What a Balanced Strategy Game

[theintelligentboy]

Level 29 with Rep10,000 (yeah,10k) and a Level 16 in the 3rd place with only Rep4.7k ?

Am I the only one concerned that this (so called) Reputation system is totally dysfunctional because of its MinMaxing abuse?

[TheLurkingRage]

Level 29 with Rep10,000 (yeah,10k) and a Level 16 in the 3rd place with only Rep4.7k ?

Am I the only one concerned that this (so called) Reputation system is totally dysfunctional because of its MinMaxing abuse?

No, you're not the only one concerned but nothing has been done about it.

[-[RECAP]-]

Min/maxing is a strategy anyway...so brutal...
Lv1 scanner (180 HP) VS 3 Lv21 Turrets (145 each = 435 ATK) + Lv21 Sentry (131 each = 393 ATK), overall 828 ATK/s on 180 firewall...!... Takes... Hard calculations! but it will get lost the second you loose the shield (Eather ice or protector) and you have only 3 slot to attack so 1 is the shield and another will be shocker so only 1 place for any effective program...

But at the end...it's their own network and they have the right, NOT to upgrade a node...

[theintelligentboy]

Min/maxing is a strategy anyway

Yeah, this is a strategy, its just that its not only mediocre but also (brutally) abusive.

[theintelligentboy]

Level 29 with Rep10,000 (yeah,10k) and a Level 16 in the 3rd place with only Rep4.7k ?

Am I the only one concerned that this (so called) Reputation system is totally dysfunctional because of its MinMaxing abuse?

No, you're not the only one concerned but nothing has been done about it.

Now I feel like only the Sentry should control the level of the network.

[-[RECAP]-]

Min/maxing is a strategy anyway

Yeah, this is a strategy, its just that its not only mediocre but also (brutally) abusive.

Your right...but this statement is also right:

But at the end...it's their own network and they have the right, NOT to upgrade a node...

You cannot make someone guilty because he/she didn't wanted to upgrade his/her miner.... Own network, own will.

I'm not a min/maxer anyway, and not going to defend them...but if you see it this way...it's not THAT abusive :/

[crack]

It is up to devs to control the game play, if they think it is ok then it is.

Good idea about sentry thou

[Luminaar]

There are certainly calls for having Sentry, Core, and Evolver levels to dictate the search somehow.

It is commonly understood that the level of the Sentry does dictate a huge portion of the defensive strength of a network, and that the xp cost of a Sentry certainly seems "undervalued" given its contributions.

I believe the main reason for this however is that you're allowed 4 Sentries on a network. While a single Sentry is certainly worth the xp cost, paying that cost 4 times certainly isn't! I'm sure that there's some network design out there that relies on having 4 Sentries, but in most cases, 1-3 is usually suffice.

I'll bring this up in the future, with regards to reducing the max number of Sentries, and increasing the xp cost. As always, it's very easy for us to see things from an effectiveness point of view, but we mustn't forget that not all players play the same. I'll forward this to the team, and get some feedback on it some time within the week.

[iblitxkreig]

This has NOTHING to do with minmaxing, i could achieve this without minmaxing as all you need is "lurk" abusing the shield and playing 10hours a day... anyone could achieve rep like this by farming.... And Yes higher level would be harder, but with Lurk shield abusing guide! and farming 10+ hours a day, level has nothing to do with it.

So yes i played 10+ hours a day just farming rep... it can be done at any level.. rep is based off how much you play.. it has nothing to do with "minmaxing" nor " skill ".

Please explain this one to me for all you min max haters!

[TheLurkingRage]

This has NOTHING to do with minmaxing, i could achieve this without minmaxing as all you need is "lurk" abusing the shield and playing 10hours a day... anyone could achieve rep like this by farming.... And Yes higher level would be harder, but with Lurk shield abusing guide! and farming 10+ hours a day, level has nothing to do with it.

So yes i played 10+ hours a day just farming rep... it can be done at any level.. rep is based off how much you play.. it has nothing to do with "minmaxing" nor " skill ".

Please explain this one to me for all you min max haters!

I didn't exploit the shield to reach #1, I simply hacked enough to gain more rep than I lost. Unlike you, crack, GodKiller, and most people to ever even get near the top of the leaderboard, I actually climbed while dealing with competition. I used to lose up to 200+ rep a night and went head to head with my rivals (mainly Arch and crack). I used no exploits whatsoever and being from discord you should know this. Given TA's responses (click here, here and here) on the online shield matter, I started "exploiting" the shield afterwards to keep my resources since I stopped actively climbing rep once I reached 4k rep and I didn't like burning resources or staying full until I could upgrade something again. With how bad the loot is up here (click here), using credits, receiving donations or "exploiting" the shield combined with the Elite rank bonus are the only ways to make any significant progress, but of course you non-endgame players wouldn't know this because you haven't reached that point in the game yet and you always start over before you do.

Rep only represents how much you successfully hack and defend vs how often you don't. Due to the unbalance and broken search minmaxing smurfs take advantage of, you all have it easy in comparison to any first time player when it comes to making progress in the game and climbing the leaderboard because you avoid competition and having to deal with your mistakes as well as keep hidden from more experienced players by staying low leveled and feeding on unsuspecting defenseless noobs. The only true way to measure skill in the game is by looking at the effectiveness and efficiency of a player's network layout and the hacking strategies on each independent network they hack, or in other words how well they put their knowledge of the game to good use to hack and defend. This is a strategy game with no proper balance or support from the devs which results in players abusing exploits and therefore diminishing the purpose of the leaderboard and demeaning the "strategy" part in the game.

In the case of Destiny for example, there was an exploit where you could farm for engrams indefinitely by standing still in a spot and killing enemies. The team (Bungie) took notice and was quick to patch the enemies spawn, the engram rng algorithm and introduce an anti exploit measurement where past a certain number of enemies killed in the spawn area, invincible enemies would spawn and wreck havoc on you until you left the area. For Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 there was an exploit for farming liquid divinium which is used to get gumballs which are basically extra perks you can use in a match. You could basically play a match of zombies until you reached round 7 which takes a handful of minutes and purchase as many things on the map to get 2 guaranteed liquid divinium until Treyarch noticed how this was making unskilled players have an advantage over skilled players by being able to farm liquid divinium and get more perks than the rest who played without using this exploit, much like the case with Destiny and engrams farming, and they removed the limit of 2 liquid divinium per match so then those of us who chose to play the whole match would get rewarded more than just 2 liquid divinium. Trickster Arts has yet to do something about the rep and res farming on scrubs. You've got rep dumpers and smurf minmaxers completely obliterating first time players, farming them for res and rep making it harder for them to progress. Exploit abusers in this game still get rewarded and for players like me we get more fucked the longer TA doesn't take action on the matter. Just like Bungie or Treyarch, they should've already made an adjustment to prevent players from using these exploits and encourage playing legitimately such as making it so you earn more rep the higher the level of your target is, introducing refundable level XP, making the rep bonus dynamic so the higher in level you are the more it gives, make nodes require a certain rep rank to upgrade and add an anti exploit measurement where the system recognizes those who're rep dumping to gain more resources and have the "disconnect" option removed for them temporarily and only turn up players that are online on their search until they stop dumping rep.

I know it's a bit unfair to compare Trickster Arts to Bungie or Treyarch, but the game has issues that need to be resolved and nothing has been done about them. Either the team isn't working on fixing them, it's a difficult task that they haven't been able to patch, or nothing that has been suggested proves an effective fix in their mind. The fact that we don't have a larger portion of the community engaging in these debates doesn't help either as some of the brighter ideas to help improve the game could still have yet to be heard. Something like a message asking for feedback on the globe with reward of a golden credit card would help get more people involved. I know Lumi does what he can, but we need more input from TA regarding these issues.