Factional Warfare - CCP Inaction Towards Bugs/Exploits (CSM)

Stats

• Title: Factional Warfare - CCP Inaction Towards Bugs/Exploits
• Raised by: Z0D
• Submission Date: 14 Jan 2010
• Issue ID: ???

Summary

Unfortunately, there are many bugs and serious exploits which plague or have plagued Factional Warfare. When CCP is alerted of the existance of these bugs, they either do not take action at all or a response takes several months. In addition, no-one has ever been banned for abusing Factional Warfare exploits, even though exploiters continue to ruin the game experience for thousands of players and/or make serious ISK through exploiting loopholes and bugs.

The most noticable bugs/exploits/loopholes are:

• Rigging timers to count down by themself, been reported for a year and reproduced by Ankhesentapemkah at fanfest, used to capture all Gallente space and for the blitzkrieg into Minmatar space by the Caldari. Became widespread due to CCP inaction and is currently being used by certain players in all factions. Still not fixed, no-one banned, GMs won't take action, CCP ignoring the issue completely.
• Cloaked plexing, a bug introduced in Apocrypha, allowed players to contest plexes while under the effects of a cloaking device, making it very hard to engage them in combat. Used extensively, took over 4 months to fix, no-one was banned.
• FW Mission farming. Alarm bells should've been ringing before this mechanic even made it on live server. Allowed players to decline missions indefinately until they got the exact mission in the exact system they wanted. Trillions of ISK were generated, and it took CCP months to act despite all the warnings sent in their direction from day one. Even the initial fix didn't actually fix the problem yet somehow made it on live server as well. A famous display of lack of knowledge about FW game mechanics by CCP.
• Alts with insane standings generated by the above loophole not being shot at by NPCs, capturing complexes unhindered. Ruining the game for thousands of players. CCP did not act despite being warned directly repeatedly.

At the moment, a faction's success in FW is determined by how many exploits they know and use, and how many alts they are willing to commit to the task. Exploits have become widespread thanks to CCPs inaction. If CCP had acted within a few days, declared these things exploits, and banned the people using them, FW would not be in the sorry state it is in today.

Potential Solutions

• Review of CCPs internal policies regarding FW exploits, aiming to bring down response time to under a week
• CCP declaring issues an exploit publicly and warning people not to abuse these
• Dedicating more resources to FW development, focusing on fixing bugs and exploits first
• CCP banning people known for using FW exploits
• GMs should be more knowledgable about FW game mechanics so they act on exploit petitions instead of ignoring these

Relevant Forum Threads

• http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1242714
• http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1227732

Votes

• ElvenLord - yes
• Alekseyev Karrde - yes
• T'Amber - yes
• TeaDaze - yes
• Mrs Trzzbk - yes
• Helen Highwater - yes
• Z0D - yes
• Song Li - yes
• Sokratesz - yes

Passes: 9/0