Unlimited item duplication glitch

[Gamunity]

I've found a glitch that duplicates all your stuff in your inventory, to your advantage. I'm a game designer myself, so I undertand that this is going to be a hard nut to crack for the devs. Sorry for that. But it is an important one. If this issue has already been raised elsewhere or you don't want the whole internet to know about it, you can delete this post after reporting it. I wont be offended!

I run the game server on my PC and two Xboxes play along multiplayer. I've only tested the glitch on Xbox but think it should be doable on PC as well.

So if you play multiplayer, you can do the following on Xbox:

1. Put all items that you want to duplicate in your inventory
2. Save
3. Put all item in a chest
4. Turn off the Xbox by pressing the round button on the Xbox itself (don't log off)
5. Wait 30 sec
6. Turn on the Xbox and rejoin.

Your items will now be in your inventory but also in the chest. So all items have now been duplicated.

I think it could be done on a PC as well by shutting down the game via task manager, but haven't tested this.

Exploiting this too much will ruin this beautiful piece of art! I only use it to duplicate stuff from previous biomes that I don't feel like revisiting. Like iron from the swamps. So not for items from the biome I'm currently exploring as it ruins the game.

I hope it helps!

[Gamunity]

In addition to the above, this glitch can also work to your disadvantage (the very reason I started investigating in the first place). I had made a great silver armor for my son and placed it in a chest. He came online, grabbed it out of the chest and put it in his inventory and then turned off the Xbox without saving/logging off. When he came back later, the armor was gone. It's the same glitch but the other way around.

[L1m3r]

Pretty sure this is not a glitch at all.
Are you sure this always works? I assume VH won't always be able to save the world before you do a hard shut down on the XBOX (eg. with larger worlds).

It's just how save-states and files work.
Killing VH via a taskmanager not required (at least not yet - worked for Minecraft until it got fixed in that regard).

1. Put all items that you want to duplicate in your inventory.
   
2. Save the character.
   
3. Make backup of character save file. (Automate it with FreeFileSync + RealTimeSync)
   
4. Put all item in a chest.
   
5. Quit map/world (no need to quit the game unless you use cloud saves).
   
6. Restore backup.
   
7. Profit!

Of course the other way of saving and restoring the world instead of the character is possible too.
Probably even from inside the game via the versioning/restore functionality.

I've never (pretty much) played on any platform that didn't allow you to do stuff like that and I'm damn sure I never want to.

[Gamunity]

Yes, this always works and your set of instructions exploits the same glitch. But there is a difference: your way needs backupping and saving files. Mine is just turning off the Xbox and the glitch has already happened. To your advantage or disadvantage as you can read in my previous comment.

What if you finally get that precious ore home and craft yourself that long anticipated weapon in the middle of the night and then switch the xbox off without saving: gone the next day.

I think it's a serious issue.

[L1m3r]

Originally posted by Gamunity:

... and then switch the xbox off without saving: gone the next day.

That's how anything computerized works.
If you don't save you haven't saved anything...
And constantly streaming every change into a save file isn't feasible/practical (unless you invest a lot more $€).

Buy a UPS, connect your XBOX to it and only shut it down normally.

This isn't a glitch but expected behavior in my opinion.

[Gamunity]

I disagree. I think it is a grave problem. A lot of users will experience very weird situations where they lose or gain items in aan unexplainable way.

[esbenmf]

But that is always a risk with unintended crashes / turn-offs etc. Unsaved changes are lost ! The only way to change this is to either
1) Save constantly, as in CONSTANTLY, EVERY CHANGE OF ANYTHING (but try to imagine the lag this implies)
2) Save characters and worlds in the same file. Which makes all sorts of other side effects, like no being able to use a character on more worlds.