Dark Knight

[Velusion]

Baalz said:
I can see banning the mists of deception exploit not because it's unintended but because its game breaking.

Its wholly subjective as to what "breaks" the game or not. If (and yes, I know it's extremely unlikely) the bogus trick were to cause me to lose a very important battle(s) in a game I spent hours on - then yea I would say it breaks the game.

Any game needs a definitive source to say "Ok this is over the line" and traditionally this has always been the creators, otherwise you might as well say ANY exploit is ok to use because no one will ever agree what is game breaking.

Someone could easily argue that the mists of deception exploit is not really an exploit. Indeed, from a rules perspective the bogus trick is WORSE from my point of view because it specifically contradicts explicit wording in the rulebook, while MoD does exactly what it says it does - no contradictions, no explicit rule breaking.

What you are advocating is anarchy . Its the same sort of stuff that ultimately ruins many MMORPGs.

Baalz said:
With all due respect, what does it matter what the devs intended?

It doesn't matter what they intended, however it does matter what they say is acceptable because I'd rather THEY determine what is "game-breaking" rather than player "X" who might have a vested interest.

At least it does in my games.

[Baalz]

Velusion said:

Its wholly subjective as to what "breaks" the game or not. If (and yes, I know it's extremely unlikely) the bogus trick were to cause me to lose a very important battle(s) in a game I spent hours on - then yea I would say it breaks the game.
<snip>
It doesn't matter what they intended, however it does matter what they say is acceptable because I'd rather THEY determine what is "game-breaking" rather than player "X" who might have a vested interest.

By all means, play with whatever house rules you want - no Arcane Nexus, no tartarians, no clams, whatever you think makes the game more fun, I just think it's not only silly but unenforceable to ban "exploits". I listed over a dozen tricks that could arguably be called exploits above, and I'm sure somebody more clever than me could come up with dozens more. I think a trick which causes you to loose a couple important battles is not a good measure of something which breaks the game, it's a measure of someone who's using an effective strategy.

I guess my question is, why does this specific thing warrant special attention? As QM asserts, and I agree its not easy to use, and not game breaking. Compare it to other things in the game which give you a significant advantage...would you rather capture bogus and steal his script or
keep the FotA up
be the only one who can forge artifacts for several turns
get a 60% reduction blood magic site
find a province with enchantresses early on
etc.

Bogus (if you happen to be in a position to take advantage of him) doesn't even come close.

[thejeff]

There's a difference between a good strategy that's an intentional part of the game and taking advantage of something that isn't supposed to work.

Bogus isn't anywhere near as good as any number of other strategies, but that's not the distinction. No one's saying we should ban all the best strategies, just the ones that are based around bugs.

How effective it is isn't the issue.

[Baalz]

I was addressing Velusion's assertion (paraphrased) that this exploit is a problem because it's game breaking.

As far as banning it because it's based around a bug, that's the part that I think is silly and unenforceable. Even if (as in this case) you have direct feedback of what a dev's opinion is I'd assert that so much of this game's dynamic was not explicitly designed that its pretty silly to blacklist it based on KO's comment that it's a bit underhanded. My point is that this whole game is about finding underhanded stuff to throw at your opponent.

[archaeolept]

hmmm... i said that i considered it an exploit... but, unless it were explicitly banned as a house rule (which i wouldn't bother doing, as it is so rare and not really that important), I wouldn't raise that much of a fuss... other than being much more likely to attack the perpetrator

That's the best way to deal with it. If someone does something other players consider exploitative or a bit underhanded, just hand his *** to him on a platter - or at least say hello w/ a dozen rain of toads ;p

[Aezeal]

what exactly is the mist of deception exploit?

[Shovah32]

I think it's that even when you have no units on the battlefield(ie: send in one mage to cast the spell and they retreat after casting) it continues to spawn troops every round of battle, forcing the enemy to auto-rout.

[Folket]

You retreat the mage casting mist of deception. That way your opponent can't make the spell and end and will have to fight new units every turn.

When defending you will win the battle at turn 50 when the opponent retreats. If attacking he will have to fight the illusions for 75 turns.

If you use this spell togather with a damage enchantment such as wrathful skies the enchantment will strike your opponent for 75 turns or til they retreat. That way you may destroy huge armies without commiting much to battle.

[Velusion]

Baalz said:

By all means, play with whatever house rules you want - no Arcane Nexus, no tartarians, no clams, whatever you think makes the game more fun, I just think it's not only silly but unenforceable to ban "exploits". I listed over a dozen tricks that could arguably be called exploits above, and I'm sure somebody more clever than me could come up with dozens more. I think a trick which causes you to loose a couple important battles is not a good measure of something which breaks the game, it's a measure of someone who's using an effective strategy.

But then you support banning the MoD "exploit".

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Velusion]

See the beef I have with the people that say "anything goes" is that they say that until something "game-breaking" comes along. How do they know it's game breaking? Well because "they" insist it is.

In other words - you have no consistency and you begin to sound hypocritical... "Oh we can't ban things! It's futile! Why bother! (p.s. except for the MoD exploit)"

We can argue to the moon about what bug is game breaking and what bug isn't but in the end of the day the only way to have a consistent stance is to rely on one source to make rulings. As someone who runs multiple games I'm not going to create a booklet of what is or is not a valid bug. I'm going to go by the defacto standard - edi's buglist and the devs.

Of course people can create any house rules they want for any game.