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When is an exploit not an exploit?
webBear1000
Member Posts: 301
Read an interesting post in the WoW forums about some people getting banned for using an "exploit".
The story is that they pulled a boss without his accompanying mobs by sending in a rogue with sneak, attacking the boss and instantly teleporting the rogue out.
Now. The definition of an exploit, surely, is using a bug to gain an advantage.
So the question is. Is using character abilities in an interesting way an exploit?
There was no bugs or hacking involved just sound tactical thinking.
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Don't jump off the roof Dad
You'll make a hole in the yard
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Comments
Blizzard must be nuts
.... If I had planned and pulled that off, I would be proud of myself. Genious thinking 
, In fact something that I may well have done in an pnp D&D game. The sort of thing that a GM grudgingly allows, because even though it messes up his plans... it is an rpg after all, and besides that it was soooo CUNNING hehe.
The real crime would have been if someone had thought of this plan ... and not done it.
*scratches nose with his hackmaster +200 Universe Slaying pogo stick of DOOM
Yes, they banned players for creative pulling. Thats about the first time creative pulling counts as an exploit I think. Blizzard basically said "look, we didn't intend for you folks to pull the boss without the rest of the mobs, and if you found a way to do that using the regular abilities of your character, we don't care, you are not allowed to use those abilities here like that". So basically someone used the normal abilities of the game to outsmart Blizzard's content, and Blizzard blames the players for that, and suspends them instead of fixing the content. The fanbois of course worship Blizzard and can't even criticize Blizzard for something as blatantly foolish as this, but it was a poor show by Blizzard.
Yes, I also followed that "horrible" story of the exploits. GM justifies it by they were warned the night before, so etiher way that group was getting banned regardless. (seems first time, pulled boss with out the adds, second time use different tactic, where boss and adds were pulled to different area)
Even sadder is how the GM apparently was present during quite a bit of this time and when the creature was down to.. was it 5% health? He despawned it?
Sort of a virtual temper tantrum if you ask me, since they used abilities that were game given, the GM throws a hissy fit that it wasn't the way it was intended?
Fix it then Blizzard, don't blame the player base for what is Blizzards flaws.
If you don't want a creature to be able to be pulled out of the area they are in because it was not the intended thing, then do something about it an Blizzards side, not punish players because they found what you perceive as a loop hole.
One player's great game is another players derisive snort!
http://www.darthmyr.com for free guild forums
/agree 100%
The players cannot be faulted for using the skills at their disposal in a creative manner that the development team didn't manage to think of, now that they are aware of tactics like this they can do something to fix it ... they should give these guys medals, not ban them.
It's not like they were duping items or cash or affecting other players in any way ...
The Mobs in the room are "linked" meaning that you are supposed to have to fight whatever is in the room. When the "puller" suddenly vanishes it becomes a LoS (Line of Sight) issue. This corrupts the pathing of said mob who knows where the character is but due to limitations within the AI cannot get to him. The AI then will make said Mob walk straight towards where the "puller" is. But there are walls in the way so this endgame Mob just walks into a wall and the other mobs that are linked to him path back to the first room.
Basically what Conquest did is, as was stated earlier, and they have openly admitted on the boards is that they knew that by sending the rogue in and having him run from the room and dragging the "Boss" mob and his friends come into a different room and then suddenly making this person dissapear would allow them to ensure that the "Boss" would have LoS issues and that his friends who were in the doorway to the room would actually return. Leaving said Boss mob all alone and ripe for the picking. This is to me and the GM staff an abuse of game mechanics. They knew the limitations of the AI and used that to gain an unfair advantage. They were warned by GM staff not to do it. They continued and many of them were banned. I'm glad that the GM staff waited till the mob was at 5% and then pulled the rug out from under them.
Note also this is the 3rd game in which Conquest as a guild has been caught exploiting and that a majority of the guild was temp banned and some perma banned from a game. EQ was the first,DAoC the 2nd and now WoW is the 3rd (AFAIK). Remember the outcry in EQ about Conquest using the res bug to avaid damage from an Uber Mob AE? They also placed a player near the mob but in an area that was inaccesable to him and that player spent a long time building heal aggro so that the mob continuously tried to get to said player to the exclusion of all else that happened. Conquest was basically allowed free rein to attack this uber mob without fear of him turning to attack any players (Other than the occasional AE)
Many will argue cunning and strategy. But the plain fact of the matter is that the Guild used a failing in the LoS part of the mobs AI to gain an advantage and to also break a link between mobs. The mobs were, by design meant to be fought all at once thus the link. Not every possible bug or exploitable part of the game will be caught during a beta test. The game staff watched what was being done. They warned the guild to not do this again. The guild persisted and got what they deserved.
Nice post Sithos.
It is quite funny how quickly people take up the oppertunaty to flame companies liek Blizzard, when they clearly don't have all the facts. You would have to be quite dumb to think that teloporting a rogue was the only thing that was going on, yet people still pile on the abuse regardless.
And the second time they managed one time to clear the area, and repopped, and decided to pull the mob and his adds? Different tact with same goal in mind but with adds along this time?
So mob and adds were both present the second time, corrent? And not the first time I saw posts about the "disappearing" act to mess up LOS.
If the game makers knew this was a design flaw, and by judging the GM's reaction, a pretty good size one, then i stand by FIX IT.
One player's great game is another players derisive snort!
http://www.darthmyr.com for free guild forums
From what i gather they used a different "tactics" second time round after been warned and stopping the first time.
So really I would say the proper thing to do was remove the mob from the game until it was fixed.
Clearly it has major problems if a guild can come the next day and use another tactics and break the link.
But banning the whole guild was a bit too much if you ask me.
I don't consider that to be a major exploit worth banning people over. They should have just allowed players to use that tactic till it eventually got cut.
That exploit doesn't hold a candle toward some of the glorious Everquest exploits I've run across:
Pie tin sale in Misty Thicket (buy average price, sell for a silver more)
The classic fall beneath the world and insta port to safezone trick
No drop planar armor trades via the forge in North freeport.
Several dupe bugs involving zoning.
Getting naggy stuck above his door (along with at least a hundred other mob placement exploits)
Grinding on perma rooted mobs in the old POM
The one named dragon in WW that spawned as soon as he died and always droped Naggy's loot (CoFs and that Drum) loot.
Spawning multiple named seahorses in Siren's Grotto
and the list just keeps going...
Tacklebury --}>>>
It sounds like these guys have a long record of warnings and exploits from WoW and others. Repeated offenses should get you banned even if the final event isn't a bannable offense by itself.
Other players who play the game normally shouldn't be punished for a program oversight (by removing the boss) just because one group exploits it. Still, it should be fixed as soon as possible.
first thing, they did not got banned but suspended.
Second, if they would have done that "exploit" alone, they would have just been informed by the GMs that tactic was not allowed at the present time as jumping over 30 minutes of an instance, without killing anything in the middle, just to get to the boss and the items it drops, is considered bad by blizzard, can you blame them?
But no, that was second time in two days that they invented clever solutions to either fight the boss alone or get to him without crossing a good amount of zone.
Did you know that their rogue was beeing chased by Boss, 2 guards and 14 mobs?? but the 14 mobs never reached the rest of the group because the Rogue died and the rest lost interested and returned back?
If things would have proceeded "by the book" they would have had to fight 17 mobs at same time.
Yes, first time they got warned about the LoS exploit, but complaining about that is a bit silly. It was clear they were under "observation" and more "bad behaviour" would be punished more severely.
If they would have not be punished, you know what would have happened? Everybody would have started using it to jump the instance and get to the boss, and the phat loot of said boss. Final result? Who can do it become ultra rich by vendoring blue items (or auctioning them) and with the money resources they can practically do what they want, like cornering the ore market or what not.
Plus items that are supposed to be ultra rare becomes not so rare anymore. Totality: ruined economy of a whole realm (or all realms).
Blizzard can't forsee everything the players will pull off, but any kind of operation that would make you either fight a boss with its linked guards (linked=they always fight together, no question asked) OR that permit you to jump over half an instance RIGHT after Blizzard nerfed mind soothe for that exact reason, should at least make you pause a moment and say to yourself "is this right?".
Now if you in pristine standing you can run the risk to find out by action... but if you are "on probation", so to say, you should simply take the easy way. Anyhow no one was banned, only suspended for 3 days, all will be well and so be it.
Have a nice day
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
My personal opinion is that an exploit is anything that gives you an unfair advantage over other legitimate players, by going outside of the rules of the game world. You are "delving" into a new world, as a RPGer, which has rules and physics and all that stuff.
Taking advantage of a weakness in AI, whether using legitimate skills or not, is breaking that worlds rules. If it was an accidental advantage, report it as a bug to the devs. And then forget about it. Don't tell other people about it, don't exploit it, and don't "not report it". New games have such extensive logging in them, it's hard to get away with a lot of server-side exploits nowadays (ie SWG credit duping). Is it worth that much as to lrisk losing an account you had spent countless hours playing, and many many dollars of fees and such for something like that?
If you knowingly take advantage of a weakness or loophole, you are exploiting a game. It doesn't matter if you try different strategies or whatever. You are knowingly exploiting a weakness, which strictly breaks almost every CoC for online games today. It's not how you get around the rules, it's that you are doing it that counts.
Presuming the story is true, it is definitely an exploit.
That being said, I have always held the opinion that anything that is achievable via the mechanics of the engine is fair game. Thus, while I do believe they have exploited an action sequence that was not intended by the designers I do not feel it is appropriate to penalize the players for doing so.
Sloppy programming should never result in the punishment of the user.
That pulling technic is not logical.
Either the boss dont follow OR, he is piss and call everyone around and the train is massive.
However, the players are merely using WoW tools, the devs need to fix that rather then punish players who are using the tools they give them.
You need a fix, it is easy to make sure when a boss aggro, everything in X range aggro as well, and there you go...or whatever. If I see my superior charging in front of me, I would follow him or leave asap, I will certainly not wait dumbly there.
Even SoE would not have banish a player using the tools they give them, and peoples still praise WoW? Go ahead, lack of challenge, of content, everything dumbed down, and you are happy? Press space bar and level up is the next step! Diablo in local mode is WAY more challenging then WoW, LOL. $15 to be on the top of the hill waiting? I can do that on my balcony thanks! The achievement need to be within every player grasp, yet never fully completed, otherwise you wont last long as a MMORPG. So having many achievements, many high ends, many ways to reach them is the only way. Someone playing 2 hours a month must be happy and someone playing 300+ hours a month must be happy as well, 1 simple system dont work.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Instead these guys were players and it was deemed and exploit and they were suspended.
I, for one, am tired of blizzard classifying anything ingame that doesn't work as intended as an exploit.
Go read the official "blue" responses over on the WoW forums and look at how many times blizzard uses the word "exploit" and how many times they use the word "bug".
If you formed your opinion of the game based on those posts alone, you would come away with the impression that there were no bugs in the game and only exploits.
www.TheChippedDagger.com My 90-day 2D Java MMORPG project
They that can give up essential liberty for temporary safetey deserve neither. -- Ben Franklin
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. -- Milton Berle
It's ridiculous that they suspended these people's accounts. They utilized the mechanics of the game to seperate the "Boss" from the other mobs. They still have to kill the Boss. To me, an exploit is a way to get a reward with no risk. They have minimalized their risk by using tactics. I just don't see how this could possibly be an exploit. If anything, it's a bad AI that they have and need to fix.
in two other games the only really time it affected me was;
Swg skill based folks would pick there favorite Fotm and train to that point for that skill
Early part of the game the devolopers got mad, and put a bunch across the board skills in the top tier of the proffesions instead.....
What frustrated folks was it was a skill bassed game and the ability to pick and choose what you wanted was part of what made that game fun.........
Daoc in corsecana mines, there was a "crack in the wall downstairs" by the abymals.
This was a nice camping spot for those 35 + above, when done they would leave the catacombs by running into the wall and "falling through landing some where else"
In time they re did the hole in the wall and instead of having a "safe spot to exit the dungeon"
folks either had to sucide to get out or fight all the way back up the ramp to out the gate.
As a result it is not as popular as a spot as it once was.........as far as the crack in the wall in corsecana mines i still do not see why that "needed to be fixed" when there so many other things they could have worked on
Anofalye stop talking out your ass. Did you even read the post? Or did you just do your regular Blizz hating routine?
Based on the following statement:
I would say she read and understood the post perfectly.
Exactly. If you managed to break into a secret chamber to kill a boss and steal his treasure. The boss hired some guards. Your guards get fooled because they are 'dumb' and the boss ends up dead. The boss never intended his guards to not work, but they didn't. You go out and hire better guards.
In the same way if Blizzard can't program their game well enough then they need to fix it and if it is such a big issue then remove the content from the game until it is fixed. In most areas of life getting around problems is a sign of tactics, in mmorpg it is called an expliot.
I thought they actually fought the linked mobs, but managed to avoid all the social mobs in between due to a difference in speed.
- rogue attacks boss, draws aggro from boss and his guards
- rogue is ported back to the group
- boss runs through the whole dungeon to find the rogue, dragging his guards
- all 'social' mobs in between pick up aggro on the rogue as the boss passes
- boss and his guards reach the rogue and kill him before the socials get in range
- all social mobs drop aggro and go back about their business
- party jumps boss (and his guards). socials never even notice
Whatever they did, they skipped 'content' and that's a strict no-no in a pay 2 play game, especially at high levels. Cuts directly into profits.
Possible.
However if I would be in such a scenario, I think the rogue run in a linear line away rather then died. The Boss would turn back eventually, outside the dungeon and start walking home. Hunter attack the boss and the group own it, having the same result without the rogue death.
I HAVE NO PROOF, this is FREE WoW BASHING if you are a fanboi, if you are not a fanboi, this is a supposition. IMO, WoW have ''so little'' content to protect, banning any account for so little sound pretty illogical. I would lean toward a confrontational desire with heavy sanctions against the defilers a lot more then toward a protection scenario, someone that protect stuff is not fast to ban players and call it an exploit because you have nothing left to protect if you lose players(SoE dont ban fast, they are ()?/&" but to be banned by SoE you seriously need to be a ()*&/" yourself). A ''defender'' is not going to ban players fast. The main reason they are banning players have far more to do with the personality of the individuals then to any ''protection'' desired, because a ''protector'' would not ban so easily, so often and so fast. IMO, Blizzard hire a few ''wrong'' guys that are pretty happy to abuse others humans beeing as soon as they have an acceptable reason. Those guys are also prolly behind the ''restructuration'' of Blizzard that seem to happen every now and then with the company ''removing'' so many assets. In others words: Basically, Blizzard is LAWFULL EVIL, where a company like SoE have strong CHAOTIC GOOD tendancies despite been TRUE NEUTRAL (money grabbing balance) and often look like clowns(LE find it easy to bear pain and inflict sanctions on itself like Blizzard do when servers are down, Chaotic tendancie make folks cringes before bearing them, we can all feel SoE cries when they give a few days free, dont say you cant feel it, it is breathing pain accross their posts)
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
I would say that an exploit should only be considered an exploit when it gives a direct unfair advantage (I.E. The game has a place where you can hide inside the wall and attack with out melees being able to attack you)
I see nothing in the description that points to a direct unfair advantage. Really all I see is that someone used spells in a natural way and it happened to allow something the designer diden't want to happen. Thats not the players fault, that is the games.) The players did not even use an exploit.
All of this assuming I understand exactly what they did.