(edited by Mirodir.1672)
When is it "ok" to...
Is there a way to report potential exploits (not suspicion of others exploiting, but rather a feature cluster that feels too good to be true) directly to ArenaNet? I personally believe that reporting a potential exploit should be considered due diligence enough to exempt a player from any punishment for making use of the feature (which may or may not be an “exploit”) between the time they sent the report and the time ArenaNet informed the community (including any reporters by direct communication) that they do, in fact, consider it an exploit which players should refrain from using, and which they will be closing at the next possible opportunity.
To do otherwise is what we call an “ex post facto law”, and there is a reason this practice is outlawed in the United States Constitution: it is incredibly unfair, and has the very chilling effect that is demonstrated by the OP.
….make profit with people not being informed about new mechanics and when not?
When the next event starts it will MAYBE add another new recipe that allows people to but materials and turn them into something more expensive. (Which is what happened on Wintersday. There was never an endless cycle. The cost to re-do the recipe was just really low because of people not knowing what the recipe is capable of; thus selling their items for too low.)
So when there is an item is majorly underpriced on the BLT regarding what I can turn it into. How can I know if it is okay to but this item and make money with it? I’m seriously scared to interact with the market in any way right now because I know I’d most likely abuse other people’s nescience to make money. And this seems to be regarded as an exploit by A-Net.
It is OK to craft items using high-level mats then sell them to other players.
It is OK to craft items using lower-level mats and de-construct them as part of leveling your crafting abilities.
It is OK to craft items using high-level mats and de-construct them, at times, as part of gaining ecto.
It is OK to craft items and sell them on the TP for a profit.
It is NOT OK to craft items using high-level mats and then de-construct them en mass. Hell, it is NOT OK to do ANYTHING en mass except kill and loot mobs, construct items, or de-construct Salvage Items.
It is NOT OK to craft items using high-level mats and then de-construct them when you are obtaining all of the high-level materials used to craft the items.
It is NOT OK to buy items from vendors, craft items with those items, then sell them to vendors for more than the material cost.
Is there a way to report potential exploits (not suspicion of others exploiting, but rather a feature cluster that feels too good to be true) directly to ArenaNet? I personally believe that reporting a potential exploit should be considered due diligence enough to exempt a player from any punishment for making use of the feature (which may or may not be an “exploit”) between the time they sent the report and the time ArenaNet informed the community (including any reporters by direct communication) that they do, in fact, consider it an exploit which players should refrain from using, and which they will be closing at the next possible opportunity.
To do otherwise is what we call an “ex post facto law”, and there is a reason this practice is outlawed in the United States Constitution: it is incredibly unfair, and has the very chilling effect that is demonstrated by the OP.
Report exploits.
Do not use them, ever.
If you THINK something is an exploit, it is.
It is OK to craft items using high-level mats and de-construct them, at times, as part of gaining ecto.
It is NOT OK to craft items using high-level mats and then de-construct them en mass. Hell, it is NOT OK to do ANYTHING en mass except kill and loot mobs, construct items, or de-construct Salvage Items.
So it’s alright to do it sometimes but if I do it all the time it is an exploit? Sounds really wishy-washy to me.
Also I can promise you there are a lot of people right now buying bags EN MASS, opening them and selling what’s inside. There are a lot of people right now crafting rares and salvaging them for Ectos EN MASS. They do this for months now without ever even getting a warning and earn their money that way.
It is NOT OK to craft items using high-level mats and then de-construct them when you are obtaining all of the high-level materials used to craft the items.
This was not the case though. You didn’t get all the Mithril back (arguably “high-level”) and you didn’t get all the snowflakes back (80%, definitely “high-level”). It only seemed to be an endless loop because the snowflakes were totally underpriced due to the players’ nescience.
It is NOT OK to buy items from vendors, craft items with those items, then sell them to vendors for more than the material cost.
I don’t think anyone would ever argue about this being an exploit or not.
(edited by Mirodir.1672)
This one recipe took one ecto-based material to craft, as opposed to 5 ecto-based material all other similar recipes take.
Taking advantage of this fact is exploiting.
This one recipe took one ecto-based material to craft, as opposed to 5 ecto-based material all other similar recipes take.
Taking advantage of this fact is exploiting.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/recipe/2373
I can get an average of roughly 0.9 Ectos out of salvaging this, the only reason why it’s not abusable is because recipes like this made the prices equal. People craft and salvage this EN MASSE to slowly earn money.
It was an error by A-Net not making them need 5 Ectos BUT every recipe shapes the market and some people are able to use this to earn money. You can’t expect the producer to make sure that the value of an item before and after crafting are roughly 1:1 because the market isn’t 100% stable. Even if a recipe is added with a 1:1 value-transformation THIS specific recipe might create an item so cool that it causes the market to shift; allowing some people to earn money with it. What you need to understand is that the market is 100% player-driven. The only way A-Net should influence it is by adding new items/mechanics.
I’m afraid that my unawareness of some recipes might trick me into believing that I found an underpriced item on the market I can make use of instead of finding a typo in a recipe. While it was clear that an item that costs 27 Karma ON A VENDOR shouldn’t be abused I don’t think it was clear that an item that gets sold for to little BY A PLAYER shouldn’t be bought and used. If a one-time use is perfectly fine why isn’t a repeated use? I’ve seen the Halloween crafting mats going for around 5 gold the first few minutes after the patch back then (on BLT, not in map-chat). There were actually people who bought them. Should A-Net ban the people who sold them for 5 gold? I don’t think they should (unless those people promised something wrong).
(edited by Mirodir.1672)
This one recipe took one ecto-based material to craft, as opposed to 5 ecto-based material all other similar recipes take.
Taking advantage of this fact is exploiting.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/recipe/2373
I can get an average of roughly 0.9 Ectos out of salvaging this, the only reason why it’s not abusable is because recipes like this made the prices equal. People craft and salvage this EN MASSE to slowly earn money.
It was an error by A-Net not making them need 5 Ectos BUT every recipe shapes the market and some people are able to use this to earn money. You can’t expect the producer to make sure that the value of an item before and after crafting are roughly 1:1 because the market isn’t 100% stable. Even if a recipe is added with a 1:1 value-transformation THIS specific recipe might create an item so cool that it causes the market to shift; allowing some people to earn money with it. What you need to understand is that the market is 100% player-driven. The only way A-Net should influence it is by adding new items/mechanics.
I’m afraid that my unawareness of some recipes might trick me into believing that I found an underpriced item on the market I can make use of instead of finding a typo in a recipe. While it was clear that an item that costs 27 Karma ON A VENDOR shouldn’t be abused I don’t think it was clear that an item that gets sold for to little BY A PLAYER shouldn’t be bought and used. If a one-time use is perfectly fine why isn’t a repeated use? I’ve seen the Halloween crafting mats going for around 5 gold the first few minutes after the patch back then (on BLT, not in map-chat). There were actually people who bought them. Should A-Net ban the people who sold them for 5 gold? I don’t think they should (unless those people promised something wrong).
Abusing that recipe will likely also be ruled an exploit, if Anet notices people doing that.
Making a few of them? Not a problem. But people don’t just make “a few,” they make hundreds or thousands.
Abusing that recipe will likely also be ruled an exploit, if Anet notices people doing that.
Making a few of them? Not a problem. But people don’t just make “a few,” they make hundreds or thousands.
So the thing they exploited was not the fact that people underpriced their materials because they didn’t know what was possible but that the recipe didn’t follow the same rules other recipes did?
It shouldn’t be based on volume. A crime is a crime, regardless of the number of times it’s committed. The volume only influences the likelyhood of getting caught. Volume can be a clue that people are exploiting a bug… but it shouldn’t be the standard by which people are judged.
It shouldn’t be based on volume. A crime is a crime, regardless of the number of times it’s committed. The volume only influences the likelyhood of getting caught. Volume can be a clue that people are exploiting a bug… but it shouldn’t be the standard by which people are judged.
Volume is an indicator that people knowingly exploited it. If someone does it a few times, they may have been testing it, or were just making a batch of them. They may not have any idea they’re actually exploiting.
It shouldn’t be based on volume. A crime is a crime, regardless of the number of times it’s committed. The volume only influences the likelyhood of getting caught. Volume can be a clue that people are exploiting a bug… but it shouldn’t be the standard by which people are judged.
Volume is an indicator that people knowingly exploited it. If someone does it a few times, they may have been testing it, or were just making a batch of them. They may not have any idea they’re actually exploiting.
If anyone tried it out 5 times and figured out he could make a winning with it (and failed to see that it was not supposed to work this way like I would have if I knew about it in time) then NOT making money with it doesn’t show much intelligence.
Real Life example:
If a company sells phones for 50$ and I can break the phone up and sell a part of it for 70$ on ebay then I’d be stupid to not go and buy more phones.
What will happen is what happened in GW2 aswell. Less people will be willing to buy that specific part as the market gets saturated, as a result I have to sell it for less and less. At the same time the phone-company might realize they’re mistaken and raise the price. (Ecto’s dropping, Flakes+Mithril raising)
Nobody will get sued unless I signed some form contract (even an oral one) that disallowed me to resell it.
It shouldn’t be based on volume. A crime is a crime, regardless of the number of times it’s committed. The volume only influences the likelyhood of getting caught. Volume can be a clue that people are exploiting a bug… but it shouldn’t be the standard by which people are judged.
Volume is an indicator that people knowingly exploited it. If someone does it a few times, they may have been testing it, or were just making a batch of them. They may not have any idea they’re actually exploiting.
If anyone tried it out 5 times and figured out he could make a winning with it (and failed to see that it was not supposed to work this way like I would have if I knew about it in time) then NOT making money with it doesn’t show much intelligence.
Real Life example:
If a company sells phones for 50$ and I can break the phone up and sell a part of it for 70$ on ebay then I’d be stupid to not go and buy more phones.
What will happen is what happened in GW2 aswell. Less people will be willing to buy that specific part as the market gets saturated, as a result I have to sell it for less and less. At the same time the phone-company might realize they’re mistaken and raise the price. (Ecto’s dropping, Flakes+Mithril raising)
Nobody will get sued unless I signed some form contract (even an oral one) that disallowed me to resell it.
When you first launched the game, you signed a contract that said you wouldn’t exploit.
As long as you’re not taking advantage of incompetent design, then I assume you should be “safe”. :-) It’s just unfortunate that players are penalized for playing the game the way it is designed.
Assuming how it’s actually intended to be played — in defining an “exploit” — can go either way, and should not be a concern for players. I can understand questioning the morality or ethics of gaming-conduct, but should we seriously question whether or not crafting or salvaging is an “exploit”?
It’s not very different than, for example, gambling with the Mystic Forge. It is/was possible to continuously dump thousands of rares into the forge and make profit from the exotics and eventual precursors, or to just continuously upscale crafting materials. As long as there was profit, it provided an infinite cycle. From this situation, wouldn’t that also be an “exploit”? More importantly, should playing the game the way it’s designed even be questioned — especially when it appears perfectly ethical?
If such design was so detrimental to the integrity of the game (or more so its “economy”), then the source of the problem itself should be evaluated and/or removed (cough). Yet, people make mistakes — it’s natural — so why punish the players instead?
In case some would think I’m simply defending my own actions, then no — I haven’t now, nor have in the past, been involved in any of these incidents. ;P It’s just ridiculous to think I have to question legitimate (and ethical) game-play!
As long as you’re not taking advantage of incompetent design, then I assume you should be “safe”. :-) It’s just unfortunate that players are penalized for playing the game the way it is designed.
Assuming how it’s actually intended to be played — in defining an “exploit” — can go either way, and should not be a concern for players. I can understand questioning the morality or ethics of gaming-conduct, but should we seriously question whether or not crafting or salvaging is an “exploit”?
It’s not very different than, for example, gambling with the Mystic Forge. It is/was possible to continuously dump thousands of rares into the forge and make profit from the exotics and eventual precursors, or to just continuously upscale crafting materials. As long as there was profit, it provided an infinite cycle. From this situation, wouldn’t that also be an “exploit”? More importantly, should playing the game the way it’s designed even be questioned — especially when it appears perfectly ethical?
If such design was so detrimental to the integrity of the game (or more so its “economy”), then the source of the problem itself should be evaluated and/or removed (cough). Yet, people make mistakes — it’s natural — so why punish the players instead?
In case some would think I’m simply defending my own actions, then no — I haven’t now, nor have in the past, been involved in any of these incidents. ;P It’s just ridiculous to think I have to question legitimate (and ethical) game-play!
You don’t have to question “legitimate (and ethical) game-play.” None of these exploits have EVER been “legitimate (and ethical).”
So far, players have been banned for:
1) Abusing Poppers, which turned karma into gold at a rate far exceeding what was obvious from every other karma cycle in the game – BY THE THOUSANDS.
2) Abusing low prices on a merchant, a merchant which was clearly pricing items far, far below any other merchant in the game. Again, BY THE THOUSANDS.
3) Abusing a recipe IN A SPECIFIC MANNER WHICH WAS INCONSISTENT WITH THE LEGITIMATE USE OF A RECIPE – by the hundreds, if not the thousands.
It isn’t possible to abuse the Mystic Forge, unless it starts giving out precursors consistently with a specific combination of items, because ANet has defined the precise odds of the Forge. You have no control over what the Forge gives you in return for your items – but you should be able to recognise if you have a bugged combo that happens to return far, far, far, far more of a specific, high-value item than any other combo.
Also, define “infinite cycle.” You can’t profit FOREVER from the Forge. You will eventually run out of rares to input, so you must purchase more from other players. Eventually, the prices will increase dramatically. That wasn’t the case with the Holiday recipes, which were a self-contained loop, only requiring easily-available materials which could be snagged in just a few moments in any mid-level area.
(edited by RvLeshrac.2673)
It isn’t possible to abuse the Mystic Forge, unless it starts giving out precursors consistently with a specific combination of items, because ANet has defined the precise odds of the Forge.
What about the level-65 rares that went into the forge that resulted in precursors? Many were in an uproar by its potential impact, and I believe ANet considered it an “exploit”. However, who is to say — especially with no way to know otherwise — that the 65 rares weren’t designed to result in such?
What about any current and future undiscovered recipes (combos) for the forge as well? First discoveries will net significant profit for the discoverer, but ANet could easily say that the “recipe was unintended”, and pull-out the “ban hammer” over it.
The game is simply played the way it’s designed, and if it allows something to be done, then it probably will be done at some point. However, ANet has consistently penalized players — since the beginning — for THEIR mistakes in design, and it’s simply unjust.
None of these exploits have EVER been “legitimate (and ethical).”
… and this is your own opinion, and the problem in itself. What technically is an “exploit”, and will that definition cover all current and future incidents? Very unlikely.
Also, define “infinite cycle.” You can’t profit FOREVER from the Forge.
With “profit”, the process repeats for an “infinite cycle”, but as you said, the price-fluctuations would result in little-to-none, and effectively end the cycle. This would’ve happened to the snowflake incident as well — which others explained — but apparently it was still an “exploit”.
This one recipe took one ecto-based material to craft, as opposed to 5 ecto-based material all other similar recipes take.
Taking advantage of this fact is exploiting.
http://www.gw2spidy.com/recipe/2373
I can get an average of roughly 0.9 Ectos out of salvaging this, the only reason why it’s not abusable is because recipes like this made the prices equal. People craft and salvage this EN MASSE to slowly earn money.
It was an error by A-Net not making them need 5 Ectos BUT every recipe shapes the market and some people are able to use this to earn money. You can’t expect the producer to make sure that the value of an item before and after crafting are roughly 1:1 because the market isn’t 100% stable. Even if a recipe is added with a 1:1 value-transformation THIS specific recipe might create an item so cool that it causes the market to shift; allowing some people to earn money with it. What you need to understand is that the market is 100% player-driven. The only way A-Net should influence it is by adding new items/mechanics.
I’m afraid that my unawareness of some recipes might trick me into believing that I found an underpriced item on the market I can make use of instead of finding a typo in a recipe. While it was clear that an item that costs 27 Karma ON A VENDOR shouldn’t be abused I don’t think it was clear that an item that gets sold for to little BY A PLAYER shouldn’t be bought and used. If a one-time use is perfectly fine why isn’t a repeated use? I’ve seen the Halloween crafting mats going for around 5 gold the first few minutes after the patch back then (on BLT, not in map-chat). There were actually people who bought them. Should A-Net ban the people who sold them for 5 gold? I don’t think they should (unless those people promised something wrong).Abusing that recipe will likely also be ruled an exploit, if Anet notices people doing that.
Making a few of them? Not a problem. But people don’t just make “a few,” they make hundreds or thousands.
While I personally don’t engage in creation and destruction of items because the prices to create them can swing from one day to the other, I find this example completely legit way of creating ecto. It is, by the way, a risky undertaking, because we all know you can sometimes get 8 salvages of NOTHING, no ecto and mats waisted. All this process will do is bring silk to a proper price (it’s wayyyyyy too low, as is leather), and bring ecto to a reasonable level. That’s good for the large majority of participants to the economy. I would strongly argue this example is VERY healthy for the economy, and I wish more people would do it. That said, I will personally not engage in it because it is too reliant on RNG for my taste.
1) Abusing Poppers, which turned karma into gold at a rate far exceeding what was obvious from every other karma cycle in the game – BY THE THOUSANDS.
Vendors were involved at the start and the end of the chain. Thus using fixed input and fixed outcome.
2) Abusing low prices on a merchant, a merchant which was clearly pricing items far, far below any other merchant in the game. Again, BY THE THOUSANDS.
The merchant’s price was off for a factor of thousand. Nobody could think that being x1000 different than other merchants selling almost the same item could be intended.
Also it’s a merchant at one end of the chain again. Thus giving the chain a fixed input (and you might even make profit selling everything to a merchant in the end).
3) Abusing a recipe IN ASPECIFIC MANNER WHICH WAS INCONSISTENT WITH THE LEGITIMATE USE OF A RECIPE – by the hundreds, if not the thousands.
The recipe (not the beginning or the end of the chain but the middle part) was off by not even a factor of 5 from similar recipes. Some MMO’s have their special-event/limited recipes being easier to produce; so everyone can participate even if they’re not as rich as Scrooge McDuck. The input and the output were determined by players. I don’t see ANY profit you can do with crafting as anything different than using the missing knowledge of players to earn money.
An exploit is an exploit the first time it’s done. (Not punishable though) Doing it a hundred or a thousand time doesn’t change it from “legit gameplay mechanic” to “exploit”. You can’t use “people did it a thousand times, now it’s an exploit” as argument; or else everyone crafting rare’s and salvaging them for ecto is an exploiter because that gets done thousands of times a day.
There isn’t a clear cut line but I’d recommend the following:
- if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
The game is highly structured. The components for most things are extremely predictable. If any recipe deviates from that, you’re looking at potential expoits.
The reason for the cheap recipes was simple: give everyone a fair chance at wintersday gear. Exploiting a fair chance into game breaking amounts of ectoplasm is another story entirely. Not many people would have guessed this, only the ones actively looking for exploitable mechanics.
It’s about the 99% who are hurt badly because 1% uses an exploit to destroy the economy. You can thank the exploiters for fivefold increase in price on an item that was intended to be dirt cheap.
If I can’t play Guild Wars 2 at work, I won’t work in Guild Wars 2 either.
Delayed content is eventually good. Rushed content is eternally bad. ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
Delayed content is eventually good. Rushed content is eternally bad. ~ Shigeru Miyamoto
The conclusion I’m reaching is that one should be careful if either a recipe seems numerically off (such as a recipe requiring one ecto instead of five) or if a given transaction relies on buying from or selling to (“vendoring”) an NPC merchant (which I believe are implemented as places where wealth goes to die, not places where wealth can be acquired). I can’t help but think, however, that the former is less obvious than the latter, and should be treated as such.
And I still think there should be a “no ex post facto” rule where banning is concerned, particularly in a case where no NPC merchants are involved. There should be a clear, regular, in-game channel to report potential exploits to the developers. When an exploit is identified, there should be NO PENALTY for those activities that occurred between the time the player reported it and the time the devs communicated their judgment. For players that failed to report. the only penalty should be a removal of gold and/or items from their account, perhaps even assigning a debt in the event the player already spent it all. For those players that persist between the time the exploit was publicly identified and the time the devs patch it closed, bannings could be considered.
The recipe (not the beginning or the end of the chain but the middle part) was off by not even a factor of 5 from similar recipes. Some MMO’s have their special-event/limited recipes being easier to produce; so everyone can participate even if they’re not as rich as Scrooge McDuck. The input and the output were determined by players. I don’t see ANY profit you can do with crafting as anything different than using the missing knowledge of players to earn money.
An exploit is an exploit the first time it’s done. (Not punishable though) Doing it a hundred or a thousand time doesn’t change it from “legit gameplay mechanic” to “exploit”. You can’t use “people did it a thousand times, now it’s an exploit” as argument; or else everyone crafting rare’s and salvaging them for ecto is an exploiter because that gets done thousands of times a day.
Sure, but the recipes should be innocent and not produce the equivalent salvage of the Scrooge McDuck version otherwise, you’re just making an item worth for 5x less input.
Additionally, for the person whom has all the info, there WAS a precursor bug with the Grawl Rare weapons which had one or two people banned due to abusing it INTENSELY. People whined and moaned about “mass banning” but it was literally less than a hand of people who hardcore farmed it for precursors.