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Critical Exploit in Pokemon Sword / Shield Allows For Easy Cheating On The Ladder (update: International Challenge compromised by this glitch)

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Theorymon

Theorymon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,377
Unfortunately, yet another critical bug has been found for Sword and Shield. We had one a few months ago where everyone in Master Ball Tier was banned, but that was thankfully fixed in about 12 hours (In fact, I made a rather paniced thread about it!). We only recently had that Surprise Trade bug after weeks of waiting, in which people could put malicious code in their Pokemon that'd brick people's online services.

Today, a particularly devestating bug that massively impacts competitive Pokemon has been found.

This bug is easy to exploit. All that must be done is pushing the power button to disconect the Switch at a specfic time after losing the match. When done correctly, not only does the loser NOT lose points for their match, but the winner does not GAIN points for the match won. So basically, this totally nulls the match, and ruins the whole point of laddering in Pokemon.

Before anyone chides me for mentioning the method, it's already everywhere in the Japanese twitter sphere, its now a well known bug.



Hell, I've already seen a smogon buddy of mine get hit on the reciving end of this exploit! This is what it looks like when this glitch has been used against you:

dc_bug_exploit_mar-31.jpg


Needless to say, this totally destroys the idea of laddering in Pokemon. This was shown publicly RIGHT before this season ended, so that might cause some late season mayhem. But it's going to be especially bad next season, which starts in 2 days. I have no idea if Gamefreak is going to take their sweet time to patch this or not. I sure hope they don't, I had a new team almost ready for next season and everything :(

In the mean time, I'd advise against laddering in Pokemon Sword and Shield, it's pointless when its this easy to just disregard losses.
 
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KillstealWolf

KillstealWolf

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
16,093
A Missingno glitch was also discovered that's allowed people to duplicate pokemon (As well as any held items they are holding).
 
SchroDingerzat

SchroDingerzat

One Winged Slayer
Member
Sep 24, 2018
1,600
KillstealWolf said:
A Missingno glitch was also discovered that's allowed people to duplicate pokemon (As well as any held items they are holding).
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Between this and the point exploit, I am now wondering more then ever why we don't have cloud saves. As obviously their exclusion doesn't stop cheating.

Jessie said:
So nothing in this game outside of the campaign really matters huh
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They might as well give us cloud saves now.
 
OP
OP
Theorymon

Theorymon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,377
So April's season has started, and with it, all we got is a rank reset. Is it related to the exploit? No one knows, neither Gamefreak or Nintendo is saying jackshit about it.

This fucking sucks. I realize the virus may be impacting the ability to fix stuff quickly, but I'd at least appreciate some sort of statement. Right now, Gamefreak isn't even acknowlding that there's an exploit that makes the ladder worthless at the moment. This gen in general, Gamefreak and Nintendo just have not been transparent when its needed most (except for revealing Dexit I guess, gotta give them props for not making that a nasty launch surprise).
 
Starlightmuse

Starlightmuse

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 27, 2017
414
Thank god they don't allow cloud saves so people can't cheat and duplicate pokemons
 
International Challenge has also been compromised, and further updates
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    Theorymon

    Theorymon

    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
    1,377
    So this is still going on, and I think its time for an update on the situation.

    So as of today, the only reponse Gamefreak / TPC / Nintendo has had to this situation is this statement: https://www.pokemon-support.com/news/s/article/000002193

    So I don't know Japanese, but from a Japanese competitive pal of mine, the jist of the statement appears to be that they'll ban people that are caught doing this glitch, but 0 mention about an intention to eventully patch this exploit. It gets far worse than that though.

    See, if you search 切断バグ on twitter, you're going to notice a lot of people beating a guy named "HARU". This guy is currently #2 on the singles ladder, and this is because he's exploiting the hell out of the glitch, and has been doing so all month. It seems like gamefreak hasn't banned ANYONE despite their threats to do so. It's possibly because the glitch just totally wipes the battle, so they can't catch anyone on their end. I don't think you can even take videos via the Switch because an error message pops up when the glitch is successfully exploited.

    So basically, Gamefreak's threats of banning ring hollow, and comeptitive Pokemon on the Switch has been SERIOUSLY compromised.

    To make matters worse, the International Competiton that was done for VGC online has ALSO been compromised, with the person who topped the competiton admiting that they abused the hell out of the glitch to win https://twitter.com/poke_poke_sword/status/1249413904804876288?s=20



    So to sum it up: Nothing has been done about this glitch for over a month. Nintendo, The Pokemon Company, and Gamefreak have not mentioned any intentions on patching this glitch in the future, just vague statements about banning people that they have not actually enacted on in almost a month.

    Excuse my language but... this is fucking horse shit. At least MENTION an intention to patch. I realize the virus is fucking up everything, but all we've gotten is a vague statement that hasn't led to anything, while the competitive community for this game is has been on fucking fire for almost a month. This is probably the worst handling of a competitive ladder I've EVER seen on Pokemon. It sucks too, the actual competitive play is a lot of fun this gen, but it seems like Gamefreak, TPC, and Nintendo just can not get a handle on this situation.

    If this isn't fixed, I'll probably have to sadly quit this game. it sucks, but I havent even had the motivation to ladder this season (beyond maybe reaching master ball to get my usual rewards), because it doesn't even mean anything at the moment when people can just cheat their way to the top by exploiting an easy to use glitch.
     
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    • Rafavert

    Rafavert

    Member
    Oct 31, 2017
    862
    Portugal
    It's just sad seeing how much GF messed up in these two games. This exploit, the one from the raids (opening a raid to change the clock, resulting in a lot of "dead" raids online), duping, the forced Exp Share, the really obvious cut corners in the main story... It's a shame too, because this generation has some amazing designs, as always. The ideas are there. It's just the execution that fell flat. I hope we see a change for the better, despite the sales.
     
    Doskoi Panda

    Doskoi Panda

    One Winged Slayer
    Member
    Oct 27, 2017
    14,960
    Wow, I can't believe it's still happening. Every time I think about going back to this game it takes like ten minutes of looking into it to remind myself that I stopped playing it for good reasons.
    Rafavert said:
    It's just sad seeing how much GF messed up in these two games. This exploit, the one from the raids (opening a raid to change the clock, resulting in a lot of "dead" raids online), duping, the forced Exp Share, the really obvious cut corners in the main story... It's a shame too, because this generation has some amazing designs, as always. The ideas are there. It's just the execution that fell flat. I hope we see a change for the better, despite the sales.
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    Never in my life seen a game bring a franchise down like this and still get a pass like Sw/Sh do
     
    Rafavert

    Rafavert

    Member
    Oct 31, 2017
    862
    Portugal
    Solid said:
    Wow, I can't believe it's still happening. Every time I think about going back to this game it takes like ten minutes of looking into it to remind myself that I stopped playing it for good reasons.

    Never in my life seen a game bring a franchise down like this and still get a pass like Sw/Sh do
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    I went back recently at the request of a friend who wanted to battle me only to be reminded of how bad the code system is. I mean, it's great to interact with people you didn't add to your Friend List! But needing them to interact with friends is just... urgh.

    I miss the PSS.
     
    Fj0823

    Fj0823

    Legendary Duelist
    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
    26,658
    Costa Rica
    Every time my I see something about this game, my opinion on Gamefreak sinks lower.

    They're literally communicating that they won't do squat about a game breaking exploit...after cutting corners and features and citing "Balance" as the reason.

    And they will still get a pass...
     
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    Charizard

    Charizard

    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
    2,905
    Rafavert said:
    It's just sad seeing how much GF messed up in these two games. This exploit, the one from the raids (opening a raid to change the clock, resulting in a lot of "dead" raids online), duping, the forced Exp Share, the really obvious cut corners in the main story... It's a shame too, because this generation has some amazing designs, as always. The ideas are there. It's just the execution that fell flat. I hope we see a change for the better, despite the sales.
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    The raid exploit can and generally is done offline. Even at launch before the exploit was a thing there were lots of dead raids. The online just blows and is poorly designed.
     
    Xterrian

    Xterrian

    Member
    Apr 20, 2018
    2,798
    Can't wait to see how people try to defend this.

    These games and GameFreak's handling of them are both huge disappointments.
     
    Ramsay

    Ramsay

    Member
    Jul 2, 2019
    3,623
    Australia
    Rafavert said:
    It's just sad seeing how much GF messed up in these two games. This exploit, the one from the raids (opening a raid to change the clock, resulting in a lot of "dead" raids online), duping, the forced Exp Share, the really obvious cut corners in the main story... It's a shame too, because this generation has some amazing designs, as always. The ideas are there. It's just the execution that fell flat. I hope we see a change for the better, despite the sales.
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    It's sad, because from seeing things like this, it really feels like Gamefreak just doesn't care about the series anymore.
     
    ERAsaur

    ERAsaur

    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
    750
    Hope they fix this soon, only seen it in 1/~75 of the last games I've played but it's super annoying.

    MP! said:
    I bet they're still using base code from the GB days
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    Believe they rebuilt everything in RS and further rebuilt it in DP, I highly doubt there would be modified assembly code in the modern games despite what people think of them.
     
    MP!

    MP!

    Member
    Oct 30, 2017
    5,198
    Las Vegas
    ERAsaur said:
    Hope they fix this soon, only seen it in 1/~75 of the last games I've played but it's super annoying.


    Believe they rebuilt everything in RS and further rebuilt it in DP, I highly doubt there would be modified assembly code in the modern games despite what people think of them.
    Click to expand...
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    it was just a joke.
     
    Layell

    Layell

    One Winged Slayer
    Member
    Apr 16, 2018
    1,982
    Figures they are only threatening a ban, as they have no way of even detecting or monitoring online matches that disconnect in this way.
     
    RockmanBN

    RockmanBN

    Visited by Knack - One Winged Slayer
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    Oct 25, 2017
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