In the April update for The Division Ubisoft added its first raid mission, called the Falcon Lost Incursion, to the game. Since its release players have found a way to bypass portions of the mission allowing them to run through it quicker than normal.
A video on Gamespot shows off how the glitch works. Using a riot shield, ballistic shield or deploy cover players are able to glitch through a wall and make it to the final room. Once you are in the final room, as the video shows, the enemy A.I doesn’t realize that the players are there so they can freely wander up to the boss and chip away at it. Obviously this is not how Ubisoft envisioned players would be experiencing the mission.
In response Ubisoft decided that it will punish players who exploit the glitch. In a post on the official forums Community Manager Natchai had this to say,
We are working on fixing the exploit. Obviously it is against our Code of Conduct and the team is looking into what can be done in terms of punishment for those who have exploited.
Player response to Ubisoft’s ruling has not been positive, with people saying that Ubisoft should be to blame since they where the ones who made the game and allowed the bug to go live. In a long post on the Division sub-reddit user CarpeBedlam stated their frustration,
It absolutely sickens me that a Community Manager has stepped forward not to apologize for the complete mess of code that has been delivered as a finished product, but rather to deflect blame for any balancing issues that may arise due to their shoddy production onto their paying customers.
CarpeBedlam goes on to say that it’s Ubisofts’ job to set boundaries for the player to follow.
You get to decide what we can and can’t do in your game world. You set the rules of this world, we simply inhabit that world and use the mechanics given to us… BY YOU…We bought your game and our only responsibility when we boot it up is to play within its confines.
As for the Code of Conduct, others mentioned how it wasn’t readily available in game. As user Cipher_Sierra says,
I will say that dealing out a punishment to players blindly is ********. I have never read the terms, they’re never referenced in the game, I’m never warned anywhere. The only reason I knew hacking was wrong was because I read about on forums.
While Ubisoft hasn’t stated what exactly the punishment will be, under the Forbidden Conduct section of the Code of Conduct, which can be found on the forums, states that “Exploitation of any new or known issues or bugs is forbidden and may result in account suspension or revocation.” Although it’s seems unlikely that Ubisoft would suspend what could be a large portion of their user base.
As for what players think Ubisoft should do, an article on Gamespot says that people have suggested punishing people who exploit future glitches and bugs.