So people are defending the msq dc exploit

[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.

[kikix12]

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.

Of course it was an exploit. Not because of turning off the game or anything, but because it used an in-game flaw to achieve something that the developers did not intend. You submitted the same score multiple times through the flaw of the IN-GAME code, the flaw of it saving the scores that are not submitted properly...but also stacking them. The exploit begun before you even turned the game off.

That and this are two different things. Complain all you want, but "semantics" are extremely important in any kind of clash of interests. Semantics are what can make or break a court case. You cannot dismiss them just cause you think that "If they do something that I don't want them to do, it must be an exploit". I never said that what they are doing is "good". But I did say that technically speaking it is not an exploit, therefore they cannot be banned for what they did up till now. It will become an exploit if the developers will find a way to deal with the problem (like counting the run-down of the cutscene even when someone is disconnected) and players will somehow manage to dodge that, because at that point they should not have normally access to the system they are using now.