Destiny streamer 'xGladd' banned from Anthem for playing the game.. efficiently [Up: Downgraded to two-week suspension]

[LossAversion]

Its stupid, but well within their rights.

READ THE GODDAMN TERMS AND SERVICES PEOPLE.

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The terms of service are ridiculously vague. "Undocumented features"? What the fuck does that even mean? "Don't do anything in this game that the developers hadn't thought of before!". Fuck off with that nonsense. EA could ban players for practically anything not spelled out in the tutorial with that terminology. People are always discovering "overpowered" or "broken" things in games. Whether that's some kind of speed boost using weird physics or some kind of weapon combination that destroys even the toughest enemies. If these things were not intended by the developer... fucking FIX the problem. Don't ban people for something that is essentially not their fault.

 

[Garlador]

Man, Bioware would have HATED it if they knew I exploited the crap out of Mass Effect 1's "infinite paragon points" bug on Noveria.

Seriously, who does this hurt? Even if they're "in their rights" (and there's a LOT wrong with most modern ToS...), it's a PvE experience, not PvP. It gives no one an "unfair advantage" over another player like a competitive game would.

... This is really not the news Anthem needs right now.

 

[Dog of Bork]

The terms of service are ridiculously vague. "Undocumented features"? What the fuck does that even mean? "Don't do anything in this game that the developers hadn't thought of before!". Fuck off with that nonsense. EA could ban players for practically anything not spelled out in the tutorial with that terminology. People are always discovering "overpowered" or "broken" things in games. Whether that's some kind of speed boost using weird physics or some kind of weapon combination that destroys even the toughest enemies. If these things were not intended by the developer... fucking FIX the problem. Don't ban people for something that is essentially not their fault.

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Apparently they need to start banning people for using luck stat (no explanation in game), combos (no explanation in game), or tabulating stat sheet or in general researching stat effects (not available or described in the game).

 

[Dreamwriter]

In what is essentially a Co-op game and nothing more is not "another thing".

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That's what makes it a problem. Let's say I happen to be one of the randoms in a group where one or two others exploit this bug. It causes glitches on my screen, it makes the boss die almost instantly before I get to have any fun. Since this streamer is teaching thousands of people to exploit the bug, now this is something that'll probably happen all the time.

Now let's say I decide to start exploiting the bug myself so I can actually have a little fun in these groups. I blow through the game in no time, there's nothing left to do. I thus feel it's a bad game and tell all my friends about that, because the game is too short and easy. That's bad for the developer.

 

[Nateo]

That's what makes it a problem. Let's say I happen to be one of the randoms in a group where one or two others exploit this bug. It causes glitches on my screen, it makes the boss die almost instantly before I get to have any fun. Since this streamer is teaching thousands of people to exploit the bug, now this is something that'll probably happen all the time.

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First of all the bug was already well known and had been there since the BETA and went unfixed THIS IS BIOWARES FAULT. And he did it with a group of friends who were also doing it, it isn't his responsibility. And he should not have been banned for it period.

Yes EA's ToS says they can, but EA's ToS also says they can revoke your account whenever they want.

Now let's say I decide to start exploiting the bug myself so I can actually have a little fun in these groups. I blow through the game in no time, there's nothing left to do. I thus feel it's a bad game and tell all my friends about that, because the game is too short and easy. That's bad for the developer.

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Again not his or our problem you chose to do that and you chose to lie, and its on Bioware to have fixed the issue. You don't see people doing this with other games like Borderlands(again). "I used a leveling exploit in BL and there was not enough content and it was too easy".

Anthems actual issue is it ACTUALLY lacks content regardless of exploits.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

Fun aside: When I started playing that and other players were zipping through a map, I thought that was an unlock at a level or a mod or something. Looked it up atleast 3 times and then did the slide jump by mistake. It's the only way to traverse in that game and often in combat.

I seriously try to do it in other open worlds now and get annoyed when I can't.

Devs.... slide jump ninja zipping... rob that from Warframe!

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In case you or anyone reading isn't aware, ninja flying in Warframe was actually a movement exploit. The devs took notice and realised it was super cool, so they made it easier to do.

Maybe Anthem, which people have criticised for being brutally hard at GM2+ even in full MW gear, could take note? Players like having a power fantasy.

No, they are punishing the guy who was told about the exploitable bug by other people, tried it himself to see if it was real, and then decided to keep using it over and over again in multiple sessions while streaming, showing others how to do it.

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Except I think he used it on one stream? Also, I think one of the people who played with him was an EA partnered streamer who's name appears in the Anthem credits: MTashed has admitted on twitter he also did the glitch and that he thinks the ban is stupid.

The Terms and Services almost literally say they can ban you for any reason they deem suitable.

So, y'know. Have fun with that undocumented features and design errors part.

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Don't be a TOSer. Think for yourself: does this rule make sense in this game?

I think people need to understand the difference between a bug and an exploit. Exploiting a game and then teaching the entire world about it is ban worthy in a GaaS game. This isn't some hard concept to understand. It's basic stuff.

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We've done this dance more times than I can care to count in this thread: no other game in this space (Destiny, The Division, or Warframe outside of one super broken instance where players used a macro to exploit it and they didn't even ban everyone who did it) bans for ability glitches like that.

 

[spad3]

A method of farming that wasn't intended by the developers is one thing, a near-instant boss kill bug, that also causes other glitches, in a multiplayer online game is quite another.

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Either way, not a reason to ban the player. In fact, they probably should have paid him for finding something their own internal testers couldn't find/didn't find. Work with the community, not against it.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Either way, not a reason to ban the player. In fact, they probably should have paid him for finding something their own internal testers couldn't find/didn't find. Work with the community, not against it.

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Someone else found it and reported it. This streamer just heard about it, tried it out, and then showed thousands of others how to do it.

 

[Demacabre]

A method of farming that wasn't intended by the developers is one thing, a near-instant boss kill bug, that also causes other glitches, in a multiplayer online game is quite another.

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Again, if it's such a huge exploit that threatens the 'economy' (i still don't understand that) and ruins fun for other players and a reason to permaban a player, why has it not been fixed in months? It's been known since alpha. If it's really that bad to the integrity of keeping the game fair (in a cooperative pve?), seems like it should go on top of the priority list of things to fix yesterday.

EDIT:
Honestly, I am not buying it as the reason. I really think it was the chest farming that had a high chance of dropping very good loot that was unintended and popped up recently. He was showing that to a large audience that could potentially lessen the grind of the end game. Idk, maybe they thought that would garner more backlash for that reason than just placing the blame on a well known and old glitch and reducing it to a 2 week suspension. The chest farming is more problematic to endgame retention of the playerbase at this juncture with their current content.

 

[Nateo]

Someone else found it and reported it. This streamer just heard about it, tried it out, and then showed thousands of others how to do it.

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Stop spreading misnformation. It was a well known bug from the damn BETA. People had already been using it plenty. The streamer also stopped using it when he was told to.

 

[Doc Kelso]

Don't be a TOSer. Think for yourself: does this rule make sense in this game?

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Sorry. To be clear I was mocking TOSer's, as you call them. Most games have a clause along these lines but it seems that Bioware is perfectly fine enforcing it in shitty ways. So in short, fuck Bioware for enforcing it. It sets a precedent that makes me incredibly reticent to support them. Per this whole debacle, I could get banned for enjoying an unintended design flaw and get banned because they don't like how I'm playing.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

Sorry. To be clear I was mocking TOSer's, as you call them. Most games have a clause along these lines but it seems that Bioware is perfectly fine enforcing it in shitty ways. So in short, fuck Bioware for enforcing it. It sets a precedent that makes me incredibly reticent to support them. Per this whole debacle, I could get banned for enjoying an unintended design flaw and get banned because they don't like how I'm playing.

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Oh, sry, I've lost track of who's pro/anti ITT. But yea, that's absolutely the problem. I'm broadly in favour of developers having a lot of latitude in their TOS when it comes to bans - players will think of all kinds of toxic shit to do and you can't account for all of it - but what matters is how they enforce that in practice. If they ban Gladd for this, then they'd ban half of the Destiny population if they were running that game.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Stop spreading misnformation. It was a well known bug from the damn BETA. People had already been using it plenty. The streamer also stopped using it when he was told to.

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What did I say that was misinformation?

Per this whole debacle, I could get banned for enjoying an unintended design flaw and get banned because they don't like how I'm playing.

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A bug that allows you to bypass the game's design entirely , causing glitches and massive damage to bosses, isn't an "unintended design flaw". Almost all multiplayer online games will ban people for exploiting major bugs like that, no matter how old the bug is.

 

[Dog of Bork]

Almost all multiplayer online games will ban people for exploiting major bugs like that, no matter how old the bug is.

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Citation needed.

 

[spad3]

Someone else found it and reported it. This streamer just heard about it, tried it out, and then showed thousands of others how to do it.

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Doesn't explain on why he's being punished for something that the devs missed. Tbh, I'd probably go out of my way to exploit something like that too and show all my friends as well. It's something that is regularly common in the video game community, level skips, boss cheeses, farming exploits, it's all part of the lifeblood of the community. Like why the hell did EA go above and beyond to punish the guy over it? Just because he shared a gaping hole in their game? By that logic all the streamers that streamed themselves cheesing Destiny raids, or speedrunners streaming games that utilize various game exploits to get faster times should all be banned. EA done fucked up again.

 

[Stouffers]

This is why I don't play EA games.

 

[Flipmenex]

Yeah, that "undocumented errors and design flaws" part is kinda blowing my mind right now.

Honest question about something that had never crossed my mind before:

Considering we can't really read the ToS before buying the game and therefore we can't know what a company will be demanding us to do, are we legally allowed to take a game back to a store and get a refund for disagreeing with the ToS?

 

[TheGhost]

Don't be a TOSer. Think for yourself: does this rule make sense in this game?
.

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Ohhhhhh shit it's AOL 1998 all over again.

But seriously TOS'ers were the worse

 

[Gatti-man]

In case you or anyone reading isn't aware, ninja flying in Warframe was actually a movement exploit. The devs took notice and realised it was super cool, so they made it easier to do.

Maybe Anthem, which people have criticised for being brutally hard at GM2+ even in full MW gear, could take note? Players like having a power fantasy.

Except I think he used it on one stream? Also, I think one of the people who played with him was an EA partnered streamer who's name appears in the Anthem credits: MTashed has admitted on twitter he also did the glitch and that he thinks the ban is stupid.

Don't be a TOSer. Think for yourself: does this rule make sense in this game?

We've done this dance more times than I can care to count in this thread: no other game in this space (Destiny, The Division, or Warframe outside of one super broken instance where players used a macro to exploit it and they didn't even ban everyone who did it) bans for ability glitches like that.

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Ok ? I really don't care if others haven't banned people it would be fine if they had. Farming is fine but glitching and exploiting is ban worthy and I won't cry a single tear for anyone that gets banned.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

Ohhhhhh shit it's AOL 1998 all over again.

But seriously TOS'ers were the worse

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Seriously tho, I was a Compuserve kiddy!

Ok ? I really don't care if others haven't banned people it would be fine if they had. Farming is fine but glitching and exploiting is ban worthy and I won't cry a single tear for anyone that gets banned.

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We've already accepted it's TOS. So, putting that to one side, I'm going to ask you the same question I've asked everyone who is supporting this ban: How does what another play does in their own private instance in a PVE game with no trading economy harm your play experience?

 

[TheGhost]

Pulling a plug on crota - exploiting

Taking advantage of things a dev didn't catch...is not violating anything. It's on the dev to take it on the chin, make a joke about it and patch it out.

Banning people is just going to get people to stop playing your game. Banning a influencer is like shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[Xeontech]

Pulling a plug on crota - exploiting

Taking advantage of things a dev didn't catch...is not violating anything. It's on the dev to take it on the chin, make a joke about it and patch it out.

Banning people is just going to get people to stop playing your game. Banning a influencer is like shooting yourself in the foot.

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Just can't catch a break can they, holy hell

 

[EloquentM]

Ok ? I really don't care if others haven't banned people it would be fine if they had. Farming is fine but glitching and exploiting is ban worthy and I won't cry a single tear for anyone that gets banned.

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Why is it banworthy?

 

[Gatti-man]

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😸

Seriously tho, I was a Compuserve kiddy!

We've already accepted it's TOS. So, putting that to one side, I'm going to ask you the same question I've asked everyone who is supporting this ban: How does what another play does in their own private instance in a PVE game with no trading economy harm your play experience?

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That's not even relevant. The game is a GaaS game. By cheating the mechaincs you're earning gold or gear that allows faster earning of gold which buys extra content. Everything is priced uniformly for a certain anticipated rate of grind. So if we allow cheaters and exploiters to grind more efficiently it's one of two choices. Either ban them or price in game content for that rate of gain. I'd rather people be banned personally.

It also trivializes content made with the idea of people not exploiting everything.

 

[Dog of Bork]

That's not even relevant. The game is a GaaS game. By cheating the mechaincs you're earning gold or gear that allows faster earning of gold which buys extra content. Everything is priced uniformly for a certain anticipated rate of grind. So if we allow cheaters and exploiters to grind more efficiently it's one of two choices. Either ban them or price in game content for that rate of gain. I'd rather people be banned personally.

It also trivializes content made with the idea of people not exploiting everything.

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Think of the shareholders!

 

[Cenauru]

That's not even relevant. The game is a GaaS game. By cheating the mechaincs you're earning gold or gear that allows faster earning of gold which buys extra content. Everything is priced uniformly for a certain anticipated rate of grind. So if we allow cheaters and exploiters to grind more efficiently it's one of two choices. Either ban them or price in game content for that rate of gain. I'd rather people be banned personally.

It also trivializes content made with the idea of people not exploiting everything.

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They should have thought about that when they released the game without fixing the issue then.

"Hey there's this bug that has existed since before the game launched that will get you free shit fast, pretty please don't use it while we do nothing about it."

 

[Laughing Banana]

A bug that allows you to bypass the game's design entirely , causing glitches and massive damage to bosses, isn't an "unintended design flaw". Almost all multiplayer online games will ban people for exploiting major bugs like that, no matter how old the bug is.

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Can you provide examples?

 

[Kittens McMittens]

That's not even relevant. The game is a GaaS game. By cheating the mechaincs you're earning gold or gear that allows faster earning of gold which buys extra content. Everything is priced uniformly for a certain anticipated rate of grind. So if we allow cheaters and exploiters to grind more efficiently it's one of two choices. Either ban them or price in game content for that rate of gain. I'd rather people be banned personally.

It also trivializes content made with the idea of people not exploiting everything.

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Like, do you even know anything about how Anthem works? All a higher drop rate gets you is better gear. There's no extra money involved. There's no in game market or trading, you just grind for drops. It's the same in all these schlooters. This isn't an MMO like WoW where the dev has to set gold prices for mats or gear or anything.

If a player is progressing faster than intended, the devs should just patch the game if they don't want players to do that. Players who are progressing faster than intended have zero impact on players who are progressing in the intended fashion. The economy portion of a schlooter is basically single player.

Can you provide examples?

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It took the TOSers about 7 pages to find an example of Warframe doing it, and even then that was a much more significant glitch that allowed you to power level full sets in minutes, and they only banned extreme cases of people abusing it who were most likely using macros too.

 

[Laughing Banana]

It took the TOSers about 7 pages to find an example of Warframe doing it, and even then that was a much more significant glitch that allowed you to power level full sets in minutes, and they only banned extreme cases of people abusing it who were most likely using macros too.

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I mean, Dreamwriter said "almost all multiplayer online games" so I thought he or she has plenty of examples ready to show it. It should be easy to find, right, considering almost all of them apparently doing the same thing.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

I mean, Dreamwriter said "almost all multiplayer online games" so I thought he or she has plenty of examples ready to show it. It should be easy to find, right, considering almost all of them apparently doing the same thing.

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I mean, it's true for games like WoW, where there is a multiplayer economy. That makes sense because a flood of gear or materials affects the play experience of other players. I'm still waiting for them to provide evidence of a game in this genre doing it, or even explain how it harms their play experience.

I expect to be waiting a long while.

 

[Deleted member 2652]

so is the swat team going to raid the next awesome games done quick

 

[Jecht]

so is swat going to raid the next awesome games done quick

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"We got a $20 donation here from Bioware that just says "SHAME. SHAME. SHAME ON ALL OF YOUUUU"

 

[Gatti-man]

Like, do you even know anything about how Anthem works? All a higher drop rate gets you is better gear. There's no extra money involved. There's no in game market or trading, you just grind for drops. It's the same in all these schlooters. This isn't an MMO like WoW where the dev has to set gold prices for mats or gear or anything.

If a player is progressing faster than intended, the devs should just patch the game if they don't want players to do that. Players who are progressing faster than intended have zero impact on players who are progressing in the intended fashion. The economy portion of a schlooter is basically single player.

It took the TOSers about 7 pages to find an example of Warframe doing it, and even then that was a much more significant glitch that allowed you to power level full sets in minutes, and they only banned extreme cases of people abusing it who were most likely using macros too.

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Yeah I'm lvl 27 so I have a pretty good idea of how anthem works. Are you joking? You get gold bonuses for Xp progression every week, doing achievements and daily's/weekly s/monthlies. Like I said it allows them to make gold faster. This isn't hard to understand if you play the game.

They should have thought about that when they released the game without fixing the issue then.

"Hey there's this bug that has existed since before the game launched that will get you free shit fast, pretty please don't use it while we do nothing about it."

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Yeah that's bullshit. You can easily play anthem without exploiting it. This is more nonsense. Don't want to get banned don't exploit. Pretty simple. Like I said zero tears for cheaters.

Think of the shareholders!

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Case in point. I mean have some idea about what you're buying into. Any treadmill game where you can exploit the currency that allows you to buy extra content will ban you for it. Common sense.

 

[Kerotan]

They should ban the developers who released the game with the bugs not the players who find them.

I'm not being serious but you get the point.

 

[Dog of Bork]

Any treadmill game where you can exploit the currency that allows you to buy extra content will ban you for it. Common sense.

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Nah, they've typically fixed the exploits and potentially rolled back the server. Bans are uncommon.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

Yeah I'm lvl 27 so I have a pretty good idea of how anthem works. Are you joking? You get gold bonuses for Xp progression every week, doing achievements and daily's/weekly s/monthlies. Like I said it allows them to make gold faster. This isn't hard to understand if you play the game.

Yeah that's bullshit. You can easily play anthem without exploiting it. This is more nonsense. Don't want to get banned don't exploit. Pretty simple. Like I said zero tears for cheaters.


Case in point. I mean have some idea about what you're buying into. Any treadmill game where you can exploit the currency that allows you to buy extra content will ban you for it. Common sense.

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Oh OK. I didn't realise you were referring to the real money store. If devs feel that someone has amassed too much currency too quickly and that's a problem, why not just roll that back? It's not even the case in this instance that he did farm up a substantial amount of currency for the real money store.

Also: having a real money store in your full price game and banning people who might be accumulating currency faster than you intended is super fucked up. That's 100% on the devs. I like how we almost managed to reach 1000 posts in this thread before this came up though. It's almost as if its not central the matter at all...

 

[Dog of Bork]

Bioware better be passing out 2 week bans for everyone running level 1 loadouts nuking endgame content. It's unfair to use that undocumented advantage to kill the content faster.

If they had the power to destroy people's hardware, that would be better, but I demand they ban people for at least two weeks for such unethical behavior.

 

[Kittens McMittens]

Bioware better be passing out 2 week bans for everyone running level 1 loadouts nuking endgame content. It's unfair to use that undocumented advantage to kill the content faster.

If they had the power to destroy people's hardware, that would be better, but I demand they ban people for at least a two weeks for such unethical behavior.

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Or how about the glitch that lets you equip abilities from any Javelin, letting you mix and match your abilities? Lesser devs might see their players having fun and put it in as a feature. I'm sure we can trust Bioware to hold the line though.

 

[irishonion]

Lol part of the tos has design errors.

Need to ban everyone useing level 1 weapons.