How about guilds that run lockouts for Conquest? It was fine before but if it rewards CXP now is it going to suddenly become an exploit?

Are you kidding me?

Guys:

Play the game as you always have and you will be fine. If you have never been flagged for exploiting before when farming gear, cosmetic items and points, you won't be flagged now. If you find an acitivty that let's you gain fifty levels per hour (when the intention was one - two levels per thirty-fourty minutes), you write a bug report and let them check whether this is intended. And don't continue and max yourself out to 300 in barely a days work afterwards.

Literally every player across Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft and Black Desert Online has a sense for what an exploit is. They even prepare statements for when they might get banned for it. Only this forum seems to have a genuinely hard time to wrap their mind around the concept "if it's too good to be true, it probably is!"

Are you kidding me?

 

Guys:

 

Play the game as you always have and you will be fine. If you have never been flagged for exploiting before when farming gear, cosmetic items and points, you won't be flagged now. If you find an acitivty that let's you gain fifty levels per hour (when the intention was one - two levels per thirty-fourty minutes), you write a bug report and let them check whether this is intended. And don't continue and max yourself out to 300 in barely a days work afterwards.

 

Literally every player across Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft and Black Desert Online has a sense for what an exploit is. They even prepare statements for when they might get banned for it. Only this forum seems to have a genuinely hard time to wrap their mind around the concept "if it's too good to be true, it probably is!"

So they say but that ban hammer has a broad stroke and since it sounds like they already know of an exploit it is better to be safe then sorry.

We might not be talking about the same reset. Complete speculation, but for example, lets say we find out that running 8 people thru 16 man NiM EC and kill the trash up to the first boss. We get 2-3 ranks from it in about 30 minutes and then reset to kill them all again.

 

Is that their intention? or are we crossing their ill-defined line?

They could change remove the Command XP you got from the trash, so if it's not their intention they should say so.

Or they could just increase the phase reset timer to an hour, either way if they don't take action prior to the use of an already existing method of farming (Brontes fingers anyone?) then they're not making the rules clear.

I know plenty of people who use Brontes to level from 55-65 in less than an hour. Since this is an already existing tactic, they should inform us before taking action - and if anyone ignored the launcher warning then it would be their fault.

Literally every player across Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft and Black Desert Online has a sense for what an exploit is. They even prepare statements for when they might get banned for it. Only this forum seems to have a genuinely hard time to wrap their mind around the concept "if it's too good to be true, it probably is!"

Wow, every player? You must know a lot of people.

Snark aside, it's largely just a matter of the small stuff, I think, that concerns people. If you've never been in, or heard of, one of those situations where people get away with an exploit freely, report it and it doesn't get fixed, and then down the line, all of a sudden, some person or guild becomes a scapegoat and the company bans them, while leaving everybody else alone, then you probably don't understand.

Some of us have seen companies be inconsistent in punishing exploits, and/or play the "it should have been obvious" game to those they punish, while failing to address an exploit for months.

Not saying that will happen here, but that is where I am coming from on this. And keep in mind I am not someone who goes around looking for exploits. My usual MO when I see an exploit is to report it ASAP and move on with my life.

So, let me get this straight... (And if I am right about this, I'll be the first to say I have exploited the game. [Please let me be wrong.])

 

If I level a new alt and completely skip the story via side quests (for the first 10 levels.) and then via Flash points and War Zones so I can get to kotfe (or raiding or what ever end-game content.)... Would that not be playing the game a way that is not intended? Honest question because to me is sounds like you definition is not 100% correct.

if this was december 2011 and doing so allowed you to hit level 50 on day one? yes

however it's 2016 and bypassing all of that to speed to the end has kind of been a ..feature?...for the last two years.

Typical Bioware. Rather than taking the effort to fix exploits, they spend their time punishing players. Really shows what kind of company they are, the way they treat their customers.

Then you don't play many MMOs as all MMOs I have played punish players who exploit and I have played a lot over the past 16 years.

As for the question of what is an exploit, it is really quite simple. Play the game/content as it was intended and there is no risk. If you are playing through content in a way that was not intended, it can be considered an exploit and subject to investigation/action.

No, that is not simple. That is intentionally very vague and very open to interpretation. That is the opposite of simple. We are not mind readers. It is up to you to inform us what your intentions are, and what is and isn't an exploit. You instead would rather not do that, so you can retroactively determine what is and isn't an exploit. You have to clearly define what your intentions are before you tell people to play by those intentions.

Then you don't play many MMOs as all MMOs I have played punish players who exploit and I have played a lot over the past 16 years.

Do many MMOs you play preempt an exploit that they already know exists with warnings and threats, instead if fixing the expoit? It takes just as much effort for them to police the players that use it, as it does for them to fix it.

"too good to be true"?

What part is the good part?

We need to get bogged down into a mindless grind, and if we find away to make it seem reasonable, it means we've found an exploit.

Do many MMOs you play preempt an exploit that they already know exists with warnings and threats, instead if fixing the expoit? It takes just as much effort for them to police the players that use it, as it does for them to fix it.

They don't say anywhere about an exploit. They are reminding players about the rules.

They don't say anywhere about an exploit.

What is the first word in the title of this thread?

The problem is trusting what Bioware actively considers "Intended play".

Cantina Guest: "Can we extend Legacy Level past 50 and/or add rewards?"

Musco: "People are already Legacy 50!?"

That was at a point where I had been Legacy 50 for half a year and they still didn't know anybody was there already. So does that mean my play-style is considered an exploit because they didn't intend me to get there that fast? It's the fact we can't trust the developer's estimation of how fast people can "exploit-free" gain XP that makes this all pointless to issue a pre-emptive warning for something us and them have no inclination as to where the highest possible grinder can earn without "exploiting".

The first post restates BW's exploit policy. I don't have an issue with this. Part of the second post is vague.

The reason that we put out this messaging is that we know players are going to want to push the boundaries to gain CXP as fast as possible, and we are totally ok with that. I just wanted to caution how you go about those gains and should you find a way to gain CXP that goes around intended mechanics, it could be an exploit. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is, report it to us so we can see if there is an issue.

Sure, a blatant exploit is clear. Say a player found a way to bypass the CXP weekly cap limit. Okay, I get it -- BW would consider this an exploit, "going around intended mechanics." I think the vague part of this post is the things ingame that have been there so long and never previously considered exploits.

I appreciate the response and I understand you are just the messenger, but I want to make a point of noting that the following statement:

 

is a tautology, aka: circular.

 

"What is an exploit?" It's what isn't intended.

 

"What's not intended?" Anything that is an exploit.

 

Might seem obvious to the devs, since they know what their intentions were, but we don't all know what the intentions are.

Rolodome expresses my concern. We don't know what was not considered exploiting in pre-5.0 could be considered exploiting in 5.0. Where's the line we aren't supposed to cross without committing what is considered an exploit? The only blatant exploit I can imagine is somehow bypassing the weekly CXP cap. Otherwise, the line not to cross is vague.

There's the potential for gains other than CXP from exploits. I get it. My concern is about what BW gave a wink and a nod to in pre-5.0 becoming exploits in 5.0 because of CXP. What's been done by players for so long that, while never as intended by BW, is done all the time but might now be considered an exploit?

Soo of all the posts and frustration you purposely ignore with 5.0 you decide to post this?

You've basically just admitted there is an exploit,, BWA know what it is and will be watching vigilantly and handle any and all instances of exploitation.

Lol yeah ok sure because BWA have proven so well in the past they are more intelligent than the exploiters at getting on top of these things hence the blown out economy on vanity items after the recent exploits. Great job of tracing and removing those credits.

I think if there is indeed an exploit and you went ahead and went live with it anyway then that's incredibly poor of BWA not to mention posts like this which basically encourage those who would exploit to actively hunt for one now.

I don't think I've ever seen more negative attitude towards an expansion so if there is an exploit expect it to be taken advantage of more than ever as this time there is just far more people who just wouldn't give a **** about consequences.

But hey maybe I'm wrong and I'm interpreting this all incorrectly, there is no exploit and this was all pre-emptive posting "just in case" but how strange to get this post when we got stuff all else in ways of communication recently.

Soo of all the posts and frustration you purposely ignore with 5.0 you decide to post this?

 

You've basically just admitted there is an exploit,, BWA know what it is and will be watching vigilantly and handle any and all instances of exploitation.

 

Lol yeah ok sure because BWA have proven so well in the past they are more intelligent than the exploiters at getting on top of these things hence the blown out economy on vanity items after the recent exploits. Great job of tracing and removing those credits.

 

I think if there is indeed an exploit and you went ahead and went live with it anyway then that's incredibly poor of BWA not to mention posts like this which basically encourage those who would exploit to actively hunt for one now.

 

I don't think I've ever seen more negative attitude towards an expansion so if there is an exploit expect it to be taken advantage of more than ever as this time there is just far more people who just wouldn't give a **** about consequences.

 

But hey maybe I'm wrong and I'm interpreting this all incorrectly, there is no exploit and this was all pre-emptive posting "just in case" but how strange to get this post when we got stuff all else in ways of communication recently.

You just dont understand. This is BW's way of building excitement for their latest masterpiece!!! Feel the hype!!

Do many MMOs you play preempt an exploit that they already know exists with warnings and threats, instead if fixing the expoit? It takes just as much effort for them to police the players that use it, as it does for them to fix it.

If you're playing the straight & narrow and not looking for shortcuts to speed up cxp or get more crates than allowed, you got nothing to worry about. Those sweating over supposed exploits will be the ones trying to find short cuts to lighten their workload.

You just dont understand. This is BW's way of building excitement for their latest masterpiece!!! Feel the hype!!

"Rumor' has it from "sources" that there are indeed discovered exploits from pts about to make it into live hence this heads up. Not even hard to discover ones either.

Honestly if that's the case it's just not good enough. It happened before where they ignored pts reports of exploits that made it to live and the fall out was massive, for it to happen again ... I hope it's just rumor anyway, people pay for this product ffs.

If you're playing the straight & narrow and not looking for shortcuts to speed up cxp or get more crates than allowed, you got nothing to worry about. Those sweating over supposed exploits will be the ones trying to find short cuts to lighten their workload.

You of course seem to be more into walking down that path having laid before you by the stampede...

I mean, say I stumble upon an exploit and accidentally do it once. How can you tell the difference between that and testing it, or that and doing it intentionally to get unintended rewards/progression? I don't see how you possibly could tell the difference and if you punish for first time offenders, that's not going to be taken well.

Maybe you should figure out at some point that "something's wrong here. this shouldn't be possible."

If you're experienced gamer you can't just accidentally exploit a bug or mechanic that devs didn't block and be like "that must be part of the game!".

Maybe you should figure out at some point that "something's wrong here. this shouldn't be possible."

 

If you're experienced gamer you can't just accidentally exploit a bug or mechanic that devs didn't block and be like "that must be part of the game!".

Sort of like when the odd person sold a chat back to a vendor and got punished/warned because it was giving more credits than it cost to buy even though those specific people may have only done it once and legitimately and never known it cost more?

It's an extreme example I guess but it goes to show it is indeed possible to just be doing something ordinary and be "viewed" as trying an exploit 1 time once it's out in the wild.