Guild Wars 2

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

@Dinosaurs So you would kick people for not being ok with breaking the ToS which can in theory lead to a ban? Moral dilemma indeed…

Yeah considering how long people have been exploiting mossman without any significant change to the encounter by anet i’m gonna say that no one is getting banned. I have no idea how difficult it would be to change or remove the tree and other stack points but considering the amount of time involved here I think it’s ok to pull the “if they cared that much they would have fixed it”. I would rather just not be a kitten to the 4 people that just want to get their dailies done.

Groups have been exploiting to beat mossman for a long, long time now, and if you are uncomfortable with that fine, but there is no way you could possibly make it through the wisp phase and not know that as soon as everyone gets out of the water they are running straight to the tree. A that point you’re basically going to someone’s high school party just to lecture everyone about how they shouldn’t be drinking. You’re not technically wrong, but no one cares, you’re not changing anything, and you’re just making them and yourself mad. If you want to fight the mossman without jumping in the tree I don’t care, good on you, but your scenario seems to involve you actually expecting the pugs to either not stack or not care that you aren’t stacking. Since either case is completely ridiculous considering the history of the swampland fractal and anyone’s knowledge of the encounter by the time they have the AR for a 77 or 83 scale, I would absolutely say that someone who joins a pug swamp 77, says nothing up until the boss fight, and then continually refuses to stack is griefing. They’re making the fight more difficult and they have invested their own time to do it on purpose. I would kick them in a heartbeat.

And what even makes that an exploit rather than just a clever way to beat the boss? Mossman can still hit people on the tree. My group brings a druid for heals and stacks on the ground next to the docks so no one gets feared away and just break his bar off cooldown and heal through his big hits. This is essentially the same strategy used on a large number of bosses, but honestly the fight is trivially easy at any scale using this strategy. Is that an exploit too? Or is that what the designer intended? My guess would be neither, but it really draws attention to the fact that the issue isn’t that people can stack in the tree and beat mossman easily (though more slowly), the issue is that the mossman boss encounter needs a substantial overhaul. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal because most of the other fractal boss fight are actually quite good, but swamp is so short besides the boss fight that the exploit defines the entire daily fractal meta.

There is still a huge exploit on jade maw that has been around forever and honestly is way way worse than the swamp exploit because it is an obvious bug and not just a geometric oversight. But no one seems to care about that one because no one runs jade maw anyway.

tl;dr expecting pugs won’t use the tree is your fault not theirs; also swamp is bad and jade maw is worse but no one cares

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

That’s like saying a legit player has to leave Auric Basin after getting 200% participation if they see someone using position hack to tear down octovine’s stacks or a WvW player has to change server if he knows someone from his server is hacking to gain an advantage. Leaving doesn’t accomplish anything.

A legit player doesn’t have the power to stop other player from exploiting. Exploiters shouldn’t have the power to stop other players from playing legit. Kicking legit players is disrupting their gameplay.

No it’s really not.

What your trying to do is really badly use a red herring. No one is stopping them from playing. They still have options, like the right to start their own party and play the game how they want to, free using of exploits.

If they opt to join a group, key word here opt (they were never forced too join said group); they can also opt to leave said group if it doesn’t align with their method of play.

I know that’s horribly complex, and a foreign concept but why not go out there and try it.

don’t want to stand on the tree? then don’t
I never do (I can’t use Burning Speed if I do), and no one ever has a problem with it

What’s really hilarious, just like the pole exploit, is that it is actively slower to kill mossy when you do it. Mossy’s fight already encourages and rewards stacking, but stacking on the tree means invulnerable wolves which don’t proc various things, and several classes behaving to skip movement based skills in their rotation and do less damage.

Oh, and also, mossy cleaves way more people if he gets in a sweet spot.

In addition the fight isn’t even that hard

Why people are insisting on going out of their way to engage in a stacking trick that often makes the fight both harder to survive and slower to complete blows my mind.

PopeUrban.2578:

What’s really hilarious, just like the pole exploit, is that it is actively slower to kill mossy when you do it. Mossy’s fight already encourages and rewards stacking, but stacking on the tree means invulnerable wolves which don’t proc various things, and several classes behaving to skip movement based skills in their rotation and do less damage.

Oh, and also, mossy cleaves way more people if he gets in a sweet spot.

In addition the fight isn’t even that hard

Why people are insisting on going out of their way to engage in a stacking trick that often makes the fight both harder to survive and slower to complete blows my mind.

Try to do it with pugs instead of writing so much text. You’ll see so many new things.

I pug 67, 77, and 83 with some regularity. In my experience, the biggest indication of failure in those groups is people running for the tree.

The groups that fight him normally will generally not have any trouble, while the ones in the tree quite often start losing people immediately due to people getting hit with axe cleaves and trying it without enough AR.

It’s usually quicker to drop and find a new group than to wait for the tree group to beat moss, even if they’re successful, let alone when they fail.

Sick and tired of people referring to Line of Sight (LoS) as bad usage. By using objects in the game to your advantage you are using a method called LoS that has been around since the earliest of games. This is not an exploit and most games promote the idea of using LoS to your advantage.
By hopping up onto the tree, you are only using a strategy that has been used in many other games, because Mossman “looses sight” of you and cannot reach you with his melee skills. This is why he tries to run around the tree multiple times to reposition himself and find kitten that he can melee in. He still can throw his axe at you. Guild wars, unlike most games uses a dodge mechanism, so most people rely on dodges before LoS, and this may explain the aloofness that LoS is a game strategy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_sight_
“Line of sight, sometimes written line-of-sight or abbreviated to LoS, is the visibility (that is, who can see what) on the playing field in wargames and some role-playing games (RPGs). Many abilities can only be used on entities within a character’s line of sight. Line of sight is crucial to many types of video games, including, but not limited to, first-person shooters, strategy games, stealth games, and role-playing video games. In simplistic games with a top-down perspective, such as roguelikes, Bresenham’s line algorithm can be used to determine line of sight. In first person games such as battlefield and flight simulators an implicit min/max kd-tree may be used to efficiently evaluate terrain line of sight queries.¹
In some live-action role-playing games, such as NERO International, the line of sight is used as the duration for some spells and abilities. For example, a paralyze spell only lasts as long as the target remains within line of sight of the spell’s caster.
On the other hand, line of sight can be used offensively, like luring a player behind a pillar in order to set a trap – his team mate, being out of line of sight, won’t be able to help out until he gets in LoS, which in turn takes time. This time is usually the key moment to strike and go for a kill, if said player falls in said trap.”

Ok so if this is an exploit then so is stacking right in the middle of the board and killing him because that is all the tree is used for is to stack at. He can still hit you with his attacks because if you go to high he becomes invulnerable so you have to be able to be hit and if he becomes invulnerable then the fight just takes forever.

So they way you look at it using part of the game that they put there is an exploit I call BS if you do not want it used move it, if you do not want ppl stacking don’t allow it get over it it is a game we as players try to find the easiest way to play the game and still do good in it that is the point of a game.

Stajan.4581:

Listen it is not an exploit because they made it possible to jump into the trees if you climb the tree he becomes invulnerable and can not be hurt. Second off if anet has a problem with players finding an easier way to play the game then pull the game from the shelves and re do it, it is that simple they can not and will nto be able to cover everything and make it visually appealing. So suck it up buttecup and learn to enjoy the game if you do not want to use a tree don’t use it if you want to stack in the corner need the stairs which by the way is another place you can then do that he throws axes just like the ranger so get over it.

haha

Rising Dusk.2408:

Vinceman.4572:

So either you “exploit” on the tree or you have a guard or mesmer with you that know how to play the class but that, my dear, is even rare than lvl 2 players meleeing.

My guild yolo melees him with Berserker/Chronomancer/Herald/Tempest and no fifth party member on 77. He dies at least 50% faster than the exploit methods with full parties.

Also for anyone who thinks this isn’t an exploit, it is. Source: I talk to ANet.

Someone from pugs last days asked “tree?” before three of us said no.
It was slow, most of them were downed constantly…
Yolo melee only works if you know what your skills and traits do, then you have to use them / select them properly.

Also thanks for the clarification!

Vinceman.4572:

DeoDose.4237:

I open groups and tell everyone if it’s okay for them not to exploit mossmann – and still get kicked very often.

Most players that stack on the tree are just too bad to dodge his attacks, the amount of bearbows, eartheles and minionmasters who like to sit there is proving my point

We already had this argument a lot now and it is hard countered by the fact that you can’t even see the animations of Mr. Moss while having adjusted lower graphic setups. Too much fire work everywhere.
Ok, there is one possibility: 5 man ranging like they do on lvl 2 fractals. Sry Sir, not my playstyle.
So either you “exploit” on the tree or you have a guard or mesmer with you that know how to play the class but that, my dear, is even rare than lvl 2 players meleeing.

Harper.4173:

There’s never going to be enough ascended and gold. Not for me at least.
There’s no such thing as ever having “enough”. The loot must flow.

#

oh please… This boss is so easy. I have done it with engi/ranger/necro (3 people) ( other people left when they saw they can’t use the pole, lel). The trick is kill adds when they spawn, use stab and break the defiance bar.
Do you know that the defiance bar is like paper now? You can stun him almost all the time.

Rednik.3809:

Khyan.7039:

Once I refused to go on the tree during scale 67, people just kicked me while I’ve done this before with same pugs in scale 77 (at least they said hello to my blacklist). Now for “enjoy the game” I have to use exploit like everyone else, because they will kick me if I don’t do it. Do you think this is fair? I don’t think so. The OP is right, this need a fix.

Sorry but if you don’t want to kill it the right way, you are just lazy. Don’t have enough AR? Don’t go there, then. The fight is easy if everyone know how to dodge and use boons/support.

Group opinion>your opinion. It’s called life.

This is not how life works nowadays, or you’re just ignorant.
thank you for the constructive comment though.

I don’t see what the big deal is. When I do Fractals, I make a LFG saying: “56, 67, 77 – no tree!” and it fills up just fine and we kill Mossman on the ground. There’s never any of this drama. Also for the record, I just do it this way because I find it’s quicker since groups tend to get lazy and are semi-AFK on the tree.

Khyan.7039:

oh please… This boss is so easy. I have done it with engi/ranger/necro (3 people) ( other people left when they saw they can’t use the pole, lel). The trick is kill adds when they spawn, use stab and break the defiance bar.
Do you know that the defiance bar is like paper now? You can stun him almost all the time.

Oh pleae, you haven’t read correctly. It is like we don’t care. We want to slaughter our fractal loot pinata and nothing else. If it’s on the ground or on the pole it doesn’t matter for me, I can kill him everywhere if the team composition is fine and players know what to do. Since PUGs are lacking brain, starting with the age of video games till today, I prefer to let them stay in their comfort zone and adjust my playstyle to the group.
For me there is no interest in having Mossman a challenge. He is an old man hiding my rewards and therefore has to die so I can move on to the next thing I am interested in.

Stajan.4581:

Ok so if this is an exploit then so is stacking right in the middle of the board and killing him because that is all the tree is used for is to stack at.

This is not true. There are plenty of angles to stand at on the tree where Mossman is not invulnerable and cannot hit you with most, if not all, of his attacks. Just because it’s a little more finicky than the wooden post was doesn’t make it any less of an exploit.

Jess.6710:

Sick and tired of people referring to Line of Sight (LoS) as bad usage. By using objects in the game to your advantage you are using a method called LoS that has been around since the earliest of games. This is not an exploit and most games promote the idea of using LoS to your advantage.
By hopping up onto the tree, you are only using a strategy that has been used in many other games, because Mossman “looses sight” of you and cannot reach you with his melee skills. This is why he tries to run around the tree multiple times to reposition himself and find kitten that he can melee in. He still can throw his axe at you. Guild wars, unlike most games uses a dodge mechanism, so most people rely on dodges before LoS, and this may explain the aloofness that LoS is a game strategy.

LoS is a strategy not an exploit, but that’s not what people are complaining about here.

People are complaining that the game have a code when mobs become invulnerable when they can’t hit you back, but when you go on the three Mosman it can’t hit you, while not being invulnerable. It’s harder to do than with the pole next to the house of underwater Mosman, but it’s still there.

Anet always fix those things in fractal. The main problem is that they are so freaking bad with the speed they do it. That’s always the same bullkitten with them. Oh we’ll fix it when we do the next big fractal update in 6 months.

Vinceman.4572:

Khyan.7039:

oh please… This boss is so easy. I have done it with engi/ranger/necro (3 people) ( other people left when they saw they can’t use the pole, lel). The trick is kill adds when they spawn, use stab and break the defiance bar.
Do you know that the defiance bar is like paper now? You can stun him almost all the time.

Oh pleae, you haven’t read correctly. It is like we don’t care. We want to slaughter our fractal loot pinata and nothing else. If it’s on the ground or on the pole it doesn’t matter for me, I can kill him everywhere if the team composition is fine and players know what to do. Since PUGs are lacking brain, starting with the age of video games till today, I prefer to let them stay in their comfort zone and adjust my playstyle to the group.
For me there is no interest in having Mossman a challenge. He is an old man hiding my rewards and therefore has to die so I can move on to the next thing I am interested in.

I read correctly. You said “So either you “exploit” on the tree or you have a guard or mesmer with you that know how to play the class but that, my dear, is even rare than lvl 2 players meleeing.” So my reply.
Mossman isn’t a challenge it’s easy even without exploit. You will even get your rewards faster that losing too much dps on the tree because of skills/weapons you can’t use, invulnerability and afk “auto attack only” people.

For others that try to say it’s not, this is an exploit, don’t need to argue the contrary. It’s not intented to clear high level fractal without AR since agony is a core fractal mechanic.

Pug would have already learn how to do the Mosman properly if there wasn’t underwater, pole and tree to cheese it for the last year or so.

Khyan.7039:

I read correctly. You said “So either you “exploit” on the tree or you have a guard or mesmer with you that know how to play the class but that, my dear, is even rare than lvl 2 players meleeing.” So my reply.

Yeah, because it’s completely true. Yesterday I ran with 2 guards as dragonhunters in a PUG, not to mention the double pistol ranging thief from France. I wrote nothing because I wanted to see and feel the catastrophe – the desaster – the massacre. They weren’t disappointing me although these dudes were communicating and still, they didn’t get their sh_t together. It was fun as hell and the chat was full of pure golden rhetoric. The other reasonable guy (in terms of playing because he was toxic as kitten after recognizing the clownery) left and an ok’ish engi joined us. In the end it was a clean and sober fight over 20 Minutes(!!!) with billion rez situations, a Mossman in bear form from 100% HP to 0% and some really astonished players.
I don’t need to tell you that this fractal could have been EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY mode. And I don’t estimate me being a super duper player but there are many worse players like these 3 clowns and that is the reason why the average fractal player has no problems to use this exploit to prevent them from situations I mentioned above. You just don’t have to see the pain there. Press some buttons, go watch netflix, get rewards, go on.
The whole tl,dr sounds more serious than it is for me but it should show you some insights into pugging fractals on a daily basis.

If Anet had fixed exploits faster, people would have learned to fight Mossman properly, like Thaddeus said. But that isn’t going to happen, neither now nor in the near future. I’d rather bet on players quitting swamp and going for other fractals if we have to fight Mossman in an empty room some day.

Khyan.7039:

Mossman isn’t a challenge it’s easy even without exploit. You will even get your rewards faster that losing too much dps on the tree because of skills/weapons you can’t use, invulnerability and afk “auto attack only” people.

I haven’t said anything else but I am no solo player. If you are as good as Sesshi and you are able to solo Mossman, fine for you. Otherwise you need some mates for at least a few group synergies or meat shields. Clowns wouldn’t help you in the open field, they are delicious filets for Mossman’s wolves and/or always take an axe to the knee.

Khyan.7039:

For others that try to say it’s not, this is an exploit, don’t need to argue the contrary. It’s not intented to clear high level fractal without AR since agony is a core fractal mechanic.

People don’t climb the tree mostly due to AR problems. They climb up because they cannot save themselves from attacks and wolves. Just have a look at players that are feared away from the tree: They are running back with 10-20% hp, panic jumping and miss the saving branch. Guess what happens. Yes, downstate. Instead of running out of fight or waiting for Mossman to go invisible. No no, players are dumb, that’s why I take care of my lambs.

Look if you’re trying to do any way of fighting then what was clearly meant it is considered an exploit.

If you are doing so you can be banned. If you end up in a group with me and try it you will be reported.

Do the fractal normally like everyone has. The fractal is easy and incredibly fast the normal way just do it, or arena net will alter the area so you can’t do it anywhere

Vinceman.4572:

Khyan.7039:

I read correctly. You said “So either you “exploit” on the tree or you have a guard or mesmer with you that know how to play the class but that, my dear, is even rare than lvl 2 players meleeing.” So my reply.

Yeah, because it’s completely true. Yesterday I ran with 2 guards as dragonhunters in a PUG, not to mention the double pistol ranging thief from France. I wrote nothing because I wanted to see and feel the catastrophe – the desaster – the massacre. They weren’t disappointing me although these dudes were communicating and still, they didn’t get their sh_t together. It was fun as hell and the chat was full of pure golden rhetoric. The other reasonable guy (in terms of playing because he was toxic as kitten after recognizing the clownery) left and an ok’ish engi joined us. In the end it was a clean and sober fight over 20 Minutes(!!!) with billion rez situations, a Mossman in bear form from 100% HP to 0% and some really astonished players.
I don’t need to tell you that this fractal could have been EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY mode. And I don’t estimate me being a super duper player but there are many worse players like these 3 clowns and that is the reason why the average fractal player has no problems to use this exploit to prevent them from situations I mentioned above. You just don’t have to see the pain there. Press some buttons, go watch netflix, get rewards, go on.
The whole tl,dr sounds more serious than it is for me but it should show you some insights into pugging fractals on a daily basis.

If Anet had fixed exploits faster, people would have learned to fight Mossman properly, like Thaddeus said. But that isn’t going to happen, neither now nor in the near future. I’d rather bet on players quitting swamp and going for other fractals if we have to fight Mossman in an empty room some day.

I think your issue was more from a personal experience. I understand why you don’t want to do without exploit if you had such experience with players.
Hmm don’t judge french players. Every players from each regions can be bad. Maybe you didn’t want to be rude but well, It’s just a bad player that play thief badly, nothing else.

For the “Anet fix” part, it’s precisely what fractals need. The majority of players are tired to do the same fractals (56/67/77) over and over, and no one want to do other scales. (From my experience, waiting for ~2 hours trying to find players for scale 78, without success)

People don’t climb the tree mostly due to AR problems. They climb up because they cannot save themselves from attacks and wolves. Just have a look at players that are feared away from the tree: They are running back with 10-20% hp, panic jumping and miss the saving branch. Guess what happens. Yes, downstate. Instead of running out of fight or waiting for Mossman to go invisible. No no, players are dumb, that’s why I take care of my lambs.

My last statement wasn’t about players but the way you can do these fractals without enough AR, that prove the fact that this is an exploit since agony is a core mechanic in fractals, with the purpose to kill players when they don’t have it.

By the way, I think the real issue is all about new fractal system. It’s really bad design. (example : most singularities are just annoying and not even funny)

Where in the fractal dose it say you have to kill this boss this way . Right it dose not period end of story. if you find a way to kill a boss that is easier then they made it then guess what good on you. If you can out smart the creators guess what good on you.

We as players need to stick together not fight over stupid stuff like this, is an exploit in the game. We play to have fun. well figuring out away to defeat the bosses easier is guess what fun. then anet comes up with a solution and we figure it out again do you see how this game works. complaing that something is a exploit because you did not think of it first and crying over because ppl want to use the easy way is just you being childish.

So I have a question if using the tree is an exploit then what is it when a reaper with 0 AR can go into bloomhunger on level 65 and not get hit by agony or any attacks is that an exploit ? and yes this happened because II was the one that did it. and no I did not hide any where I attacked as normal and used my skills so I guess I exploited the fact that he dose not move right.

well guess what the game is made to be played the way you want to, yes anet put in some basic things sure kill this guy but it dose not say you must kill this guy on the ground standing in the middle of the room,

Truly get over yourselves there is no right or wrong way to finish these there is just get it done. period end of story, so stop complaining about if ppl use the tree stop crying about ppl not getting hit,

I run reaper and I run with 77 AR and I have done it tree way and not tree way and guess what there are times I do not get hit at all both ways and I am often the last one standing.

So just enjoy the game and stop crying

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

Since Anet has taken away the exploit of sitting on the wooden beam sticking out from the house groups are now taking to the trees.

Please anet fix this exploit. Make it so trees in the boss area cannot be climbed.

That’s an exploit?

I thought exploits gives you an advantage. Mossman is a really easy fight, up on this tree it takes twice as long and don’t give you any real advantage. In my opinion the tree isn’t a exploit it is a noob detector.

Stajan.4581:

Where in the fractal dose it say you have to kill this boss this way . Right it dose not period end of story. if you find a way to kill a boss that is easier then they made it then guess what good on you. If you can out smart the creators guess what good on you.

We as players need to stick together not fight over stupid stuff like this, is an exploit in the game. We play to have fun. well figuring out away to defeat the bosses easier is guess what fun. then anet comes up with a solution and we figure it out again do you see how this game works. complaing that something is a exploit because you did not think of it first and crying over because ppl want to use the easy way is just you being childish.

So I have a question if using the tree is an exploit then what is it when a reaper with 0 AR can go into bloomhunger on level 65 and not get hit by agony or any attacks is that an exploit ? and yes this happened because II was the one that did it. and no I did not hide any where I attacked as normal and used my skills so I guess I exploited the fact that he dose not move right.

well guess what the game is made to be played the way you want to, yes anet put in some basic things sure kill this guy but it dose not say you must kill this guy on the ground standing in the middle of the room,

Truly get over yourselves there is no right or wrong way to finish these there is just get it done. period end of story, so stop complaining about if ppl use the tree stop crying about ppl not getting hit,

I run reaper and I run with 77 AR and I have done it tree way and not tree way and guess what there are times I do not get hit at all both ways and I am often the last one standing.

So just enjoy the game and stop crying

In general I would agree with you but the issue is more than just a single mossman exploit. Since swamp is the fastest fractal, for a lot of people their entire daily fractal experience is controlled by the mossman fight. So it would be nice if the fight that anet incentivizes players to do 3-4 times daily wasn’t awful. If swamp was like most fractals and got done 0-1 times every day most people wouldn’t even care; many would likely not even know about the exploit. Like I said many posts back, there is also a huge jade maw exploit which basically lets you skip half the fight, but no one cares at all because jade maw is still slower than swamp.

It’s also fun when mossman exploits you by fearing you into the water to regen all his health while staying in his transformed state. Time to ban the mossman I guess.

While putting “no tree exploit” in LFG should work ok to get around this problem, in practice I’ve found that this doesn’t work at all. I create a group with such a requirement, people join, and then kick me from my own group when they don’t agree. Most people don’t seem to read beyond the difficulty scales. If I mention that it’s a “no exploit” group, the reaction is usually extremely hostile and results in me getting kicked. Why? Because people have it in their heads that exploiting this boss is the easiest and fastest way to beat him (hint: it isn’t — fighting him directly is).

They see the group is almost full and then take over once they’re in it. Because of the way party controls work, the group creator has no recourse against this kind of behavior except to create a new group and hope people follow the established rules. At least Guild Wars 1 had a party leader mechanic that allowed some level of control against this kind of thing.

What’s the solution to this? Fix the exploits so people have to actually play the game. Or temporarily ban people for exploiting (imagine that!). Since these exploits usually take years to address, I don’t know what else we can do beyond playing with people we know. Unfortunately, that isn’t always viable since my friends aren’t always online when I am or they aren’t available for fractals. In those situations I have to PUG if I want to play, and then I’m back to exploit hell if I want to get the daily done without wasting my entire evening on it.

As others have said, the Mossman is actually much faster and easier if he’s just attacked directly without using exploits. Good luck explaining that to most people, though. The usual response is an instant kick.

Zedd.8239:

As others have said, the Mossman is actually much faster and easier if he’s just attacked directly without using exploits. Good luck explaining that to most people, though. The usual response is an instant kick.

Nah, it really isn’t that simple. Since the pole was patched about half the groups I joined that tried to fight him legit wiped. Still loads of inexperienced and/or uninterested people around – likely the sort of kittens who ignored your posting and then jacked it.

There’s really a marginal difference between using the tree and fighting him in the open. What really matters is breaking his bar. A lot of the tree groups don’t bother to or can’t.

Now to explain again why this is not an exploit. If the tree is there who is to say that you are not allowed to use it to fight him? I have seen nothing from anet saying do nto use the TREE, and if we did you can bet they would be getting nasty grams all over the place about it. hey have made it hard enough to get the gear to go up the levels to the higher levels in the crafting world and it costs hundreds to make so getting the stuff you can from laurels commidations and stuff like that and then fighting the higher levels to get the boxes with a chance at armor is goes, and if they do not get it they get the infusions which allows them to up their AR on the stuff they can afford because if you believe it or not making a few higher infusions is cheaper then full ascended gear and will allow them to do higher levels and where do you get the most +1 infusions you guessed it higher levels.

We’re free to differ in opinion, but the bottom line is that the devs do view this as an exploit. They communicated this directly to Rising Dusk, our resident Dungeon and Fractal specialist.

I get the impression that they don’t really care that much about these things – the BLTC and gem store take precedence over everything else, and this has very little to no real economic impact. However, a few people are very vocal about it on the forums and as it is technically against the ToS they’ve got to at least try.

Jahroots.6791:

We’re free to differ in opinion, but the bottom line is that the devs do view this as an exploit. They communicated this directly to Rising Dusk, our resident Dungeon and Fractal specialist.

No, just because he said it does not mean it came from a dev. Everything he says is “unofficial”.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Guild-Wars-2-Forum-Specialists-Program
“As specialists, these volunteers will answer questions in a player-to-player (unofficial) sense, flag posts in breach of the Forum Code of Conduct, and coalesce and transmit player feedback to the ArenaNet Forum Communications Team. "

So once agan unless they come out and say it to all players or fix it so it will not work guess what it is not and I repeat is not and exploit.

It is part of the game that is played in this manner so the ppl that are crying over it please stop if anet dose not like it they will change it all be it a long time from now who knows

For the last week or so, I’ve only encountered 1 group that went to the tree and they quickly caught on and just fought on the ground.

It is indeed faster than tree hugging. Newer players to fracs or those that did not get familiarized before HOT, don’t know the other stray fracs as well. Those are the ones that I find take longer.

The real problem is the way rewards/fractals are structured at the moment. They need to provide incentive to run higher fracs or at least make it 2 dailies that are random. There are times when I join a random frac who are obviously going for fractal achievements, that is not swamp because I’m bored.

Jess.6710:

No, just because he said it does not mean it came from a dev. Everything he says is “unofficial”.

You’re right, but I can assure you that I have spoken with a developer about it and the answer I received was on the order of “sigh Yeah.” No, I don’t have a screenshot, nor do I feel like throwing the particular dev under a bus. Furthermore, it’s an obvious exploit because it matches the very definition of an exploit that Chris Cleary posted years ago; there’s a particular angle where you can damage Mossman without him being able to hit you back with most of his attacks and without him resetting. It’s as clear-cut as it gets. Finally, if none of that convinces you to trust me, your forum specialist who reports directly to the developers, Izzy even posted a joke on Reddit about how they’ll “never give up, never surrender” regarding fixing exploits when the tree exploit was specifically the topic of the thread. Sheesh, people.

Rising Dusk.2408:

You’re right, but I can assure you that I have spoken with a developer about it and the answer I received was on the order of “sigh Yeah.” No, I don’t have a screenshot, nor do I feel like throwing the particular dev under a bus. Furthermore, it’s an obvious exploit because it matches the very definition of an exploit that Chris Cleary posted years ago; there’s a particular angle where you can damage Mossman without him being able to hit you back with most of his attacks and without him resetting. It’s as clear-cut as it gets. Finally, if none of that convinces you to trust me, your forum specialist who reports directly to the developers, Izzy even posted a joke on Reddit about how they’ll “never give up, never surrender” regarding fixing exploits when the tree exploit was specifically the topic of the thread. Sheesh, people.

I’m sorry, but the behavior in this thread is to be completed expected when we don’t get official clear-cut responses as to what’s an exploit and what’s not; players will make up their own interpretations and will appropriately defend them. Sure, there’s perfect angles to a lot of things in the game (e.g. currently, there’s an angle on Bloomy where none of the boss’s attacks can hit you). I fully expect spots like this to be used regularly by players upon being discovered. Granted, I don’t expect every millimeter of an instance to be tested. Amusingly enough, in the case of Mossy, most teams end up making the fight more difficult for themselves trying to find the safe spot rather than just fighting out in the open. So what, in that case it’s not an exploit until you all neatly stack on that safe spot? Or is even the act of trying to reach the safe spot alone considered a ban-able offence?

For honest players, there’s no official statement that they can use to back themselves up when calling out a player for potential exploits. For dishonest players, there’s been heavy latency in patching/fixing exploits so they’re reaping the benefits of an easy instance, and the only thing good players can do is give them a “stop that!!” slap on the hand.

I am happily all for fixing of oversights and not-intended behaviors. Though, can we at least get a thread or someone from the Anet team that has a clear cut list of exploits (ban-able offenses) that have been identified and are at least being worked on? I could care less when they get fixed but at least give us some ammunition against the lazier players.

They’re not going to ban anyone for using the Fractals exploits. They never have before, and they won’t ever in the future. That doesn’t change the fact that the tree is definitely an exploit, it’s just not an exploit they’ll ban over. Why, you may ask? Because people can be lured into doing it without knowing better, and there’s no way to derive intent for the use consistently and reliably. Furthermore, it isn’t impacting the economy because even if you’re lucky, it’s just giving you account bound goods at best, so the priority in resolving it is low.

Savacli is right on that. Anet is the source of that problem to begin with.

- They do not clearly communicate, make official post about what they consider exploit.

- They try to bundle everything together for more efficient and easier patch, but by doing that, they push back exploit fixing by several months. Even people that don’t want to exploit it, usually end up going with the waves and use the exploit.

Anet themselves are hyper liberal about that kind of exploit, so why should we expect something different from the community? We gonna continue to exploit, people will complain about it for months, and one day they will fix it, we’ll never heard about that exploit ever again, and we’ll find the next exploit. Rinse and Repeat. We ain’t gonna run out of exploit, if they continue to fix them only once or twice per year.

Tbh ban isn’t the answer here. But tiny communication and faster fixing are.

Thaddeus.4891:

- They do not clearly communicate, make official post about what they consider exploit.

It can’t get more clear than this.

Chris Cleary.8017:

Standing on a rock/ledge/platform while the boss attempts to hit you from below (yes there are some bosses that still have abilities that hit you), is a problem with pathing and the boss not resetting when it can’t reach the target. This is exploiting a bug.

As for the rest of your post, it honestly doesn’t matter. The community can do what it wants in this case and either kill Mossman regularly or by exploit and the exploit will get fixed eventually regardless. No one can make them work faster, no fixing this issue isn’t a priority, and no I don’t think it should be. It doesn’t ruin Fractals because you can just as easily make groups with friends or pubs to do any other Fractals you want. I did 66/68/69 the other day just for fun. It went great.

The only thing I’m pushing here is that some people don’t seem to acknowledge that this is an exploit when it’s about the most obvious exploit ever.

If they care so much about bugs/exploits, then why didn’t it get fixed 2,5 years ago when people first started making Reddit threads about it?
There’s tons of well known terrain exploits within dungeons, fractals, raids and even open world, and anet doesn’t give a kitten about them.
There are tons of ways to fix this, but instead they invest time into wonderful things like “Added an option to the Options panel to move the Compact option found in the Inventory panel to the bottom of the drop-down menu.”

bladex.9502:

If they care so much about bugs/exploits, then why didn’t it get fixed 2,5 years ago when people first started making Reddit threads about it?
There’s tons of well known terrain exploits within dungeons, fractals, raids and even open world, and anet doesn’t give a kitten about them.

ANet doesn’t notice all Reddit/Forum threads about things like this because they are doing their jobs on a day-to-day basis. Please forward all exploit reports to me and double down on them by sending them to exploits@arena.net. I will ensure that they get reported up.

Rising Dusk.2408:

bladex.9502:

If they care so much about bugs/exploits, then why didn’t it get fixed 2,5 years ago when people first started making Reddit threads about it?
There’s tons of well known terrain exploits within dungeons, fractals, raids and even open world, and anet doesn’t give a kitten about them.

ANet doesn’t notice all Reddit/Forum threads about things like this because they are doing their jobs on a day-to-day basis. Please forward all exploit reports to me and double down on them by sending them to exploits@arena.net. I will ensure that they get reported up.

Ah cmon. There were dozen of forum post about underwater Mosman and it took them like one year to fix it. And it’s not like the fix was so hard to do. The second you touch the ground, the Mosman reset. Pretty straightforward.

And anyway, they could ask the community. Make post asking the community to point exploit in fractal.

Of course it should be a priority of a big deal. The Anet team effectively gutted Dungeons, and we don’t even have a team to revamp the existing content even if we wanted to (e.g. hard mode). So, we have raids and Fractals as the replacements/main attraction to he PvE scene.

We’ve had our disagreements on this, but I still stand on the notion that raids are not casual friendly. So players that don’t make the raid cut will be looking to do fractals. What do we got going now? A divide to the extent that LFG’s have to specify no exploits. Veteran players have either gotten bored with the stale content, or they’ve gotten fed up with all the newbies using safespots in lieu of gearing up appropriately.

And of course it’s hurting fractals. Terrible instabilities put aside, the higher level fractals get barely any screen time. No adequate rewards for the amount of time/resources put in to get to those higher levels. Swampfest? Makes sense since the only true reward is the small percent of getting an asc box, and there’s no point in doing anything else that takes more time and energy. Adept and Vet activity has gone down now that achievements have been fulfilled, and the every infamous Legendary Backpiece has been put on hold which means there’s no incentive to collect any more pages once you’ve finished the collection.

As far as forwarding exploits to you (Rising Dusk) and the e-mail? How do we even have confirmation that they’re being reviewed? Still goes back to the problem of communication. We could bombard both resources yet we had little to no confirmation or even acknowledgement that the team has at least pinned up our concerns on their to-do list. Sorry, but a post from the resident Forum Specialist doesn’t quite cut it. At the very least can we get a thread where our requests are acknowledged?

Yes, I understand that any programming is not perfect, and new bugs are discovered each and everyday. But for the most part it looks like the community is just frustrated because they feel ignored.

Revamp/compensation of dungeon rewards…../crickets
Acknowledgement of exploits…../crickets
Rework of higher fractal compensation…./crickets

Thaddeus.4891:

Ah cmon. There were dozen of forum post about underwater Mosman and it took them like one year to fix it. And it’s not like the fix was so hard to do. The second you touch the ground, the Mosman reset. Pretty straightforward.

You presume a lot. They actually attempted to fix it at least twice in the past, and after at least one of those fixes players stopped using it even though it still existed, so they had no way of knowing that it still worked.

Thaddeus.4891:

And anyway, they could ask the community. Make post asking the community to point exploit in fractal.

They have; it’s part of why they made that exploits@arena.net email chain. They do not want them discussed on the forums.

savacli.8172:

As far as forwarding exploits to you (Rising Dusk) and the e-mail? How do we even have confirmation that they’re being reviewed? Still goes back to the problem of communication. We could bombard both resources yet we had little to no confirmation or even acknowledgement that the team has at least pinned up our concerns on their to-do list. Sorry, but a post from the resident Forum Specialist doesn’t quite cut it. At the very least can we get a thread where our requests are acknowledged?

I suppose the better question is what do you want? Do you want the Fractals team to dedicate a significant portion of someone’s time to keep the community up-to-date on every happening on their end or do you want that person to instead focus on adding new Fractals content to the game? They’re adding new Fractals, they’ll fix the exploit, and quite frankly I don’t think the current state of Fractals is nearly as dire kitten many people claim on the forums. Numerous players of non-56/67/77 levels in-game have said to me that they’re quite happy with the state of things, just as many people as those who have said the opposite on the forums. Neither of these groups represents even a remotely large fraction of the playerbase, but it goes to illustrate that it’s far more divided than it might seem if you only read the forums. People are playing other levels, people are having fun, and people are actually enjoying them a lot more now than they did before HoT.

savacli.8172:

Revamp/compensation of dungeon rewards…../crickets
Acknowledgement of exploits…../crickets
Rework of higher fractal compensation…./crickets

• They’re not touching dungeon rewards.
• I’m acknowledging to you that they know and they will get addressed.
• Higher level Fractal rewards are fine. (Seriously, they’re actually pretty great right now..)

Rising Dusk.2408:

• Higher level Fractal rewards are fine. (Seriously, they’re actually pretty great right now..)

Level 51-80 ya.

Level 81-100 pure garbage.

I don’t mean the reward is garbage, but there is just no reason to do those level. The instability are frustrating and badly done, the mobs are just HP sponge making them even longer, and there is no reason to do them since you gonna get the reward from level 51-80 anyway.

Thaddeus.4891:

Level 51-80 ya.

Level 81-100 pure garbage.

I don’t mean the reward is garbage, but there is just no reason to do those level. The instability are frustrating and badly done, the mobs are just HP sponge making them even longer, and there is no reason to do them since you gonna get the reward from level 51-80 anyway.

I agree. Many instabilities are poorly designed, and I’ve talked with the Fractals team about that. I’ve also talked to them about adding another daily to the 76+ range to further encourage those higher levels. I can’t say what they’ll do with that information, but I would expect some more change there later in the year when we get new Fractal(s).

Rising Dusk.2408:

Thaddeus.4891:

And anyway, they could ask the community. Make post asking the community to point exploit in fractal.

They have; it’s part of why they made that exploits@arena.net email chain. They do not want them discussed on the forums.

There is a stickied thread on this subforum dedicated to dungeon bugs and there’s also a lot of exploits reported on there.
Does that mean that thread was just there as some kind of way to make the dungeon subforum think anet actually cares about us, but in reality they only use that email?

Rising Dusk.2408:

You presume a lot. They actually attempted to fix it at least twice in the past, and after at least one of those fixes players stopped using it even though it still existed, so they had no way of knowing that it still worked.

That’s great to hear….well, would have been great to hear back then when we were presuming nothing was being done about it.

Rising Dusk.2408:

They have; it’s part of why they made that exploits@arena.net email chain. They do not want them discussed on the forums.

Way too late on that, exploits and bugs are get plenty of exposure in game and here on the forums. As you said, the community can do what it wants.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I suppose the better question is what do you want? Do you want the Fractals team to dedicate a significant portion of someone’s time to keep the community up-to-date on every happening on their end or do you want that person to instead focus on adding new Fractals content to the game?

Honestly, I’d much rather the person who’s keeping the community up to date. You don’t need a high end programmer to chime in and say “hey guys, we know you all have been running into this issue, but our team has acknowledged the issue and will be correcting it [at a later date]”. Better yet, even a revamp of the sticky up that states issues acknowledged/being worked on. Make it the first post that’s just edited so players don’t have to scroll through the individual posts. Real-time updates on the post are unrealistic, but even a weekly “Btw” is more than enough to let us know what’s going on. E.G.

[example]

Known Bugs and Exploits

Swamp Fractals

• Issue with Mossman’s pathing not resetting when players stand on elevated platforms

Molten Boss

• Issue with Molten Duo boss trigger being accessible prior to dropping bridge after defeating Champion and his mobs

Uncategorized

• Issue with Old Tom devouring Ranger pets leaving the player unable to summon a companion after encounter.

(edited 2 days ago by ForumMod.1234)
[/example]

I’d imagine at one point or another, someone on the receiving side of the exploits@arena.net gets an e-mail and eventually makes a sticky or something so that a programmer knows to look at it (whatever that timing may be). Is the programming team THAT involved they cannot take an extra minute to update a post to state they’ve acknowledged the issue? I’m not asking for a detailed fix or even an ETA on the patch, all I want is a head nod that they are at least hear us. Otherwise, what bladex posted is comically accurate.

I’d like to know if being a “Legit” player makes you feel like you are better than others and if so, do you have t-shirts or something so we can tell who is who? Not everyone can afford the Halo.
Anet made the change to make Fractals the money maker and took that away from dungeons. I don’t know why we can’t have both.

Jahroots.6791:

kolompi.1287:

And you don’t see the problem with that? The point is (whether in a pug or any other group) to beat the encounter. There should be no safety nets.

Nope. I play for (1) loot and (2) camaraderie. To be perfectly honest, the wisp run is about as much excitement as I need from that entire instance.

You can get better loot and camaraderie in a chest farming session in SW.

k so let me get this straight an exploit is a combination of you playing the game to make it easier for you to achieve your goal is what you are saying?

So in that example stacking together is an exploit, there is a chance you will get hit it dose not mean you will, it makes the game easier for you to achieve your goals

and I can bet it was not the way anet designed the game to be played. So that is an exploit.

if the tree is an exploit so is stacking period it is that simple

Rising Dusk.2408:

Thaddeus.4891:

- They do not clearly communicate, make official post about what they consider exploit.

It can’t get more clear than this.

Chris Cleary.8017:

Standing on a rock/ledge/platform while the boss attempts to hit you from below (yes there are some bosses that still have abilities that hit you), is a problem with pathing and the boss not resetting when it can’t reach the target. This is exploiting a bug.

As for the rest of your post, it honestly doesn’t matter. The community can do what it wants in this case and either kill Mossman regularly or by exploit and the exploit will get fixed eventually regardless. No one can make them work faster, no fixing this issue isn’t a priority, and no I don’t think it should be. It doesn’t ruin Fractals because you can just as easily make groups with friends or pubs to do any other Fractals you want. I did 66/68/69 the other day just for fun. It went great.

The only thing I’m pushing here is that some people don’t seem to acknowledge that this is an exploit when it’s about the most obvious exploit ever.

Actually it can be a lot clearer than that, as its talking about a very specific instance and not what an exploit actually is or how they define it as it relates to their game.

Believe it or not, not all exploits are clear cut and most of what people are calling / using quotes from aren’t what the standard definition of an exploit is.

Also, at some point everyone is exploiting by the standard definition of the word. They are all taking advantage of the opponents weakness. Sorry AI has inbuilt limitations, but punishing the players for that is not ideal. If anything you should be thanking your player base for showcasing those flaws so you can build around it in your next project. Making each project better than the last by learning from your critical mistakes.

Rednik.3809:

PopeUrban.2578:

What’s really hilarious, just like the pole exploit, is that it is actively slower to kill mossy when you do it. Mossy’s fight already encourages and rewards stacking, but stacking on the tree means invulnerable wolves which don’t proc various things, and several classes behaving to skip movement based skills in their rotation and do less damage.

Oh, and also, mossy cleaves way more people if he gets in a sweet spot.

In addition the fight isn’t even that hard

Why people are insisting on going out of their way to engage in a stacking trick that often makes the fight both harder to survive and slower to complete blows my mind.

Try to do it with pugs instead of writing so much text. You’ll see so many new things.

I do it with pugs almost daily and don’t stack. We always succeed easily.