Don't ban people who exploit.

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So wait, you were saying "don't ban exploiters before launch "?

There are several types of people in question, differentiated by their reactions to finding an exploit:

1. Realize that something's broken. Try it again to confirm the details, write up a test case and contact support.

This person isn't an exploiter. They're not exploiting the system for any form of gain. This is the type of person you describe as "your QA team". They respect the intended game systems.

No sensible company ever bans these players. It's not even a question. They don't exploit. If a company is the type to ban these players, you usually don't want to play their game anyway, because it's all down hill from there. (See: New World)

This is the most important thing to realize : These are not exploiters. They find an exploit, but they do not exploit it.

2. Find a bug. Realize you can get some benefit from it. Exploit bug for personal gain (with or without reporting it).

This is what an "exploiter" is. Someone who exploits a bug. Not someone who finds it, or even tests it to report. Someone who exploits it.

This person is not healthy for the game. They should be punished. Whether that's a wipe/penalty, or a ban depends on the philosophy of the developers. This is not a person you want in your game, but it is sometimes a person you tolerate . They are someone who chooses to actively disrespect and break the intended game systems to gain unfair advantage of some form.

The usual argument from these players is "everyone is doing it". This is rarely true. It's either just "everyone you notice" (or claim to), or simply means everyone is this type of player and your community is unhealthy in a specific way. Sometimes your game is so fundamentally broken that the community only can be that way, and at that point it's time for server rollbacks or truly severe corrective measures. See: New World.

3. Actively look for bugs. Try to break things and find bug or problems. Then just report them.

This person is a very active version of either 1 or 2. In the case of 1, they are practically your perfect alpha tester. They're not always healthy for a game, because sometimes the things they find (or their breaking efforts) may cause instability, but the response to these people is still GENERALLY the same as the response to 1. No sensible company bans these players. These are the ones that get a warning or get politely asked to stop, if the developers think that they're causing a problem.

4. Actively look for bugs. Try to break things and find bug or problems. Try to exploit these flaws for gain.

These people get the hardest ban hammer, as fast as possible, in all cases. These are #2, but the TYPE of #2 that you can't even afford to tolerate (and which give you no reason to).

No sensible company will ever NOT ban these users. It's not even a question.


In short: It's not about "everyone who touches a bug must die". It's about the health of the community and the quality of the game experience, in all cases. Some companies can be a bit over-zealous. Some can be a bit too lax. But that's always the goal:

- Get rid of toxic (to the game or the community) players who create a negative environment or experience overall.
- Prevent or reduce future harm from these players. You can't know in advance who is going to be a problem player, but once they show you, you can at least prevent them from causing harm in the future.
- Send a message to others who are maybe not actively toxic, but would follow them if not discouraged.

Banning these players does not reverse the harm they have already caused. It's not supposed to. You HAVE to use other tools or methods for that (server rollbacks, patches, "world edits"), and sometimes you never can. But you still have to ban them to prevent the harm they will cause the next time there's a bug. You can never get to 0, but 1000 exploiters is less harmful than 2000 exploiters, and sending a message that exploiting will not be tolerated discourages the player base as a whole from shifting to a culture of exploiting and counter-balances the "might as well" and "everybody's doing it" mindsets, at least as much as a developer can.

Every game company should ban exploiters without question. It's just important to understand what 'exploiter' means, and understand that companies will occasionally choose to tolerate the least impactful ones to prevent non-exploiters from being caught in their nets. Sometimes there are bugs that aren't obvious, and you don't want to call people exploiters just because they happened to follow the path (because they aren't, even if they've happened to profit from an exploit). But every game company should ban exploiters without question.

People talk about the obvious exploits because it's easy to say ban them. While I agree with the sentiment, its an obvious answer and a pretty predictable response.

I'll therefore ask the harder question that might actually give IS fresh opinions on something they don't have a set answer to already.

Scenario:

User comes across a ring of herb harvesting points. They feel fortunate. It's in an obscure part of the map on a plateau they don't see people in usually since it's such rugged terrain with few mobs. So they pick all of the resource points, and then realize that the harvest point respawned at this specific spot again (probably due to terrain detection.) So now they could keep harvesting these herbs basically until their bag is completely full.

As a gatherer with a game that's told you repeatedly how important exploration is to their game design, and how they want to reward exploration, it would be very reasonable to assume this might be intended by the devs. You are also disincentivized from talking about it or showing it to other people for obvious reasons.

Now if you know anything about systems design you would know this was probably a bug. With enough time it can bend the intended economic model of the mats those harvesting points generate The reward for exploration almost certainly SHOULD have been the ring of herbs, not them respawning there. But most people aren't going to think about the larger implications of some gathering point respawning in harmony with the respawn timer. Especially in a game where getting home with those goods is already a risk.

Prompt:

Would this player be an exploiter if they kept picking at all? If so what should their punishment be?
Does the number of times the player pick them matter to your feeling of this gatherer being an exploiter of this type?

I personally think they should be given a warning if ever found out without having ever reported. I think they should be given a reward for finding the bug of some small value. But I also don't think the punishment should go further than that. No taking the money or mats they earned from the exploit in this case. But I'm sure there are some people who might want this to be the case.

@Mag7spy Yes but how are they supposed to know that it isn't intended by IS as a reward for their exploration? There is a lot more nuance to discuss. At what point of repeating this should they 'know'?

It sounds like you are saying 'if they repeat the thing it's ban worthy'. This seems awfully extreme to me. But how many times do you have to repeat something you don't know is an exploit to warrant a ban? Surely it can't be twice.

In a game with open world PvP a guild exploiting this sort of thing will almost surely get noticed by other players and then people will start fighting over this 'bugged' spot. That leads to more content being generated technically even if it was an unintended spot. So in a way the fact that MORE people are exploiting it sort of changes yet another parameter that may make it ok to some people and less ok to others.

Should we treat this sort of thing as an exploit at all if it suddenly becomes user generated content? Is it only a problem to others if it's just one person exploiting it on the down low? Many good questions to consider.