Stop doing them. People will get smart and hide their money in signs, items, etc and could pay little to no money Instead, treat hacking/x-ray like a scam. First offense: you owe the server 250k or something.
People are smart and have tried to hide the money. Staff can and do find it. Having it be a full reset is a deterrent. You are essentially saying they should only pay back what is owed due to the unfair advantage. This would leave the only discipline to the ban. Something many find to be a trifling affair.
Andrew actually did this with @SCgenesis lately. It was unique, but not necessarily more effective. What I'd rather see is a balance reset accompanied with a 100k debt to the server due within a month, or something like that. It would increase with each ban for hacking (maybe 100k, 250k, 500k, 1m? The last two would obviously take more than a month but still) Would be another effective deterrent in keeping people from hacking imo. And signs should absolutely be confiscated as they often are.
Not really. They don't go looking for your things, they just reset whatever's in your balance when it comes to hacking and third-party shit. I wish they did, but that's too difficult. Unless it's a multi-account type of thing that has investigation in it anyway, this usually doesn't happen. Being in debt to the server is also a deterrent. A balance wipe isn't always. Here's how I view the issue: Say I'm an auto-fisher. I will sell my fish after every hour, and put that money in a sign. That way, I only have like $100 for them to wipe, but 500k in a sign. I don't really lose much. What this suggestion accomplished is that now, I have to take 250k out of that 500k sign (using numbers as examples) to pay off what I did. It punishes me in a more consistent manner, that's equally bad for everyone and avoids people who game the system.
I misunderstood. I didn't realize this would be a negative balance. I thought this was to lessen or restrict the amount taken instead of a full wipe.
$250,000 is a very arbitrary amount. There's people who have made millions from hacking before getting caught and people who have made $20,000 from hacking before getting caught. Isn't a $250,000 fine unfair for the user who made $20,000 from hacking and too easy on the user who made millions from hacking? Harsher punishments won't work anyway. People will always have that stupid mentality of "Oh, I'll never get caught!" or "With my ghost client, no one will catch me!" and show complete disregard of the potential consequences of hacking. So why not aim for preventive measures instead, stopping hacking where it starts? ECC used AAC for a little while and it effectively blocked kill aura, reachers and fastbreak. So why not focus on AAC and other preventive measures instead? It will block hacking where it starts, so we won't even need to worry about hackers hiding money in signs as they won't be able to hack. Much better to improve preventive measures and not worry about our punishments system than completely overhauling it and making it more arbitrary.
The number was kinda made up. But following that logic, is it fair to only take the $100 in someone's balance when they made millions? How about the millions from the person who only made 20k? That would imply they didn't follow the idea this suggestion aims to prevent. A smart person will say "I know I'm going to get caught, so I'll put my money in a sign before it's taken. That way they only take $100, while I still have my cheated millions in a sign." It's a very clear loophole to game the system, this suggestion closes that loophole. That blocks PvP hacks and fast breaks. Fast breaks are only really relevant with Melon farming now that there are Eff 7s. But that plugin won't stop the auto farmers, auto fishers, and x-rayers out there. I don't see why we don't add it, but if it's going to cause random kick-offs then it's probably best we stay away for it (up for a debate I don't want to have on this thread).
I've already said that both are unfair. You're literally just swapping the situations around. I don't see the point you're trying to make here. You're attempting to close the loophole with arbitrary numbers. The users who've made millions from hacking will just walk off relatively unhurt while you'll hurt users who've only made a few bucks from hacking. It really isn't fair as you're punishing the users who largely exploited the economy less than the user who exploited the economy less so. Well, two things: Firstly, autofarmers and fishers get their inventory and balance wiped - They already lose out heavily as they lose their melon swords and star rods and all possible gains they had in their balance. Why pursue them with further punishment (That's completely arbitrary) when they already lose hundreds of thousands if not millions from getting caught? Finally, x-rayers don't make a lot of money in the first place as eff7 mining makes more money than x-ray. I really don't see the need to pursue their assets as a whole as people who x-ray really don't have that much assets on them. I get that hackers can be annoying and I can totally see your reasoning on why we should do this, but why completely overhaul the punishments system and make it extremely arbitrary when we already handle hacking fine? Hacking really just isn't an issue right now honestly.
... it honestly isn't that hard to find people's signs and chests that have their money + valuables. And I've seen numerous mentions over the past couple years of it being done (especially on the bigger offenses). Even the brightest of users can't really hide their actions and commands from the server logs. In some cases/servers, I've also heard that administrative commands exist that can simply wipe away things owned by specific usernames, or allow easy teleportation and locationing. My only issue with balance wipes/resets is that once they happen ... well, they happen. Mistakes and misinformation can happen as well, so someone who might have been innocent or simply didn't end up deserving an entire balance wipe. Or if they're in economic businesses and holding other people's money that is legit once logs and threads are checked, it can also be bad. I honestly dislike balance wipes and believe that some administrative account - that never plays and isn't a part of the economy - should simply take the money, log it with needed information, and wait until everything is fully settled before wiping it (or returning it). As for owing money to users or the server... Eh. There appears to be the common theme of people never repaying users in the first place - whether it is because they are banned for a long time/permanently, they simply never make the money or don't want to, or they repeatedly offender during the repayment period. And if you talk on a negative balance (owing the server), especially for scammers, they really will never pay users back because they can't even afford to rent tools/farms, buy food, etc. Hackers are a different case, since I don't believe you need money to play SG... But if you were hacking in the first place, you probably aren't that great and likely won't ever make the money back that way (and can't play normally due to a negative balance). That's too harsh of a punishment and will simply make users quit - new and old, since hacking can be spur-of-the-moment decisions by anyone. If you meaning owing the server without a negative balance, like if the server was a user... Again, I don't really see people following through and paying off the debt. TBH it'd just be easier to give scammers harsher punishments that don't involve ECD directly. Ban them from lottery, sportsbook, any server-officiated/-run temptation, potentially make a group rank that disallows them from entering SG/money-making minigames (or if you're afraid of hidden money - tradesigns), etc. The best form of punishment to cut back on scammers and hackers is actually taking away gameplay/their addictions/their platform that causes so many problems. Bans have been meaningless for years on MC and most games because people don't realize that you have to almost... as bad as it sounds... treat users like children. Ground them, take away their internet or computer, etc.
Out of curiosity, how do you go about finding them? Because I have heard of people hiding stuff below the ocean floor and stuff like that.
Out of curiosity, do you really believe that you are going to get a straight answer to this question? I will say that just remember that their are logs of everything you do, every movement you make, every sign you create, every dollar you make or spend, every word you say (and sometimes even what you are thinking I believe) .
In practice this causes just as many issues as it would solve and makes the current system more complicated. It would also still allow people to profit from hacking after the fact via gambling/investing the cheated money, making the economical impact even worse. Also we don't just reset balances, we can and will go after other assets. It all depends on the circumstances.
Yes I did. I know about the logs, but I wasn't sure if it gave mouse click for mouse click and cords and everything that goes into trying to hide from staff. Thank you
