Well we could go on and speculate all day about what is intended and what is not in that list but we will never really know. I personally feel that using a specific class ability or to lessen the load on a raid such as shroud/reflect/barrier are perfectly acceptable. Where I feel the line is drawn is not in specific single mechanics being eliminated. Some of that could even be intended. But I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that turning dash-roode into a tank and spank by standing behind a rock is not ok. That's what I mean by using common sense. If its debatable then chances are its not necessarily an exploit, but people basically skipping entire fights or phases by doing sneaky things isn't up for debate, really. There isn't a leg to stand on there.

I will concede that maybe some people might draw the line in different places so in those cases it's up to us as the community to set the bar. There are going to be bugs in any MMO that you play. It's up to the players to decide how and when they should be policed.

Well we could go on and speculate all day about what is intended and what is not in that list but we will never really know. I personally feel that using a specific class ability or to lessen the load on a raid such as shroud/reflect/barrier are perfectly acceptable. Where I feel the line is drawn is not in specific single mechanics being eliminated. Some of that could even be intended. But I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that turning dash-roode into a tank and spank by standing behind a rock is not ok. That's what I mean by using common sense. If its debatable then chances are its not necessarily an exploit, but people basically skipping entire fights or phases by doing sneaky things isn't up for debate, really. There isn't a leg to stand on there.

 

I will concede that maybe some people might draw the line in different places so in those cases it's up to us as the community to set the bar. There are going to be bugs in any MMO that you play. It's up to the players to decide how and when they should be policed.

This is the point here:

As a community, how do we decide what is ok and what is not? You could go through the above list and make judgements, but what happens when a new creative strategy is used? Does the community vote on it? If so, does this not give the community power to "officially" strip guilds of kills? This opens the door to the kind of restriction and regulation we deal with in America today. This is not something good.

Policing the game is not something we want to get into. Verifying a fact is quite all right.

This is the point here:

 

As a community, how do we decide what is ok and what is not? You could go through the above list and make judgements, but what happens when a new creative strategy is used? Does the community vote on it? If so, does this not give the community power to "officially" strip guilds of kills? This opens the door to the kind of restriction and regulation we deal with in America today. This is not something good.

 

Policing the game is not something we want to get into. Verifying a fact is quite all right.

There really is no easy answer, is there? You can't really have it both ways. Either we police it or no one does and we rely on judgement of the individual to decide. I completely agree with you though, on all counts.

If its debatable then chances are its not necessarily an exploit, but people basically skipping entire fights or phases by doing sneaky things isn't up for debate, really. There isn't a leg to stand on there.

I have an example we tried once in hardmode SV I'd like you to consider. Back when we were bored waiting for NiM TFB, a lot of weeks we tried to break fights in interesting ways. For instance, one week we killed Dashroode at the first shield in 16m by waiting for the first shield to end, picking up the one you're supposed to move with, staying still to DPS, then rotating personal shields and gunslinger bubbles till he died. We completely skipped the whole movement phase of the fight, but instead dealt with an increased damage and healing requirement from our raid. In my mind, that's an acceptable tradeoff, but technically we skipped the movement phase, which it sounds like you'd call an exploit.

Maybe this isn't the most difficult example I could have come up with, but my point is we can't know what sorts of strategies the next raids may require, and a guild killing a boss and then the community voting that their method made the boss just a little too easy so it counts as an exploit is a recipe for trouble. Sure there are obvious exploits, like if there's really a place you can stand with NiM dashroode to take no sandstorm damage, not have to worry about adds, and just tank and spank, but the community needs to be careful before making blanket rules about how to decide what is and isn't an exploit.

Well we could go on and speculate all day about what is intended and what is not in that list but we will never really know.

This exactly. To elaborate, my guild was one of the first to jump a bunch of melee up to the Demolitionist in HM Thrasher. We were running progression with 2 Maras, 1 Jugg, and 1 Sin DPS. We figured if you could jump up in SM, then you could jump up in HM and downed the boss in 1 or 2 tries. Who the hell would have the authority and ego to step in and say that kill is invalid? We're running with 4 melee, there's no possible way we would have noticed the shields on the Snipers, and we didn't need to look for the knockback/roar mechanic because we were able to jump up immediately.

NIM Toth and Zorn, a guild could have stumbled upon an "exploit" kill by shear random luck. The yellow circle slowed you, so if it kept getting dropped on your RDPS and they had slow reaction time (and no Sorcs in the raid) then you could have missed dropping the circle on Zorn every time by honest mistake.

Bioware runs as a black box, it is incredibly conceited to assume you know what Bioware intended or not.

heres some SS kills of NiM SnV from UG

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h40/CKbloodOG/1342083_zps9a8619f6.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h40/CKbloodOG/1342082_zps1a5c8cdb.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h40/CKbloodOG/1351845_zpsb4c09285.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h40/CKbloodOG/1351868_zps3b505062.jpg

Just to throw more fuel on this

Is the Z&T strategy much different from the Dash strategy? I'd say it's probably a little different because there are still some mechanics in Z&T, but not many. Just curious what others think about that comparison, because I think it's the closest counterpart.

Also really interested in hearing more about the secret boss if anyone has figured it out at all.

IMO generally the people who need to use such an exploit will normally struggle on the next bosses. I think a lot of progression needs to be about trust. As a game community we should expect that people complete the boss as it was intended. It is difficult sometimes to tell whether a method of killing is intended or not - so would be impossible to police.

For example (as people have mentioned) Warlords fight in S&V NiM - Is the intended way to kill 3&4 at the same time thus eliminating the enraged + adds phase? Its unknown because everyone in progression killed it this way so far.

It is certainly nice to see boss kill videos and rules out any questions of people killing them inappropriately however not everyone can stream / record. As a community we should be as inclusive as possible to this regard.

On a completely other topic has anyone found the secret boss yet? We know the trash between Titan 6 and Thrasher reappears thats the best i can give out

I tried to go searching after we killed stryak but trash had respawned. My guess is near stryak in final room.

And exactly how do you decide what is an exploit and what is a clever use of game mechanics & class abilities? Where do you draw the line? Here are some examples.

 

1) Using snipers/assassins on DG to avoid damage from Lightning Field/1 shot kill from Doom.

 

2) Killing the Cartel Warlords by killing Vilus Garr and Sunder at the same time, basically skipping 1/4 of the fight.

 

3) Using a high sniper/merc team composition on Styrak to make the manifestations easier.

Agree here, theres an obvious Line on stuff that are Exploits... finding a spot to glitch boss like 3rd boss in KP back in the day... on the other hand using smart stuff in a boss fights are fine, i mean i wont complain the other styrak kills are using 3 mers 1 sorc 1 snipers.. thats just, fine, but i will have to point out that we should not stream public during progression, stream private. post your videos after Operations are cleared.

It goes to the same Debate, someone was posting earlier against suckafish on Warlords, it took us like 5-8 attempts, maybe, to get to P4 tuchuk... then 5 hours trying to kill it that way, until we saw their stream, found out the "cheap" strat. and killed it 1 hour later... strategy they took from 7stuck STREAM... their kill took around 3-4 hours not counting day earlier, and they never killed Sunder P3, because of the achievements on Streamer that proves it... then they had 5-6 hours advantage of timing ahead of us from Warlords, which gave them time advantage on styrak and probably reason for 2nd place ... and t has A LOT to do with 7stuck stream on Warlords.... Wheres the line between Fair and not Fair here?, it depends on people points of views, i dont think its "cheating", its fine they had the stream public so yeah no complains there, but i dont find it fair either .... So i would just say do Private Streams during progress and avoid this whole Debate, 7Stuck probably lost his 1st -2nd place rank because of this since they were way ahead of everyone :S.

Agree here, theres an obvious Line on stuff that are Exploits... finding a spot to glitch boss like 3rd boss in KP back in the day... on the other hand using smart stuff in a boss fights are fine, i mean i wont complain the other styrak kills are using 3 mers 1 sorc 1 snipers.. thats just, fine, but i will have to point out that we should not stream public during progression, stream private. post your videos after Operations are cleared.

 

It goes to the same Debate, someone was posting earlier against suckafish on Warlords, it took us like 5-8 attempts, maybe, to get to P4 tuchuk... then 5 hours trying to kill it that way, until we saw their stream, found out the "cheap" strat. and killed it 1 hour later... strategy they took from 7stuck STREAM... their kill took around 3-4 hours not counting day earlier, and they never killed Sunder P3, because of the achievements on Streamer that proves it... then they had 5-6 hours advantage of timing ahead of us from Warlords, which gave them time advantage on styrak and probably reason for 2nd place ... and t has A LOT to do with 7stuck stream on Warlords.... Wheres the line between Fair and not Fair here?, it depends on people points of views, i dont think its "cheating", its fine they had the stream public so yeah no complains there, but i dont find it fair either .... So i would just say do Private Streams during progress and avoid this whole Debate, 7Stuck probably lost his 1st -2nd place rank because of this since they were way ahead of everyone :S.

Actually I brought up that strat long before anyone saw 7stuck doing it on their stream. Before I transferred and I joined SuckaFish we used to run that strat sometimes in Tempest on Pot5 just for $&!#$ and giggles during our HM runs. That strat is old news and we didnt have to "steal" it from anyone. It's been around for months.

Agree here, theres an obvious Line on stuff that are Exploits... finding a spot to glitch boss like 3rd boss in KP back in the day... on the other hand using smart stuff in a boss fights are fine, i mean i wont complain the other styrak kills are using 3 mers 1 sorc 1 snipers.. thats just, fine, but i will have to point out that we should not stream public during progression, stream private. post your videos after Operations are cleared.

 

It goes to the same Debate, someone was posting earlier against suckafish on Warlords, it took us like 5-8 attempts, maybe, to get to P4 tuchuk... then 5 hours trying to kill it that way, until we saw their stream, found out the "cheap" strat. and killed it 1 hour later... strategy they took from 7stuck STREAM... their kill took around 3-4 hours not counting day earlier, and they never killed Sunder P3, because of the achievements on Streamer that proves it... then they had 5-6 hours advantage of timing ahead of us from Warlords, which gave them time advantage on styrak and probably reason for 2nd place ... and t has A LOT to do with 7stuck stream on Warlords.... Wheres the line between Fair and not Fair here?, it depends on people points of views, i dont think its "cheating", its fine they had the stream public so yeah no complains there, but i dont find it fair either .... So i would just say do Private Streams during progress and avoid this whole Debate, 7Stuck probably lost his 1st -2nd place rank because of this since they were way ahead of everyone :S.

Carl I respect you bro. But there is a long time between now and the next nightmare mode instance to hold this kind of bitterness. Look we aren't as good as Drop It Like It's Hoth...we are OK with that. You guys aren't as good as us. Deal with it.

Actually I brought up that strat long before anyone saw 7stuck doing it on their stream. Before I transferred and I joined SuckaFish we used to run that strat sometimes in Tempest on Pot5 just for $&!#$ and giggles during our HM runs. That strat is old news and we didnt have to "steal" it from anyone. It's been around for months.

i dont know the whole background story, all i know is the stream was available, and strat came from there, simple, i just dont like streaming during progress because of that, never liked watching other people attempts either.

Carl I respect you bro. But there is a long time between now and the next nightmare mode instance to hold this kind of bitterness. Look we aren't as good as Drop It Like It's Hoth...we are OK with that. You guys aren't as good as us. Deal with it.

i would not say anyone is better than anyone, everyone is good at that level, progression means a lot "who took more time" who raided more, but i agree with you if you say hoth are ranked 1st, you 2nd, us 3rd, perfectly accurate, there are groups that are better clearing, others are better with titles, everyone is good, so the extra arrogance is maybe, out of line.

Dont have to be so sensitive about everything, anyone say, specially when its true... right?... i just said u guys knew the strat from the stream, and not your fault, cus they were the ones streaming it, and i believe you took advantage from it ahead of us for styrak, simple, not taking any merit from other bosses or Styrak,... just a friendly comment on how i believe stream affects progression, theres no bitterness here, just an opinion, like, it or not .

Dont have to be so sensitive about everything, anyone say, specially when its true... right?... i just said u guys knew the strat from the stream, and not your fault, cus they were the ones streaming it, and i believe you took advantage from it ahead of us for styrak, simple, not taking any merit from other bosses or Styrak,... just a friendly comment on how i believe stream affects progression, theres no bitterness here, just an opinion, like, it or not .

Just as a friendly side note. How would you know if we discussed it before hand if you weren't watching our strream, am sure the grapevine was in full blossom since the weekend. Your strategy is extremely similar to Hoths, and came a couple hours after the video came out. Now am not one to speculate what is said behind closed doors or what not am just making a simple observation. But it's just an opinion like it or not

i would not say anyone is better than anyone, everyone is good at that level, progression means a lot "who took more time" who raided more, but i agree with you if you say hoth are ranked 1st, you 2nd, us 3rd, perfectly accurate, there are groups that are better clearing, others are better with titles, everyone is good, so the extra arrogance is maybe, out of line.

 

Dont have to be so sensitive about everything, anyone say, specially when its true... right?... i just said u guys knew the strat from the stream, and not your fault, cus they were the ones streaming it, and i believe you took advantage from it ahead of us for styrak, simple, not taking any merit from other bosses or Styrak,... just a friendly comment on how i believe stream affects progression, theres no bitterness here, just an opinion, like, it or not .

...yawwwnnn...I get sleepy after doing 3 things: women, herb, and beating sore losers in progression races...can we stop the chit chat?

The world would be such a better place if Carl lost his forum privledges...

Yes, I agree completely.

Anyone who finished this material in the first week has a competitive team of top notch players. Where guilds finished in the progression race should just be a fun competition between us that resets each NiM mode. The competitive angle requires skill yes, but also a bit of luck and time in game neither of which are going to be even between teams.

I find the exploit discussion interesting, I think oversight is going to be very difficult as well as determining where the line is. The example of the warlords is a good one because although it makes the fight easier it is still not a faceroll, how many times did Sukafish wipe before downing them at the same time? We got damn lucky as our sniper was killed 5 secs before we needed orbital strike and so I had to use double saber throw with no relic, adrenal or form stacks. Main hand strike killed sunder but I needed an offhand strike of 240hp to kill the other one. Lots of things can still go wrong in that fight. In terms of snipers on thrasher, I feel this is just clever use of an ability, it is also on cooldown longer then the interval between spawns so you need a back up option for every second phase as well.

This could best be discussed in a separate thread as I think it has the potential to be a very long discussion.

Just as a friendly side note. How would you know if we discussed it before hand if you weren't watching our strream, am sure the grapevine was in full blossom since the weekend. Your strategy is extremely similar to Hoths, and came a couple hours after the video came out. Now am not one to speculate what is said behind closed doors or what not am just making a simple observation. But it's just an opinion like it or not

i have to agree with you on that, just speculating, i saw your stream after like 5 hours of wiping because guildie outside said you used a "different strat", saw u went straight for it, so assumed u guys got to enrage the night before, but with with achievement i notice u didnt, asked in thread, only answer someone gave me was that someone from SF was watching the streams , exactly why i asked hoth not to post videos of the fight, so yeah i just assumed , yet none of u have given me a straight answer"yes" or "no" just random stuff, also my whole point was the "Live Streams" not your kill, i didnt care about your kill, i pointed that out lol.

PD: I do like the opinion, and heres the answer for you: the fight has 2 ways to be done, either forming a raid group full of KBs like yours, or using normal raid group and having personal KBs... is one way or the other, if you have a better idea on how to do it with our group composition, we would love to try it

...yawwwnnn...I get sleepy after doing 3 things: women, herb, and beating sore losers in progression races...can we stop the chit chat?

try not to fall asleep then, 10 hours sleep might be the difference ... but hey finally some rivalry around here makes the game funnier, at least for me ... lets see who beats EU guilds next content... Oct. 1st for new ops, if Devs. dont delay it.

I am a little worried on the difficulty of these new ops as after the challenge of NiM these will most likely be a let-down; and in a way rightly so I feel as much as I'd like NiM difficulty for HM ops I cannot see it happening.

I guess we will see closer to the time, they have only mentioned two ops so far and no word on difficulty or anything. Regardless new content is new content!!!!

Ahead of time (say last week or September) we should sit down have a chin wag and thrash out how we want progression to work.