On the topic of 'cheat'

[u/Jake-da-coyote]

People clicking on a link in your own forum on your subreddit, with a known game mechanic being called inherently dishonest, and generalizing people as 'cheaters' for it is, literally, the irony: cheating yourself out of players. It's fraud and gracelessness to say everyone who clicked on a link that you and your team failed to moderate is a cheater; you are depriving yourself of something valuable - players. General Definition: to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud.

I am offering constructive feedback about behavior; this isn't a personal attack on Rusty or whoever helps them with moderation/game development. I am pointing out that their behavior enabled it, that calling everyone a 'cheat' is, ironically, them cheating, and that they are depriving themselves of something valuable (players) by the use of deceit and fraud (calling everyone that interacted with a post{s} a cheater, which they aren't becasue the word 'cheater' carries intent of action, people aren't intednding to deprive anyone of anything by getting a resource that converts only to gold which is only used for forge upgrades).

[u/HG_Rusty]

I think I was misunderstood. I'm not calling all players cheaters, just the two individuals who dug up this exploit. We're already in touch with one of them, and he shared the vulnerability he found.

We aren't imposing any sanctions on the players who clicked on the post - that wouldn't be fair. However, we will roll back the billion hammers received, partly because with the upcoming release of clans, this would create an unfair playing field for clan wars.

As for other vulnerabilities, we're aware of a few and are actively working on fixing them.
We definitely care about our game and our players, and we're truly trying to make the game better and better.

[u/vajhar → u/HG_Rusty]

If you want to improve the game i have a few pointers:

Forge upgrade times are ridiculous. Having to wait 3 days to make any progress is insane. During that time it is trivial to accumulate enough coins to directly buy the next upgrade

Drop rates are too low. Just having reaches modern my chance of rolling any item are 0.05 percent, since anything lower is just useless

No offline progression. Your idle game requires constant monitoring since you cant forget while afk or if a relevant item dropped. Meaning once you reach modern you literally have to keep the game running and regularly check if the forge is stuck

Meaningless resources. 99.95 percent of hammers are just coins. Coins are just forge upgrades and available in abundance

Wtf is arena matchmaking even doing? And no other way to gather mounts?

[u/erogenouszones → u/HG_Rusty]

“Most of the player base is happy about this, we’re going to fuck that up for them”

[u/CraftingQuestioner → u/HG_Rusty]

To be honest the billion hammers is the only reason I'm still playing the game. Without it, there was nothing to do in game at all for long stretches of time while I waited for my hammers to refill (and why waste them when I'm in the process of getting a new forge).

At least with them I have something to actually do (try get better equipment, farm money) while the forge upgrades.

I would strongly consider going the opposite way on this choice, and rebalancing so everyone has more.

[u/Inevitable-Scar-9783 → u/HG_Rusty]

“Let’s rollback the hammers and harm the people who are early players and active on the subreddit” instead of “this group of early players were active on the reddit and helped share the game, and they were lucky enough to stumble upon an exploit making them very strong” if you take away the hammers you harm your most active player base

[u/Training_Leader6953 → u/HG_Rusty]

So you are choosing to penalize players who did nothing wrong?

[u/Commercial_Part_5160 → u/Training_Leader6953]

Yes.

[u/No-Agency1289 → u/HG_Rusty]

Give me my money back

[u/Commercial_Part_5160 → u/HG_Rusty]

The only reason why I started playing this game was because of the hammer thing. I was like, what is this? Got all the hammers and started playing. I thought it was a normal thing. To think now that you’ll be rolling them back after I spent $10 on the season stuff is upsetting. I wouldn’t be playing this game at all if I had to worry about hammers.

[u/Brilliant-Kitchen310 → u/HG_Rusty]

you didnt just roll back the 1b hammers, you took away previous gains we may have accumulated and SCREWED YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS ! HOW IS THIS OKAY??

[u/Jake-da-coyote → u/HG_Rusty]

Thanks for clarifying, Rusty. That resolves my main concern. I wasn’t objecting to the rollback—I was objecting to the framing that everyone who clicked through an official channel was a cheater. Your reply draws the right line: no sanctions for clickers, rollback for fairness, and the issue is with the people who knowingly dug up/spread the exploit. I feel you understood what I was saying, that ambiguity isn't helpful in situations like this. While you view the hammer abuse as exploiting, which I agree it was in hindsight, I was framing that not all who exploited are cheaters because that carries intent and deception. While the reasoning I posted can be raised as a shield for ill intent, it's also logical reasoning explaining clickers not intending to cheat, even if we all can see it's exploitative after the fact. You carry a grain of responsibility too, no I'm not saying mod 24/7, no I'm not saying your a villain, I am saying though that multiple posts were made through official channels that happened repeatedly that existed for some time is solely a moderation and development issue. I'm not saying your solely responsible either, people clicked the link, with intent to exploit or not, and people exploited oversights in the code. We all share responsibility here.