Time for a poll. (The subject is abuse)

[Foodstamp]

You have misquoted me. I said "be careful not to ruin the game". I did not say "You are going to ruin the game" as you imply.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said: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.

Several bugs have been fixed from 3.01 to 3.15. "shouting at the developers" is the way the community has to make them realize where the bugs lie, since illwinter is not a blizzard-like monster with millions of dollars in revenue and thousands of employees to make playtest (and even blizzard-like companies make bugs in their games, as programing bug free is basically impossible)

We point what *might* be buggy, they decide if it is a bug or WAD, and they squash the bug whenever it is possible. I dont see where the problem lies. Only crusade i see is your crusade for "give the game as it is, with all it's weird stuff that allow me to move 3 provinces my movement 1 troops and all that cool things i find funny". If KO decides that the way communion, VotD, MoD, twiceborn or the battle enchants work is the way it is intended to work, that's fine. _IF_ they realize it is not the way it is intended to work, then it is a bug, and should be squashed.

I have a suggestion, let KO to debug the game, and those who preffer a "cool" and "funny" game with "wicked things" to do with your movement order and whatnot, can keep playing the un-upgraded and bug-filled 3.01 version of the game.

[Gregstrom]

That bit about communions has got me. Up until learning that I had the general opinion that using features not intended to be there to your advantage was in some indefinable sense wrong. But I love being able to use a reverse communion. They make sense to me as an option with the communion spells.

Perhaps there's a difference in that they don't provide a risk-reducing advantage over the way they were intended to work.

VoD gets better every time it gets through a SC's defences without costing the caster any more gems, and it doesn't risk the caster to use it. Repeat casting isn't abusive per se, but the pair of bugs that this spell invokes generate a benefit way beyond the cost.

Cast and flee on BF enchantments gets you a top-notch effect, and the caster (who may well be empowered, loaded with boosters or holding artefacts) gets a minimal risk exposure. The risk/benefit ratio feels wrong.

Sending 40 slave collars costs perhaps a turn's worth of slaves in the late game, and a bit of investment in (frequently cheap) B1 forgers who can hunt when they're not forging. And you can keep on sending 10 collars a turn forever, just to keep the opponent topped up. Benefits are pretty big, if you ask me. The cost isn't huge as a late game trick. And there's no added risk to the producers of the items.

Twiceborn provides a greater than intended benefit, but in limited circumstances and the benefit is of limited utility. It's quite possibly a bigger benefit to use Twiceborn to avoid old age on an exceptional recruited mage or a Crone. I guess I'd probably call it abusive, though.

Communion working the way it currently does, though... Slaves casting at the same time as Masters clearly adds to the risk of fatigue death. Reverse Communion alters the benefit, and I'm not sure how much it increases it.

[Velusion]

This really shouldn't be a big deal.

If you are concerned about these exploits/features only play in games that have rules against them (like I do). I would say more than half of the hosted games implement a ban on the most notorious of these exploits.

The twiceborn, Sickle and VotD exploits/features are probably here to stay as most of the hosts don't consider them exploits. They might be slightly unbalanced but they should hardly have a huge impact on the game.

[Edratman]

Can someone explain "Filling lab with slave collars"? I'm a SP player and I can't even fathom the mechanics or how it would hurt an opponent.

[lch]

Edratman said:
Can someone explain "Filling lab with slave collars"? I'm a SP player and I can't even fathom the mechanics or how it would hurt an opponent.

Messages are sent before item forging occurs, which includes transfer of gems and magic items between nations. If somebody fills another's magic lab with slave collars (or any other item), then any items that he might have forged that turn get lost. And maybe it wasn't possible to throw away items directly from the magic lab in the past, so you had to put it on some commander to get rid of them - which would be a pain if it were slave collars (gives feeblemind and is cursed, i.e. you need a new commander every time).

[Edi]

lch said:

Messages are sent before item forging occurs, which includes transfer of gems and magic items between nations. If somebody fills another's magic lab with slave collars (or any other item), then any items that he might have forged that turn get lost. And maybe it wasn't possible to throw away items directly from the magic lab in the past, so you had to put it on some commander to get rid of them - which would be a pain if it were slave collars (gives feeblemind and is cursed, i.e. you need a new commander every time).

Has anyone checked what the message limit is? It used to be 20 messages per turn total (so you could not get more than that even if more were sent to you). So far as throwing items away, it has always been there. As long as you go to the lab through F8, you can do it. Most of the time people go through a commander's item slots, in which case it equips the item and does not allow the option to throw away.

[Baalz]

Yes, the point about communions really illustrates my point that I think a lot of people don't really understand what I was getting at. We're playing the game as it is, not the game that was "intended" by the devs, whatever that means. Unintended does not mean broken, lots of times some of the most interesting interactions in games were probably unintended, the devs are not a perfect source of divine wisdom, they're just some cool guys who put together a bunch of stuff they thought would be cool and tweaked it until they felt like they had a fun game. Lots of people have commented they like the communion mechanic as it adds to the strategic depth and generally makes the game more fun. This is exactly how I feel about things like copying Bogus' commands and many other tricks that are arguably clever ways to take advantage of quirks in the game, do not unballance things and generally just add to the wonderful texture of this game. Game hosts should absolutely "ban" whatever they think will make a fun game from specific tactics to diplomacy to forging clams to casting Arcane Nexus. It's a pet peeve of mine that in most games people find the idea of using "exploits" abhorrent....yet basically this often boils down to after the fact trying to make up house rules of what is "intended" for the prefect version of the game.

[Velusion]

Baalz said:
Yes, the point about communions really illustrates my point that I think a lot of people don't really understand what I was getting at. We're playing the game as it is, not the game that was "intended" by the devs, whatever that means. Unintended does not mean broken, lots of times some of the most interesting interactions in games were probably unintended, the devs are not a perfect source of divine wisdom, they're just some cool guys who put together a bunch of stuff they thought would be cool and tweaked it until they felt like they had a fun game. Lots of people have commented they like the communion mechanic as it adds to the strategic depth and generally makes the game more fun. This is exactly how I feel about things like copying Bogus' commands and many other tricks that are arguably clever ways to take advantage of quirks in the game, do not unballance things and generally just add to the wonderful texture of this game. Game hosts should absolutely "ban" whatever they think will make a fun game from specific tactics to diplomacy to forging clams to casting Arcane Nexus. It's a pet peeve of mine that in most games people find the idea of using "exploits" abhorrent....yet basically this often boils down to after the fact trying to make up house rules of what is "intended" for the prefect version of the game.

I pretty much agree with everything your saying.

However, on the flip side, one of my pet peeves are players that say that "anything could go" but then don't really mean it.

Like QM:
"If it is in the game it is fair play!" but then goes on to say: "Well... except for that MoD thingy... that is totally an exploit!"

It's totally hypocritical to say that you think the game should be played as is and then give exceptions.

And yes... those aren't exact quotes - but the impression they give is the same.

[Baalz]

Velusion said:

I pretty much agree with everything your saying.

However, on the flip side, one of my pet peeves are players that say that "anything could go" but then don't really mean it.

Like QM:
"If it is in the game it is fair play!" but then goes on to say: "Well... except for that MoD thingy... that is totally an exploit!"

It's totally hypocritical to say that you think the game should be played as is and then give exceptions.

And yes... those aren't exact quotes - but the impression they give is the same.

I don't think most people who take that position are hypocritical, any more than I think it's hypocritical to host a game and allow some tactics but not others. I think the basis of this is "does this break the game?". We can disagree as to what satisfies that condition, but its a very different discussion than what's an "exploit" in an "unintended" game mechanic. The position to ban the MoD exploit has nothing to do with it being unintended, it has to do with the opinion that it really breaks the game. Heck, most of the MP games I've joined lately have banned Arcane Nexus for the same reason. The difference is MoD is pretty much the only universally frowned on tactic so should probably be assumed to be banned unless something is said.