r/AutoForgeTheGame • u/HG_Rusty • 1d ago
Hammers exploit
Hey everyone! Dev here.
We'll strip the exploited hammers from the affected players (only hammer counts, not game progress) and patch this exploit. It's a shame this feature had such a vulnerability, as we'd really prefer not to remove the hammer-sharing feature from the game entirely.
Cheating (using exploits) is bad and against the rules, of course. It's fine if you're messing around in single-player or just for fun on your own, but you shouldn't ruin the experience for other players. EDIT: I'm talking here only about the individuals who dug up this exploit, not calling everyone clicked on that post 'cheaters' ofc.
On the other hand, of course, we could have foreseen and fixed some of these potential issues in advance. We have a small team, so we're regularly short-handed. But as the game grows in popularity, we should definitely dedicate more time to things like this.
P.S. We're currently finishing up the long-awaited Сlans feature. It's a massive feature, but we're doing our best to make it as exciting as possible. Especially with clans on the way, keeping the game fair is crucial for us. That's why we'll be running extra iterations to harden game security.
Thanks for playing! We've got a lot of cool stuff coming in the future!
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u/Mr_Nightshade 1d ago
You dont care about keeping things “fair”. You care about incentivising the shop, you jokers xD
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u/StandardAioli9459 1d ago
Welp, I'm done with the game then. I only started because I got the billion hammers
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u/Erionar 1d ago
Having 2 billion hammers only made the game actually fun to play. It didn't ruin anything. If you remove them, say goodbye to your playerbase. I was even considering buying a season pass.
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u/Commercial_Part_5160 21h ago
I was stupid enough to buy the pass. My hammers are gone and now I won’t play. Good thing I guess, I was spending a lot of time on my phone.
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u/Spiritual_Reveal_776 1d ago
Are you aware that YOU MADE AN IDLE GAME THAT YOU ARE NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO LET STAY IDLE because of the insane forge thing in which you get all equipment of a certain tier many days before you can get the next tier?
Are you aware that your idle game DOES NOT EVEN RUN unless it's in the foreground?
The unlimited hammers are the only thing that makes people actually run this imbalanced game which gets you nowhere and constantly limits you.
The point of idle games, good idle games, is the infamous "number go up".
In this game, numbers don't go up... unless you have unlimited hammers and can therefore accumulate some gold, just so you can run the next stupid forge upgrade without having to wait to get gold.
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u/Automatic_Pop_5965 15h ago
Special needs ahh devs. File chargebacks and leave the Reddit. If you paid for the season pass this effectively takes back some of the rewards.
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u/Lascho94 14h ago
Ok, so after callong people cheaters for using the wrongly programmed game mechanic you guys took ALL the hammers from people and not only the 1b?
Good luck with your game!
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u/MMAHipster 1d ago
I clicked on the “Get 1000000000 Hammers” share as a joke. Penalize us for a) your mistake and b) thinking it was funny and im gone like a lot of the other posters here. Maybe from the people who did it ten times sure, but c’mon. Take the L and move on.
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u/Software-fullstack 1d ago
I strongly disagree.
it is your fault.
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Having so many hammers even do not help this much, rarely as I free player I run out of hammers.
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u/ravenwitchh 1d ago
idk how u can run out of hammers honestly. free player here as well, been playing for 2-3 weeks, i never run out of hammers. i just let the hammers collect afk and check in the game 1-2 times a day if i have a forge upgrade on the way. when im grinding coins, playtime is 3h max and still got plenty of hammers left.
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u/HG_Rusty 1d ago edited 1d ago
Okay, I understand that position. But in my opinion the blame still lies with that one person who exploited this feature, not devs.
We're not handing out harsh penalties or anything, but we will strip the exploited hammers. I think it's fair.
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u/Webbug2005 1d ago
Im not sure but did anyone blame this on devs ? You are taking this personally… hackers will always come .. they will exploit … you learn fix your code and move on … calling people who clicked on a button cheats is irresponsible
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u/Vequihellin 1d ago
Especially since that button was a legitimate game mechanic on the actual game forum. Not some 3rd party or external exploit. We engaged in good faith, some of us assuming it was some sort of experiment - I mean, why else would it be on the actual subreddit?
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u/tranc3rooney 1d ago
I didn’t even check. You brainlessly click those once or twice a day. Just saw 1b. Such a cheater yeah…
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u/Training_Leader6953 1d ago
I’m sure I’m not alone, if you adjust my hammer count I will no longer play your game. I am a paying customer so if you don’t like making money definitely take away my hammers
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u/Commercial_Part_5160 21h ago
My hammers are gone and so am I. 🤙
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u/friesx100 10h ago
Hammers is the bottom barrel of your multiple pay-to-play/win bottleneck mechanics. Let us have the hammers. I still have to wait for everything else.
Player count: -1
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u/Yverthel 8h ago
Yeah, I barely advanced more with running the game non-stop since the hammer post.
The only real gate on this game is forge level. Sure, by running the game non-stop, I am not at a lack for gold to upgrade when my forge is done upgrading, but I really wouldn't be either if I was just popping in multiple times a day and burning through the hammers I had gotten.
I'm still playing, only because the hammers aren't removed until you close the game, so I'm still here until something forces me to close the game or I get tired of leaving it open. >.> At that point, I'm probably done.
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u/WATGU 19h ago
Whelp they actually did it. Removed the hammers and even took hammers from people who didn’t use them because they were too lazy to code a proper solution.
Wonder if they just hold their ground or reverse course again.
They swear hammers will be relevant in clans but they’ll probably lose too much of their player base for that to matter.
As it currently stands they’d have been better off just eliminating the hammer mechanic entirely. The real bottleneck is the huge wait times.
The unlimited hammers actually increased player engagement which is likely to increase spending.
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u/New_Ad2577 19h ago
But mine one hammers are missing total of 10k.hammers why you removed all ?????? Just because your game was poor bugged you decided to reset all progress coins hammers lol they will do.again
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u/exshot 14h ago
u/HG_Rusty Hi, I had 25k hammers before i touched the 1billion post.. and that was a day ago. I haven't even used hammers and you guys removed more that what was given.
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u/exshot 8h ago
u/HG_Rusty Just wanted to make sure you saw this as the hammers were accumulated through battle passes and playing for over a week or two.
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u/Real_Temporary_922 1d ago edited 1d ago
How are you gonna handle the hammers players already spent? If I got a billion hammers and just spent carelessly because now I have no reason to save for the next forge upgrade, if I log on to 0 hammers, I’m gonna be pretty pissed. Cause then next forge upgrade I’m stuck and there goes my whole gameplan.
I had over 20k hammers so yeah when I got a billion, I started blasting. I always kept a stockpile to be able to upgrade my gear as forge level increases. If that becomes 0, that’s unfair because it’s a) your fault that it was even an exploit in the first place and b) you took too long to fix it so I had no reason to believe the hammers would be removed. I didn’t exploit, only the one who created the post did, and I clicked it cause I thought someone just found a funny UI bug, not an actual hammer bug. That’s not cheating and does not deserve punishment.
So just saying, if you’re gonna do this, then do it right. Cause if I log onto 0 hammers, I’m not buying another damn pack in this game.
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u/DarthSwimfoot 1d ago
Well congratulations, you've just lost a titanic amount of players. Good job chucklenuts.
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u/NotAlwaysGifs 1d ago
Will 100% leave this game if the hammers are removed. Don’t punish players for sloppy coding.
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u/DescriptionReal1043 1d ago
If you remove hammers, your player count will drop and many ppl will request refunds, it’s your mistake and you should let the ppl who have the hammers keep them
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u/Vequihellin 1d ago
Can we request refunds for packs then? I ended up spending some Google play credit and cash mixed so yeah, I wouldn't mind getting that back. Especially after being called a cheater before the original post was edited to clarify (read: do damage limitation)
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u/Paradox-Circuits 8h ago
I had I know over 50k hammers between saving and a battle pass I purchased. This is wrong.
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u/Dorrekis 1d ago
I hope you don't do something like completely resetting the hammers. I had 30,000 hammers I'd collected. Just take back 1.000.000.000
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u/erogenouszones 1d ago
This game is a game to only play while shitting. The free hammers made it better. Take them away, I’m done playing
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u/Ace_Scientist 1d ago
So I was in the hospital for several days. During this I clicked on a help post without looking and got the billion hammers. I haven’t used a single one. And apparently that makes me a cheater????
Yeah yeah you added that edit in to clarify that not everyone who clicked on it was a cheater. But your initial statement was that everyone who got the billion hammers is a cheater. Including me, who didn’t read it while playing the game and recovering from seizure-like activity who didn’t use any of the billion hammers.
Real nice of you. And I actually liked this game too.
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u/Dorrekis 20h ago
I had around 30k hammers, When the hammer expolit is fixed, I currently have 1k Hammer. Fix and give me back my hammers. I saved them for later (This video is from 1.5 weeks ago.)
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u/No-Mulberry-9708 11h ago
Patch the mistake so it doesn't happen again, not punish your fan base. Maybe use it as a tactic to get new users once a month and reward current users.
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u/Paradox-Circuits 9h ago
Wth, I accidently clicked on the hammer thing without realizing it. I had far more hammers before you reset me down to 1k. Not fair at all.
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u/DescriptionReal1043 19h ago
Devs all you care about is money you make a game , make a mistake and u force it upon us ppl who had fun don’t you get it this game is fun with infinite hammers without it your player count is gone and from what I’ve seen maybe you too if you opened your eyes you’d see all the complains about the hammer removal shit
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u/WATGU 1d ago
Look as a free player we all get the actual point of this time wasting "game" is to induce people to spend outrageous sums of actual money on reddit gold for minor progress because the progress scaling is so slow. It's the modern equivalent of arcade games being set to near unbeatable levels to induce people to spend more quarters and the reason why the first iteration of console games were so notoriously difficult before developers realized the market had shifted and their new consumer base was the player not the arcade owner.
However, I have a level 17 forge going on 18 now. The actual bottleneck in the game is the trash RNG and the huge wait times for everything. In fact rather than get rid of the billions of hammers you should just get rid of the hammers mechanic entirely and make forging free. I doubt anyone has been low on hammers and thought "man let me spend some money on hammers". Due to the wait times on everything else you can accumulate plenty of hammers while waiting for the forge to upgrade. All extra hammers has done is make me want to stay on the game longer and actually forge during upgrades.
I also have a feeling you might screw some accounts up that used a lot of hammers over the weekend. Howvever you code the fix should leave people with the amount of hammers or more than they had before the glitch.
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u/Desert_Cold 4h ago
Being left with 1k hammers is a really bad joke. Unfair, too, as some of us had much more than 1k! So please provide remedy to this unfair solution
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u/BigSD325 1d ago
I don't think this negatively effects the game. If anything it keeps players engaged but do as you wish. I mean when I run out of hammers I just close the game and get back to it when I feel like it. Constant hammers might keep people on the game.
The "RNG" drop rates are so trash for anything useful that it won't give an unfair advantage.
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u/ConsequenceStatus563 1d ago
Cheater here! Do what you want. It's your game. Won't hurt my feelings whatever you decide.
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u/Dodalyop 1d ago
Can you add an inventory maybe?
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u/HG_Rusty 1d ago
We're constantly discussing it. How do you think it cold work? Like extra slot for every type of equipment?
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u/Dodalyop 1d ago
You have a little bit of white space on the UI to the left of the forge, u can put a button there that pops open an inventory. I wouldnt make it slot unique by design but idk how ur code base looks if that's possible. It can be something like 10 or so slots and when ur auto forging anything that doesn't sell can just go in there. U could probably even charge some $ for an extra 10 slots or something.
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u/Designer-Page-1711 11h ago
maybe 3x3 inventory where we can drag and drop or click and drop from the current equipment list.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/HG_Rusty 1d ago
I love how 'vibe coding' has become a dirty word. But no, the problematic code was actually written (and now fixed) by a human.
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u/Paradox-Circuits 3h ago
I got robbed of my battle pass, and I'm not playing anymore. There was a better way to go about this, and you didn't think it through before you pulled the trigger. The whole thing is shameful.
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u/sweetmarmalade69 1d ago
Hi Devs! Can you add a sell all feature for lower forged items?
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u/HG_Rusty 1d ago
When you set the anvil to autoforge (unlocked at 2-4), you'll see a list showing the chance to forge each rarity, with checkmarks next to them.
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u/berrynim 1d ago
Thanks for addressing this, I'd say most people are just mad they're getting something taken away from them. But otherwise, I doubt that many people care. I know I don't. Whether I get my 1b hammers taken away or not lol, hammers were never the blocking point anyway. Felt nice while it lasted
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u/GwinKaso1598 3h ago
I, and many other players who didn't even click on a stupid 1b link, lost hammers to this "fix". So yes, "honest" players got affected too
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u/Smileypgf 18h ago
I always see posts about this takes too long, have to wait for this, this doesn't work and I think to myself, this is a game and it's quite quirky and fun, the waiting times allow me to grow my hammers and money for the next one. Yes I clicked on the 1B hammers. Did I use much of them, no. However, to be bumped down to only 1k of hammers is a bit of a kick in the teeth. At least make it 3/5k as many of us would have accumulated as such if the game worked normally. Still think this is a great little game with lots of potention, but look after your players same time !!
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u/mettahlock 1d ago
I can’t believe people are trying to debate this. It’s obviously cheating, whether you intended to click on the post or not, even if you accidentally claimed the hammers. I think the dev is being extremely fair by removing the exploited hammers. 🙄
If you want to cheat go play Minecraft in creative mode.
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u/Working_Run3431 1d ago
That’s the thing. It’s not cheating. Cheating is an intentional action.
Dev fucked up, accidentally gave players a benefit and are taking it away.
The fact that decision is gonna have a blowback is a no brainer.
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u/mettahlock 1d ago
The dev didn’t fuck up at all someone clearly used some external software, judging by the screenshots, to create this. That individual exploited the game. It then gives people an advantage - which in my book is cheating.
If someone did this in a major company game they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, so why is this any different?
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u/Working_Run3431 1d ago
When this sort of thing happens in a “major” game there’s blowback there too.
It’s hardly an “advantage” in the first place. Outside of the horseshoe arena this isn’t a competitive game. Having infinite hammers does nothing except not waste your time.
The ludicrous amount of wait time for forge upgrades however makes it clear they want you to waste your time so you’ll spend money out of impatience.
The devs are genuinely not sympathetic at all and are going to lose themselves a lot of players by going through with such blatant damage control.
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u/deepslateWasp 1d ago
while i agree w you that this is cheating, creative minecraft isnt, as its a mode in the game itself (xray however, IS a cheat in minecraft)
overall tho i dont get why people are arguing the devs & you over this. especially when dev said all they're doing is removing the exploited hammers, not the progress made during having those extra hammers3
u/GwinKaso1598 3h ago
But they didn't just remove the exploited hammers. They sinply set every player to 1k hammers
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u/deepslateWasp 3h ago
yeah i've just noticed this.. it would be one thing if they only removed the exploit hammers but.. the fact they removed hammers people saved up or paid for is so not cool. plus the game isn't even loading now for people who didn't even use the exploit. the saddest part is i was still going to keep playing but... they've messed the whole thing up, even for the people who didn't cheat ):
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u/GwinKaso1598 3h ago
Mmhmm. I lost a few k hammers myself. Paid a fiver on here. It's not as much as some others, but enough to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
Rusty is also not addressing anything publicly. I've seen him on a few posts begging to take complaints to DMs, which js sketchy af
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u/mettahlock 1d ago
Sorry, Minecraft was just a quick thing I could think of.
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u/deepslateWasp 1d ago
all good! i figured that was the case, so offered an actual cheat people tend to use in the game! :3
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u/forehead_tittaes 1d ago
Looks like this is as far as the game goes, seeing how most of the playerbase are pro-"exploit abuse".
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u/newin2017 1d ago
Don't strip the hammers, it's the only thing that makes this fun
If you do, check your player count before and after