Forums » Bugs
Mentoring Exploit
This isn't really a bug, but a possible exploit: It's possible to start a second account (only the trial hours) and mentor yourself (Start a new pilot on the second account, mentor him with your main pilot). Woud it be possible to fix that? You could, for example, disable the /mentor command in the trial hours or something like that...
-Lukas
PS: If this is a stupid suggestion, delete the post :)
-Lukas
PS: If this is a stupid suggestion, delete the post :)
Disabling mentoring all together would be bad. I think making you unable to rate your mentor until you've paid is a good idea.
Quick question:
Wouldn't that make it impossible for 97.5% of all players to achieve the mentor badge, and damn hard for those that do?
The other thing, is that it eliminated the incentive to mentor trial newbs, and need I point out that failure to help those people get started could very well be failure to acquire new paying members!
Of all the newbs I've mentored (and I've mentored quite a lot), only a very small percentage became paying members (probably even fewer would have, had I not mentored them) and for the most part, by the time they are paying members, they have no need for a mentor, which makes mentoring nothing but a pointless excercise in paying people for their unspent mentor points (instead of teaching people things).
that's my 2c...
Wouldn't that make it impossible for 97.5% of all players to achieve the mentor badge, and damn hard for those that do?
The other thing, is that it eliminated the incentive to mentor trial newbs, and need I point out that failure to help those people get started could very well be failure to acquire new paying members!
Of all the newbs I've mentored (and I've mentored quite a lot), only a very small percentage became paying members (probably even fewer would have, had I not mentored them) and for the most part, by the time they are paying members, they have no need for a mentor, which makes mentoring nothing but a pointless excercise in paying people for their unspent mentor points (instead of teaching people things).
that's my 2c...
Yea, i see your point. I just thought i'd post it. But i see, it's difficut to implement...
-Lukas
-Lukas
I think (and maybe someone can affirm this) that there is a limit on how many points each account can give out as a deterrent from said tactics.
EDIT: All this talk about the mentoring system reminded me...
there seems to be a bug, that if you level up one level in any session, you "reach too high a level" to be mentored (so, say a newb gets lvl 1 trading, and then wants to enlist a mentor, they can't, unless they log off and back on)
Meanwhile, even very HIGH level players can request a mentor so long as they haven't levelled that session (I found this out, because I was trying to accept a mentor invite to mentor a lvl 0/1/0/1/0 newb, and I ccidentally typed /mentor invite instead, and the newb instinctively followed the instructions, accepted, and became my mentor - I'm 9/11/11/12/6... that's wrong... very wrong.)
EDIT: All this talk about the mentoring system reminded me...
there seems to be a bug, that if you level up one level in any session, you "reach too high a level" to be mentored (so, say a newb gets lvl 1 trading, and then wants to enlist a mentor, they can't, unless they log off and back on)
Meanwhile, even very HIGH level players can request a mentor so long as they haven't levelled that session (I found this out, because I was trying to accept a mentor invite to mentor a lvl 0/1/0/1/0 newb, and I ccidentally typed /mentor invite instead, and the newb instinctively followed the instructions, accepted, and became my mentor - I'm 9/11/11/12/6... that's wrong... very wrong.)
Could we go over why disabling mentoring altogether would be bad again?
The only people that bother with mentoring anyway are barely any better informed than their students. And the only thing they know that their mentorees don't is usually limited to the fact that they've head you can get a cool battery if you mentor a bunch of people, whereas their victims have not.
The only reasonable reason to continue with the mentor system I can see is to promote global fairness, so that those that never had a chance to try for the ultra charge battery don't feel slighted if they suddenly loose the chance of getting it. And that's not that reasonable a reason, really.
The only people that bother with mentoring anyway are barely any better informed than their students. And the only thing they know that their mentorees don't is usually limited to the fact that they've head you can get a cool battery if you mentor a bunch of people, whereas their victims have not.
The only reasonable reason to continue with the mentor system I can see is to promote global fairness, so that those that never had a chance to try for the ultra charge battery don't feel slighted if they suddenly loose the chance of getting it. And that's not that reasonable a reason, really.
genka,
Your so omniscient.
Your so omniscient.
Haha, I like how you refer to "mentorees" as "victims".
:P
:P
Wow, I never thought I'd say this, but I agree with genka. Although maybe instead of disabling mentoring completely, what if you were not allowed to mentor until you'd reached a certain level requirement? A high level requirement.
i also agree with genka (The sky is falling!! The sky is falling!!!)
lets just scrap the whole mentoring award concept for now as the people who are actually using it are largely interested in the rewards and not in actually helping new players.
and the exploit for mentoring that involves a trial account can be re-used because there is no limit to the number of trial accounts you can create.
Wouldn't that make it impossible for 97.5% of all players to achieve the mentor badge, and damn hard for those that do?
probably, but why is that a bad thing? I'm still of the opinion that the rewards for mentoring should be far more intangible as far as gameplay goes... (how about a ship for mentors, use the exact same stats and model as some other ship and give it a cool name, or a custom paint color, or a big holographic sign in some capital sector that lists all the 'mentors'.
Sorry Dihelical Synthesis, the fact that it would make it harder to get a badge is no reason to leave an exploit in the game.
lets just scrap the whole mentoring award concept for now as the people who are actually using it are largely interested in the rewards and not in actually helping new players.
and the exploit for mentoring that involves a trial account can be re-used because there is no limit to the number of trial accounts you can create.
Wouldn't that make it impossible for 97.5% of all players to achieve the mentor badge, and damn hard for those that do?
probably, but why is that a bad thing? I'm still of the opinion that the rewards for mentoring should be far more intangible as far as gameplay goes... (how about a ship for mentors, use the exact same stats and model as some other ship and give it a cool name, or a custom paint color, or a big holographic sign in some capital sector that lists all the 'mentors'.
Sorry Dihelical Synthesis, the fact that it would make it harder to get a badge is no reason to leave an exploit in the game.
Well, I was interested in helping new players. Most of my mentorees vanished, though. I hope It wasn't because I was a horrible mentor...
Well, i think the mentoring system should be changed, not removed. The change would be: remove the awards, add a mentor chat-channel and allow a player to have more than 1 mentoree at once. With this, you wouldn't have to say anything three times.
I don't like the idea to remove mentoring completely, for it's a good thing to help new players. (one of the reasons why i left shadowbane... :/ )
-Lukas
I don't like the idea to remove mentoring completely, for it's a good thing to help new players. (one of the reasons why i left shadowbane... :/ )
-Lukas
I also don't think mentoring should be removed... but it really needs a change. Mentors need some useful tools that actually make the /mentor command viable... some ideas we had come up with before:
•The ability for the mentoree to transfer ship control temporarily over to the mentor.
•The ability for the mentor to view from the mentoree's ship.
•The ability for the mentor to send 'notes' to the mentoree... like an e-mail.
•A combat training sector or area separate from the rest of space where no actual ship or monetary loss occurs - a ship becomes paralyzed for 15 seconds when its health reaches 0% (something like a simulator - where two people can use it even if on opposite sides of the galaxy).
•Integrate the mentor system into the end of the tutorial, perhaps.
•The ability for the mentoree to transfer ship control temporarily over to the mentor.
•The ability for the mentor to view from the mentoree's ship.
•The ability for the mentor to send 'notes' to the mentoree... like an e-mail.
•A combat training sector or area separate from the rest of space where no actual ship or monetary loss occurs - a ship becomes paralyzed for 15 seconds when its health reaches 0% (something like a simulator - where two people can use it even if on opposite sides of the galaxy).
•Integrate the mentor system into the end of the tutorial, perhaps.
I thought all this was sorted out when Me and Solra had our race to the ultra charge. I guess not... That was a year and a quarter ago.