A hot potato: Ubisoft says it will start cracking down on players who make XP farming quests using Assassin's Creed: Odyssey's Story Creator Mode. It says it's to help other players who have creative stories get noticed, but Ubisoft has skin in the game in the form of an XP booster players can buy.
Back in June, YouTuber Dark Strider showed viewers a way to get an infinite amount of XP and Drachmae in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. It involves finding a particular player-created quest that instantly kills a bunch of off-screen enemies when you start it. The exploit was made with the game's Story Creator Mode.
On Wednesday, Ubisoft got wind that multiple users were creating XP farming quests like this and vowed to put a stop to it. While it is not technically considered cheating (it will be going forward) since players are simply using tools given to them by Ubisoft, the publisher certainly frowns on it because it renders its $10 lifetime XP boosters worthless.
However, the publisher's official stance is that the "exploits risk jeopardizing the overall quality, integrity, and purpose of Story Creator Mode." They also make the creative efforts of those who have made fun quests less visible.
To combat these farming quests, Ubisoft will be changing its terms of use agreement banning these types of exploits by labeling it "misuse of the tool." It is also implementing several other "fixes" to combat the problem.
It will begin by removing farming XP quests from its automatic recommendation system. From now on, stories that get reported for "exploitation or cheating" will get hidden. It will begin sanctioning players who continue to make such cheats as well. Developers are also working on fixes that can be implemented at the software level to prevent players from making these types of quests in the first place.
Ubisoft should have seen this situation coming. You cannot just hand level creation tools to players and not expect them to find ways to exploit them. Personally, I say kudos to those who figured this out because microtransactional XP boosters are rubbish. On the contrary, exploits as powerful as the one Dark Strider demonstrated are borderline game breaking, but hey, it's a single-player game, so who is being harmed?