Re. Transparency, impartiality and speaking out

Firstly, I will confess that this is not going to be completely unbiased no matter how hard I try to make it so. @NTR is a friend of mine and in this setting I think it will be nigh impossible for me to remain neutral as the OP of this thread. However, as a member of this community I feel it's important to speak out when 1) bans are issued out via terms that I believe are incorrectly justified and 2) staff making questionable claims that I do not believe are true. To others in this community, staff or not, feel free to present your own arguments on this matter via reply or PM but I would implore this thread not be deleted without letting me know and without reason to do so.

I believe transparency is an imperative concept in management. The way different shadowers have suffered over the course of this server is somewhat like a quiet rumour that permeates amongst us. Like I've said before, noting how to play shadowers 'legally' on MapleRoyals is similar to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle at the moment. Every piece of information we've received thus far has been due to various ban appeals - some making more of a footprint than others, some more contentious than others. Some staff and community members have kindly attempted to clarify what is considered allowed over the years but unfortunately this information is not readily available to players unless they actively seek out, and even then there remain areas of ambiguity.

The key issue as many are aware is that shadowers have elements in its game design that is inherently flawed and as a consequence there are certain 'grey areas' where people will inevitably explore when looking for methods to increase efficiency. Specifically I am noting the concept that the rate of dropping meso bags is directly related to the DPS of the skill meso explosion.

Another class which I believe the game design is also inherently flawed are bowmasters and the skill hurricane. Whilst not nearly mentioned as much it is well known that there is a 'tab-out' feature of this skill where the active skill hurricane will remain active even when players are using a different client. Unlike what staff have previously claimed in @NTR's ban appeal I don't actually believe this is an "intended 'feature' built into the client itself" as using two active skills simultaneously on one computer is against the principles of this game and inherently loopholes the 1 key/click to 1 action principle.

I am arguing that the use of the mouse-key '+' to drop meso bags and the use of the 'hurricane tab-out' function are both considered glitch abuse as opposed to game hacking.

I claim this because neither mouse-keys nor double-clienting can really be considered 'third-party programs' and when used in the correct situation can be quite valid. Rather they can be used inappropriately to gain a 'competitive advantage' due to inherent features of the game and these classes that are not meant to be available.

I don't play either of the two classes I've mentioned but I think it's important that players are not discriminated based on the class that they play. Why is it that there are flaws in both classes but I don't ever see any BMs being banned for abusing what I would almost certainly consider a glitch, whereas shadowers keep getting permanent bans for mouse-wheel, mouse-keys (and the list goes on) without even necessarily realising these are ban-able offences?

I will end with two suggestions.
- I think an official thread detailing all the current bugs and known glitches we have, including what would be considered glitch abuse and therefore ban-able would be immensely beneficial to new and old players alike.
- The idea of ban appeals is, in a way, there to promote transparency. Why would you go against that and delete the source thread? Contention is not necessarily a bad thing because it implies these things have a need to be discussed and addressed and not just wiped out in the hopes that people will just forget it existed over time.

Very large wall of text. Apologies as usual if anyone feels offended by anything that was said as this is not by any means my intent.

 

IMO the dev should just reduce the number of meso bags that can be dropped in a second. That way, no matter what sort of mouse wheel or mouse key you're using/abusing, your damage is still capped at a certain threshold. To be perfectly honest I think that using a feature inbuilt in your computer can result in a permanent ban is absolutely ridiculous, but I also understand that, in a way it is important to upheld the 1:1 key rebinding rule. I still think that this doesn't warrant a permanent ban, and a lighter punishment, similar to minor vote abuse should suffice.

Also, please fix ME no drop/exp glitch already. How much longer should the bandits get shit on?

 

Lets not forget that hp washing wasn't an intended feature by the developers as well... What constitutes as an intended feature or not is still solely down to an individual's opinion; and what would warrant as a perm ban is still ultimately down to a staff decision, not tnc (even in that regard, its stil a grey area on what rule did xLordGrim break).

 

To be very honest, even before @NTR 's appeal, when I think Shadowers, I think the word 'Ban' immediately.
I'm quite sure many out there believe shadower is synonymous with getting banned. That's just sad. So sad.

 

Friendly pasta dish here, with a couple of unbiased technical details ~

Mouse Keys is a third-party program, as anything outside of MapleStory application is (relatively to MapleStory, ofcourse).
As such, in my opinion, one should consult a Staff member, before making use of it, if an official thread isn't present.

Hurricane (and Rapid Fire) being able to keep firing even after the client window loses focus is a code glitch courtesy of mama Nexon.
Along with issues like Archer's Puppet crashing the game whenever it's being targeted by a monster while already disappearing, it's one of those bugs that would be extremely painful to try and fix in the current client source.
This difficulty does not make them any less of a glitch, with the difference that one can be exploitable, while the other is just disruptive.

 

Well first of all, I don't think you should put any comments on how other people should play their games. It's a game and there's maybe a million way to play it. Also, I don't think what you just said here actually connecting to the main issue they've been talking about.

For my honest opinion, I personally never hacked in any game before, believe it or not, not that because I don't know how to, but it's because that i enjoy every game's original gameplay. In this case, I honestly don't think that the "mousekey" is considered as "Game Hacking" or "Glitch Abuse", actually I don't think it actually applied on any of those terms. There's no third-party program related, but it's a regular computer built-in modifications. To be honest, this "mousekey" or "skill" has been used by people back then in old school when the pc was so shit, now that we're in a "nostalgic" server, why can't we have it like how it was. Just as how one mentioned, HP washing wasn't even "invented" in so-called nostalgic, it's an in-game "glitch" we players found just to achieve the challenge we want to face in the game, such as the Horntail boss.

If you read the terms,
"Game Hacking - The act of using or benefiting from any third-party program, macro program or otherwise defacing or modifying any part of the game software to gain any sort of advantage over other players, or otherwise selling, advertising, distributing or posting information related to the act."
- that "skill" does not apply on any of those terms above.

"Glitch Abuse - The act of exploiting any errors in game design or any features or bugs, documented or otherwise, that are not meant to be available in order to gain any sort of competitive advantage."
-well, it's not exploiting any errors or bugs and how "competitive it can be by just dropping meso bags.

I mean, I'm not here trying to challenge the terms created in the first place, I just want to point it out how there's always a loophole somewhere around the corner. Plus, how many shadower players in this server actually knows about this "skill" is perma banworthy. I personally never really played too much Shadower before, but since there's these "restrictions" the server has, I actually avoid playing it since I can't play it peacefully. Shouldn't we all be playing this game fun and peacefully?

Anyway, that's my own opinion. Take it or leave it! No hard feelings

 

Thank god that you are not my friend.....

 

Some thoughts:

I think that if players are expected to not use MouseKeys and subsequently num+ that it should be stated in the T&C of MapleRoyals. As it stands, MouseKeys can be very easily (and correctly) be interpreted as not breaking either the Game Hacking clause or the Glitch Abuse clause. It's not a third-party program, it's not a macro program, it's not defacing or modifying game files, it's not an error or bug withing MapleRoyals, nor does it exploit the "game design" of MapleRoyals. So what's the issue? Well, the issue is that the staff (or whoever) have decided that the use of MouseKeys (exclusively num+) counts as a "rebinding of 1:1 actions" which imo seems ridiculous. MouseKeys is a function as old as Windows and should be treated as something everyone has access to. Obviously not everyone is using Windows, but that's besides the point. If the staff want to get this pedantic over what is and isn't a 1:1 action, I bet I can beat them. If you aren't familiar with Windows' functions, you might not know that DoubleClick is actually a function built into all computers! While using MouseKeys, num+ actually outputs a function called DoubleClick, not single clicking twice, and is therefore a 1:1 action. Additionally, there isn't a single source i could find about whether or not num+ in MouseKeys is allowed or not, besides 1 previous ban by Sof which went unnoticed by me until today. As far as I'm concerned, there has never been a single official statement about what is and isn't allowed when it comes to MouseKeys num+ specifically. This conduct from staff is unacceptable and should be rectified. I think that @NTR should be unbanned.

 

This says it all right here. Incredibly insufferable gm behavior to ban someone like @NTR . Reading his ban appeal and seeing how his intellectual and reasonable posts were responded to actually made me heated.

 

It is understandable that the staff would hash out a ban to someone that's seemingly breaking the rules, in this case, dropping mesos in a relatively fast manner that does not seem possible by ordinary methods. While i support the motion of banning someone that's breaking the rules, the ambiguity of the reason for ban perhaps require a more in-depth conference (be it between the staffs or the community - staff).

Game Hacking - The act of using or benefiting from any third-party program, macro program to gain any sort of advantage over other players.

-As highlighted in the bold segment, @NTR was not using any third-party program nor macro, so the reason for the ban was that he used an in-built window function that had two outputs when one key was pressed, and this ban would fall under the TnC ruling of glitch abuse.

Glitch Abuse - The act of exploiting any errors in game design or any features or bugs, documented or otherwise, that are not meant to be available in order to gain any sort of competitive advantage.

-Sure, having 2 outputs in 1 key is an unintended feature that shadowers could use to gain a competitive advantage (do more damage via meso explosion), but as @MSdrawman has stated,

If the argument that it was an unintended feature, and @NTR was exploiting it, and that was liable for a ban, i would reason that anyone that has hp / mp washed should be banned as well since that gives much more of a competitive edge and it is an unintended feature.

I am in no way undermining the staffs' / staff's discernment as they have done a very good job in maintaining the server and keeping it clean and kudos to them for it. I just think they might have jumped the gun a lil too soon with @NTR 's case.

 

Moving forward, this should be way to fix this whole Shad with the ME issue.
Limiting/capping the meso bags solves both problems of mouse keys or mouse wheels at the same time.
Priority to fix drop/exp glitch, because the players are carrying the burden to remember/have to keep a lookout when using ME now

Spoiler: Example

In a similar context, if guy A has better mouse for clicking and can npc equips faster than guy B, does guy A gets banned then?
Since guy A has an edge in npc-ing equips?

I am using this example because i supposed NTR dude is banned because the mousekeys gives him the edge in dropping mesos over normal mouse left clicking

Adding on, we all understand there are client limitations as well as it's difficult/impossible to do ...
But at least let everyone know if this feature can be done or not and if not possible to do anything, what is the workaround for it?

Even if this is deemed as ban worthy, at least state out clearly in T&C that using mousekey/mousewheel constitutes to "game hacking" and perhaps 1st offence = xx days of Ban and subsequent offence will result in perm Ban.

This gives both the benefit of the doubt to the user using mousekey/mousewheel for the 1st time as well as no excuse for them anymore if they repeat it after the 1st ban. This gives a solid and fairplay for shad players because not every Shad will know this specific "game hacking" rule till they are banned.

I do not know the banned dude at all so you can be assured that my 3rd party opinion is unbiased but rather to give my thoughts on how unjust it is to lose a legit player with no ill intention but those scammers/cheater/hacker/botter are still out there alive.

Spoiler

what is this even?? this should go to spam/test/lounge.

 

I just would like to add to this saying that I don't think that using MouseKeys falls under glitch abuse either because he isn't abusing anything about the game. An example of Glitch Abuse would be infinitely blowing up 1 stack of mesos (which is another problem entirely). Clicking fast isn't an exploit in game design, feature, bug, or really even having anything to do with the game at all, since it is all happening outside the game. It's of my opinion that the TnC have failed to cover MouseKeys meso dropping all together.

 

You're allowed to use your mouse/keyboard/controller/whatever to rekey keys. No one is getting banned for doing that. They're getting banned for rekeying more than 1 thing to 1 button/input.

Edit: the mousewheel issue is different- even though it's only 1:1- it's essentially a loophole around any reasonable dropping speed able to be gained by pressing a button or clicking.

 

The mousekey is a default windows feature though, and it is not done via any third party program or anything of the like. Also I feel like you just disregarded the last half of my sentence that you quoted.

 

My point was you can use a window function or third party software in your mouse/keyboard to rekey keys. It doesnt matter.

What you cant do is rekey more than 1 thing to 1 button.

That's all. That's all I was responding to because people seem to think they're getting banned for using mousekeys which isn't true. They're being banned for rekeying multiple inputs to 1 button.

 

Lol the + button is within the mousekey, see where I'm getting at? People aren't banned when they use the 5 keypad of mousekey, but they are banned when they use the + keypad of mousekey. Also, I am aware. Yes, +button is considered 2:1 and it is a remap of 2 actions in 1. Doesn't change my opinion that I find it ridiculous since it is a default windows feature.

 

As someone who has had almost daily contact with NTR for nearly a year now, my opinion is absolutely biased, but I know he would not seek to gain a competitive edge over illegit means. To me this is a clear case of lack of communication on the rules if it is necessary to piece them together from previous ban appeals to know where the lines are. I am not saying NTR should not be punished, but this looks more like a death penalty over a parking violation on a parking spot with fuzzy outlines.

 

From my understanding there are two main issues with shadowers using num+ and its pertinence to the Game Hacking rule in the T&C.
1. There is no specification that a 1:1 mapping is to be adhered. As mentioned before, it's in a grey area that has been mention elsewhere where newer players are not expected to explore prior to playing the game. This is not to mention that it is a built-in feature of Windows and not a third party program.
2. There is no line drawn between the legitimacy of using mousekey 5 and num+. If mousekeys are allowed with the exception of num+, then it should be clearly specified. Further, it makes no sense to say it's an unfair advantage over newer players if they are allowed to enable mousekey mapping in the first place.

Please correct me if I am misleading because I'm also trying to understand fully what the recent situation is about.

I agree with OP that an extension should be added to specify what bugs, glitches or controversial methods are widely known among the staff and their ultimate stance as to the legality of them.

Edit: Grammar. Almost 4am here

 

As the person in question, would really like to thank the staffs for giving me (and other players) the benefit of a doubt, and for making things clearer for all of us moving forward. It is certainly not easy to retract previous statements or admit the T&C could have some ambiguity, but you guys did it anyways without ignoring our opinions, and I think it really shows how professional the Royals team is, and that our time invested in this game is worthwhile!

Sounds like this thread have served its purpose and can lay to rest now~