Piping = Immoral?

[Skorpius]

Game quirk taken advantage of and exploited.

Duping.
Stacking.
Recoboxing.
Piping.

Why is it that only 1/4 of these is considred GOOD, and justified, while the rest are EVIL?
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Answer: Wasn't taken out of the game.
Reply: Neither was duping until PSO Plus. Piping is impossible on Blue Burst.*

Answer: Piping is ok because it takes more effort to get your item than duping.
Reply: So, the more effort you put into something, the more legit it is? Duping took a while to learn, piping is pretty simple, and done on accident, too. So, with the Effort = Legit equation, Duping shoots ahead of piping in legitamicy.

Answer: Piping didn't ruin the economy.
Reply: With piping, all rare enemy rares are not rare at all. The economy of PSO was already messed up before duping was wide spread because of piping. Frozen Shooters aren't rare, Demolition Comets and Guard Waves come out of people's asses.

Answer: Stfu noob.
Reply: lol pwned

Answer: Copying data is against the ToS
Reply: Reread it the ToS:
Alteration of PSO character equipment/item data
> This has nothing to do with Duplication, or Max Stat Trick. This is actually used to prohibit the use of outside devices, such as Action Replay, from altering you characters statistics.

Unauthorized creation of PSO equipment/item data.
> Now, this one is tricky, but how is duplicating the item code IN GAME unauthorized? This rule is actually used to prohibit the use of Item modification programs / devices.

Taking advantage of any bug discovered in the PSO or PSO Server to gain any advantage, as well as communicating the existence of any such bug, in any form, to another PSO user or third party.
> Duplication does NOT give you any advantage (advantage in a cooporative game?), but if it does fall under this one, then so does piping. They're both "bugs" that were fixed (via Plus/BB*) that disrupt the balance of items in the PSO Community.

Answer: Duping and Stacking take advantage of a glitch, recoboxing is legal, but immoral.
Reply: Ok, you sort of got me there. Stacking is a glitch, I agree, but Duping is a loophole. You are creating a duplicate set of data through legal means, without breaking any ingame rules (stacking breaks the only x10 tools rule). Recoboxing is commonly seen as immoral, yes, but isn't piping just Recoboxing a rare? Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
__________________________________________________ ___

Thank you for your time, and please keep this a clean and friendly discussion. I am just trying to spark some rethinking about certain issues.

[* It would have been very easy to reproduce an offline environment on Blue Burst in the ways of simulating pipeable rare creatures, but Sonic Team chose not to. Why?]

[Mixfortune]

I think I may have seen something about Piping being okay by Sonic Team itself. There was a thread that mentioned it a while back, if I recall. I'll see if I can hunt it down.

EDIT 1:
This isn't the thread I was looking for, but it still gives a bit of relevant information.
http://www.pso-world.com/viewtopic.php?topic=50878&forum=6&5


Sega doesn't mind the tp trick, they even suggest it in their guide, it was a bug in V1, they were aware of it, they left it alone because it was okay, and they had it the same way in Ep 1 and 2. They are also okay with the canabine trick.

First, I know the TP trick isn't piping, but the canabine trick is an offshoot of piping.

*goes back to trying to look for that other thread*

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mixfortune on 2005-01-15 03:20 ]</font>

[Rain_1]

actually, all 4 of those are somewhat glitches... you don't use any special artifact (hacking/actiopn replay/whatever) to perform them, they're there just because they are...

Just like in Final Fight. If you hit the enemy 3 times and turn around, the next attack will not hit the oponent.. if you turn around again, you can perform the 3 punches again. So, you can kill a boss by giving him 3 punches, dodge... 3 punches, dodge... without him ever hitting you.

It's what games have.. glitches.... while duping/recoboxing/stacking are immoral, the piping glitch makes it easier to find items, which are pretty much impossible to drop in the first place..

PSOBB doesn't have piping mostly because now everything is server handled, not because it was patched.

It's just a matter of moral. I wouldn't dupe items, shoot at somethign all day to get xp without actually playing or stacking items to get stronger.... but i would pipe to get that damn rare that doesn't drop on over 300 hours...

The same way I did go through doors a thousand times on PSOv1 when I was playing alone and I wanted to go kill the extra monsters on the 4 buttons doors..

Besides, duping weapons kinda kills the game IMHO.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rain_1 on 2005-01-15 04:09 ]</font>

[Skorpius]

the piping glitch makes it easier to find items, which are pretty much impossible to drop in the first place..

Up until about 3 months ago, I always thought piping was normal, just something to be done. Then I started questioning my entire moral structure (Blame the Matrix), and it even stemmed down into PSO. I thought about many technicalities, and even piping.

The reason why certain items are found off of rare enemies is because they're supposed to be rare. Multiply the drop rate of an item by the rate of a rare enemy, and you get the overall drop rate of the item. For instance, the Agito AUW 1975. Everyone thinks Pinkal because you can pipe the sucker, and it's rare everywhere else.

I feel that, long before duping, the PSO economy was already blown to Hell and back by people piping Demolition Commets, Guard Waves, and various units. Just something to consider next time you want to sit down and tap A for that Hildetorr. ;o

EDIT:
Just to make it clear what I'm saying, I'm trying to find out why Recoboxing and, why not, Canabin-ing is so frowned upon, yet those very same people will pipe for a rare.

they even suggest it in their guide
What guide?



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Skorpius on 2005-01-15 04:17 ]</font>

[rena-ko]

since pso is pretty much ruined anyway.

imho, piping is boring.
and i plays in the same range as recoboxing.
exploiting ingame mechanics, not a glitch.

duping (any kind, any purpose, also backup) however is exploiting a glitch.

brings us to the basic point.
game = supposed to be fun =/= piping

running might be taking more time but...
exp,
other drops,
more fun and diversity (if you can call anything about pso being diverse)

[DezoPenguin]

I suspect the moral analysis works something like this. Whether this analysis is "right" or "wrong" on some kind of objective scale, well, who knows:

1. As for duping, forget it. The former exploits a glitch in the game to create items out of thin air without even a veneer of "playing the game." The side effect of ruining the game's "economy" is really irrelevant to this, though people cite it to justify the fact. The fact is there's an instantaneous creation of a new item and there's an immediate gut-level reaction that you're not supposed to have that happen.

2. Stacking breaks an explicit rule in the game, not a terms-of-service contract but the rule that restricts a character to ten of an item (um, that is the stacking you're talking about, right?). Even though a loophole in the code can be exploited, you're clearly violating the spirit of the law even though the letter of the law doesn't prevent you. You're like a defense attorney getting a guilty client off on a technicality.

3. Recoboxing and the monest/canadine ring pipe tricks are a little different. You're actually killing monsters in the latter version, and in the former you don't even do anything outside the code--just pick up a legit weapon and use it against a legit monster. I personally don't consider them "cheating" so much as I consider them "boring," "inane," and "a waste of my time." For the ring/nest trick, why do that when I could just as easily be experiencing a variety of different combat situations and environments--I mean, I'm *barely* capable of doing runs of a legitimate area or quest over and over again to hunt a specific rare. I suspect that recoboxing is also disliked because it's too much like downloading statistics directly into the character. It accomplishes nothing other than adding EXP--no exploration, no killing, no item drops--and so it looks not unlike if you just used some kind of hack or code to increase your experience points instantly, only it takes a much longer time to accomplish; the fact that legitimate means were used for this--well, I don't know if the end can justify the means, but I seriously doubt if the means can justify the end.

(As an extra comment on recoboxing, you'll note the revulsion that springs up in some people at those people who want to do nothing but TTF all day, or against those people who rejected Episode 2 outright because of its lower EXP counts before some of the new online quests were added.)

4. Which brings us to piping. Piping does require time and effort to accomplish, unlike duping (both the time and effort to pipe up and down, and also the time and effort to kill the resulting monster). But I think the most important reason why far fewer people are put off by piping than they are by exploiting the other glitches above is that the pipe trick only accomplishes one particular stage of the process. The pipe makes the rare enemy appear, but at that point it's the player's problem to legitimately kill the enemy, and it's all up to the drop rates whether or not something actually shows up. Perhaps more than anything, it is that legitimate chance of failure that makes people see piping as a legitimate method. All the other "cheats" in this thread are guaranteed success. You do it, and the results benefit you immediately. With piping, there is uncertainty. All it does is skew the possible appearance rate of a rare enemy. There's still no guarantee that enemy will show up--it might be within minutes, or it might not be for literally hours. Likewise, when that long-awaited rare enemy finally shows up, there's no assurance it'll give you that rare drop. The "cheat" of piping merely makes it more likely that rare will be produced--so in this respect, it's really no different than, say, doing runs of Dr. Osto's Research over and over again just up to the first Dubchic room until you get a Cure/Paralysis or God/Arm or something to drop, or quitting and reloading your game until you get the VR Temple Alpha map that has the most Hildes on it.

(It also doesn't hurt that many people would argue that those drop rates are absurd to begin with. I mean, seriously, how many of us have found a legitimate Irisita or Lavis or 1975 Agito from a rare monster?)

[Tycho]

Piping isn't a glitch, and takes time. If you want loads of fast exp, you can do speed TTFs. For fast chances for a specific rare from a rare monster, pipe it. For a combination, do runs.
I really don't get why anyone would pipe Canadines/Canabins, or mosquitos, but this is just an 'effective way to achieve what you want', this shouldn't make it cheating per se.
Now the problem I personally have with duping is, when people could get infinite duplicates of an item without having to waste any effort on it (learning to use the trick does not count, anyone can do it), will make people willing to trade them away really easily, because they won't lose anything. The problem I have with that, is, it sort of beats the idea of trading; being able to acquire something by giving something approximately equal.

Now that's where piping is different. Because it does -not- destroy the trading community. I don't think it bad to be able to get something by just spending some time in a boring way on it, instead of having to get it by luck. Actually I think this good: it will give people fair chances to get something to trade, as long as they are willing to spend time, instead of needing only luck.

In that sense I think piping contributed to the trading community, while duping destroys it, and beats the purpose of trading itself.

[DezoPenguin]

On 2005-01-15 06:50, Tycho wrote:

Now that's where piping is different. Because it does -not- destroy the trading community. I don't think it bad to be able to get something by just spending some time in a boring way on it, instead of having to get it by luck. Actually I think this good: it will give people fair chances to get something to trade, as long as they are willing to spend time, instead of needing only luck.

In that sense I think piping contributed to the trading community, while duping destroys it, and beats the purpose of trading itself.




You know, Tycho, that's a good point. Piped items (or items obtained via other "forcing" tricks such as limited quest runs) have a certain specific value to them, economically speaking--the expected amount of time and effort it takes to get one. A Guard Wave piped off a Greenill Pal Rappy has a measurable value greater than zero, because someone has to go do a FiY run offline instead of doing something else online, for an unknown amount of time, in order to get the item in question. Now, this value is reduced compared to the value of the item if it only appeared by pure random chance, but on the other hand, items like Lavis Cannons, Syncestas, or the like pretty much aren't going to exist at all for trade. Seriously, with those drop rates, who's going to find TWO Psycho Wands by pure accident? Not a lot of people, I'd wager.

Duped items, on the other hand, have exactly zero value. If you can produce unlimited amounts of them virtually "on demand," they might as well be monomates.

[Skorpius]

The rarity of items significantly decreases. Demolition Commet has become common, Guard Waves as well, when they're actually as rare as say, a Tollow Twin Chakram (given both odds of Rare Enemy and Drop). You cannot deny, or justify, the fact that Piping is, indeed, an exploit of a game quirk, as well as Recoboxing, Canabins, or Duping*. The excuse "It helps and takes effort, so it's good" is irrelevant, just because it benefits you and takes a little bit more time doesn't make it any better than anything else. Recoboxing is frowned upon, yet piping is not, and they are near equivilant in effort. There is a reason why there are so little Hildebears in Temple. Setting them into a controlled environment to obtain a Hildeblue/torr is cheating the system as much as Recoboxing or Canabins.

And, about "Helping" the trade economy, this is untrue. Say I found an Agito 1975 off of a Tollaw, and wanted to trade it. The rare is far more valuable off of a Tollaw than some things, but because someone can pipe it, that makes the Tollaw version not worth the drop rate it has (although, even the rare enemy version has a combined drop rate half of a Tollaw Agito, you can still understand the point). Piping has created an unbalance and inconsistancy in the rarity of items. A lot of great items are pipable, but that's the thing, they're supposed to be more rare. Frozen Shooters, Lavis Cannons, Demolition Comets, all commonly seen because you can "recobox" your rare.

EDIT: Here's a better item example: Aura Field. Spirit Garment + Moola is pretty easy to obtain, but not as easy as piping an Ob Lily and getting better results. The better version is more common than the less drop rate version because of piping.


*I add duping here because of the nature of what happens. It is not like Stacking or Max Stats, in which rules are broken. They are bent, instead, making this more of a loophole than a "glitch".



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Skorpius on 2005-01-15 13:38 ]</font>

[Mixfortune]

The only real reason that comes to mind about certain practices (piping, canabin-ing, TP refill on v1) being more acceptable than others is if ST itself allows it and approves of it. As for the guide mentioned in the quote I posted earlier, I'm not sure exactly what guide it is, but given the poster (Lolita), it's not likely that it's some made up guide, and is actually credible and from ST itself. We may need to refer to her if we need to.

Of course, I'm not saying we should blindly follow it. For one, it could have changed since then, although it wouldn't seem likely to change for something like piping. Secondly, even with ST acceptance of certain practices, there's still a potential moral issue, if you'd rather consider that part of it instead. Illegal vs. Immoral. Doesn't seem likely to be moral issues with an ST accepted practice, but still possible, surely.

[Skorpius]

I was trying to get some people to read this, tilt their heads, scratch their chins, and say to themselves "Hmm, what if that's true?" I noticed here and at IGN (the other place I posted this topic) people seem to, instead, fall back on justifying their practices. Although this isn't as apparent here, and doesn't apply to everyone who replied at both sites, it does somewhat frustrate me that not many people are willing to question their own moral standards for the sake of enlightenment and/or discussion.

I am still confused as to why many people have defended piping, and still bash other parallels (or practice piping because it's a fast way to get a rare, but not Recobox/Canabin because it's a cheap quick way for EXP). It's like saying you like Light Red, but hate Pink. These topics might die off with my confusion still echoing, but can you blame me for being so curious on players' thinking in this situation?

[ForceOfBrokenGlass]

I'm wondering about that topic that was posted. What's Lollita's affiliation with SEGA if any?

[Mixfortune]

On 2005-01-15 23:06, ForceOfBrokenGlass wrote:
I'm wondering about that topic that was posted. What's Lollita's affiliation with SEGA if any?



I won't pretend that I know the full details about it, but even though Lolita hasn't perhaps given as much of this kind of information overall, that which she has given ends up fairly reliable. Basically, she does/did have a very good source of information regarding these sorts of things.

Also, Skorpius, I didn't intend that as "if ST says it's okay, it's okay" sort of thing, as it seems whether piping is supported by ST or not isn't widely known, so that wouldn't necessarily lead to people taking that and thinking it okay. There probably is another reason for the general acceptance of it... perhaps because it was earlier known and practice, therefore more ingrained in people's minds as acceptable? Who knows (rhetorically speaking)? But there ARE some places ST draws the line. Where these are exactly drawn, perhaps we should finally get someone to ask and confirm.

-Also note, just a thing to consider, Skorpius, just because something is removed in a later version, doesn't mean they never allowed it. While it is a good point of yours to consider, it's not always valid. Good thing you didn't use that as your only point, heheh. For example, the TP refill in ver.1 WAS acceptable, this I know. However, perhaps not for this sole reason, but because of other problems in later versions (exploitable glitches WITHIN it in abused situations, not the TP refill itself) they just removed the TP refill altogether in newer versions.

But of course, there are always exceptions to everything, so it doesn't discredit your points, but nonetheless, it's things like these we need to consider.

[Skorpius]

On 2005-01-15 23:51, Mixfortune wrote:
-Also note, just a thing to consider, Skorpius, just because something is removed in a later version, doesn't mean they never allowed it.
Exactly. My side of the coin actually goes with this, and extends further: Just because it wasn't removed doesn't mean it was allowed in the first place.

I'll leave this topic be, for now, to allow more players to comment and type up their thoughts.

[Tycho]

I was not just 'defending piping', what I told you was just my opinion. Also, even if piping shifted some of the trading values, does that make it evil? I don't see why.
Besides, I did think instead of 'liking light red while hating pink' (hey, what's wrong with pink! <.<), that's why I tried to point out where I think piping, and those other things, are different.


Besides, you're saying EP2 Hildes are rare. Wrong xD, try to do Temple of MA2, you'd get 18 per run or something like that, and actually in hard and very hard there are a lot of 1/46 rare drops from them. Quite easy I think. I know just the drops don't justify the creatures' rareness, but 18 of them in a first area isn't really all that rare.

[Hrith]

You're completely missing a major point of item rarity in PSO.

Let's take Ano Rifle.
Best shot: Redria Sinow Zoa -- 1/1051
Then Red Handgun.
Best shot: Purplenum Forest El Rappy -- 1/316

Forest is easier, There are more El Rappies than Sinow Zoas, there is the Fake in Yellow quest, the drop rate is 3 times harder on Ano Rifle.
Yet, those two items have the exact same rarity.

So making some 10 stars a lot easier to obtain by piping is totally deliberate.

What you're saying is IMO as stupid as saying that Purplenum player should not exploit FiY runs for Red Handguns while it is so much harder for Whitill players to get one.

[PhotonDrop]

Skorpius, I'm a bit confused, I can see where you're coming from but it doesnt make sense to me.

I mean, piping isn't exactly tricking the game data, it just sorta happens. It's not exactly something bad, IMO it would be almost the same as runs to find said enemy.

On the other points though I don't think they're bad, they just have to be used properly, like dupe guarding your things just in case some cheeky bastard FSODs you, but then again if you slip up a step you FSOD yourself defeating the purpose *shrugs*

Recoboxing, I wouldn't exactly call it immoral, just stupid, why would one blast away on a Recobox/Recon for hours for hundreds of thousands of EXP with their S-Rank Mechs when they could save more time by doing Ult Ruins runs? Besides, if that wasnt meant to happen we wouldnt get EXP stealing attributes to weapons.

Now don't get me wrong here, I thought what you said over a few times, but it just didnt click.