This online only requirement…

[Pizzapants]

Online requirement, it will not change so live with it.

online requirement will not change, so don't bother defending it.

 

[s0cks]

Allow me to point out a few things. If PD KNOWS there is an active cheat/exploit, they are going to take action. That action is going to be somewhat detrimental to the entire community. Therefore, abusing the system, whether in SP or MP, does harm everyone. Furthermore, when that player takes their ill-gotten vehicle into MP and beats other players, I would call that a distinct advantage gained.

Why should it be detrimental to the entire community? If someone is cheating and PD decide to patch out that cheat it should not have any affect on those not cheating. Bear in mind, we're talking SP only. Currently MP is BoP races and lets you rent cars for free, so atm, there is no advantage to cheating in SP. If they bring back PP/BHP limited races with garage cars, then there is a potential case to be made that it does interfere.

In a casino, if you cheat, the casino hires more security, installs more cameras, maybe fires the dealer for negligence, holiday bonuses might shrink for every employee in that casino, something the rest of us have to pay for, both literally and figuratively.

If you steal from a retail shop, they must raise item prices to compensate for their loss. Everyone pays the bill for one person's dishonesty.

There are no victimless crimes, someone always pays the piper.

Cheating in a SP videogame isn't a crime though. Booting up a game and turning on "unlimited money" cheat only affects myself.

 

[Live25]

Sorry, disagree. When people exploit systems adjustments have to be made. Our trans tunes are all jacked up now as a direct result of the Tomahawk exploit. Now I’m not saying that was the right way to fix it, but that’s definitely what happened.

If cheating in a video game isn’t a crime, then explain the lawsuits against bot-makers, script-writers and other various schemes cooked up by people looking to make a quick buck. It’s a violation of the TOS and at its most extreme, is effectively a criminal act.

Edit: To clarify, my use of that phrase was (I thought pretty clearly) an analogy.

 

[Techlet]

Sorry, disagree. When people exploit systems adjustments have to be made. Our trans tunes are all jacked up now as a direct result of the Tomahawk exploit. Now I’m not saying that was the right way to fix it, but that’s definitely what happened.

That's not cheating or exploiting. It's just a badly designed PP system.

 

[jrbabbitt]

The squeaky wheel gets the grease

Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets replaced (possibly something worse)

 

[s0cks]

Sorry, disagree. When people exploit systems adjustments have to be made. Our trans tunes are all jacked up now as a direct result of the Tomahawk exploit. Now I’m not saying that was the right way to fix it, but that’s definitely what happened.

If cheating in a video game isn’t a crime, then explain the lawsuits against bot-makers, script-writers and other various schemes cooked up by people looking to make a quick buck. It’s a violation of the TOS and at its most extreme, is effectively a criminal act.

I'm assuming those lawsuits are for cheating outside of SP, or where it has some sort of monetary advantage. To be clear, we are talking about cheating in SP/offline where it has no bearing on others experience.

If the developer decides to patch it out because they feel it's not in the spirit of the game, that's fine, but my point was that you don't need "always online" nonsense to do that. And as is evident, it didn't actually make a difference anyway. The Tomahawk still got exploited regardless. The game didn't need online only for that exploit to be "fixed".

 

[Live25]

That's not cheating or exploiting. It's just a badly designed PP system.

That is like the definition of an exploit mon frere.

If our trans tunes are jacked up because of an exploit utilized by some, how does that have no bearing on the rest of our experiences? Again, that is the direct result of the Tomahawk exploit.

Edit: Yes, it did certainly wander off-topic, but that doesn’t change the reality as it currently stands.

 

[Techlet]

That is like the definition of an exploit mon frere.

It's how the game was designed to work. People weren't hacking or injecting scripts into the game using a vulnerability to make it work.

You're not committing crimes by using the system as intended.

If our trans tunes are jacked up because of an exploit utilized by some, how does that have no bearing on the rest of our experiences? Again, that is the direct result of the Tomahawk exploit.

How did it jack up your trans tunes? If you weren't "exploiting", it shouldn't have affected you at all.

 

[jrbabbitt]

Ok if this was an "offline game" and files were saved on console, what would it take for me to dive into my save file and modify my Gr.4 car to have Gr.1 speed and handling? Nothing at all, therefore is why there is online requirements and saves only online to their servers so there cannot be easy programming hack/ cheating.
Or do I have this wrong?

 

[Techlet]

Ok if this was an "offline game" and files were saved on console, what would it take for me to dive into my save file and modify my Gr.4 car to have Gr.1 speed and handling? Nothing at all, therefore is why there is online requirements and saves only online to their servers so there cannot be easy programming hack/ cheating.
Or do I have this wrong?

Typically game files are encrypted so it takes a fair bit of effort to do something like this.

And you can still have server side validation against modified saves to stop people from cheating online without needing to make the game require a constant online connection.

Other devs have done this for decades.

 

[Quakebass]

Sounds like a problem on your end tbh, not the games fault.

It absolutely sounds like a fault of the game to kick you out of playing in the middle of an offline race because the internet went out.

I understand online saving to an extent, but bricking the game the second the server can’t be reached is absolutely asinine design.

 

[jrbabbitt]

No more comments from me

 

[Tassie_tiger]

That's not cheating or exploiting. It's just a badly designed PP system.

You're not committing crimes by using the system as intended.

The amount of mental gymnastics required to be able to justify using a Tomahawk X against limited PP road cars and deem it as 'not exploiting' is astonishing.

 

[Techlet]

The amount of mental gymnastics required to be able to justify using a Tomahawk X against limited PP road cars and deem it as 'not exploiting' is astonishing.

I've not done a single lap around Tokyo with a Tomahawk because I didn't want to trivialize what little progression the game offers.

But the game clearly gave you the tools to do so (coupled with the FOMO LCD/UCD/invitation systems designed to encourage you to either grind away or fork up the microtransaction dollars). It's not the fault of the player, nor is it some kind of illegal activity, to take advantage of what the devs designed.

More to the point, being always online did not stop people from "exploiting" the Tokyo race. It also did not stop people from bringing tuned cars to BOP daily races. That was an actual exploit. They were both eventually stopped by a patch. You do not need a game to be always online to patch it.

Altering the game code to add cars to your garage or give yourself 100 mil credits would be exploits. Altering the game code to make your car go 3000MPH would be cheating. Simply playing the game by the rules the devs set out is neither an exploit or a cheat.

 

[Tassie_tiger]

I've not done a single lap around Tokyo with a Tomahawk because I don't want to trivialize what little progression the game offers.

But the game clearly gave you the tools to do so (coupled with the FOMO LCD/UCD/invitation systems designed to encourage you to either grind away or fork up the microtransaction dollars). It's not the fault of the player, nor is it some kind of illegal activity, to take advantage of what the devs designed.

More to the point, being always online did not stop people from "exploiting" the Tokyo race. It also did not stop people from bringing tuned cars to BOP daily races. That was an actual exploit. They were both eventually stopped by a patch. You do not need a game to be always online to patch it.

You are still doing it.

It's an exploit of a unintended game mechanic. Full stop.

 

[Jeff Goji]

Online saves are in and of themselves a good idea and can help prevent cheating on a large scale.
However even a basic PWA (progressive web app) can be written to a token while offline and not tampered with and uploaded to the server after a connection has been re-established no matter the amount of time.
I think GT7 needs to adopt a similar approach and be less intrusive when you lose connection.
That would go a long way to alleviate the issues we are seeing with lost connections.

I have a pretty stable internet connection but outages do happen from time to time and at very unexpected moments. Which is why I won't waste the time on an endurance race of any kind in this game and their addition is about as useless as tits on a bull.
I value my time a little more than that under the current online-save system.