So people are defending the msq dc exploit

[Freyt]

It's neither a loophole nor something they can really ban for (if they want to be remotely professional). Alt+F4 is a fundamental system function, it's not a game exploit. Both bugs and exploits NEED to interact with the actual code of a program either changing it, or it running in an unintended way. Turning the code off is not that. A program that does not allow that is pretty much a virus, or at the very least, critically bugged. A game that does not account for that in its design is badly programmed.

Piling horrible choice to fix a horrible choice meant to fix a horrible choice is a straight way to trouble for a company. They should finally suck it up and deal with something related to this issue with some degree of competence.

In case of this cutscene-skipping method, the ONLY option they have to enforce it competently is for the cutscene to continue running for every player, even if they disconnected. If they'd disconnect 1 minute into a 5 minute cutscene and come back after 3th minute, they'd load into the 3th minute of the cutscene...seeing the exact same thing as if they didn't disconnect. I repeat, that is the only proper solution that does not involve actually fixing the problem.

Not necessary. Just freeze the players motion until everyone has finished the cutscene.

[kikix12]

Not necessary. Just freeze the players motion until everyone has finished the cutscene.

Doesn't work. There are cutscenes that are in the middle of battle. If a player could end up skipping the cutscene somehow but not move, what...you let them die?!

Offering broken solutions to fix a broken solution doesn't help. Especially when you offer them as an alternative to an actual solution that achieves exactly what it's meant to do. Make everyone see the cutscenes throughout their length and no second longer/less.

[Pells]

Doesn't work. There are cutscenes that are in the middle of battle. If a player could end up skipping the cutscene somehow but not move, what...you let them die?!

There are worse punishments for using exploits.

[BillyKaplan]

There are worse punishments for using exploits.

Exploits aren't the only reason why people would come out of cutscenes before others. Sometimes it's simply the loading times. And then you're punishing people who have done no wrong. That's the problem with most 'solutions' people are suggesting.

Good thing no one is forced to do the MSQ roulette.

But you are forced to run the dungeons themselves the once on each character.

[kikix12]

There are worse punishments for using exploits.

Except, as I said, it is not an exploit. And it can very well happen by sheer accident too, not only by players intent.

I don't know of any like that, and I have to think you're being difficult.

The first of the two in literally the first minute already have a cutscene in the middle of the battle. Even with the overpowered gear, tanks sometimes died there after gathering all the mobs but with the healers watching the cutscene. Albeit I admit that one is rather short.

You can easily make it so the enemy will not attack a player that is locked in place due to the cutscene.

That's a lot of extra work that can not only be prone to being bugged, but also possibly exploited somehow.

And before you respond with something, why don't you give it about a minute of thought regarding what possible things can be done to prevent from whatever response you've got from being a problem?

There are many ways they can go about it. But I specifically said there is only one competent way. Competent, aka. a solution that both neutralizes the "problem" that it's supposed to do without creating any more, and that takes minimal amount of work changing minimum amount of things. Because when you're programing you don't want your systems to be bloated and dependent on one another if possible.

Your idea is a "fix" that needs its own fixes. That's already not "competent". It's another half-assed thing to do. It tries to 'solve the problem' by not affecting it at all (the problem is skipping cutscenes, killing the monsters early is the result!). It is simply more of the same pointless stuff.

I tried queuing for the roulette as a DPS earlier today (public holiday, early-to-mid afternoon) and the predicted wait time was 15 minutes. That's pretty normal for a dungeon queue on my server.

Requeued as tank, less than five minutes' wait.

Did you actually wait?! I had 7min wait time turn into over 50 minutes on more than one occasion. "Wait time" doesn't mean much, it's just a prediction.

[Iscah]

Did you actually wait?! I had 7min wait time turn into over 50 minutes on more than one occasion. "Wait time" doesn't mean much, it's just a prediction.

I didn't wait for the DPS queue, because I wanted to level my tank, and didn't want or need to take up a DPS slot. I did wait as tank, and did get in quickly.

"Average wait time" means exactly that - an average of how long people have recently had to wait in the queue. There can always be anomalies where a lot of people queued at once by chance, or a stretch where nobody joins the queue with the right classes to make up a full party, but on average it should be accurate. Though admittedly I should have done it a few times over an hour or so to see if it was varying or staying fairly constant.

Generally, there are two points where the prediction can be badly out: at a time where a decreasing number of people are joining the queue (eg. as more people finish up later at night), and certain times when you queue directly for a single dungeon.

Specifically, if you queue for a dungeon and it says the average wait is "less than five minutes", it's quite likely this is incorrect - because if you're the only person to queue for it over the period it calculates from, it has the unhelpful quirk of still giving you "the average" of how long all the people have been waiting. You've been waiting for one minute? The average wait time is less than five minutes!

On the other hand, if it does give you an estimate with a specific number of minutes, I'm fairly sure it's going to be an accurate indicator of how long other people have been waiting. Again, not a guarantee that you'll have the same wait time, but likely to be similar. Busier roulettes will be increasingly constant.

[Iscah]

Except, as I said, it is not an exploit. And it can very well happen by sheer accident too, not only by players intent.

I don't see how the fact that it can happen by accident, makes it "not an exploit" if you do it deliberately.

It's exploiting the way that cutscenes are triggered (approach point X, cutscene activates, the system ticks it as 'done' and won't replay/resume it if you drop out and reconnect). By doing that deliberately to get around the enforced playback of cutscenes, and continue playing when you should not be able to, that is an exploit.


Interestingly, I went to get the dictionary definition for the general meaning of the word, and found there's a specific one regarding videogames. Quoting the whole entry, bolding is mine.

exploit (2)

to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account: to exploit a business opportunity.
to use selfishly for one's own ends: employers who exploit their workers.
to advance or further through exploitation; promote: He exploited his new movie through a series of guest appearances.

noun Digital Technology.

a flaw in hardware or software that is vulnerable to hacking or other cyberattacks.
a piece of software that takes advantage of such a flaw to compromise a computer system or network.
(in a video game) the use of a bug or flaw in game design to a player’s advantage or to the disadvantage of other players.

It is a flaw in the game programming, and by doing it deliberately you are using it to your advantage, and the possible disadvantage of other players. (ie. a new player who is now missing out on the fight, and getting its dialogue out-of-order over the middle of the preceding cutscene.)

[kikix12]

I don't see how the fact that it can happen by accident, makes it "not an exploit" if you do it deliberately.

This have nothing to do with each other. It's not an exploit not because it can happen on accident, but because it does not match the definition. Yes, I'll use the definition you offered. Though I shouldn't have to, seeing as it never said anything more than I already did...so I basically already answered it.

It's exploiting the way that cutscenes are triggered (approach point X, cutscene activates, the system ticks it as 'done' and won't replay/resume it if you drop out and reconnect). By doing that deliberately to get around the enforced playback of cutscenes, and continue playing when you should not be able to, that is an exploit.

That is entirely wrong. You do not exploit anything. Why?!

1) The cutscene being skipped is as designed.
2) The Alt + F4 is Windows function, not game function. The game does not stop it (and it shouldn't, it's emergency shutdown necessary to protect computer for harmful effects of bugs etc, among others, or when someone really needs to leave "this instant").
3) Neither code affects each other directly. It is a command that tells Windows to stop executing a program.

For a more in-depth...read further.

"(in a video game) the use of a bug or flaw in game design to a player’s advantage or to the disadvantage of other players."

It is a flaw in the game programming, and by doing it deliberately you are using it to your advantage, and the possible disadvantage of other players. (ie. a new player who is now missing out on the fight, and getting its dialogue out-of-order over the middle of the preceding cutscene.)

This is not a flaw in the design of the program. It does not use the program at all. For it to be Final Fantasy XIV exploit, it needs to affect how the FFXIV program is run. It does not. A program can, should and will be turned on and off by a player at any point. It is entirely a developers duty to make sure that turning it on or off through ALT+F4 won't break anything. That's because once you use that...developers cannot have any right to do anything about it, while it's not a good idea to have your code bug out from executing a fundamental function.

That is why developers themselves made systems that are meant to deal with it. The program keeps you logged in for a time to avoid using it to prevent deaths and losses in PvP and such, among others.

And you know what?! One of those systems is NOT cutscene skipping, normally. Did you know?! If you get disconnected in the middle of a cutscene after talking to an NPC, your talking to the NPC is NOT registered. You can talk with him again and get the cutscene to run again. Otherwise I wouldn't have seen any of the long cutscenes at the end of stories because I ALWAYS got disconnected during them at least once up till now.

So developers specifically chose cutscenes in dungeons to not re-trigger after a disconnection. Otherwise the unseen cutscene would auto-trigger on loading in into the instance.

Ultimately, there is no in-game effect unintended by the developers that is in any way affected by the players use of the in-game tools.


If you want to be nitpicky you can call it a Windows exploit. Using the Windows function to avoid something in another program is not it's intended functionality. But sorry, Square Enix does not own Windows. They cannot do anything based on account of you exploiting Windows. And heck, you could do it by turning off your router/modem. They don't own your router/modem either. Neither your cables that you can disconnect...and so on and so forth.


Is it an oversight on Square Enix?! Probably yes. It's still possible they actually caught it and left there on purpose for the sake of helping the queue times (they can drop the bad blood onto the players saying that "We tried to alleviate the issue, but the bad players are still bad", all the while still harvesting the bounty of these "bad players" solving their screw-up for them). But you see, there's an "oversight" and there's an "exploit".

Ultimately the point here is the use of something WITHIN Final Fantasy XIV to gain advantage in Final Fantasy XIV. But you cannot exploit turning on or turning off Final Fantasy XIV. That's just illogical. If they don't want that to be used like it is THEY need to suck it up and change how those things affect the gameplay. Square Enix. Not the players. What the players are doing is in the gray area. It is "legal", but "inappropriate". In law it is something that you cannot be penalized for when you do it, but that'd lead to a new legislature that'd make your future attempts illegal.

[Iscah]

That is entirely wrong. You do not exploit anything. Why?!

1) The cutscene being skipped is as designed.
2) The Alt + F4 is Windows function, not game function. The game does not stop it (and it shouldn't, it's emergency shutdown necessary to protect computer for harmful effects of bugs etc, among others, or when someone really needs to leave "this instant").
3) Neither code affects each other directly. It is a command that tells Windows to stop executing a program.

...

This is not a flaw in the design of the program. It does not use the program at all. For it to be Final Fantasy XIV exploit, it needs to affect how the FFXIV program is run. It does not. [...]

If you want to be nitpicky you can call it a Windows exploit. Using the Windows function to avoid something in another program is not it's intended functionality. But sorry, Square Enix does not own Windows. They cannot do anything based on account of you exploiting Windows. And heck, you could do it by turning off your router/modem. They don't own your router/modem either. Neither your cables that you can disconnect...and so on and so forth.

"If you want to be nitpicky", you can insist that the overall process is not an exploit because it does not directly rely on FFXIV's programming to work.

I would debate that part of it - it seems to rely on the nature of how the game handles cutscene playback - but even if it is "only" a Windows exploit and not a FFXIV exploit, it is still using an exploit of one kind or another to get around the forced cutscenes.


The clear design intent (in the current build of the dungeon) is that everyone is locked in place until a cutscene ends, and progresses through the dungeon together. (We know that is their intent because they have said so - that the change has been implemented to ensure that new players can experience the dungeon as intended, without being rushed or left behind.)

The flaw is that they can't directly lock players in place for this, and instead implement it by locking them into the "viewing cutscene" status. When the game is running normally, there is no way around this status.

A second flaw is that the game does not (and possibly cannot) reapply the "viewing cutscene" status to a player logging back in after a disconnect.

The vulnerability which they cannot program against because (as you said) it is above and beyond their software, is that people can do something they would not do in the course of normal gameplay: deliberately force-quit the game and then log straight back into it.

Put these things together, and you can deliberately quit and log back in to be free to move when the game intended for you to be still locked in the cutscene.

That is an exploit. It takes advantage of how the different elements of the system interact, to do something outside of what the programmers intended.

And you know what?! One of those systems [for dealing with Alt+F4] is NOT cutscene skipping, normally. Did you know?! If you get disconnected in the middle of a cutscene after talking to an NPC, your talking to the NPC is NOT registered. You can talk with him again and get the cutscene to run again.

So developers specifically chose cutscenes in dungeons to not re-trigger after a disconnection. Otherwise the unseen cutscene would auto-trigger on loading in into the instance.

This is guesswork, but I think it's programmed differently between single-player content and multiplayer content.


In single-player content, it works as you described. A cutscene is triggered by interacting with an NPC or objective, and is only marked off as 'done' when you (the only person involved) have reached the end of it, or opted to skip it.


In multiplayer content, I think it has to work differently to accomodate the fact that there are four/eight people having the same experience together, and possibly the nature of the instanced content.

As I see it:

1. A cutscene is triggered when one party member reaches a flagged point. Everyone watches the cutscene simultaneously.

2. At this point I believe the flag is removed and/or the cutscene is considered 'played', preventing it from playing again when the next person reaches the flagged location.

3. Disconnecting and returning to the instance does not reset the flag. The cutscene has been played, it's done, and it will not trigger again during this instance.

As much as they want everyone to be able to watch the cutscenes, it's probably necessary to handle "unintended disconnects" this way - even more so after implementing the forced scenes. Imagine if someone with genuine connection issues kept getting thrown out of the game, logging back in, and having to watch the same cutscene three-quarters of the way through before their connection broke again? They'd be stuck there for ages.


Also worth mentioning, I had the misfortune to start my original run of Praetorium just as the system came under a DDoS attack. It was disconnection hell, and a curious side effect of this? If I was disconnected when a cutscene was triggered, not only did I miss seeing it, but the system didn't even recognise that I had unlocked it. The Unending Journey cutscene viewer only contained the scenes I'd been present for, and a second run through the dungeon doubled the number of cutscenes listed for it.

What the players are doing is in the gray area. It is "legal", but "inappropriate". In law it is something that you cannot be penalized for when you do it, but that'd lead to a new legislature that'd make your future attempts illegal.

Without actually checking the ToS, I would expect it says you cannot exploit flaws in the game programming to gain an advantage, or affect another player's experience.

Argue the semantics all you like, but I am fairly sure this is exploiting a flaw in the game programming - specifically in the method used to lock player movement and prevent some from moving ahead of the group - that is only exposed in conjunction with a Windows function that the programmers cannot prevent you from using.


---

I should add that I found a game exploit myself, once. Just a mobile game that unlocked more characters and items according to your running total of high scores. It happened completely by accident - one time I was having trouble submitting my score to the leaderboard, it kept getting knocked back, and I eventually realised that my internet had dropped out.

When I turned it back on and submitted my score, I got credited for every attempted submission of that score. Hundreds of points and gems and whatever it was the game ran on. So I did it again deliberately a few times. I got all the characters and skills unlocked in a couple of days instead of weeks or months of play.

In this case, it affected nobody except myself (and the company throwing out cheap mobile games intended to suck you into paying for extra credits). But it was definitely an exploit. The fact that I found it by accident doesn't change that.

[Pells]

You can easily make it so the enemy will not attack a player that is locked in place due to the cutscene.

That's a lot of extra work that can not only be prone to being bugged, but also possibly exploited somehow.

How it worked before they made cutscenes unskippable: everyone in a cutscene was made invulnerable to damage. We didn't actually disappear from the fight. It could have been exploited, but most tanks would leave cutscenes as soon as possible.



It shouldn't be too much extra work to extend the invunlerability to the same duration as a movement lock since the mechanism already exists.


Personally, I think the problem will be loss of control. Seeing your character and being unable to do anything would be super aggravating, just like any kind of crowd control used against players is very unpopular. Things like being slowed while running past a mob. I can see this being taken even worse than just being forced to watch the cutscene.