Time for a poll. (The subject is abuse)

[thejeff]

The problem with "Things on the bug list : abuse"
is that makes the game almost unplayable.
If you have to avoid anything on the bug list, then some strategies are tricky to avoid.

Do you have to carefully arrange your communion slaves so the masters come first and the slaves can't cast? That's on the bug list.

Most things on the list are bad for the user? Should they be considered abuse too?

Units with the wrong weapons or armor? Some better, some worse. Recruiting any is abuse?

Etc, etc.

Much better just to ban the few egregious problems that can be easily avoided. And if people want to play a game to exploit the Mists bug and send each other tons of slave collars? Have fun. I won't be in it.

[Tyrant]

Except for the BFE and retreat, those are pretty decisive results on the poll.

Do you have to carefully arrange your communion slaves so the masters come first and the slaves can't cast? That's on the bug list

I've read a couple of mentions of this and i do not understand at all. What's the issue here?

[K]

The demons come back with afflictions, you know. Its not as good as immortality by far.

[Kristoffer O]

> I've read a couple of mentions of this and i do not understand at all. What's the issue here?

Communion slaves are not supposed to cast spells, but currently slaves can cast their spells if they do it before the master does. Thus it might be considered unfair play to organize slaves and masters in such a way that the slaves benefit from the communion to spam empowered spells.

EDIT: OTOH it is a mechanic that is achievable by anyone with a communion so it is more a matter for us on how to make the communion balanced. It would be much to demand that every user of a communion is forbidden to use slaves with lower ID numbers than the masters. So until the communion is fixed I would not hold it against anyone to use this quirk.

[quantum_mechani]

I've put my two cents in on this before, but in my opinion anything that can be accomplished through the basic game interface and is not specifically outlawed by the host is fair game. That said, a few things are simply so critically buggy hosts should almost always outlaw them, primarily just mist of deception + damage enchantment.

[thejeff]

Tyrant:
The devs have said in several discussions that communion slaves shouldn't be able to cast spells while in a communion.
Any slave whose action comes before the first master casts can cast.
Thus it is listed as a bug.
It's not generally considered abusive though. People build strategies around it.

Edit: And he says it himself while I was typing.

[Tuidjy]

The reason I made the poll is that I wanted to see whether any issues are
clear cut enough so that one can assume that they are banned before
starting the game. It seems that short of editing the .2h file, every
trick has its proponents.

I guess one should never start a game before the host has listed the house rules.
Gods, I hate house rules. It may be helpful if hosts for ongoing games listed
what they consider abuse.

[vfb]

Hexedit: That's obviously cheating, and IMO is the only one on the list that should result in a ban. But a ban is probably unnecessary because the offending player will very likely disappear in a puff of humiliation.

MoD+BE: Abusive exploit. Probably good to mention that it's banned prior to any game that does not allow exploits.

BE+retreat: IMO this is an exploit, but obviously there are a bunch of people that don't agree with me. Probably good to mention rules for this one too at the game start, if you don't want to allow it in the game.

Demon twiceborn, stealing Bogus scripts, broken movement orders, etc: Same deal.

Communions, slaves casting: Did not know this was a bug! I always assumed reverse communions were intentional. KO says it's OK though .

Filling a lab with slave collars: Get a life!

VoD: I consider the doubling-up of slain undead buggy. And it makes me start thinking about game mechanics instead of the game itself, so ruins my suspension of disbelief. I'll cast it, but if I succeed against a target, I won't cast it again on the same target if he doesn't die the 1st time.

Sickle: kind of unbalanced, but not illogical that it works the way it does. Make it cursed (cannot drop) and horror mark the bearer, please.

[Sombre]

I personally think all the things in the poll are cheesy and see them all as abuse. I wouldn't much enjoy playing with someone who loved to pull stuff like that.

[Foodstamp]

As was stated above. Anything you do within the confines of the game is not an exploit. I am even starting to soften my view on the slave collar thing.

The only thing I voted yes for was hacking the files.

As your crusade continues, be careful not to ruin our game by shouting at the developers until everything is fixed to be very uniform and straight forward. One of the appeals of this game is the wacky stuff you can do. The quirks and weirdness is what gives this game character. And if you do succeed here, stay away from the Dwarf Fortress forums please.