicated grinding. Today it takes a week of casual play. And still you have people saying "it's too slow unless there's a burning project going on". Making things easier will not reduce the cheating, but it will make people "finish the game" and quit due to having nothing to do. We had that problem when 200 became commonplace. That's why all this new content got added.
Please read http://forums.maplestory.nexon.net/discussion/comment/94243/#Comment_94243
TL;DR: There is no proof that Nexon is banning people solely for suiciding their Kannas. So getting up in arms about how horrible Nexon is to do so, is a bit premature.
Why do you insist on prattling on about ethics?
You seem to be one of those people who will never be satisfied with anything nexon does re: bots. They set up an autoban so they don't have to unnecessarily waste man-hours on monitoring every single map on every channel of every server, but that's not good enough for you because it's "unethical" that for every few hundred bots banned by it, five or six legit(or "legit" as we've seen in the past) players get swept up too. They remove the autoban and suddenly, so sayeth you, they're not doing enough to combat hackers and bots.
And just because something is a "feature of the game", doesn't mean it can't be abused. Look at the people who grind up multiple burning characters inside of a single burning event period so they can anvil the frozen weapons. That's a "feature of the game" being abused.
You can make another burning character if you delete your first.
That's an intended feature.
And if they want to anvil the weapons, what's the harm? How is that abuse in any way?
If they put in the work to level up the character and want to anvil the rewards, that's their prerogative.
What you're describing isn't abuse in the slightest.
It's clear you have no perspective whatsoever on this.
In my opinion the clearest solution to both issues is to remove the exp loss or limit it.
Aggraphine has disagreed with myself and others plenty of times. It doesn't matter. His response to this thread was as civil as any other yet you instantly tried to provoke him.
You chill.
I disagree. Clearly there *are* people in GMS that don't hack (in the sense that you seem to mean by the term), and they have the same access to hacks, ease of character creation, and anonymity as those who *do* hack. So why is that?
Plenty of reasons come to mind. The investment of time you've spent gaining levels, money, reputation, or having a rare ign, or having legacy items that are no longer attainable, etc etc. I would expect that even prolific hackers have a "main" account which they (almost) never hack on.
You seem to have this mentality that a hacker/cheater can only be someone who uses a ngs bypass, has hundreds of email accounts, and doesn't really have an account or character they care about. I hope that's not the case, because that would be very jaded.
Not all hackers use telnet and bot farms. Sometimes its something simple, like occasionally using an autoclicker, or using a lag switch. Pretty benign, but still technically just as much a violation of the ToS as someone who intercepts network packets and communicates with the Maple servers through a fake client/trainer.
I expect most anyone else would have had that account, and any other account that logged in under the same IP permanently banned, period. So the deterrent is not necessarily always that low. A few people have been given leniency. Whether for their fame, their contribution to the community, or some other reason, I couldn't say.
I've accused no-one, I've simply stated that its difficult to imagine anyone who does not take an advantage whenever possible. It's like realizing that everyone occasionally drives 5 miles over the posted speed limit, its still illegal and pretty much everyone is technically a criminal, but its generally overlooked, but a cop could, if he wanted, give you a ticket for it. In this way, when someone "cheats", it could be something that is, superficially, perfectly acceptable in nearly every respect, but still "technically" against the rules. A good example would be purchasing a gaming keyboard, mouse or speedpad with programmable buttons., its not technically hacking in the sense that you seem by the term, but it does technically violate the ToS, and could be banned, if Nexon decided to do so.
Maybe. Personally, I've played maple off and on for over a decade, and I've rarely if ever met a person who plays that is not at least out of high school. I've met hundreds of people, and majority have been college students, most of the rest were middle aged people with full time jobs, families, mortgages etc. Maple has never really been a kid's game, even if its graphics seem as though they are meant to appeal to younger audiences. It's way to expensive to be a kids game.
To be fair, that's a heuristic, I'd love to see some actual demographics of players over the years.