Clarity on certain rules. (Suggestion).

[Darkette]

The list of offenses under CFW all end in “trophies being earned or edited”. Does this mean by legitimate means under these circumstances also or does it refer to autopops? I ask because “resulting in trophies being earned or edited” implies autopop or edited to me. It would be rather redundant for it to mean legitimately earned and then put “or edited” after it. I’ll use rule #1 and #3 as an example. You can use CFW on any console or vita to do things like pirate games, or even more innocent things like themes and better XMB management, but if you earn trophies after that through legitimate means after doing this, can this fall under the rule? It needs to be more clear-cut in my opinion.

 

Another example - rule #4. You can join a hacked lobby by accident which doesn’t pop trophies by the hacker. Let’s just say the hacker just uses visual effects or gives movement speed in the match. You can get trophies legitimately in that lobby, maybe even straight away for joining as character x times, or getting x kills, but you’d still be “earning” which again falls under that rule. Surely this would mean autopopped? 

 

In both scenarios you’re still earning the trophies in the intended way, but the misinterpretation of the rules can suggest otherwise. Can I suggest a more understanding definition? You can just change “earned” to “autopopping” and it’ll be understandable upon first glance. I wouldn’t want to see someone else flagged for these reasons as I’m all for clarity. I mainly ask this due to the case of @ChaoticFox9900’s recent dispute, which looks as if it was approved under interpretation of the rule.

 

The references to the rules are at the top of this thread. 

 

[B1rvine]

I briefly discussed this with you in a DM, but I'll answer publicly so the community benefits.

 

@BlindMango has stated the rules were to be written in a way that doesn't resemble a legal document. The leaderboard's not a contract, the trophy environment is ever-evolving, and this website is really supposed to be a fun and enjoyable place. Considering that, it was challenging to write the rules in a way everyone would understand with various terminology.

 

The intended meaning covers a few things : Using unauthorized trophy editors / apps to unlock trophies directly, even "legitimate-looking ones", or benefitting from any kind of homebrew app that causes game-altering mechanics / functions of any kind, directly or indirectly, that leads to trophies being unlocked is flaggable. This extends cross-platform. As a general rule, the idea is to utilize the functions the developer made available for a game, but nothing else, so this also means any CFW usage that gives a player a unique advantage that someone without it couldn't achieve is also flaggable.

 

The term "earned" means unlocking trophies "in the game environment" after the above has occurred.

 

To answer your specific examples:

• Auto-popping can refer to an entire list, or a single trophy that "shouldn't" have popped but did due to CFW.
• Timestamps don't matter if homebrew improves trophy odds in-game somehow, or directly aids in popping.
• CFW usage doesn't pertain to autopopped trophies only. This is just the most easily identified by anyone.
• If in-game mechanics are altered, like "movement speed", "god-mode", hacked/non-existent items, stats editing, or anything similar, it's flaggable.
• CFW benefits utilized by the player or other players in game, that affect any of these bullet points or cause "impossible" trophies are flaggable.
• Sly has indicated there's zero tolerance for piracy on this site, in any form, and 2 / 4 of our team believe it should be flaggable. (it's detectable, in some instances.)

 

Hopefully that's clear.

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by B1rvine

[MonaSaxPayne]

not sure if off topic or not, but as far as I can tell, the rules as currently written are clear and easily understandable 

 

I think the conflict starts when the CRT flag ppl for having timestamps that "mimic CFW usage", while being very much possible to obtain timestamps in the same manner while doing nothing nefarious

 

 

[Darkette]

@B1rvine Thanks for the reply. The points you’ve made do make sense and were already obvious to me despite not being directly written as such. I guess autopopping wasn’t the best word. Similar to how a modder could give you edited weapons on borderlands or something. Consciously taking it and using it would be flaggable yet it would not be an autopop, so I could’ve used better wording there. I think anyone that intends on applying homebrew of any kind to utilise features that don’t impact trophies would know this, the only bullet point you made that hasn’t ever been transparent to people is piracy. 

 

It’s good that you’ve mentioned it here. In our DM you did give me a brief hint that people had been flagged for piracy, even though you weren’t involved directly in it. @Sly Ripper May have indicated this privately but if it hasn’t been stated publicly in the rules then people are going to do it. I’d say flagging people for this in particular without it ever being stated in the rules is rather devious, which I assume might be why the recent disputes were lifted. If flags for this are being accepted consciously then it’d probably be better written in the rules sooner rather than later. I guess a more important question would be: if you were to apply this rule due to sly’s apparent heavy stance on it, would you remove people that had previously pirated, or those going forward from the rule? I can’t see the former one being a good idea. 
 

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Darkette

[Sergen]

With piracy the burden of proof should be on the person reporting the trophies to prove that the game was pirated. There's what's called "reasonable doubt" where if something can possibly happen then the person should be innocent. In this case every vita game or DLC can be acquired regardless of region by using the account swap trick, PS3, PS4 and PS5 games or DLC can be game shared to other people and team accounts are allowed so game sharing should obviously be allowed. However this website probably doesn't want to actively promote or truly write a statement in the rules saying much about piracy, it could get them in trouble with Sony or game publishers if they go too deep into it. People won't know someone is a pirate for certain unless the person admits it, which is why I say that the trophy time stamps should be the only thing to truly go by. 

[Darkette]

6 minutes ago, Sergen said:

*snip*

Taking a neutral stance on it by not agreeing to it nor disagreeing to it makes more sense to me, in which case this thread can be deleted if it exposes anything. Game access doesn’t equal cheated trophies, which is why I can’t see it logically having a place in the rules alongside the current ones. Although not as wrong morally, people gameshare and exploit that with phantoming, or having a group of friends deactivate when they’re done so another can activate. I imagine a lot of money can be lost like this, especially with small indie companies.

 

Straying off topic, but regardless of whether it’s easy to catch or not it would be best announced if it’s going to be made flaggable. I actually feel that all rule changes should be announced when it only takes being unaware to be burdened with a flag. If it’s detectable in whichever way then I’m sure the people who stack every region of every 10 minute vita game will want to know this.