So this day has come. Unfortunately we cannot delete anything, or even edit anything on this thread. I doubt even the thread owner can do that. Honestly I half expected that the devs would be aware when the thread got to this point.
I agree that we should stop continue discussing on this thread or about the hack altogether. However, I doubt the devs would do anything drastic though. There are many reasons but ultimately, it comes to a point: whether taking drastic measure would do more harm or more good for their interest.
AE is a niche game, and an OLD game at that, that means its players base is not big and could be dwindling faster than growing by the day.
It's a gacha game but it's an OFFLINE game WITH gacha element in the spirit.
The game is not competitive, no leaderboard, no pvp... and its content can be completed by everything it's been given for free. In in all honesty, all the gacha stuff actually ruins the game by making it easier with broken chars.
Most of the hacks / mods simply hastens the speed that you obtain some free stuff. You cannot hack any of the paid stuff, which is the source of their income. Therefore, using hacks / mods or not, in the end, if you have enough patience you will get all the free stuff (weapons / sidegrade chars ...).
They know the exploits / mods for years, and already taken measures to counter it. E.g: to enhance some of the new weapons, you have to farm horrors on the map, which spam every 6 hours. There is no place on the map that gives their drop so even using hacks, people still have to farm them normally, and thus at least keeping the "active players" / "average daily playing time" KPIs (I imagined these) in the acceptable range.
They also give "hints" which items are "key" items (e.g: by making it a light source instead of a chest), so people who use mods don't accidentally pick them up.
Hackers don't care if they got banned, most of them simply treat this as a side game. There may also be paid players (like me, but I stopped spending ever since SA), wiki editors among the hackers. The hackers may also spend or be converted into paid players (also me, for some occasionally SDE).
Security is expensive.
This is a conspiracy, but I guess some devs, or at least some alumni devs, are the ones who sell hacking services for AE.
With all those points, let's say if AE is simply a PAID OFFLINE game, then once you bought it, whether you hack it or not is entirely up to you, no one tell you how to enjoy your game. However, it has a server side gacha aspect, but it's well protected and currently no hacks / mods could ever touch them. Therefore, in general hackers now are simply hacking the offline aspect of the game, and since it's non competitive, it's them ruin their own game (or making it more fun). Taking grastic measure may give the non-hacking players some joy, but I don't think it plays into their benefit. Security is expensive, if they want to protect the client side, as well as server side, they gotta pay more and if their income doesn't increase after doing so, there is no point doing it. Banning hackers may also reduce their players base, making an old niche game harder to have new players.
I believe the devs are aware of the hacks / mods, but they intelligently "use" those people to their advantages (e.g: for keeping up their KPIs), that's why they intendedly leave the Nopaew exploit for too long. They ensure that hackers / modders can enjoy the game and may as well become paid players, at the same time prevent them from causing harm to paid players.
Cat Express Ticket is the only middle gray area here imo. It's currently designed as a premium stuff which gives advantage to paid players. Hacking those tickets means directly tap into their income. I also fully aware of this but still decide to share the hack because my stand on this is that it should be free for everyone. There should be different way to keep the active playing time KPI (like the Cat Scratchbook). I think if the devs decide to do something, the only thing they may do is to fix the exploit that allow people hacking Cat Express Tickets. Probably the easiest is to make it an online resources, just like Chronos Stones.