Guild Wars 2

I seem to be coming across more and more groups that like to use exploits to make bosses in dungeons easier. If I chose not to exploit, I die or could possibly get removed. If I complain about exploits, it starts an argument and could possibly lead to a kick. Dungeons are slowly becomming a place where you have to exploit or glitch parts of them in order to complete them. Not because the dungeon is impossible, but because 4 out of 5 people want to exploit. If you chose to not exploit with them, your gaming experience becomes about laying on the ground dead, being kicked from groups, or constant arguing. The problems don’t end there either, exploiting can cause you to be banned from the game. So it comes down to hopping on the exploiting bandwagon to experience pve (dungeons), or avoiding them altogether. I am not complaining or whining about exploits, but venting about my worry of being hit with a banhammer. Anyone else have this issue?

Dungeons right now are just following the preset pug path to get there as quick and (Strangely) avoiding combat as much as possible. There’s not much you can do except hope that they tone down on the skipping and fix some of the bugs in the February update.

The problems don’t end there either, exploiting can cause you to be banned from the game.

I didn’t know there was any salvaging in dungeons.

I agree with the OP, At the moment dungeons have gone from skipping to glitching/exploiting. Jumping puzzles are a good training ground for finding exploits in dungeons. Arah closed ? No problem, just use the terrain to enter it. Roofs are higways to succes. Portal guns are an ingame expoiters dream.
I’ve given up on doing dungeons, the guilds I’m in or the pugs I join are glitiching their way to dungeon tokens, and while it can seem fun to do in the beginning it just messes up the game longevity in the long run.
I’m working on my 6 lvl 80 char I’ve a lot less money than the persons who glitch. This because of the salvaging dungeon gear difference, the economy is a farce as salvaging for ectos obtained by glitching your way to dungeon tokens destroys any sense of fair play.
Path 3 Arah about 10 minutes by exploiting the walls. Maybe introducing jumping was not a good idea.

It’s not so much an issue with exploits as it is about your “crowbar” stance against using them… even in groups that want to use them to complete the dungeon more quickly.

This is more about adapting to what more of a group wants to do, and if you refuse to do things any other way than your own (lets say, not using an exploit/glitch that will make things faster or easier), and hinder the group’s progress because of it, then it makes sense that you risk getting booted.

Not everyone is worried about their honor, or the very subjective and constantly argued “right way to play.” If everyone in my group wanted to use a glitch I hadn’t seen before, I’d go ahead and try it. If everyone, for some odd reason, had a very passionate stance against using a certain glitch, then I would have to comply with their wishes.

It comes down to working with your current group or not working with them. If you want to avoid the issue altogether, then only play with people you know, who share the same views as you.

There is no real bible on how to play a game. My own opinion is that if there is something that will make a dungeon faster, and people are taking advantage of it as part of their strategy, I might as well too.

There is also a very blurry line about exploits and “glitches,” where I could say kiting mobs is an exploit, or:

- using walls & pillars to block projectiles
- standing in spots where monsters have trouble / can’t hit you
- using a healing seed to help regen the group
- alternating stealth skills and running past the majority of monsters
- purposely getting an NPC killed so it doesn’t aggro mobs along the way
- unequipping armor so you can wipe without any penalty besides the checkpoint
- leaving one mob alive at one side during cliffside’s last hammer part (before the boss) so that the rest dont spawn and heal the seal
- at the lower fractal levels using the mesmer skill mimic to absorb the asura boss’s projectiles (That inflict agony) and then shooting them at his robots (thus killing them nearly instantly)
- dying on switches in the dredge fractal and skill getting the bonus of them being active

i could go on and on. even if something is obviously not intended, there is a very hypocritical view against exploits where many people will use “some” but not “all” or “lesser ones” but not “major ones” with their own subjective logic etc etc.

what it comes down to, is that you have your own [subjective] view on “exploits” and being “against them,” but, if in reality, you’re not following a strategy the rest want to try and hold a rock-solid stance that will merely slow them down… how can you blame them for wanting to kick you, or getting annoyed?

this is more of a player personality issue, based around delusions of “honorable correct ways to play a game” (often filled with a number of personal contradictions), and not working with the team

Making sure everybody’s on the same page is, of course, a good message. I don’t mean to undermine that. Slippery slope, Moral grey area, and “everybody’s doing it” is another story.

There is an absolute line in the sand. You see it drawn every time a bug is fixed. If you’re (apparently) having such a hard time figuring out whether or not something you’re doing lands on one side of the line or the other, don’t look for it under the premise of Morality or Intention – but Fun.

Emergent Gameplay is when the playerbase does something unusual that, original intentions aside, the game is better for than without. Not all gameplay, or even gameplay you may personally enjoy, is sanctified like this. Rocket Jumping added to the dynamics and skill ceiling of Quake. Sitting on top of the wooden platform and tossing arrows down on top of Destroyer of World’s immobile head isn’t exactly something most people would say is making the fight more exciting and enriched.

Writetyper.1985:

There’s not much you can do except hope that they tone down on the skipping and fix some of the bugs in the February update.

Yeah how DARE this exploiter scum simplify their gameplay.

Rob, what about Bjarl switching aggro mid-charge? That a glitch or WAI?

Thanks for the email address, Robert. I sent an email on an exploit that I have tested recently in Fractals (I figured I might as well report myself before someone else does it for me. :P )

Great work in making the dungeons a bit more enjoyable for those who seek it complete them more legitimately. Thanks a bunch!

What players are doing, and have been doing since release, in CM (jumping on the mountain, finding another way each time a fix is implemented) is incredibly annoying with PuGs because the dungeon is easy enough to not continuously jump against a mountain until you get it.
That’s clearly an exploit.

Then you have NPCs attacks not hitting you when you are standing on a big enough rock while you can kill them.

Or a problem with the NPC and the environment where you can stuck them somewhere and they won’t be able to rush on you. Or because NPC can’t jump, it will run all the way to the stairs and back to hit you, making it incredibly easy to kite it.
That’s kind of glitching them.

And finally you have those incredibly cheap tactics for group that can’t do the content normally (SE 1 and 3)…It doesn’t bother me to see players do it, but using that cheap tactic on the final boss in path 3 when you have a full DPS team (2 guardian, 2 warriors, 1 mesmer) is incredibly stupid.

I suspect the culture has come about because of an awful lot of rather huge glitches, which combined with the rediculous HP pools of dungeon mobs, that means that doing a dungeon ‘conventionally’ clearing out every creature in your way, can take an absurd amount of time (anytime over 45 minutes is a bit excessive personally). And When you want a specific dungeon set can take so long to acquire, people are going to try to do it as quickly and easily as possible.

So please, fix the exploits, but fix the bugs (like the infinite spawning Inquest in sorrows embrace, path 2 I believe, with all the gates) and tone down the health of trash mobs at least (honour of the waves, sorrows embrace and Arah are particularly bad for damage spongy mobs. Doubly so for honour of the waves).

And what does the OP consider an exploit? Skipping? Safe spotting Nightmare Vine?

Believe me when I say there are much much worse exploits out there…

about 6 of the 10 fractals have exploitable spots. nearly every dungeon has exploitable spots. I’ve gotten tired reporting them and no fixes.
I hate nearly all of these exploits. They are boring.
I also usually hate skipping mobs. They don’t drop loot if you skip them. I also hate mobs that never drop loot… but understand why this is the case sometimes.
Sometimes it seems the dev team’s fix to a known exploit is to make it harder to the point the exploit is needed O.o (I’m looking at you, cliffside hands)

fun story: Last time I did fractals it was with 2 fellow guild members and 2 PuG. we were on the jungle against mossman. the 2 PuG and 1 guild member immediately ran up the tree. I said that I was not going up there unless everyone else was (1 v boss does not work so well), the one said he’d stay down as well as it’s boring up there. Then the other guild mate came down and we fought the boss. part way through the battle, we look up and the 2 PuGers were dead and afk (on revive they just stood there).

Clever use of game mechanics is different from abusing game mechanics. I don’t mind skipping mobs. Mobs leash, it’s a part of the game design. Skipping them means skipping potential drops, but a faster dungeon run. Safe spotting to an extent is clever use of game mechanics. An example of this is the safe spot in the “snow” fractal. You can avoid the last boss’s AOE by hiding in a certain spot that he simply does not AOE at. Abusing game mechanics is different, giving an unfair advantage by “breaking” the bosses or breaking the boss fight mechanics in general.

Creepies.1562:

I seem to be coming across more and more groups that like to use exploits to make bosses in dungeons easier. If I chose not to exploit, I die or could possibly get removed. If I complain about exploits, it starts an argument and could possibly lead to a kick. Dungeons are slowly becomming a place where you have to exploit or glitch parts of them in order to complete them. Not because the dungeon is impossible, but because 4 out of 5 people want to exploit. If you chose to not exploit with them, your gaming experience becomes about laying on the ground dead, being kicked from groups, or constant arguing. The problems don’t end there either, exploiting can cause you to be banned from the game. So it comes down to hopping on the exploiting bandwagon to experience pve (dungeons), or avoiding them altogether. I am not complaining or whining about exploits, but venting about my worry of being hit with a banhammer. Anyone else have this issue?

I have had exactly the same experience as you mention here. Unfortunately there are a large number of glitches and exploits in pretty much every single dungeon out there at the moment. A lot of these issues have existed since launch or have been created after another fix has been implemented.

Fractals was the last straw for me. When you add up all the issues ranging from exploits in all the dungeons, fractal specific issues such as disconnects and the fact that groups are near impossible to form at times (no LFG tool) it paints a really bleak picture for people that enjoy running dungeons in an MMO. I love this game and I am willing to be patient with a lot of these issues but i definitely think that these problems need a bit more attention than they have received. Other games can receive patches a mere few days after a bug / exploit is reported yet this process is taking months and months now with very little progress

This is called “the path of least resistance” this applies to almost all things in life and it doesn’t stop with humans. If there’s a way of making something simpler/faster it will be found and it will be used. I agree with post above you need to start making your own groups

What bothers me the most is that sometime exploits and glitches and cheap tricks aren’t helping “new” players.
The only thing they are learning is : find a ledge monsters can’t get on and attack with a ranged weapon… And then one day they encounter a boss where they can’t simply stay far away and range him without any danger and they don’t know what to do : they don’t know how to correctly dodge, they don’t watch their enemy, they don’t watch their environment, they are pretty much a burden during a “real” encounter. And the minute something goes wrong in their exploit or their team decides to not exploit, they don’t know how to do it.

It’s horribly sad when someone who claims is an expert at Arah path 3 gets surprised when the Hammer boss downs him in one hit…and dies another couple of times by the same attack because we couldn’t be bothered to jump on the lamp.

At least skipping mob is somewhat challenging, but jumping on a rock and using ground targeted skills on a golem isn’t.

Creepies.1562:

I seem to be coming across more and more groups that like to use exploits to make bosses in dungeons easier. If I chose not to exploit, I die or could possibly get removed. If I complain about exploits, it starts an argument and could possibly lead to a kick. Dungeons are slowly becomming a place where you have to exploit or glitch parts of them in order to complete them. Not because the dungeon is impossible, but because 4 out of 5 people want to exploit. If you chose to not exploit with them, your gaming experience becomes about laying on the ground dead, being kicked from groups, or constant arguing. The problems don’t end there either, exploiting can cause you to be banned from the game. So it comes down to hopping on the exploiting bandwagon to experience pve (dungeons), or avoiding them altogether. I am not complaining or whining about exploits, but venting about my worry of being hit with a banhammer. Anyone else have this issue?

I couldn’t agree with this more. I have this problem everyday. It has ruined a lot of what I found fun in dungeons. It’s the norm now to glitch and exploit every boss encounter possible. It’s taboo for me to ask for a normal run because it will end in a kick or an argument. So when I join groups I tell them straight up that I want to do it regular without any exploits. They agree sometimes. And then continue to exploit and glitch and I’m just sitting there baffled, like “didn’t we just go over this.”

The problem is now that most people, especially new players now coming into the game really have no idea how to do any of the boss fights without glitching them and they think that’s the way to do it. Having everyone stand on the lamp post for the first boss encounter in arah path 3 and just afk auto attack till it’s over. Or in Twilight Arbor F/F path, glitch all the treants so they spawn in a spot where they can’t get down and group just afk auto attack after that.

This skipping mobs is annoying, but it isn’t an exploit. But if you include the fact that they’re skipping every possible mob and then glitching every possible boss, it totally ruins the experience. It’s not fun.

I asked this group earlier today why glitch a boss encounter that’s neither hard, broken, or poorly designed. The group says cause it’s not about having fun, it’s about farming tokens and proceeded to kick me from the group. It’s at a point now when it’s so normal to do exploit and glitch bosses, and it’s an actual insult to the group to expect or want them to do it normally.

Hot Boy.7138:

I asked this group earlier today why glitch a boss encounter that’s neither hard, broken, or poorly designed. The group says cause it’s not about having fun, it’s about farming tokens and proceeded to kick me from the group. It’s at a point now when it’s so normal to do exploit and glitch bosses, and it’s an actual insult to the group to expect or want them to do it normally.

And what they sometime don’t understand is that it might be faster to do it normally than to glitch and range the boss >.>

But that’s why I now refuse to do a lot of dungeons with PuGs : there’s a high chance the party might want to glicth/exploit everything, thus slowing the run down and annoying me.
It’s like in AC where players are desperately searching for the Troll so they can make it fight Kohler…I’d be okay if it was for the loot, but it’s not. It’s because they don’t want to fight Kohler head on because they are afraid they will die… So we waste them searching for the Troll, then getting the two of them together, then waiting for what seems like ages for Kohler to die before fighting the Troll. And let’s not forget those who die during this…

When you are farming a certain dungeon, to complete your exotic set or get a weapon or something, there is absolutely no sense in killing all the trash and all the bosses. While I don’t approve the cheap ways to kill a boss (i.e. stairs in AC for final boss) I do approve skipping some of them, if it gets the job done faster.

I understand that you sometimes feel the need to take your time with the dungeon and explore it. My first dungeon runs where all with pugs and while I didnt had a clue about what has to be done, all of them were jumping and running and skipping all the things in the dungeon, while I was left behind and most of the time dying along the way. So that proved to take longer than without skipping.

You know how I solved the problem? I found a nice guild, PvE oriented and I run dungeons with them when I’m in the mood for exploring and discovering. I still pug tho and skip some bosses when I want only the tokens.

So please, stop whining about pugs that skip. This is a mmo, its more of a social aspect than a gameplay one. If you can’t find more people that share your ideas than maybe this is not the game for you.

The post isn’t primarily about skipping mobs or bosses in dungeons (like kholer in AC). People have brought up skipping, but the post is more about breaking boss fights through exploits and glitching.

In my guild we call it “pug tactic” because no matter how many times i cleared dungeons with my guild, pugs have always different approach and tactic.

P.S if you guys complain about people glitching boss fights, post them right here so anet can get them sorted before it will spread, otherwise don’t bother.

Creepies.1562:

I seem to be coming across more and more groups that like to use exploits to make bosses in dungeons easier. If I chose not to exploit, I die or could possibly get removed. If I complain about exploits, it starts an argument and could possibly lead to a kick. Dungeons are slowly becomming a place where you have to exploit or glitch parts of them in order to complete them. Not because the dungeon is impossible, but because 4 out of 5 people want to exploit. If you chose to not exploit with them, your gaming experience becomes about laying on the ground dead, being kicked from groups, or constant arguing.

As i see it, you’ve just had some bad experiences with pugs, nothing more. Everyone is free to play as he desires, some like to kill everything in a dungeon, some like to skip and some like to use cheap methods to kill a boss. Who are you to blame them that they are playing in a way you dont enjoy?

As i said before, find a good group of people or join a guild and do runs with them. That way you wont care anymore if others skip content or even exploit it. The only advantage to exploiting bosses in dungeons, as i see it, is that they make more money per hour, through speed runs. But that can’t bother you, because you are the kind of person that doesnt like to skip or speed run, so your main objective is to enjoy the game at a slower pace and dont care about making money fast, in the first place.

ANet can’t fix every glitch in the game, as its massive. Try to understand that.

I think it’s a fair trade. There have been a lot of progress blocking glitches in dungeons, bosses and trash with absurd time sink HP pools, unbalanced paths, etc. When I’m in a pug that glitches something in a dungeon I feel that it evens the score a bit.

(That said the score is still not even, I will never forgive the Arah path 4 final boss for not spawning and DCing at Jade Maw in high end fractals :P)

codpin.6542:

Creepies.1562:

I seem to be coming across more and more groups that like to use exploits to make bosses in dungeons easier. If I chose not to exploit, I die or could possibly get removed. If I complain about exploits, it starts an argument and could possibly lead to a kick. Dungeons are slowly becomming a place where you have to exploit or glitch parts of them in order to complete them. Not because the dungeon is impossible, but because 4 out of 5 people want to exploit. If you chose to not exploit with them, your gaming experience becomes about laying on the ground dead, being kicked from groups, or constant arguing.

As i see it, you’ve just had some bad experiences with pugs, nothing more. Everyone is free to play as he desires, some like to kill everything in a dungeon, some like to skip and some like to use cheap methods to kill a boss. Who are you to blame them that they are playing in a way you dont enjoy?

As i said before, find a good group of people or join a guild and do runs with them. That way you wont care anymore if others skip content or even exploit it. The only advantage to exploiting bosses in dungeons, as i see it, is that they make more money per hour, through speed runs. But that can’t bother you, because you are the kind of person that doesnt like to skip or speed run, so your main objective is to enjoy the game at a slower pace and dont care about making money fast, in the first place.

ANet can’t fix every glitch in the game, as its massive. Try to understand that.

What does this have to do with anything that I have said? O.o

does terrain advantage consider as an exploit???

I think that it is called tactics.

RedStar.4218:

Hot Boy.7138:

I asked this group earlier today why glitch a boss encounter that’s neither hard, broken, or poorly designed. The group says cause it’s not about having fun, it’s about farming tokens and proceeded to kick me from the group. It’s at a point now when it’s so normal to do exploit and glitch bosses, and it’s an actual insult to the group to expect or want them to do it normally.

And what they sometime don’t understand is that it might be faster to do it normally than to glitch and range the boss >.>

But that’s why I now refuse to do a lot of dungeons with PuGs : there’s a high chance the party might want to glicth/exploit everything, thus slowing the run down and annoying me.
It’s like in AC where players are desperately searching for the Troll so they can make it fight Kohler…I’d be okay if it was for the loot, but it’s not. It’s because they don’t want to fight Kohler head on because they are afraid they will die… So we waste them searching for the Troll, then getting the two of them together, then waiting for what seems like ages for Kohler to die before fighting the Troll. And let’s not forget those who die during this…

What? you tell me that let kohler and troll fight each others is an exploit?

It’s intentional. They are enemy, so they fight.

Ah well two wrongs dont make one right BUT I would love to NOT:
1) Automove while picking up environmental / looting
2) Use a move skill (if I happen to have one equipped) to get unstuck because for no apparent reason I cant move in the middle of combat. (Not chat etc. the usual reasons)

Also isn’t glitching/exploiting exploring the entire map for easter eggs etc? I found a Youtube video that shows a secret area in CM which is apparently an unfinished / abandoned puzzle

Alucard.8297:

It’s not so much an issue with exploits as it is about your “crowbar” stance against using them… even in groups that want to use them to complete the dungeon more quickly.

This is more about adapting to what more of a group wants to do, and if you refuse to do things any other way than your own (lets say, not using an exploit/glitch that will make things faster or easier), and hinder the group’s progress because of it, then it makes sense that you risk getting booted.

Not everyone is worried about their honor, or the very subjective and constantly argued “right way to play.” If everyone in my group wanted to use a glitch I hadn’t seen before, I’d go ahead and try it. If everyone, for some odd reason, had a very passionate stance against using a certain glitch, then I would have to comply with their wishes.

It comes down to working with your current group or not working with them. If you want to avoid the issue altogether, then only play with people you know, who share the same views as you.

There is no real bible on how to play a game. My own opinion is that if there is something that will make a dungeon faster, and people are taking advantage of it as part of their strategy, I might as well too.

There is also a very blurry line about exploits and “glitches,” where I could say kiting mobs is an exploit, or:

- using walls & pillars to block projectiles
- standing in spots where monsters have trouble / can’t hit you
- using a healing seed to help regen the group
- alternating stealth skills and running past the majority of monsters
- purposely getting an NPC killed so it doesn’t aggro mobs along the way
- unequipping armor so you can wipe without any penalty besides the checkpoint
- leaving one mob alive at one side during cliffside’s last hammer part (before the boss) so that the rest dont spawn and heal the seal
- at the lower fractal levels using the mesmer skill mimic to absorb the asura boss’s projectiles (That inflict agony) and then shooting them at his robots (thus killing them nearly instantly)
- dying on switches in the dredge fractal and skill getting the bonus of them being active

i could go on and on. even if something is obviously not intended, there is a very hypocritical view against exploits where many people will use “some” but not “all” or “lesser ones” but not “major ones” with their own subjective logic etc etc.

what it comes down to, is that you have your own [subjective] view on “exploits” and being “against them,” but, if in reality, you’re not following a strategy the rest want to try and hold a rock-solid stance that will merely slow them down… how can you blame them for wanting to kick you, or getting annoyed?

this is more of a player personality issue, based around delusions of “honorable correct ways to play a game” (often filled with a number of personal contradictions), and not working with the team

Even though you may not be aware of it you are advocating subjective relativism. It is an ethical theory that suggests that what is right and what is wrong is entirely subjective. In this case, you are suggesting that what is right and wrong is determined by the players themselves. Sure, everyone should be entitled to their own opinions about exploiting. In case of a disagreement, there is no real right or wrong answer. The majority gets to decide what is right or wrong.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when you start applying this theory to other situations. Take for instance you are a pugger running with 4 people that are in a guild. You get to the last boss and they want to bring in someone from their own guild so they kick you. They all agree that it was the right thing to do and it is 4 against one so are their actions justified? Never mind how people can be so immoral to you. Everyone has their own view of what is right and wrong after all.

There would need to be a universal set of rules that define what is right and wrong. Exploiting is considered wrong by ArenaNet. Even if you disagree with this notion you are still subject to it because you are playing their game. These rules may hinder you but at the same time they also protect you from others. What is considered an exploit is up for debate but not exploiting itself.

And I love a discussion about ethics and philosophy in a video game especially in PVE. I mean all the non-exploiters must be the most upright people in real life right? Maybe there should be an ethics sim for philosophy majors/minors. Call it Ethics Wars or something.

BlackPaw.5948:

What? you tell me that let kohler and troll fight each others is an exploit?

It’s intentional. They are enemy, so they fight.

As I was saying, it’s not an exploit, but it’s a problem because most players I’ve been with aren’t doing this because they want double loot. They are doing this because they can’t seem to fight Kohler without dying 3 or 4 times.
And instead of learning, they resort to finding a way (well more like searching on websites) around it to minimize the risk that might make the run last longer.

In Kohler’s case it might be faster to let the Troll kill it, that is unless your team wastes 5 minutes trying to get to 2 of them together.
But for example in SE path 3, it’s in no possible way faster for a 2 guardians, 2 warriors, 1 mesmer team to be a ranged attacker during the last, easy, fight.

Now whether some things are intentional or not, I really don’t know. Every exploits that involve jumping around makes me wonder “Why did they even bother to put this here ? It’s as if they wanted us to abuse it”. Same thing with monsters fighting each others. But once again, my main problem with that is that sometime, it slows that an encounter that shouldn’t need to be slowed down.

RedStar.4218:

BlackPaw.5948:

What? you tell me that let kohler and troll fight each others is an exploit?

It’s intentional. They are enemy, so they fight.

As I was saying, it’s not an exploit, but it’s a problem because most players I’ve been with aren’t doing this because they want double loot. They are doing this because they can’t seem to fight Kohler without dying 3 or 4 times.
And instead of learning, they resort to finding a way (well more like searching on websites) around it to minimize the risk that might make the run last longer.

In Kohler’s case it might be faster to let the Troll kill it, that is unless your team wastes 5 minutes trying to get to 2 of them together.

Now whether some things are intentional or not, I really don’t know. Every exploits that involve jumping around makes me wonder “Why did they even bother to put this here ? It’s as if they wanted us to abuse it”. Same thing with monsters fighting each others. But once again, my main problem with that is that sometime, it slows that an encounter that shouldn’t need to be slowed down.

Experience is best for Kholer and that situation. It takes no more than 15 seconds to see if troll is there or not, Troll can only spawn in basically 2 spots in that room. Then depending on the path taken, the next event can be done quickly such as Path 1 and 2, allowing you time to come back and tag both troll and Kholer to grab both drops. IT’s effectively using your time instead of waiting (= boring) for their hp to drop. Once Kholer’s HP drops to 40%, time to attack both, I’ve never had them lose aggro.

Sometimes things happens due to the way the event is set up, take the King and Queen Slime boss event in CoF for example. Clearly, its states that they are oppressive rulers so getting the red slimes to fight them is clever use.

Himei.5379:

RedStar.4218:

BlackPaw.5948:

What? you tell me that let kohler and troll fight each others is an exploit?

It’s intentional. They are enemy, so they fight.

As I was saying, it’s not an exploit, but it’s a problem because most players I’ve been with aren’t doing this because they want double loot. They are doing this because they can’t seem to fight Kohler without dying 3 or 4 times.
And instead of learning, they resort to finding a way (well more like searching on websites) around it to minimize the risk that might make the run last longer.

In Kohler’s case it might be faster to let the Troll kill it, that is unless your team wastes 5 minutes trying to get to 2 of them together.

Now whether some things are intentional or not, I really don’t know. Every exploits that involve jumping around makes me wonder “Why did they even bother to put this here ? It’s as if they wanted us to abuse it”. Same thing with monsters fighting each others. But once again, my main problem with that is that sometime, it slows that an encounter that shouldn’t need to be slowed down.

Experience is best for Kholer and that situation. It takes no more than 15 seconds to see if troll is there or not, Troll can only spawn in basically 2 spots in that room. Then depending on the path taken, the next event can be done quickly such as Path 1 and 2, allowing you time to come back and tag both troll and Kholer to grab both drops. IT’s effectively using your time instead of waiting (= boring) for their hp to drop. Once Kholer’s HP drops to 40%, time to attack both, I’ve never had them lose aggro.

Sometimes things happens due to the way the event is set up, take the King and Queen Slime boss event in CoF for example. Clearly, its states that they are oppressive rulers so getting the red slimes to fight them is clever use.

On the mail about AC it said the Ascalonian ghost are apparently keeping a greater evil in the tombs. So I thought monsters and ghost were never suppose to be friends to begin with. Which makes troll and kholer fighting completely viable. Also why move on the p1 – 2 when you can jsut range them to death and hide when kholer does his spin for faster kills?

So, in real life, a sniper is exploiting hidden position to snipe the enemies, and yet the SWAT team and police also deploy snipers when taking down the bad guy.

Now, I am a ranger, with a bow and arrow. My job is to shot from far and hit the enemy. So, I stand on a tree and I shoot at the enemy. Of course, if the enemy found my position, they can shoot back.

So, let’s take a boss in a dungeon for example. 4 legged lizards boss. Everyone stand on a stairs and shoot at the boss, but the boss can’t shoot back. It cannot jump or have ranged or it’s ranged attack is not long enough. We have the advantage. Many of you call this exploit, some call this strategy.

Solution? Simple. Put everyone on a FLAT land with walls that has no ledge. Boss room where your party members and boss squares off. No ledges, no stairs, no trees, no nothing. Problem solve. Right?

For me, it’s not a solution, nor is removing all this so called exploit and making a boss room, either square or rounded room.

If you say that hiding under the stairs and hitting a boss is exploiting, then make the boss run under the stairs too, instead of standing there like a fool. Or if you stand at a ledge where the boss can’t reach you, make it cast something like magic arrow or even better, destroy the environment (like Tequatll or Claw of Jormag destroying the environment). So, 4 legged boss cant’ reached you on that ledge? What does it do? RAM it and destroy the foundation below it. And humpty dumpty falls down.

Hiding behind pillars? RAM it and make the pillar fall on the players to deal some fall damage.

So, wouldn’t this be better than just scream exploit at everything and thus finally forcing ANet to make boss room where there is no ledges, no stairs, no nothing but just four walls and a flat floor. You, your party and the boss and his minions.

You all just sore that people are doing it easy way out. If it a map exploit like the CM one, then by all means, close it. But shooting from trees, ledges and stairs is an exploit? Since when does a battle need to be head on? You all never learnt from the WW1 and WW2, the gulf War and many wars in the past and present? You think using the environment is an exploit? It is call strategy.

Had ANet make bosses room like some old-school RPGs, we wouldn’t be here arguing about exploits or whatnot. If shooting from high places and whatever is what you all call exploit, then remove ranged weapons altogether. Because what is the use of RANGED weapons when you can’t shoot people from far away or from high or low places? You think everyone here has honor and dignity in battle? Try asking those that actually fight a real war in real life as see if they think giving the enemy any chances of attacking back is a good idea.

Explorable dungeons are more or less a grind. No one likes to grind. If there is grinding to be had, people will do whatever they can to get it done and over with. Is it sometimes annoying? Yes. Just make sure before starting to ask if anyone is doing exploits if you don’t want to.

The only way to make people do it right is to find some way to get them their reward without making it feel like a grind. Not an easy thing to do for Anet or any other company without making it too easy, unfortunately

@SirDrygan
Throwing in real life is a poor excuse for a justification to exploit bosses by bugging them. For the sake of argument though. Snipers in real life can still be targeted by enemies, which is not the case ingame. It’s not the vantage point that is the problem it is the fact mobs can’t reach you that is the exploit. Even though they should be perfectly able to do so if coded.

Than again people try to justify a lot of their exploits by throwing all the blame on anet.

Masharok.9428:

Explorable dungeons are more or less a grind. No one likes to grind. If there is grinding to be had, people will do whatever they can to get it done and over with. Is it sometimes annoying? Yes. Just make sure before starting to ask if anyone is doing exploits if you don’t want to.

The only way to make people do it right is to find some way to get them their reward without making it feel like a grind. Not an easy thing to do for Anet or any other company without making it too easy, unfortunately

But that’s the thing : except for very few exploits, they don’t make the run faster. They make it less risky while making it longer.
Of course, it’s the same with skipping monsters : it’s faster to skip unless half your team dies and you lose time. But skipping is rather straight forward and rarely depends on any sort of player skills.

It’s simply annoying to be in PuG clearly capable of doing things normally at a good speed, but because most of them never did it, having to lose time and making the fight horribly boring.

SirDrygan.1823:

So, in real life, a sniper is exploiting hidden position to snipe the enemies, and yet the SWAT team and police also deploy snipers when taking down the bad guy.

Now, I am a ranger, with a bow and arrow. My job is to shot from far and hit the enemy. So, I stand on a tree and I shoot at the enemy. Of course, if the enemy found my position, they can shoot back.

So, let’s take a boss in a dungeon for example. 4 legged lizards boss. Everyone stand on a stairs and shoot at the boss, but the boss can’t shoot back. It cannot jump or have ranged or it’s ranged attack is not long enough. We have the advantage. Many of you call this exploit, some call this strategy.

In a real war, enemies had guns. The boss in AC path 1 doesn’t have anything to hit back. He simply sits there waiting for you to kill him.
You have ranged weapons because others have melee weapons, thus capturing his attention while you kill him from afar.

In many games, even in GW2, when a monster cannot hit you while you are attacking him from a higher position, he becomes invulnerable. For some reason, this isn’t the case for a lot of dungeon bosses, that’s why it’s considered by many to at least be a bug.

RedStar.4218:

……..
In a real war, enemies had guns. The boss in AC path 1 doesn’t have anything to hit back. He simply sits there waiting for you to kill him……..

That is my point, why CAN’T i hit mobs from high places? Because 99.9% of players will start abusing it? Or because players needs to get hit and shot at. If having a ranged weapon is to face the boss on a FLAT land, you may as well remove all ranged weapon. Because it is compulsory for the boss to hit you, even though you are trying to dodge, run and do every manner to not get hit. The whole point of a battle is to hit your enemy and not get hit back. Hence, if I can use a tree to shoot a melee attacker, it would be a better strategy. Of course you are going to say that this is a game, and it is unfair for the boss not being able to hit back and so on. Unfair? Unfair to whom? The computer generated boss or to you or to those who did not use the environment to their advantage and just charge head on into a battle. That is what is going on in WvW with a zerg group, because you have the numbers, so you charge and mow down anything and anyone in your way. What happens if they have the same amount of players and they use STRATEGY to run your zerg down? Like for example lead your zerg into an ambush etc.. or shoot from HIGH places with dozen of arrows carts. Your ranged can’t shoot back, so you have to build treb to shoot at them. Of course they can shoot back, but you deploy eles to block the shots. Why don’t you let them hit your treb to be fair to them instead of deploying eles to block their attack? I am sure they also deploys eles to block your shots too.

So, in a battle, your objectives is to hit your enemy and avoid getting hit back. If standing on a ledge or stairs or behind pillars to avoid getting hit, it is clever use of the environment.

And, before any of your righteous people say that it cheapens the fight, I will ask you one thing. What is one of the Charr’s common phrase when you speak to them? "Win at any cost’ (can’t remember the actual phrase.
So, in a fight, you try to win at any cost. There is no honor or chivalry at all in fight. It’s either you die or your enemy die. Pick one.

Some of you all got this whole exploit and glitching thing wrong.
And exploit is like the CM mountain climbing. That is an exploit where you can jump straight into an invisible hole in the mountain and bypass lots of enemies which you would have to fight if you have taken the normal route. This is what you call an exploit. Walking through walls and jumping into holes that should not be there. Exploit.

Glitches are when you make the enemy stuck and unable to move. You may also call this exploit as you make your enemy unable to move and hit you.

As for the AC boss and the stairs, I don’t see this as an exploit because your are using the environment to give yourself an advantage. Hence, before you all scream again the word “Unfair”. Unfair to whom? To those who fight and die and pay repairs bills? To those who did not know how to use the environment to their advantage? Or to those who stand by the sword and die by the sword?

So, if you still adamant that this is an exploit, I have suggested making boss room. With no ledges, no stairs, no pillars, no holes no nothing. So, boss battle time , you would be transported to the room either square or rounded. And after the fight, a portal appears to transport you out. Problem solved. And we won’t have people screaming exploit every time someone finds a ledge or stairs and start shooting the boss.

And if you think all players should get hit, then a boss room also solves the problem. Give all bosses an AoE attack. 360 degrees attack with variety of damages, so that it doesn’t one -shot everyone. And, make the boss continuously spawn minions. So, even if you managed to dodge all the boss’s attack, you still cannot avoid getting hit from the minions. Problem solved.

Since using the environment is a big no-no in many of your books, then a boss room is the best solution.

or like I always argue, remove ranged weapons. No point having them. Human invented ranged weapon is because they don’t want to get hit from their enemies. In this game, it is compulsory to get hit.

So, ANet, if you are reading this, please make boss room for all dungeons bosses. So that no one can complain about so-call exploit when using the environment to fight a boss. Or remove ranged weapons. There is no point when I cannot shoot people from high places and not get hit back.

On a personal note, I don’t understand why must a player get hit during a fight? If a player can avoid getting hit, by dodging and running, it that call an exploit too? Or because the player has skills? So, using the environment to avoid getting hit is an exploit. Then, don’t put the tree there or even the stairs there. Problem solved.

SirDrygan.1823:

And if you think all players should get hit, then a boss room also solves the problem. Give all bosses an AoE attack. 360 degrees attack with variety of damages, so that it doesn’t one -shot everyone. And, make the boss continuously spawn minions. So, even if you managed to dodge all the boss’s attack, you still cannot avoid getting hit from the minions. Problem solved.

Dont we already have this in GW2? His name is Project Alpha.

SirDrygan.1823:

As for the AC boss and the stairs, I don’t see this as an exploit because your are using the environment to give yourself an advantage. Hence, before you all scream again the word “Unfair”. Unfair to whom? To those who fight and die and pay repairs bills? To those who did not know how to use the environment to their advantage? Or to those who stand by the sword and die by the sword?

Unfair as a game mechanic. That’s how it’s unfair.
Go in the normal PvE, try and kill whichever monster while you are in place they can’t hit you. Watch them go invulnerable because this is intended.
Understand that this feature is a bug. Or a gross oversight. Or a weird intended idea to allow everyone to do AC.

(The following isn’t and shouldn’t be interpreted as a personal thing. Some things may apply, some may not, it’s a complete generalization of behaviors I have personally observed without targeting anyone in particular).

And as much as I hate to say this : learn to play. If you die (not downed, die) at this boss, then sorry, you messed up and you need to learn to dodge/move away from a pretty easy to see attack, and yes you deserve to pay some silver and learn to become a better player, instead of using cheap tactics that might not work forever and then come whining on the forums about a similar encounter when you can’t find a cheap tactic.

SirDrygan.1823:

And if you think all players should get hit, then a boss room also solves the problem. Give all bosses an AoE attack. 360 degrees attack with variety of damages, so that it doesn’t one -shot everyone. And, make the boss continuously spawn minions. So, even if you managed to dodge all the boss’s attack, you still cannot avoid getting hit from the minions. Problem solved.

But the thing is, when using that “tactic” against this boss, you aren’t even doing anything. All your teammates can hit auto attack and go afk. There’s a difference between an encounter so easy you can practically go afk and one you can actually all go afk.

RedStar.4218:

Masharok.9428:

Explorable dungeons are more or less a grind. No one likes to grind. If there is grinding to be had, people will do whatever they can to get it done and over with. Is it sometimes annoying? Yes. Just make sure before starting to ask if anyone is doing exploits if you don’t want to.

The only way to make people do it right is to find some way to get them their reward without making it feel like a grind. Not an easy thing to do for Anet or any other company without making it too easy, unfortunately

But that’s the thing : except for very few exploits, they don’t make the run faster. They make it less risky while making it longer.
Of course, it’s the same with skipping monsters : it’s faster to skip unless half your team dies and you lose time. But skipping is rather straight forward and rarely depends on any sort of player skills.

It’s simply annoying to be in PuG clearly capable of doing things normally at a good speed, but because most of them never did it, having to lose time and making the fight horribly boring.

SirDrygan.1823:

So, in real life, a sniper is exploiting hidden position to snipe the enemies, and yet the SWAT team and police also deploy snipers when taking down the bad guy.

Now, I am a ranger, with a bow and arrow. My job is to shot from far and hit the enemy. So, I stand on a tree and I shoot at the enemy. Of course, if the enemy found my position, they can shoot back.

So, let’s take a boss in a dungeon for example. 4 legged lizards boss. Everyone stand on a stairs and shoot at the boss, but the boss can’t shoot back. It cannot jump or have ranged or it’s ranged attack is not long enough. We have the advantage. Many of you call this exploit, some call this strategy.

In a real war, enemies had guns. The boss in AC path 1 doesn’t have anything to hit back. He simply sits there waiting for you to kill him.
You have ranged weapons because others have melee weapons, thus capturing his attention while you kill him from afar.

In many games, even in GW2, when a monster cannot hit you while you are attacking him from a higher position, he becomes invulnerable. For some reason, this isn’t the case for a lot of dungeon bosses, that’s why it’s considered by many to at least be a bug.

if you stood on top the of stairs with guns shooing down on people with swords they would?
a. stand there and look at you till they die?
b. run for cover to a place you can not shoot?
c. run up the stairs and smack you in the face?

I bet the answer is not A, and this is why the situation is not correct in game. Now, yes, some of this is on Anet for not having something that makes the boss invulnerable when your in a place that can not be hit or things of that nature (normal for an MMO to keep this type of exploit from happening), but either way it is an exploit (you are exploiting the fact that Anet did not put something into the code to deal with this your up on a ledge let me stand here and look like i’m alone till i die).

I am generaly against exploits but in Fractals? You wanna do it as fast as it possible because longer you are there, its bigger chance to someone get dc. In this state I sometime choose “shortcut” in Fractals then risk dc when Jade Maw has 10% HP (It happens 5 times to me).

I see this issue from a point of view that I’ve recently wanted the HotW armour set.

Most, if not nearly all my runs have used the ledge past the stairs, and either the beam, or the wall for the final boss of path 1.
No, I’m not a fan of it. No, I really don’t want to do it, but I can completely see why players are doing it.

-The areas in which people do this have been there for ages, it isn’t a new bug to point out, they’ve been there for months.

-The final boss especially takes a stupid amount of time to kill him without using one of these spots. After doing a full Guild run where we didn’t do this to the last boss, we were fighting him consistantly for 20 minutes.

-Fighting a boss normally that can potentially last 20 minutes, then have the group wipe isn’t a good feeling, and a total waste of time.

-Alot of players, like myself, can -only- PuG runs due to time restrictions/Guild inactivity. Pugging a run, then saying you don’t want to do these things generally results in you being laughed at, then kicked. There’s no choice, you either shut up and do it, or don’t play the content.

-These are all issues that should’ve been fixed by Anet long before now, rather than waiting for the dungeon revamp to do it, which could still potentially be months away.

Honestly, I can see Anet doing one of two things regarding all these dungeon bugs.
They’ll either ban everyone who’s been doing it, and I can sadly see them actually doing it, or release the revamp and pretend it never happened.
If the banning path is taken, lots of innocent players will be caught in it purely because they wanted to play content rather than playing something else entirely.

Even then, the fix for skipping groups of mobs in a dungeon would be simple. Stop letting mobs have a range where they’ll just forget about you. Other MMO’s make them chase you through the entire dungeon, I fail to see why they don’t here.

Boss room. Problem solved. No ledges, no stairs, no holes, no pillars.

And I agree with the above about mobs chasing you through the entire dungeon, it will force players to kill them instead of skipping this, skipping that.

However, with that said, the dungeons need a revamp from the mobs hp pool, their non-stop no limit attacks (AC scavengers) to their insane damage. I mean, i understand a dungeon needs to be hard, but to make it a near impossible for players and forcing them to skip and use so called “environmental exploit”, then really the dungeons need a major revamping soon.

And please add the boss room. And make it melee only. All ranged weapons will be unable to work in the boss room. That way, players will have to go up-close and personal with the boss like some of you all are preaching that you need to get the compulsory hit from the bosses, if not, it is unfair if you don’t get hit.

So, please, add boss room. So that we can do some good old hack and slash just like the old days of Diablo 1 and 2.

That sounds needlessly complicated (and frankly bizarre?). Just report anything that strikes you as strange, and Anet will evaluate and close loopholes as needed. That’s pretty standard procedure for this sort thing.

If you’re still having a hard time figuring out what qualifies, play the PR game. If you were to slip the footage of what you were doing into a commercial advertising the game and you could reasonably expect to be fired, chances are it’s something worth reporting.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

As a general rule, if you see an exploit, please email our special exploit inbox so we can be made aware of it if we aren’t already. Just use Exploits@Arena.Net to report issues. Give a quick description and include a screenshot, and we will try to do something about it ASAP.

It is frustrating, but you can help ease that by reporting.

We heard this song yet, and we remember too devs telling us a speedrun skipping 95% of the dungeon is not exploit the content. And is allowed from day one until now i write, am i wrong? Redesign/fix those idiot skiprun/exploit very well know and even posted, instead of ask us to send a mail. Just to add, every mail i sent to that address didn’t gave me any answer never not even a thanks, and everything reported ended up still ingame, after months. Seems you don’t want to understand we are pretty done of those idiot skipruns and exploits still ingame. So, try again

I do hope the developers ban people who are using the stairs exploit in the AC bosses. Those bosses are actually fun to fight, and AC is a great dungeon, but using that exploit makes it incredibly cheap.

Just on the topic of calling these methods “exploits,” I don’t feel like it’s entirely correct. For me to call something an “exploit” I’d have to feel like someone is being harmed by the activity. Given that you can’t trade the tokens you get on completion and the silver reward is pathetically low, I can’t honestly say that I feel that anyone is being hurt by it. Back to the point, I’d prefer people call it cheating or abuse of a mechanic or something like that. Just saying.

Nialiss.6459:

Back to the point, I’d prefer people call it cheating or abuse of a mechanic or something like that. Just saying.

Those are usually what falls under the blanket term of “exploits”.

Although, when I do report exploits, if I think a certain glitch is more like a “grey area” sort of thing, then I’m more likely to flag that one as a simple ‘anomaly’ … as in it feels exploit-like but I’m not sure if it’s a real exploit.

With that said, I do have a somewhat set of guidelines of what could constitute as an exploit, and these include but not limited to:

• Can you use this trick to completely trivialize the encounter? If I can AFK-autoattack a boss from 100 to 0% HP, then chances are good that it’s an exploit that should be reported. For example, the infamous “tree” exploit with the Mossman. On the other hand, bunching up on Subject Alpha in melee range in CoE Path 1 is not something I’d consider an “exploit” unless that same technique prevented him from using all of his attacks instead of certain attacks.
• Can I skip an insane amount of content with this trick? I suppose “insane” amount can be tricky to judge, but I guess it would be determined on what’s being skipped. Running past mobs, in essence, is not really exploiting; but preventing the mobs from reaching you by taking abusive advantage of their simplistic AI could be.

Lyth.9472:

Even then, the fix for skipping groups of mobs in a dungeon would be simple. Stop letting mobs have a range where they’ll just forget about you. Other MMO’s make them chase you through the entire dungeon, I fail to see why they don’t here.

Seriously if you want to kill every single mob in a dungeon please join a group that intends to do so. And you are complaining about time constraints? You are kidding, right?

If Anet does what you suggest, I think their mailbox will be full with complaints in no time at all.

Wow only by starting a comment on page 2, I am allowed to view page 1 of thread.