Taleborn: Fair Play & Exploit Policy

1. Our Philosophy

Taleborn is a game built around creativity, storytelling, adventure, and competition. We want players to enjoy creating unique characters, developing their stories, exploring adventures and dungeons, and competing with others.

All of these experiences are important parts of Taleborn.

We encourage players to experiment with character builds, discover powerful skill combinations, optimize backstories, and explore the possibilities of AI-driven gameplay.

Finding a strong strategy or creating an exceptionally powerful character is not cheating.

However, deliberately exploiting bugs or unintended system behavior, or tampering with the game to gain an unfair advantage, is not permitted.

Our goal is to maintain a fair and enjoyable experience for everyone without discouraging creativity and experimentation, especially in competitive modes where fairness matters most.

2. What Is Allowed

The following activities are considered legitimate gameplay:

• Creating and optimizing powerful characters, skills, and backstories.
• Using AI tools or external analysis tools to research character builds, compare results, or generate prompts.
• Writing prompts outside the app and entering them in the app.
• Discovering and using powerful combinations within the game's intended mechanics.
• Competing for rankings at any point during the season, including the final days.
• Encountering an unexpected bug during normal gameplay.
• Benefiting from unintended system behavior without knowingly or deliberately exploiting it.

A character's strength, win rate, ranking, or unusual build is not sufficient evidence of cheating.

Using external tools for analysis is allowed, provided they do not involve unauthorized access, tampering with game systems, or bots, macros, or scripts that operate the game for you.

3. What Is Not Allowed

Exploit Abuse

Exploit abuse occurs when a player knowingly and deliberately uses a bug, unintended system behavior, or a prohibited method of bypassing game restrictions to gain an unfair advantage.

Examples include:

• Deliberately manipulating matchmaking or cooldown mechanics to obtain opponents outside the intended matching rules.
• Repeatedly triggering a known bug to gain ELO, rewards, resources, or other competitive advantages.
• Deliberately bypassing explicitly established game restrictions through unintended technical behavior.
• Using bugs to clear adventures, journeys, dungeons, or other game modes, or to collect their rewards.
• Using bugs to manipulate another player's ranking or competitive results.
• Continuing to deliberately exploit a specific issue after receiving an explicit warning or instruction to stop.

Simply using normal game features or encountering an unintended result does not automatically constitute exploit abuse.

For example, if the matchmaking system automatically selects an opponent outside the intended ELO range during normal gameplay, the player will not automatically be considered a cheater.

However, deliberately manipulating the system to repeatedly produce such matches may be considered exploit abuse.

Tampering

Tampering is a separate violation, whether or not a bug made it possible.

It includes:

• Modifying the app or using an unofficial version of it.
• Changing what the app sends or saves, including altering AI responses.
• Writing to game data outside the official app.
• Using bots, macros, or scripts that operate the game for you.

Unfair Competition

Using multiple accounts or arranging matches with other players to trade wins or ELO is not permitted.

4. Unfair Advantages and Corrections

If a bug, tampering, or another violation of this policy results in an unfair advantage, we may correct the affected results.

Corrections may include:

• Removing ELO gained through unintended matchmaking, tampering, or other confirmed issues.
• Restoring ELO lost by affected opponents.
• Reversing improperly obtained rewards or resources.
• Correcting affected leaderboard results or competitive records.
• Requiring a hero's skills or backstory to be regenerated in the official app, or temporarily restricting that hero from competitive modes until the required changes are completed.

These corrections are not necessarily punishments.

Unfair advantages from a bug may be reversed regardless of whether the player intentionally caused them.

This helps preserve competitive fairness without automatically accusing players of cheating.

5. Penalties

Penalties will depend on the severity of the violation, available evidence, previous violations, and the impact on other players.

Level 0: Accidental Bug Encounter

• No disciplinary action.
• Any unfair gains may be corrected.

Level 1: First Confirmed Intentional Exploit

• Formal warning.
• Removal of unfair gains.
• Explanation of the violation and expected future behavior.

Level 2: Repeated or Significant Exploitation

• Temporary restriction from competitive modes.
• Removal of unfair gains.
• Possible disqualification from affected seasonal rewards.

Level 3: Severe or Repeated Violations

• Extended competitive suspension.
• Temporary account suspension.
• Permanent account ban in extreme or repeated cases.

These levels are general guidelines, not an automatic sequence.

Particularly severe violations, such as tampering, may justify stronger action without prior warnings.

We will generally avoid permanently deleting characters as a punishment.

When possible, we will prefer correcting affected results, adjusting problematic mechanics, or restricting competitive access.

6. How We Investigate Violations

We will base enforcement decisions on available evidence rather than speculation, personal relationships, or public pressure.

When investigating suspected violations, we may consider:

• Server logs and battle records.
• Repeated patterns of abnormal gameplay.
• Whether the player could control or deliberately trigger the behavior.
• Evidence that the player knew about the issue.
• Whether the behavior continued after a warning or explicit notice.
• The competitive advantage gained and damage caused.
• The player's explanation and any relevant previous violations.

No single factor, such as a high win rate, an unusually powerful character, or a large number of battles, automatically proves cheating.

We will not punish players simply because other members of the community believe they should be punished.

When appropriate, we will give players an opportunity to explain their actions before applying significant penalties.

7. Reporting Bugs

If you discover a bug that could provide an unfair advantage, please report it to the development team or moderators.

Please avoid publicly sharing detailed instructions for reproducing an exploit before it is addressed.

Discovering a bug is not itself a violation.

Reporting a bug does not grant permission to continue deliberately exploiting it.

If you encounter a bug during normal gameplay, please report it and avoid intentionally repeating actions specifically to gain an unfair advantage from it.

We also plan to improve the bug-reporting process to make it easier for players to report these issues.

8. Competitive Rankings and Seasonal Rewards

We understand that players invest significant time and effort into competitive modes.

Gains confirmed to come from exploits or tampering may be removed from competitive rankings, and affected results may be corrected where technically possible.

When a confirmed violation materially affects seasonal rewards, we may adjust those rewards or disqualify the affected results.

We will base these decisions on the confirmed impact rather than speculation about a player's intentions or the popularity of a particular character.

We will preserve legitimate competitive results wherever possible.

9. Equal Treatment

These rules apply equally to all players, including moderators, veteran players, and new players.

Being a moderator, supporting the game financially, or contributing to the community does not provide immunity from enforcement.

Likewise, a player's reputation, guild affiliation, or personal disagreements with other players will not determine whether they are punished.

We appreciate the contributions of moderators and community members, but we will hold everyone to the same standards.

10. Transparency and Appeals

When a significant issue affects competitive integrity, we will try to explain:

• What type of issue occurred.
• What we confirmed through our investigation.
• What competitive corrections we made.
• What steps we are taking to prevent recurrence.

We may withhold private account information, detailed server logs, or exploit reproduction methods.

We will generally not name the players involved publicly.

Players who believe a penalty was applied incorrectly may contact us privately to request a review.

11. Policy Updates and Previous Incidents

This policy applies to player conduct from its effective date onward.

We will not ordinarily apply new disciplinary standards retroactively to conduct that occurred before the policy was published.

This limit covers new standards only. Modifying the app was already prohibited by the Terms of Service.

We may still correct competitive results affected by confirmed bugs or tampering to protect fairness.

We may update this policy as Taleborn evolves.

We will communicate significant changes to the community.

Our Commitment

Taleborn should reward creativity, strategy, and dedication.

We don't want players to be afraid of experimenting with the game's systems or creating powerful characters.

At the same time, we want everyone to feel confident that competitive results are earned fairly.

We know the system isn't perfect, especially with AI-driven mechanics, and there will always be things we need to improve.

We'll continue looking at the data, listening to feedback, fixing issues, and improving the game.

We can't promise that every decision will satisfy everyone, but we can promise that we'll do our best to be fair and consistent, regardless of who is involved.