The glitch Ok, so when I read about a newly discovered glitch in here, I instantly got a feeling you had stumbled upon an exploit similar to the trapdoor button in Cat Physics... where you take advantage of the fact that there's a 1-frame delay between the communication between some game objects. E.g. resetting a level at the one right frame would trigger a glitch that gives you an advantage. No one has actually PM'ed me and told me how to trigger this new one in FG, but after having looked at the game code for just a couple of minutes, I'm pretty sure I know what you've discovered... I've been able to re-create a glitch that makes you complete a level in 1 shot! Now, this is when you come in. While the exploit is *techinically* similar to the one in Cat Physics, if you ask me I think the actual result is far worse in FG! Beyond the point of being a charming little glitch that can boost your score. I think it's more of a game breaking one. I could easily patch it up for the next update, but of course, that would be unfair for anyone that starts playing the game from scratch from v1.02 and up, never being able to reach your scores. So my suggestion would be to basically take all your best "non-glitchy" high scores from the Google Sheet just before uploading the next build, and have the game cap each level score above that in the next version. That would undo all unrealistic scores, but still make it possible to catch up on any level where you haven't reached the actual fair top score. Plus, of course, all new levels (we plan quite a bunch of them) are all open for fair play. Does that sound like a fair solution? Or do you think leaving the glitch unpatched is more fair? Please elaborate.
There are 2 glitches ... one leads to solve every level in 2 shots and one to solve them in 1 shot, that was discovered today. Fixing them and resetting the scores to fair ones would be great if this can be done anyhow ...
Good question, donutgames. I believe the newly found glitch makes only a few dozen points, so it cannot really be called game breaking. It also is a royal fing pain in the neck, just like some of the glitches in CP. I know how to do it but have never managed to get it to work. In Cover Orange, they tried to cap the scores which was a major nuisance when people discovered new ways to improve their scores. I was never a good CO player but I also lost lots of points due to their limits. Well, we'll find out soon.
Ok, so I obviously found the 1-shot one then. Let me guess that the 2-shot one is based upon a similar mechanism? Either way, I'm glad one of you catters is already giving your thumbs up on the capping suggestion. We were really pumped to release these new worlds that we've been planning, but hearing about this glitch that basically spoils all level design and balancing we've been trying to put into the game was kind of discouraging. While it's our game and we can do whatever we like, we still like to go with an approach that respect the players, especially the ones that pours in the most time into it.
Yeah, I hear you. Reverting glitches and capping scores is the last thing you'd wanna do as a developer... but it could be a one-way capping, where it only applies to pre-1.02 save files. So once you've updated to v1.02 and all unrealisic scores are capped (what's considered unrealistic at that time that is), you could still improve upon these scores later without being capped. Hmm, only a few dozen points you say? I've only tried the glitch on a few levels, but my first impression is that I would mean quite a lot of new points.
Papp, there was a new glitch discovered today that solves EVERY single level with just 1 shot. This doesn't give just a few points ...
I fully agree with your solution. The glitch totally ruins the game. Let's cap scores to the known non-glitched hiscores. I restored the google sheet to the scores before the point eruption (total 1221). Be careful with allowing higher scores in the next version later on. If anyone uses existing flag positions from the old version, it is still easy to have any lvl in 2 shots. If you want, I gladly volunteer to be a beta tester to the new version.
Sorry, guys, I think it all started with one screenshot of lvl 4-19 For me though there is a problem of capping: Say I managed to make all in 1, but in reality I didn't manage to reach top score of the levels, capped. Then you cap the level, what happens with my score? Is it decreased to the cap score? Cleaned up? If decreased, I get the credit of the top score without actually reaching it... For me myself it's not a problem, since I've only managed to improve one level mentioned above, and that's how it started. After that I couldn't play since glitching takes way to much time to get used to. But I frankly couldn't imagine that this bug would break the game.
Similar questions here: What if you glitched a checkpoint to 1 shot before the goal? Will it be deleted? Can one use it again after the update to solve the levels in 2 shots? And as krolis already asked: how can be distinguished if a level (2-9 for instance) was solved in 1 shot with or without the glitch?
Summary of the glitches and suggested fixes.... Important questions there, Krolis and Cyan. There are quite a bunch of aspects to consider here, so let's sum it all up.... First off, there are 2 glitches as already mentioned (though I didn't know how to trigger the second one until recently) and they both require different fixes. The "Goal-in-1-glitch" Approach: The glitch itself is easily patchable. The RESULTS from this glitch can be reversed by capping all excessive scores (using the Google Sheet as reference) in save files originating from v1.01 and earlier, ONCE when upgrading to a new version. Pros: All old, excessive scores are removed. You can still improve upon old "world records" in the new, patched version as the capping don't apply after upgrade. New players compete on the same terms. Future level upgrades open up for much more XP to be collected, making old GameCenter entries with too high scores obsolete. Cons: As Vitaliy mentions in his example, say you play a level where the world record is 3 shots. A player is only able to complete it in 4 shots, but uses the glitch to complete the level in 1 shot. After upgrade, this player will be capped at 3, giving him 1 more point than he deserves. All in all though, I think this is better than just leaving the glitch there. I assume most people play games because it's fun and challenging, and cheating your way to the same score as the champion really can't be that much of a rewarding feeling... and even then, the important thing is that cheaters can't BEAT the champion at least. The "Goal-in-2-glitch" / checkpoint exploit Now this is where it gets more complicated. Since you can put "broken" checkpoint flags throughout the levels, I see two ways to handle this... Alternative #1: Leave the glitch in there. I now realize what some of you people meant earlier including Papp. It's a real pain to chew your way through every level, shot after shot, trying to expose the glitch over and over just to save another shot. Should a player be rewarded for this hard work? Or is it too much sidestepping from the core gameplay, and take away all the fun? Pros: No big changes to how the game works to date. No fiddeling with people's checkpoint flags. Cons: Might be discouraging for many players that think the glitch spoils the core gameplay, leaving the game broken. Alternative #2: Throw away all checkpoint flags at upgrade! A pretty brutal approach and really the last thing I'd like to do. But perhaps the only way to get things right in the end? One way to make it a little less brutal would be this suggestion... Say you have a level where N is the legit world record (and N+3 is the 3-star, N+5 is 2-star, N+10 is 1-star). When migrating old save files to the patched v1.02, only checkpoint flags planted at N-2 and below are removed! Pros: Any checkpoint that can lead to better-than-world record scores are effectively cut out. The typical casual gamer (the big majority of players out there) probably have most of his/her checkpoints planted at well above N-2, and will not be affected. All bad results from the "goal-in-2-glitch" is gone for good, but... see cons -> Cons: Top players such as yourselves might get a couple of checkpoints removed that were actually legit. Thoughts?
Hi Daniel, Thx for the elaborate feedback. My suggestion is to remove the glitches and put hard caps on levels according to the google list, without opportunity to improve later on. Considering the million+ attempts we made, I am pretty confident that list is final. Removing existing flags would unnecessarily affect 18,000+ players. I realize that there will still be a few glitched points here and there (myself included), but I do not see a way to weed those out other than resetting all scores. I guess no-one is in favor of that option. Let's fight it out over the new levels. Game on!
Well, hard capping is easy to implement and would mean that the game doesn't need to delete checkpoints which I like! Downside #1 is that it might look strange if a player warps to his glitchy non-deleted checkpoint with 1 shot consumed, shoots the ball in goal and gets a message "Level finished in 5 shots" Though I think we can live with that. Downside #2 is worse. We risk capping a future, new legit record. I agree that the risk is small considering the millions of attempts you've already made. BUT hard capping also means that we can't add new balls with other characteristics in the future, that suddenly opens up for new records.
Unless you're considering issuing minor updates say every month to change caps based on reported scores Also I didn't get, can the glitches be fixed, unusable anymore? Agree with Cowboy.
Regarding #1, it is similar to the 3 golden points cap in the previous version. We can live with that. Regarding #2, this is a strong argument towards soft capping rather than hard capping. I suppose that I can live with a flag reset. However, this procedure should be covered in each future update in case people skip a version. Or am I paranoia? Flags being erased after each update can be a real pain.... Otherwise I fully agree with Krolis that hard caps can be updated in future versions. Moreover, when you guys have the replay feature in place (which is second on my list, immediately after new levels and before new balls), we have a way to show that a score is legit. Having said all this, I think that I prefer soft caps if you guys can fix that.
Well, that's doable, but I'm leaning towards NOT going with the hard capping (i.e. hard capping = capping BOTH old save files upon update, plus applying the same capping when you play v1.02 and up) Think of it this way! If you know there's a hard cap on 5 shots on a certain level, and you actually think you can pull it off in 4 shots, how motivated would you be to go for that if you knew the game would cap your score anyway? Yes, both glitches can easily be fixed. But to make it fair for both existing and future players, I think I need to both do the soft capping (capping only at upgrade) plus remove "N-2 checkpoints" as described in my earlier post.
Yes, naturally the score capping procedure must happen when upgrading old v1.00 and v1.01 save files, regardless of what future version you're launching. I can't take for granted that all players will actually launch v1.02. Same thing should apply to anyone launching v1.99 with an v1.01 save. But it only has to happen once! There's no point in resetting the flags again after the glitches are fixed, which is the reason I think it might be a good idea to do once and for all.
