Exploit versus Intended Design?

[nakomaru]

Appeals to authority are actually appropriate when you are talking about the thoughts of another human being.

[Gurgel]

34 minutes ago, Logicsol said:

No, the game does.

ONI works off of a consistent ruleset that does not change. (During play)

Buildings require power, making food requires ingredients, heat spreads.

If, via a contrived circumstance you are able to change those core behaviors, you are exploiting. There is nothing inherently wrong with this in a single player game, but that is what you are doing.

These "rules" exist in your imagination only. You now try to impose your fantasy on others. That is unacceptable.
Incidentally, you are wrong on all examples you give. You do not even seem to know the game very well.

4 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Appeals to authority are actually appropriate when you are talking about the thoughts of another human being.

With is pretty much directly obvious.

[ONIfreak]

11 minutes ago, RonEmpire said:

Sometimes when players exploit something   and Klei ends up just adding it to the game for quality of life.   For example when they added the ore dumper vents.       Before those features   players were left with tricking the sweeper arm to drop items by cutting power or automation to enable and disable. 

 

 Or players having to set stuff on sweep only in storage bins and then just manually uncheck everything to drop stuff out of the bin to cheat the max storage and leave stuff on the ground.   Then they added ore dump station. 

Players doing water lock and they added viscol gel. 

 

I remember there used to be a debate or a group of people feeling that the ore dump was not an intended behavior and people claimed it was an exploit and then Klei came out to make it a feature.   Made me chuckle to think those people who wanted it to be an exploit to be not intended. 

Yes. Basically tricking arm sweeper is an exploit. Conveyor chute is design. Many things can be changed like that as it looks like klei is actually reading forum and take players opinion under consideration. If you want to identify exploits you have to look at functionality of machones or elements not at game itself. Airflow tile push out liquid leaving small gap - it has been design like that. Bit if you use it to trick electrolyzer to send particular gas in one spot only it is and exploit cause i bet this is not main airflow functionality and it has been design for different purposes. Unless devs knew about this befire and though "well that might be interesting to see". But in my opinion it was not designed and simply overlooked ( which is not surprise - this game is very complex and it is almost not possible to think about every single way and every single configuration. Thats why we are here

[isendel11]

It's a sandbox game. In the end, it boils down to what's fun for you. I don't like "exploiting" the fact that airflow tiles leave that thin layer of air that allows you to do some weird **** with liquid pressures, so I don't use it. Is it an exploit in the gaming sense of the word? I wouldn't say so. Using your unrelenting force shout in Skyrim to bug Meridia's quest and duplicate the final artifact weapon (those who played Skyrim probably know) definitely is. But you know what, it's fine. It's a single player game, if running with 2 dawnbreakers is what's fun for you, I'd say go for it.

ONI is (for me, and probably for most of the people around) a game where I can challenge myself, I get presented with problems for which I need to figure out a solution and that's where the fun lies for me. If something doesn't feel right I don't do it, but judging the way other people have fun is simply wrong IMO. I don't eat snacks either when I go watch a movie, I think it's unhealthy..but again, you shouldn't judge the way other people have fun as long as it doesn't prevent you to have yours (for multiplayer games this would be a completely different discussions, obviously).

[ONIfreak]

Judging if something is exploit or feature is irrelevent. I believe the important bit is to drawn attention to unexpected behaviour in certain situations so devs can correct it if it is not their intention or clarify that this is in fact as it should be.

[RonEmpire]

I remember 2 people from this thread  arguing how using the sweeper arm exploit or the storage bins sweep all and uncheck to dump stuff on the ground an "unintended" use of the game mechanics       And how wrong it is to do it.   

And here we are.   Ore Dumper.
 

Deleting Elements:

Dev says its game mechanics.

 

 

[isendel11]

1 minute ago, RonEmpire said:

I remember 2 people from this thread  arguing how using the sweeper arm exploit or the storage bins sweep all and uncheck to dump stuff on the ground an "unintended" use of the game mechanics       And how wrong it is to do it.   

And here we are.   Ore Dumper.
 

 

The beauty of a game like ONI is that with so much freedom in designing stuff, players can come up with ideas and solutions that not even the devs thought of. Maybe they didn't think of it because they didn't notice a bug, maybe (like in the ore dumper case) they simply don't have the time (they have actual jobs!) to overengineer everything and players can come up with cool stuff that wasn't exactly "intended" ad the beginning. Watching this community come up with these amazing designs that go beyond the boundaries of what's there by design is half the fun!

[RonEmpire]

Just now, isendel11 said:

The beauty of a game like ONI is that with so much freedom in designing stuff, players can come up with ideas and solutions that not even the devs thought of. Maybe they didn't think of it because they didn't notice a bug, maybe (like in the ore dumper case) they simply don't have the time (they have actual jobs!) to overengineer everything and players can come up with cool stuff that wasn't exactly "intended" ad the beginning. Watching this community come up with these amazing designs that go beyond the boundaries of what's there by design is half the fun!

Translation:   Exploit your hearts content until it becomes a feature.  Or Patched out. 

 

[isendel11]

Just now, RonEmpire said:

Translation:   Exploit your hearts content until it becomes a feature.  Or Patched out. 

 

Well yeah if it floats your boat, you're doing it right.

[RonEmpire]

16 hours ago, Scyth02 said:

Has Klei ever given official word regarding certain behaviors in the game that some consider exploits and if they are by design or will be fixed in the future?

The devs have given official word via the bug reports.  They'll comment on 'exploits that are reported in the bug report and will either say its a known issue and they're working on fixing it.  OR they'll close the thread saying its game mechanics and don't intend on fixing it any time soon. 

[mathmanican]

1 hour ago, RonEmpire said:

Exploit your hearts content until it becomes a feature.  Or Patched out. 

Exploits?  What are those?  I thought everything in the game was developer intended.  

 

[axxionx12]

Just wait til you all discover you can still crush regolith tiles and use mechanical door automation to send all space debris to the right side of the map. I usually deposit it into my steam room and use the  power to sweep what I need to appropriate storage 

[KittenIsAGeek]

23 hours ago, Logicsol said:

Using Germy Water isn't an exploit. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but there is no requirement to use germ free water. It'd be nice if it lessened the effect, but this comes down to a feature shortfall. If something not working exactly as it should IRL makes it an exploit, well I hope you don't have much knowledge on how gas pressure works, or any other feature with non-perfect simulation(IE about all of them).

I disagree, somewhat.  I agree completely that it isn't an exploit -- I disagree with your assessment that it doesn't make sense.  

I go camping on a regular basis.  Often I'll wash my hands and dishes in water that came from a lake or stream of questionable origin.  If I was to drink the water directly, I would get sick.  Therefore, this water is clean, but also contains germs that my body can not handle without help.  However, nothing bad happens from washing my hands or dishes in the water.  After they're dried, I can eat off them with no ill effects. 

Using most filter systems will result in water that is clean, but would still make me sick if I drank it.  Some of the more involved (expensive) filters claim to allow me to drink directly from a stream, but I've never been thirsty enough to take that chance.  Some streams have been so pure that the bottom 10 feet down looks like its only inches below the surface, but they can still carry germs that will make me sick. 

In the real world, it is definitely possible to have clean water that is also full of germs.  It can be used for washing and bathing with no ill effects, but would make you sick if you drank it.  Therefore I see no problem with the ONI world behaving in this same manner.

[DarkMaster13]

Generally speaking I think that having exploits is fine.  There are some things that are more okay than others, when it comes to balance of competitions or trivializing some of the game's challenges when you approach them a certain way.  You can choose not to do them, but in some cases it can kind of ruin the fun when solving a problem 'legitimately' is either a huge hassle or a ton of fun, but there's an exploit that trivialises it to the point of being a huge let down.  It isn't fun or engaging anymore if you should really just do the easy exploit way out.

However where I say that something is completely unacceptable is if the exploit is the ONLY way to do something.  The existence of an exploit that lets you get around a design flaw or bug is not an excuse that makes that design flaw or bug acceptable.  Take lacking a way to get gold on a map.  Normally you are suppose to use supercoolant to make liquid hydrogen, but you cannot make supercoolant without gold.  Technically you can use the small packet exploit to make liquid hydrogen, but a mandatory exploit does not make up for the fact that making liquid hydrogen is impossible legitimately.  This means that there's no way to complete the game's second victory condition on the slimeless asteroids if no random sources of gold spawn.

[Ins-]

Hi guys. Is gas philosopher's stone fixed?

 

[Yunru]

3 minutes ago, Ins- said:

Hi guys. Is gas philosopher's stone fixed?

 

Yes.

[DrSugarFreeman]

On 7/28/2019 at 8:45 PM, nakomaru said:

Why waste your time save scumming. There's a mod to save yourself the load time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1724518038

I can't begin to imagine how someone would feel guilty for breaking rules while playing a single player sandbox game. Because there are none.

Its a subconscious ideal that you're not subjecting yourself to the full challenge of the game, and are therefore detracting from the experience for yourself by not solving problems practically and thoughtfully but instead solving them cheaply and through an oversight in the games code.

[Gurgel]

On 7/29/2019 at 5:22 PM, ONIfreak said:

Judging if something is exploit or feature is irrelevent.

To some people it seems to be extremely important. The idea that it does not matter probably interferes with their excessive virtue-signalling.

 

[DemainaNyx]

In my opinion, it is a single player game so you aren't hurting anyone except yourself by using what others deem as "exploits".  We could argue this forever, but if the developers didn't like how something behaves, they'd fix it. 

Hell, they even added the ability to mod the game, which gives us the ability to change the core mechanics of the game.  So if we are going to call "exploit" to things in the base game that we dislike, we might as well call all the mods "exploits" too since they are literally changing things in the code of the game vs just taking advantage of a mechanic.  Personally, I couldn't care less what other people do on their playthrough, whether that be modding, using debug, using sandbox, etc.

 

The only time anyone should be concerned with exploits is if you are playing this game competitively for a prize, in which case there should be rules about what is acceptable before the competition starts so everyone knows before hand what to avoid.  Other than that, enjoy your sandbox.

 

On 7/30/2019 at 2:22 AM, KittenIsAGeek said:

In the real world, it is definitely possible to have clean water that is also full of germs.  It can be used for washing and bathing with no ill effects, but would make you sick if you drank it.  Therefore I see no problem with the ONI world behaving in this same manner.

I really like this explanation of why it works this way.  I don't know if Klei meant it to work this way or not, but this perfectly explains why the same germy water can be used in toilets, sinks, and showers but not in food or water coolers.

[Daxterr]

On 7/29/2019 at 10:50 AM, axxionx12 said:

Just wait til you all discover you can still crush regolith tiles and use mechanical door automation to send all space debris to the right side of the map. I usually deposit it into my steam room and use the  power to sweep what I need to appropriate storage 

Holy **** that's probably the smartest ONI idea I've ever seen. O_O

[DaveSatx]

On 8/3/2019 at 3:11 AM, Gurgel said:

To some people it seems to be extremely important. The idea that it does not matter probably interferes with their excessive virtue-signalling.

 

or it is triggering g  cognitive dissonance,,,

[Miravlix]

We have a community, we are not playing in a black box with no outside communication, so it's silly to talk about "singe player", there is NO SINGLE PLAYER GAMES due to the internet.

 

Let's do a random first rocket launched speedrun, while each of us may due that with limited outside input, telling others you did it 5 minutes faster than other and it's no longer single player, but a community element.

 

You are lying to yourself if you post here and claim it's a single player game. The FACT that you posted makes it a community.

 

What I don't get it that people can't accept that the current game work a certain way, I don't see how it matters how the game worked 10 patches ago or how it will work in 10 patches. I don't give anything for people who think that you have to stand on one leg and jump up and down while playing the game is the only right way to do it, shut up about how to play. The game work a certain way either accept it or report it in the bug forum to Klei, pissing on others players because you disagree with how something work is NOT appropriate behavior.

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

10 hours ago, Miravlix said:

We have a community, we are not playing in a black box with no outside communication, so it's silly to talk about "singe player", there is NO SINGLE PLAYER GAMES due to the internet.

 

Let's do a random first rocket launched speedrun, while each of us may due that with limited outside input, telling others you did it 5 minutes faster than other and it's no longer single player, but a community element.

 

You are lying to yourself if you post here and claim it's a single player game. The FACT that you posted makes it a community.

 

What I don't get it that people can't accept that the current game work a certain way, I don't see how it matters how the game worked 10 patches ago or how it will work in 10 patches. I don't give anything for people who think that you have to stand on one leg and jump up and down while playing the game is the only right way to do it, shut up about how to play. The game work a certain way either accept it or report it in the bug forum to Klei, pissing on others players because you disagree with how something work is NOT appropriate behavior.

 

I suspect I'm feeding the trolls, but...

Apparently we need to define what makes something "single-player" vs "multi-player."  If I'm understanding @Miravlix correctly, its only single-player if you never discuss the game with anyone else.  So if I grab a deck of cards and shuffle them, then play a hand of solitaire, its single-player until I post on a forum asking how other people play the game -- at which point it becomes a multi-player game, despite the fact that I'm the only one ever touching the cards.  If @Miravlix's reasoning holds, then there is no such thing as a single-player game.

I completely disagree with this notion.  Human beings do not exist in a vacuum of solitude.  We discuss things with others all the time.  We ask advice, opinions, and thoughts while we share our own.  Clearly it is possible to play a single-player game and still discuss the differences in how we play.  Discussion doesn't magically change the game from single-player to multi-player -- it simply expands on our base knowledge of the game. 

Klei have developed an amazing single-player game.   The combination of researched technology and map physics means that there are a large number of ways to accomplish any goal I may have for whatever game is currently in progress.  If I share how I accomplish a certain goal, or if I ask someone else how they accomplish a goal, the game I'm playing doesn't suddenly become multi-player.  

So what makes a game multi-player?  A game that requires two or more individuals is, by definition, multi-player.  ONI can not be played in this fashion.  Certainly you could sit down with a buddy and play the game together, but its still a single-player game.

 

Now, on to the issue of exploits, because it appears that in every single thread someone tells someone else they're exploiting the game:

If I ask my sister how she plays solitaire, and she tells me a different set of rules than I use, neither her method nor mine is an exploit.  To put it another way, It doesn't matter how the original designers of the cards intended the game to be played.  My sister and I can create our own decks, our own rules, and we each make a decision about what moves are acceptable.  However I chose to play, or my sister chooses to play, the only part that matters is if we enjoy our game of solitaire.  A difference in play style isn't an exploit.  

So what makes an exploit?  For a single-player game, practically nothing.  Not even the Borg Cube or Metal Cannon are exploits because the only one affected by choosing to build them is myself.  They are bugs in the code, because they work outside of the game's rule-set.  The escher pump? Not an exploit nor a bug -- it works within the game's definition of physics.  The "geothermal steam pump" mod?  Again, not an exploit despite the fact that it trivializes certain parts of the game. 

Within the context of computer gaming, an exploit is a method of using bugs or algorithmic behaviors to gain an advantage over other players of the game.  ONI has no final score, no specific end goal, and is entirely single-player.  There is no in-game community economy.  You compete only against yourself every time you play.   I'm going to get very nit-picky in the next paragraph, so bear with me:

So, is it even possible to exploit ONI?  Certainly.  However, it requires a bit of set-up.  Lets use the example of @Miravlix's speed-run to rocket launch.  First, you need to agree that you're competing with each other.  Then you need to set up some ground rules.  If I finish 5 minutes faster than my buddy, that result is completely meaningless if we're playing on different maps or using different mods.  Finally, an exploit would be choosing to break our established rules to gain an advantage.  For example, lets say that we agree that "only the established rules of ONI physics are acceptable."  If I build a metal cannon, I am exploiting a bug in the code to bypass the game's physics rules, which gives me an unfair advantage over my buddy.  Further, I could exploit our agreement by loading a mod that makes metal geysers output their elements at 20c.  We never agreed on mods, so I'm exploiting that oversight to take advantage of my friend.  Is it a game exploit? No.  It is, however, a competitive exploit.

Basically, what I'm saying is that when you're playing ONI, you can't really exploit anything.  You can certainly take advantage of bugs or physics to build some really fantastic devices, but none of it is an exploit until you start competing with other individuals.  At that point, you can exploit things only as they pertain to the rules of competition that you've set up.  I can enable sandbox mode.  I can edit my save file.  I can load mods.  I can abuse the physics algorithms.  None of that is an exploit because it only affects myself and my game.

[badgamer123]

actually i looking for some new "Exploits" that is not duplicate matter.anything else is fun to me
 

[Lurve]

On 7/29/2019 at 6:13 AM, Gurgel said:

And who decides what the "normal game rules" are? You? I don't think so.

"You" are the only person who can decide that.  That's the flip side of the exploit relativism we've seen in this thread.  If something isn't an exploit unless you consider it to be, anything you consider to be an exploit is one.