Exploits, Fixes, & Decisions

Greetings Rising Community,

Today we're here to talk about a difficult subject: exploits. Our stance on exploits should be clear from the opening above, but if it isn't: Kwaai Software views the intentional exploitation of a bug for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage over others as cheating.

This shouldn't be news to you. Our Terms of Service [TOS], which is a legal, binding agreement between us, is also very clear about this. Rules of Conduct/Your Usage states:  "You agree that your use of the Service [will not]... Exploit, distribute, or inform users of any game bug or error which provides an unfair advantage in gameplay".

Thanks to various player reports, we have identified a bug that was exploited in VDR which gave some few people an unfair advantage. This article aims to walk you through what happened from beginning to end, and the decisions we've made for those involved in the abusive exploitation of this bug.

A Bug Exploited

After a full year of intense design and building of the Prowling feature, we opened it up to a five day open beta test. We then offered a post-beta survey to help us better understand what you liked, what you didn't, and to catch any unreported bugs or errors. We then followed through with redesigns and fixes, before officially launching Prowling to VDR on August 28th, 2023.

With big feature launches such as this, all developers in this industry really depend on their community to help them identify issues when they crop up. We are no different, and a good majority of you were instrumental in making Prowling successful.

Even so, for 110 days after the official launch, a bug was present which created an environment where double (or more) rewards could be gleaned from the feature. This bug went unreported. Meanwhile a very small portion of the community exploited it to devastating ends. These exploiters, who are your fellow community members, could have reported it. They chose not to. Rather they decided to take it upon themselves to gain unfair advantages over you and, as a biproduct, created a significant imbalance to the whole game.

Post-Analysis

Since the fix, we have been working overtime to investigate these players collectively and individually.  

After running multiple systematic scenarios based on our original math for the feature and compiling data from current real-time player models, we created an integrated baseline average for item collections. Then we used comparison analysis with data from player inventories, level, and total prowls. With this we were able to clearly see who was at the top of the heap of deliberate exploit offenders. 

We were also able to see those who accidentally bumped into the exploits but took no advantage. The difference between these groups was staggering. Investigating with this data, it was very easy to prove many of the reports we received on the desk that had us looking into this to start with. 

To those of you who offered these reports, we thank you. As an act of gratitude you will be rewarded. Expect to hear from our support agents sometime in the near future!

If you've accidentally bumped into the bug and continued to play normally, please do not worry. We are not looking in your direction. We are only focusing on those who intentionally abused this feature. 

Difficult Decisions
We looked at many options for how to handle this situation. Banning is certainly one of them. In the past thirteen years as developers we have indeed banned a lot of players from our games for many reasons, including some few for abusing exploits. We have never liked banning people. We want everyone who is willing to be here and enjoy this Dark Rising experience with us. We have factored this in. 

There is no denying that the bug was present because of an error on our behalf. When this fact is used as an argument on behalf of the exploiter, we don't believe it's a strong case. We believe a stronger argument can be made of an offending player's actions, as it proves intention. However this bug in particular was fairly easy to create by accident. We have factored this in.

Meanwhile, it is also the holidays. Christmas has just passed and a new year is on the horizon. And while these deliberate exploiters did much to take us away from our families and friends to work on identifying them and creating ways to solve the issues they've created with their accounts, we must make these decisions without prejudice. We have factored this in.

Last, these exploiters have already outed themselves. They became vastly overpowered very quickly and their fellow community noticed. They are now near or at their previous strength... and they must face the moral judgement of those around them. We have factored this in.

Circumstances have played a big role in this decision, and we have thus decided not to ban the exploiters. Neither will they be suspended. Rather, we're going to offer a onetime lifeline in the spirit of giving. 

But this isn't the end of that decision. There's still some wrongs to right here.

• Those who took deliberate advantage of this exploit have, on an individual basis, had their inventories heavily adjusted. This includes reductions across the board on Red Blood power upgrades, raw mats, proficiencies, Prowling fusion powers, collectable items, apex items, workables, and anything else prowling related where numbers were exorbitant/unrealistic.

(Dev Note: Dear offenders, we created a mathematics formula to manage your reductions. If you are unhappy about the state of your inventory post-reduction, know that we will make no further adjustments. Please remind yourself it would have much been easier for us to ban you.)

• Those who took deliberate advantage of this exploit are now flagged. Any identifying information (including IP address, device ID, and more) which are linked to these offending accounts has been recorded. These will be the first player data we look at in the future when anything even parenthetically revolving around the terms exploiting or cheating comes up. Should these accounts prove to be caught up again in any other circumstance where there is a violation of the TOS, they will be instantly banned from all of our games.

(Dev Note: Dear offenders, you would do well to read and understand our TOS agreement with you, so as to prevent any accidental inclusions in a situation where you'll be the first one banned while someone else in your place might undergo a lighter sentence.)

• Those who took deliberate advantage of this exploit should understand this decision is final. If they choose to submit a ticket to argue this decision they will find their ticket will receive no response.

(Dev Note: Dear offenders, as is our Help desk policy, multiple attempts to flood our Help Desk with such tickets may result in you losing access to our Help Desk altogether. Attempts to have friends write in on your behalf will also find no response. And should your friends attempt to flood our Help Desk with such tickets, you and they may together lose access to our Help Desk.)

Final Thoughts

To the exploiters: we hope in the future that you will set aside your egos and aid the community positively by reporting important issues such as these. For as much as we are disappointed in your recent decisions and the impact it had on the game, we truly hope our handling of your situation will allow you to make more responsible decisions in the future.

To the community as a whole: we're very sorry this happened and we thank you for choosing the Rising as your home. We will never lose sight of how important you are to us! The Rising could not be here without you. We love working with you to make VDR the best it can be and are looking forward to a feature-filled future and even more fun beyond.

— Kwaai Software LLC