PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: bilbous on April 23, 2007, 01:55:59 pm
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All the time around here I hear that such and such prospective feature is bad because "it will be abused." I get really sick of this argument because I do not think there is any way that abuse can be avoided. I think the "it will be abused" argument is counter-productive and is itself abused. If someone wants to find things to abuse they will always succeed and there is just no getting around it. It also seems that the ones making the argument are the ones that gleefully go out and pursue and promulgate the abuses and use them for all they are worth. Now it is a good thing to identify weaknesses in the implementation discreetly but once they are identified and slated for a fix you are supposed to forbear exploiting them.
Perhaps my impressions are mistaken, I've been known to be wrong before, but does any of this sound right?
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What matters is not if something may be abused, but how much and what inpact it will have.
Now, most people say it may be abused and no fraking word further.
They should explain why it would be abused, in what way, how much and ultimately make a deep analise of the problem to find out i it is good enough for implementation.
But yeah, people don't do it most of the time.
Most of the time there is no black and white, but infinite shades of grey. Our brains don't think in binary (0 or 1) too.
So you are right bilbous.
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There are probably points as with anything where you run off of the middle ground and end up tipping the scale of exploitability to a level that shouldn't be accepted. Where that line is drawn is definitely as Nikodemus said, difficult to draw with much certainty. I do think you are correct in that the "it could be exploited" aspect of features can and is being used as an excuse more than is warranted. I of course have no proof though, just a general feeling.
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If the risk of exploitation out wieghs the use of the feature it shouldnt be implemented. Simple no? So Disscussions here should wiegh those two factors.
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O got something that can not be abused - eating apples. Oh wait, people can use them in fights. But people can't abuse talking to NPC, except spamming the server. Hm...what about standing around doing nothing? Yeah, that can't be abused \\o//!
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Well it seems to me that that isn't the case, Narure. First implementations of any feature can have exploits, you deal with them as they come up and move on. If after a significant effort to deal with them is unsuccessful then you can decide whether to live with the problems with perhaps GM intervention for consistent abusers or you remove the feature. If you want to remove anything that can be abused how about we start with the chat interface as it is routinely abused (OOC chatter in main, trash talk, etc.). Is that what you want?
Just because something might be abused is not enough to me. It might be enough to delay implementation but not enough to deny it. Would you like for me to go into every new wish list thread and think up some potential abuse with which to write off the idea? I do not think so, I do think it would be possible to do so, however.
@Donari some people consider standing there doing nothing an abuse of connectivity ;)
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If you want to get anywhere with this thread, I advise that you talk about specific features. Blanket statements won't accomplish anything. Some features can't be added because of possible abuse while other features can be added despite ways they can be exploited.
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The devs are making implicit cost/benefit analyses when they say things like that.
Effort to code + Griefing Potential + Game Direction cost + Effort to code limiting factors to Griefing
vs.
Incremental fun * type of audience who likes feature X
Any non-zero value for "Griefing Potential" and "Effort to code limiting factors to Griefing" raise the bar significantly for the vs. side of the equation.
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The thing is that it is not usually the developers that make such sweeping dismissals. From what I have seen the developers tend to discuss the pros and cons of any idea, without committing to its development, and that may be one of the cons they bring up for ideas about how it might be accommodated. The other route they take is to keep silent and see which ideas have legs.
There are some things that will cause grief slated to be part of the game such as thieving skills. If you can only pick-pocket npc's there doesn't seem to be much point in developing the skill, if you can only pick pockets after a challenge is accepted there is also no point. This is one of those skills that cannot be realistically implemented as there is little chance a sharp-eyed third party will be able to see the action. At least that has been my experience in any game that had the skill. If you can do better I will be amazed--no offense. The main point I want to make with this example is that nobody will want to be victimized but some allowance will have to be made.
Griefing is a social problem and as such should be dealt with in a social manner. Certainly poorly implemented functionality which allows one person or another to gain undue benefits is not the goal but sometimes you have to succeed poorly several times before you learn what you need to know to succeed well. It may be that you have to approach a function from several different directions before it operates acceptably.
Perhaps my arguments are not as convincing as I would like but I don't really need to change any minds as much as I need to express my viewpoint. Healthy discussions do not always end with consensus. :)
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Pickpocking can be implimented if the stolen goods are generated rather than taken. So you can get things from pickpocketting, but you're basically mining other players and nothing is actually stolen.
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Pickpocking can be implimented if the stolen goods are generated rather than taken. So you can get things from pickpocketting, but you're basically mining other players and nothing is actually stolen.
Or by having everyone, including NPCs, running to get you and throw you in jail in the case you're spotted, and limiting it in a way that the more you attempt to steal from someone, higher will be the risk of you being spotted.
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the problem with features like thieving is that thay maybe are needed and there are ways to avoid too big griefing, but there is so much efford from dev side to make it happen, that it won't happen... at least not now.
Just like Vengeance said and he knows it best.
I thnk this thread is not about devs who do someting wrong, ut about players who comment and discuss on features. Somestimes the discussion turns so stupid that it is hard to say what is it really about, and devs has to dig through it.
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the problem with features like thieving is that thay maybe are needed and there are ways to avoid too big griefing, but there is so much efford from dev side to make it happen, that it won't happen... at least not now.
Just like Vengeance said and he knows it best.
I thnk this thread is not about devs who do someting wrong, ut about players who comment and discuss on features. Somestimes the discussion turns so stupid that it is hard to say what is it really about, and devs has to dig through it.
Us players will keep commenting until the forums are taken away from us. And then we'll just make a new forum. There is no escape. Resistance is futile.
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Pickpocking can be implimented if the stolen goods are generated rather than taken. So you can get things from pickpocketting, but you're basically mining other players and nothing is actually stolen.
Thank you Zanzibar for this spectacularly bad idea. You must have been splitting a gut when you hit the post button. If not and it was a serious suggestion I apologize, but I will take advantage of it to try to illustrate what I have been saying.
Bad comment: This can be abused and cannot therefore be implemented.
Better comment: If this were to be implemented measures would need to be taken to ensure that two thieves would not be able to get rich standing next to each other picking each others pockets and doing nothing else. This idea is not very realistic and while it may address the natural dismay felt at the loss of an item to a thief, it probably should not be seriously considered as that dismay is fundamental to the experience of being robbed. It would be better not to implement thievery than to implement it in such a surreal manner.
Now some may feel the 'bad comment' is all that needs to be said but it is not very helpful because it does not add to discussion it merely dictates a course of action. The poser of the original suggestion is left feeling unappreciated at best and downright stupid if they can't see how it applies. I am not suggesting they are stupid but many people have a blind spot when it comes to their ideas. If they could see the logical fallacies of their thoughts they would naturally amend them.
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Pickpocking can be implimented if the stolen goods are generated rather than taken. So you can get things from pickpocketting, but you're basically mining other players and nothing is actually stolen.
Thank you Zanzibar for this spectacularly bad idea. You must have been splitting a gut when you hit the post button. If not and it was a serious suggestion I apologize, but I will take advantage of it to try to illustrate what I have been saying.
Bad comment: This can be abused and cannot therefore be implemented.
Better comment: If this were to be implemented measures would need to be taken to ensure that two thieves would not be able to get rich standing next to each other picking each others pockets and doing nothing else. This idea is not very realistic and while it may address the natural dismay felt at the loss of an item to a thief, it probably should not be seriously considered as that dismay is fundamental to the experience of being robbed. It would be better not to implement thievery than to implement it in such a surreal manner.
Now some may feel the 'bad comment' is all that needs to be said but it is not very helpful because it does not add to discussion it merely dictates a course of action. The poser of the original suggestion is left feeling unappreciated at best and downright stupid if they can't see how it applies. I am not suggesting they are stupid but many people have a blind spot when it comes to their ideas. If they could see the logical fallacies of their thoughts they would naturally amend them.
Wow, somebody's a grumpy pants today! :flowers: The obvious solutions include making it so that you can't steal from the same person twice in a row, making the rewards small, and having some sort of lockout system related to time.
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This is not discussion about thieving, unless you want it see in different forum.
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If Linus did worry too much about how his project could be abused from adding new features, we would never have seen Linux released and developed to the way it is now.
Of course there were some precautions, but they did not involve not improving thing x or not accepting hack y cause they will provoke more bugs. Instead they involved a clear worry on fixing bugs and security flaws correctly, something that was(and is) augmented by the size of the community of developers and contributors to it.
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Notice in my equation in the previous post, I also mentioned "Game direction cost". What I meant by that is the "cost" in terms of taking the game in a direction the developers do not intend and don't like.
For example, Talad doesn't really like "/tell" commands because he thinks they are unrealistic--and he wants this to be a very realistic game in certain ways because it makes it more immersive, which is what he is really after. The contrary position is that "/tell" is an easy feature to implement and incredibly useful to the community, social bonds, friendships and cybering, so it is "worth it" to sacrifice some realism or immersion to put in the feature.
Pickpocketing, OTOH, really is against our philosophy that one player cannot *involuntarily* or *anonymously* do damage to another player. Zanzibar's idea actually does get around this principle. By spawning a fresh item, the thief has the sensation of stealing while the "victim" isn't really hurt. For small enough items, this probably works. Inevitably though, if we did this, thieves would rapidly demand that their progression was "pointless" unless higher level thieves could steal bigger, more valuable items from players. The more we allow, the more valuable "something for nothing" becomes until the skill messes up the economy because it is all anyone does. Could we then nerf it by adding npc guards who constantly monitor and a system of fines, prison terms, etc.? Yes we could. <Insert reminder of coding effort in "Cost" equation here.>
These are just examples. Every feature ever considered basically has this sort of analysis done on it.
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If you were going to go that route it would be better to call it prestidigitation and do away with the whole thieving aspect. I'm not sure how realistic a world without thieves is especially when you have npc's dealing in stolen goods. I think for consistency's sake if you have npc thieves you need to allow pc thieves. In most game I have played which had thieves, quest items could not be stolen, unless monsters dropped them, and thieves had to take one thing at a time. It worked out pretty good once there were storage lockers and banks, you kept important things stowed away and you didn't let anyone stand too close to you.
Of course this thread is not about thieving except incidentally as it was used as an example.