SCEA Bans Many Players for Using Exploits in MLB The Show 16

[cardinalbird5]

Quote: Originally Posted by iamgramps

What you all did was buy a candy bar from a vending machine for $1. Instead of receiving the one candy bar you purchased, you received 2. Instead of walking away from the machine, you all decided to take advantage of the machine. So, you all did it again and, guess what, you all got 2 candy bars for the price of one. By now, common sense should tell a person the machine is malfunctioning. Nope, instead you all kept repeating the same action. Again, you all knew.

Many people are not even aware they did it or what they did. I am sure theres a few who willingly did it but many would not be writing these long messages on twitter, expressing their concerns and entire story one by one if they were all guilty.

Plus I personally know a few guys who got banned who have done alot for the community and Diamond Dynasty in general. We helped report bugs , DDOSers and glitches early on in April trying to help SDS as much as we can. Now two of those guys are banned, plus many more, with no real explanation besides of being accused of a stub glitch they have no idea existed.

If there were 1500 guys banned that excessively exploited this glitch since April ( apparently only the top 1 pct)then tell me how would this have been kept a secret for three months when the collection glitches and stub glitches in previous iterations spread like a wildfire within 20 minutes of a few individuals finding out?

Theres just nothing adding up here plus the fact I know one of my friends was accused of canceling an order worth 100 stubs a few times...if people were knowingly doing this then that is a pretty lousy way to cheat and get banned over a few stubs.

Not to mention the fact that many that were banned admitted to spending 500 plus on the game. Why would they cheat and risk that?

Lastly, SDS has already had tons of things go wrong already with the game. You do not think there is a possibility that their queries were falsely flagging users that used the website market?

None if it makes sense. I love the dev team and this game. I did not get banned and spend a ton of time playing it and being involved with the community. I am just trying to be fair here and stick up for those that got banned with no explanation. I realize the devs are not perfect and mistakes happen but it does not mean that we cannot constructively criticize them when it is called for.

In reality, this is SDS fault and not the consumers. Not certain peoples fault that their market had a few loopholes and some either unknowingly exploited it or their data was just falsely flagging anyone using the website. Anyways the lack of communication from the official mlb the show twitter is the biggest problem right now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cardinalbird5]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jason_19

I didn't do that though. Shame how so many people in modern society always try to pretend to be in the know when they're as ignorant as anyone can be about something. Just because you believe something to be true, that doesn't mean that is. I'm not saying that people didn't do that, but I didn't and I doubt I'm not the only person who that applies to.

Yeah alot of people in here probably dont know anyone that got banned personally or even know whats fully going on tbh.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

In reality, this is SDS fault and not the consumers. Not certain peoples fault that their market had a few loopholes and some either unknowingly exploited it or their data was just falsely flagging anyone using the website. Anyways the lack of communication from the official mlb the show twitter is the biggest problem right now.

I think the thing is - does it mess with the fair competitiveness of the mode?

I don't know what the stubs do aside from letting you buy cards and packs. If being able to generate free stubs without using the market correctly, meaning you can get the advantage over people who buy/sell/pay/farm/whatever to get stubs, then I could see why that would get shut down.

It's like if an RTS had an obvious exploit to give your units/faction superior powers that it/they shouldn't have, or I guess in this case, a way to just generate free resources at will for the whole match.

Is it the gamers' fault that the exploit is there? No. They didn't make the game. But imo that doesn't mean the devs should turn a blind eye to the abusers. Otherwise, the only people who suffer are those that don't use/won't use/don't know the exploit. I don't think that's particularly fair.

If anyone was unfairly flagged, I hope they get it straightened out.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

Many people are not even aware they did it or what they did. I am sure theres a few who willingly did it but many would not be writing these long messages on twitter, expressing their concerns and entire story one by one if they were all guilty.

I don't think going nuts on Twitter is proof one way or another. People can easily maintain a veneer of innocence when they are guilty. Happens all the time--both people acting outraged on Twitter and people lying.

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

Plus I personally know a few guys who got banned who have done alot for the community and Diamond Dynasty in general. We helped report bugs , DDOSers and glitches early on in April trying to help SDS as much as we can. Now two of those guys are banned, plus many more, with no real explanation besides of being accused of a stub glitch they have no idea existed.

SCEA probably should've weighed something like that, but it would be tough from a manpower standpoint to take each case individually and go through an entire history, giving brownie points for good deeds.

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

If there were 1500 guys banned that excessively exploited this glitch since April ( apparently only the top 1 pct)then tell me how would this have been kept a secret for three months when the collection glitches and stub glitches in previous iterations spread like a wildfire within 20 minutes of a few individuals finding out?

Was it really secret if thousands of people were already exploiting it? Do you mean it would've been a bigger phenomenon on the OS boards? Probably. Somebody would've spilled the beans if they had a credible way to get free stubs. It would be hard to determine if conversations like this were happening privately though. Or via Reddit/Twitter.

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

Theres just nothing adding up here plus the fact I know one of my friends was accused of canceling an order worth 100 stubs a few times...if people were knowingly doing this then that is a pretty lousy way to cheat and get banned over a few stubs.

I think people have proven they will "grind" for any amount of stubs no matter how small or large. Although I still really don't understand what the actual exploit is/how it worked, if it was just cancelling an order and getting stubs, this could be done relatively quickly so 100 stubs in a few seconds is not a bad deal at all.

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

Not to mention the fact that many that were banned admitted to spending 500 plus on the game. Why would they cheat and risk that?

This might be the weakest point in your argument. The spending of large sums of money, if anything, shows a compulsive behavior [found quite a bit in the microtransaction modes imo---"so so and got this player so I have to get it too and then show it off"...you see that thinking in the DD forums a lot] that would lend itself to wanting to find glitches/exploits/shortcuts and spend less time accumulating by playing.

This will come off as judgmental, but I really hope people aren't spending that much scratch on a make believe card game because they might need help with compulsive behavior. Plus, you are taking people at face value, who could be exaggerating the amount they spent to fit some sort of narrative.

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

Lastly, SDS has already had tons of things go wrong already with the game. You do not think there is a possibility that their queries were falsely flagging users that used the website market?

I don't know how their data was used, but this is certainly plausible. While they produce a good game, there are always mistakes and oversights. They are human after all. Without knowing what they consider the exploit to be and what data they based decisions on, it's impossible to tell.

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

None if it makes sense. I love the dev team and this game. I did not get banned and spend a ton of time playing it and being involved with the community. I am just trying to be fair here and stick up for those that got banned with no explanation. I realize the devs are not perfect and mistakes happen but it does not mean that we cannot constructively criticize them when it is called for.

To be fair, there will be a lot of whining and crying even if SDS did the bans only for people who 100% deserved them (just look at any complaint thread on OS for evidence of this). I would speculate that most users who turn to exploiting the game for fun are not going to be in your top quartile of being the most mature and levelheaded.

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

In reality, this is SDS fault and not the consumers. Not certain peoples fault that their market had a few loopholes and some either unknowingly exploited it or their data was just falsely flagging anyone using the website. Anyways the lack of communication from the official mlb the show twitter is the biggest problem right now.

I wouldn't go that far to blame it all on the developers. SDS creates a product each year to the best of their ability and each year, due to their staffing limitations and the complexities of making/testing a game, they have to fix and patch several things. To compound this, they have people deliberately trying to break the rules, commit fraud, and generally give them a bad time. I think the problem is the bad seeds that cause the market deformations and the need for bans due to this behavior. If nobody was exploiting this exploit, then nobody would've been banned at all. This is just SDS responding to issues that users have created to try and level things out.

All of this being said, it would be very disappointing to a lot of people if they were wrongly banned due to SDS having imperfect tracking data or interpreting the data they do have in a way that results in unfair bans.

[extremeskins04]

Quote: Originally Posted by cardinalbird5

Not to mention the fact that many that were banned admitted to spending 500 plus on the game. Why would they cheat and risk that? In reality, this is SDS fault and not the consumers. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't know. I blame players. I don't care if they spent $1000 on the game, cheating and exploiting should be banned for doing it.

By your logic, if I spent $2000 on a new computer at the store, I should be able to steal a 70" LCD TV, a bunch of appliances, and a car stereo for my vehicle that would normally cost me more money.

It does not matter how much people have spent on a game getting stubs or whatever, that doesn't make them excusable for cheating, stealing, or exploiting.

Period.

[cardinalbird5]

Well we will see then. Either SDS has wrongfully banned some guys or many of my friends are liars and cheaters.

It seemed like you just countered each of my arguments just to defend SDS on this one and assume thousands of people are lying, even my own friends and people I know. I understand your doubts, trust me. People are crappy and will exploit things but this is just different.

And the fact people spend money on the game does not really give anyone a right to judge or assume. Some people rather spend money than grind. It does not make them crazy.

I love OS but this whole mindset that every person that plays online is a cheeser or willing to exploit is somewhat annoying on here. Believe it or not, people outside of OS are not all scumbags and incompetent.

Anyways we will see what this leads to.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Steven78]

Quote: Originally Posted by extremeskins04

I don't know. I blame players. I don't care if they spent $1000 on the game, cheating and exploiting should be banned for doing it. By your logic, if I spent $2000 on a new computer at the store, I should be able to steal a 70" LCD TV, a bunch of appliances, and a car stereo for my vehicle that would normally cost me more money. It does not matter how much people have spent on a game getting stubs or whatever, that doesn't make them excusable for cheating, stealing, or exploiting. Period.

He never said that.

Way to be the enforcer of all that is right in the video game world lol.

[oski96]

Quote: Originally Posted by iamgramps

They knew exactly what they were doing. SDS is not in the business of giving away free stubs. As soon as they knew they were getting something for nothing, that should have been a red flag that a glitch had occurred. I'm not buying the "I didn't know" story, especially if the glitch occurred over 30 times as reported by SDS.

What does "30 times" even mean?

For example: (I got banned, so get that out of the way) if you clear a slate of old buy/sells from a computer and somehow that triggers the glitch and say there were 10 buys in your queue - is that 10 times? Or, is it one time?

I probably cleared my queue 5 - 6 times from a computer total. Is that 50 - 60 times, or 5 - 6 times? Of course, if you look at my transactions history, you will see thousands of transactions over 3 months. So, say I cleared the queue from my computer twice per month (BTW I do almost all my transactions on the console - the CAPCHA on the computer makes it a PITA).

Are you still sure people would not know if the glitch was triggered?

I will certainly agree that if you see the following, there was cheating:
1. Whole list of buys cancelled.
2. The list was for buys OVER the current price and in round numbers (e.g. 35,000 bid on a 10,000 item).
3. The activity showed: cancel buys, re-load, and cancel immediately thereafter, etc.

I believe we can all agree that any poster showing items 1 - 3 would raise a red flag, and one with two or more are cheating intentionally.

Yet, I am confident most of the people that got banned will not show these traits - instead, they are probably just high volume traders that are constantly trading and checking on their order when away from the PS4 (like me - I check when at work or when my son is playing the PS4).

In my case, since all my orders were legitimate, there may be 10 buys and 10 sells in each queue - some for diamond equip, some for gold, some for silver. So, we may be talking about a gain of 10k stubbs? (I don't really know). My point is, that I do a lot of transactions; I don't keep exact count of my stubbs (I just wan to keep a range of between 20 and 50k -when it goes over, I buy a diamond or complete a collection). So, unless the "glitch" put me over, say 50k, I would probably not notice at all.

Anyhow, I have not heard anything from SDS on this yet - I believe if they actually look at the transactions it will be clear I had no idea of this glitch.