Guild Wars 2

Double posting to fix broken topic!

Robert Hrouda.1327:

marnick.4305:

Any exploit that’s a “Jumping Puzzle” and doesn’t specifically bug out is legit in my books. As such I consider the mountain jump in CM legit. Skipping the fire in AC is legit. Standing on top of the ruin so Howling King in AC doesn’t hit you is an exploit.

Legit in your books isn’t legit in ours. The mountain jumping is an exploit since we don’t intend for you to be able to go up there, and it allows you to skip through the natural progression of content we made.
The drakeheads in AC were intentionally made with a cute little workaround, if that’s the other you are implying is okay. I hope that is the issue you are talking about at least, since there isn’t a whole lot of fire in AC.

Its hard to believe that people think the CM mountain jumping was legit. Seems pretty obvious to be an exploit. I wonder if people think the COE 3 in 1 exploit is legit as well. Jumping through walls is a big no no.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

marnick.4305:

Any exploit that’s a “Jumping Puzzle” and doesn’t specifically bug out is legit in my books. As such I consider the mountain jump in CM legit. Skipping the fire in AC is legit. Standing on top of the ruin so Howling King in AC doesn’t hit you is an exploit.

Legit in your books isn’t legit in ours. The mountain jumping is an exploit since we don’t intend for you to be able to go up there, and it allows you to skip through the natural progression of content we made.
The drakeheads in AC were intentionally made with a cute little workaround, if that’s the other you are implying is okay. I hope that is the issue you are talking about at least, since there isn’t a whole lot of fire in AC.

I hate to have to point this out, but some of the apparently intended paths to get to vistas (which I know are not the same thing as jumping puzzles) necessitate jumping to specific spots up weird inclines that, in the absence of vistas, would otherwise seem like you were never intended to be able to get to.

Yes, obviously bypassing a whole jumping puzzle to get to the end is an exploit. Then again, puzzle chests are rather worthless in my experience anyway (not counting holiday ones, obviously), so I’m not really sure what the point is. Anyway, I’m just saying that it is true that the line between what is an exploit and what is not is very often unclear, even occasionally to the point where something that is intended seems like it could be an exploit.

Further illustrating the point of just how unclear the terrain, in particular, can be at times, one time I went up a rather simple route behind a building (I think it was to try to get to a vista, incidentally), and fell beside the building, and there was a clear flat path from where I was back to the front of the building, but for no apparent reason whatsoever there was an invisible wall there. I had to waypoint out. I filed a bug report and I’m pretty sure that invisible wall has since been removed, but I could not for the life of me comprehend why it was there in the first place. I say this not to deride whoever did it; mistakes happen. I’m just saying that when you run into things like this in the terrain (and I have run into plenty of other oddities), it goes a long way to blurring the lines between what is and isn’t intended. How do I know if something is a “legitimate” path or not when I am occasionally blocked from obvious paths, and hills that look insurmountable that can only be climbed via jumping around until you happen to hit the right spots are the only way to get to vistas? Well, if it involves clipping through objects, it probably isn’t legitimate…but then I have played plenty of games through the years (probably mostly RPGs of various sorts, incidentally) where there were walls that you were intended to go through to find some secret or another.

I want to be clear on something before I go on: I have little tolerance for exploits / hacks / etc. I hate the idea of even using developer-created cheat codes in my single player games, unless I’ve already finished the game and am just looking to mess around. Having said that, I tend to be overly cautious about how to complete content in this game, concerned that anything that is not completely obvious and orthodox might somehow be considered an exploit. This is a result of reading various dev posts in these forums, rather than anything which I have actually encountered in-game. As I said, there are things that are obviously exploits (clipping through terrain…which I have had happen to me on occasion without trying, mind you, as interesting as it was the first time I found myself swimming underneath the ground), but there are just so many cases that are not clear-cut, which I think was the point of this thread.

Attacking enemies where they cannot hit you seems like an obvious thing you would want to do, right? In some games, even, it is the thing you have to do in order to progress. Well, apparently in this game it is considered an exploit. But what is really meant is that is an exploit only if that is not the way that the developers intended their attacks to be avoided, which, aside from dodge rolling, is not always clear. I mean, I would think, “Hey, that boss has a very deadly projectile. I should reflect that. That’s the sort of thing the combat system in this game is about, right?”

But then, some of the bosses arbitrarily just get to ignore my blocking or projectile reflecting abilities or the like with some of their attacks – you know, the ones those abilities would actually be useful against, because they really aren’t very necessary against regular mobs, generally. I can only conclude that certain bosses are exploiting the game mechanics and thus should be suspended.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

marnick.4305:

Any exploit that’s a “Jumping Puzzle” and doesn’t specifically bug out is legit in my books. As such I consider the mountain jump in CM legit. Skipping the fire in AC is legit. Standing on top of the ruin so Howling King in AC doesn’t hit you is an exploit.

Legit in your books isn’t legit in ours. The mountain jumping is an exploit since we don’t intend for you to be able to go up there, and it allows you to skip through the natural progression of content we made.
The drakeheads in AC were intentionally made with a cute little workaround, if that’s the other you are implying is okay. I hope that is the issue you are talking about at least, since there isn’t a whole lot of fire in AC.

I do realize that my books aren’t the standard but my books are based on my experiences with the game. The players are trained with jumping puzzles from the get go. Arena.net created a skillset within the playerbase that is beyond what’s legal in other games. The dividing line can’t be as arbitrary as “this is intended” and “this isn’t”.

I did mean those drake heads and I had no idea whether or not that little jump was legal. By your definition, the drake heads could be considered part of the dungeon progression. By the same vein, jumping on top of the mountain may have been an intended rock puzzle. There is absolutely no way to find out for sure. If you want to divide legal jumping tricks from illegal ones, you need to define limits that can’t be discussed.

You are not giving us a clear way to know. If you make a statement, it should be non-debatable. Your current definition is clear as mud. And that’s why I stick to “don’t kill it when it can’t damage you” as a solid rule until a better one is presented.

marnick.4305:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

marnick.4305:

Any exploit that’s a “Jumping Puzzle” and doesn’t specifically bug out is legit in my books. As such I consider the mountain jump in CM legit. Skipping the fire in AC is legit. Standing on top of the ruin so Howling King in AC doesn’t hit you is an exploit.

Legit in your books isn’t legit in ours. The mountain jumping is an exploit since we don’t intend for you to be able to go up there, and it allows you to skip through the natural progression of content we made.
The drakeheads in AC were intentionally made with a cute little workaround, if that’s the other you are implying is okay. I hope that is the issue you are talking about at least, since there isn’t a whole lot of fire in AC.

I do realize that my books aren’t the standard but my books are based on my experiences with the game. The players are trained with jumping puzzles from the get go. Arena.net created a skillset within the playerbase that is beyond what’s legal in other games. The dividing line can’t be as arbitrary as “this is intended” and “this isn’t”.

I did mean those drake heads and I had no idea whether or not that little jump was legal. By your definition, the drake heads could be considered part of the dungeon progression. By the same vein, jumping on top of the mountain may have been an intended rock puzzle. There is absolutely no way to find out for sure. If you want to divide legal jumping tricks from illegal ones, you need to define limits that can’t be discussed.

You are not giving us a clear way to know. If you make a statement, it should be non-debatable. Your current definition is clear as mud. And that’s why I stick to “don’t kill it when it can’t damage you” as a solid rule until a better one is presented.

I think devs are way too kind when partecipating on the forums. Way too kind.
Earlier I used to think “Well, at least he was decent enough not to answer back”. And now…
/facepalm
I’m going to gtfo out of this thread before I speak my mind freely and get infracted.

The following is an incredibly safe beginning definition for an exploit, particularly relevant to dungeons:
1 – If you can damage it and it cannot damage you, it is an exploit
2 – If you exit the map topography or geometry, it is an exploit
3 – If you skip events that block progress, it is an exploit

The only tricky one is 3, but it really isn’t that surprising. Things that don’t block progress include events like the ice totems in HotW, Spider / Kohler / Troll in AC, or the ooze event in CoF. Things that do block progress include events like the bandit barrel carry in CM, GL in Arah, Alphard in Arah, and so forth. In the events that block progress, there are clearly erected barriers preventing progress, and bypassing them without completing the event by any means is clearly an exploit.

marnick.4305:

I did mean those drake heads and I had no idea whether or not that little jump was legal. By your definition, the drake heads could be considered part of the dungeon progression. By the same vein, jumping on top of the mountain may have been an intended rock puzzle. There is absolutely no way to find out for sure. If you want to divide legal jumping tricks from illegal ones, you need to define limits that can’t be discussed.

I thought seeing fake/weird/flat textures and encountering invisible walls was a clear enough sign that something was wrong.

I’m glad this thread is here. To me, exploiting is using third party programs to get an advantage over other players (speed hacking, etc.), not simply using what has been presented to me by the developers.

Unfortunately, in this game, something that I may think is a clever tactic to easily kill a boss, a shortcut to be found in a dungeon that allows you to complete it more efficiently, or craft something that nets a decent amount of money before the market adjusts can, and has, been considered exploiting.

An example of this would be the Snowflake fiasco back during the Holiday event. While I did not participate in this, if I had discovered this by accident while the market was in favor for it, I would have probably been banned as well not knowing that I wasn’t allowed to craft and salvage something in game for items or money.

I’m not psychic. I don’t know what is intended to be in the game and and what isn’t. I’m really trying not to be rude, but that’s the developer’s job. When I utilize everything presented to me in the game I have purchased, which has passed ANet’s QA/QC department and into the live environment, I find it disheartening that I feel like I have to question everything that I consider a clever tactic or a decent money-maker in fear of being banned for exploiting.

By the way, has someone ever been banned for Dungeon exploiting? If yes, then what he did?

Is switching to an alt at the end of a dungeon an exploit?

What about Portal Guns? A few nights ago I was on my lowbie Elementalist and was left behind because I forgot the correct path to the Howling King (been a while since i ran AC) and a party member came back, told me to stand next to the Reliquary Waypoint and watch for the portal. Not knowing what to expect I did as I was told and low and behold a non-Mesmer Portal appeared which took me to the entrance to the HK’s lair. Apparently this player had stood “underneath” the WP and used the Portal Gun to bring me quicker to the main party without me being griefed by mobs they refused to kill. I just don’t get why people skip over these mobs since many trash mobs drop loot better then what’s in the chests. I even had a friend pick up a precursor from AC trash mobs, yet they are skipped on a regular basis. Not to mention the obvious hard ship it puts on a single player who gets killed and who has to run back through all these mobs.

Perhaps Anet should make dungeon content unskippable? High and roaming aggro tables when in a certain range?

Well lets say this. If trash mobs weren’t an annoying hindrance i think people would exploit less. For example Lets take the path 2 ship. Would a group really want to fight the annoying inquest guys who stun players for well over 5 seconds on a channel and deal with the other trash mobs nearby? Or take a no risk road and get the same end result. Humans take the path of least resistance for a good reason. This proves a flaw in game design.

Now i’m glad that you actually fixed boss triggers with the last patch robert, but that’s basic stuff that should have been in since launch (referring to skipping to the last boss of a dungeon).

So what i’m getting at is, dungeons shouldn’t be a hassle, you can have interesting boss mechanics or mob mechanics, just don’t waste the players time with menial tasks and do not create mobs that cripple players and take away playability. Nothing is more frustrating than to be stopped from playing the game.

PS. whoever does invisible walls needs to step their game up. Whoever designs the art or object textures in maps needs to not make things climbable. Finally whoever makes the static objects like graveling mounds needs to fix those hit-boxes those are pretty horrendous.

Exploit
1
: to make productive use of : utilize <exploiting your talents> <exploit your opponent’s weakness>
2
: to make use of meanly or unfairly for one’s own advantage <exploiting migrant farm workers>

Even the dictionary is confused by exploits. Sometimes it’s considered intelligent and clever use of information or skill, and other times considered unfairly using resources to gain advantage. Clearly there are a good number of people more clever than the game’s developers judging by the number of jumps and “tactics” (still not hotfixed and available for use) used to make their lives easier while playing. Perhaps instead of banning, they should consider hiring them to run a test server for them, since they clearly don’t want the major community to test it for them.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Shadowfist.2708:

While I understand your meaning, I’d actually be more inclined to do it with a developer for the ensuing comedy. xD

Yeah, and upon retrospect, whenever I throw on my dev tag for a dungeon, people tend to show me exploits and point them out >.<
However I have been thoroughly amused at times. I tend to hide my dev tags when finding a PUG, and then halfway through the dungeon I will tag up, and watch everyone leave the instance within minutes.

its a shame i never really pug but i guess its good for you to avoid me because id hit you with so many questions you’d want to leave

Levistis.8356:

Is switching to an alt at the end of a dungeon an exploit?

I would also like to know about this.

Regarding all those “exploits” in dungeons and the game in general, i wonder how those could not be intended by ANet.
There are some such crazy possibilities i just can’t imagine anyone to program such things as side effect. Orr (and Arah) are probably the best examples to show what i mean. You can climb up so high and reach places (which are textured very well) ANet would definitly tell it wasn’t intended to do so. Why even working on textures and landscapes on places which have never been intended to reach? I just can’t imagine.

The make map completion leveling in areas that are currently ghost towns, especially completing heart rewards, far more xp efficient than they are. People do alt switching because leveling outside WvW objective farm and dungeon swapping is such a boring, slow process comparatively. People leveled in PvE through DE chains, but now that the population has matured in levels the lower level areas outside maybe the human ones rarely see enough DE’s going on to give efficient xp/hour.

Besides, people can just ask that the people in the group don’t skip cinematics at the end so they can switch at 8-10% instead without fear of missing the reward.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

edyn.6413:

An example of this would be the Snowflake fiasco back during the Holiday event. While I did not participate in this, if I had discovered this by accident while the market was in favor for it, I would have probably been banned as well not knowing that I wasn’t allowed to craft and salvage something in game for items or money.

I’m not psychic. I don’t know what is intended to be in the game and and what isn’t. I’m really trying not to be rude, but that’s the developer’s job. When I utilize everything presented to me in the game I have purchased, which has passed ANet’s QA/QC department and into the live environment, I find it disheartening that I feel like I have to question everything that I consider a clever tactic or a decent money-maker in fear of being banned for exploiting.

We’re very aware of the issue you are saying. It’s hard for us to define that a specific thing is an exploit until we know that it exists. And the moment we know that it exists, people have been abusing it. It puts us in the situation of deciding how to punish while we rapidly attempt to close off the exploit and keep it from being further exploited. My job in the equation is to close the exploit, but someone has to decide how to punish.
In the case of the snowflake exploit, we only banned people we knew did it to extreme degrees, and by extreme I mean multiple thousands. A threshold was decided on, and we acted based on hard evidence, not speculation. That’s generally how we handle every exploit we find – seal it up, figure out punishment thresholds (if any), and move forward from there.
The vast majority may only exploit things a few time as they figure it out, or accidentally exploit because they don’t know any better. Our goal is not to punish those people. But in the case of the snowflake fiasco, we had clear evidence of people exploiting it well over 15,000 (fifteen thousand) times before we managed to seal it up. Those are the people we go after – the ones who deliberately exploit with massive potential economic impact.
Some things sneak by us and our QA. We make so much content that there’s bound to be something that gets by. We try to handle it as best we can though, and I can personally vouch that nobody here has the attitude of “ban them all” – we want to make the smallest impact with our punishment while sending the most clear message that certain behavior is not tolerated.

When in doubt, post on the forums. It will draw our attention, and we’ll let you know. Or PM us / email our exploit alias.

i don’t want to be rude, but where the text:
“is our fault too (because of so many bugs we create and not test every scenario), so we must be also punished along with the players”
is, because i can not find it…
i mean, yes, some bug exploit, but there wouldn’t be bug exploiting if there were no bugs…

There is no such thing as no bugs in gaming. Even after YEARS of patching.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Levistis.8356:

Is switching to an alt at the end of a dungeon an exploit?

currently no – it’s just rude if you don’t tell your party first and act as dead weight in the final fight. People do it to level up their lower characters, because it’s a big burst of exp for dungeon completion.

This has happened to me a few times when playing, and usually from someone who doesn’t tell the party, and swap characters at like 25% boss HP. They bring in some level 20 character and stand off to the side while the 4 of us fight a boss. I typically respond by not fighting and just standing around them doing emotes and jumping, or trying to kite the boss into them if they are close enough to the encounter

So basically you resort to the style of play you discourage your player base from doing; childish nonconstructive behaviour, just to get your own back at someone.
Never mind that by showing such behaviour you are just as bad as him
Never mind that by showing such behaviour you are letting the remaining 3 players down just so you can “have revenge”.
Why can’t you be mature about it? Yes, of course it is annoying, but “(…) just standing around them doing emotes and jumping (…)” isn’t going to change the fact, and it is most certainly not going to help anyone.
Why can’t you just let the matter be, fight the boss with 4 people, most likely defeat him and carry on.
Or, even better, kick him, and invite somebody else to join you. I mean, for crying out loud, you left the possibility to switch to alts in the game, your behaviour is punishing your entire group, because a single person used a feature within the game.
Should I also run around and use emotes when somebody switches to a build that is “bad”, imagine a warrior switches to longbow because he thinks it is fun to play with, lets emote around him as well shall we? I mean, longbow warrior is contributing about as much as a lvl 20 character in the current build of the game…
I have to say, I am astonished that a dev would behave in such a way, let alone post about it and nearly encouraging the act. You should be ashamed, especially considering that, as I said before, your very own team discourages such acts from the community.
I would like to see a deletion of your original statement, but I doubt this will happen. All I can say is, that I am disappointed in the way you represent your company.

DanH.5879:

i don’t want to be rude, but where the text:
“is our fault too (because of so many bugs we create and not test every scenario), so we must be also punished along with the players”
is, because i can not find it…
i mean, yes, some bug exploit, but there wouldn’t be bug exploiting if there were no bugs…

Again, he says this and admits:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Some things sneak by us and our QA. We make so much content that there’s bound to be something that gets by. We try to handle it as best we can though, and I can personally vouch that nobody here has the attitude of “ban them all” – we want to make the smallest impact with our punishment while sending the most clear message that certain behavior is not tolerated.

They’re not going to be able to catch everything. It’s the nature of software testing, even my software testing professor has taught me that. The content was probably a lot more bugged before its current state. It can only get better with more iterations, when people spot something that was not caught before.

@Robert Hrouda

I assume you’ve never banned or punished anyone for using exploits (or smart use of game mechanics) in dungeons of FOTM as they have very little impact on the economy or anything else for that matter. But if you have, then I will be extremely disappointed.

I’ll take the example of (the previously fixed exploit) of swamp fractal, when facing Mossman. I find it very creative for players to decide to use a tree that they can climb without particular effort in order to perch an enemy that appears to be mostly close combat. As it happens, when you climbed that tree and started hitting the mossman, he’s disappear briefly and would simply stand there so you could kill him with impunity. Mossman isn’t really a difficult boss, but you CANNOT blame the players for finding ways of making a fight easier. As a developer, you’re essentially forcing the players to do the same content over and over for the related rewards. Sure, if you do fractals for the first time an exploit can ruin the fun of experiencing the boss and facing the challenge, but for 99% of the cases, everybody’s already done it legit and has experienced the “fun”.

The truth is, after hundreds of times of facing the same content, people are bound to find ways to make the fight:

a) easier
b) faster

That’s just human nature. That’s what you do when you’re doing math homework or working for a company, you find the most efficient way to do a task, especially if that task has to be repeated numerous times.

Now, I’m not talking about cheating, using third party applications, modifying the game in any way etc. That’s bad.

But if you’re playing a game where you respect the constraints of the game by not hacking; you should be encouraged, NOT PUNISHED, to find creative ways to solve certain encounters. In the end, it’s really the developer’s jobs to fix the bugs that they deem “game breaking” and they shouldn’t blame the players for finding and using those bugs.

Wethospu.6437:

By the way, has someone ever been banned for Dungeon exploiting? If yes, then what he did?

A lot of my friends have been banned (and most unbanned) for “assumed botting.” And literally all they do is run dungeons; so I don’t know if that answers your question…

Though, I have yet to see someone get banned and then given the reason “dungeon exploiting” or something like that.

imo banning players= bad publicity and somewhat lower income from future expansions of the game, because 95% of the cases, they won’t come back, doing charge backs etc.

there are some cases (see other games), where the circle of quitting has gone in circles (some leave, then their close friends leave, then the close friends of the friends leave etc.)
due to banning, bad contents, horrible game balancing problems etc.
i do not agree with exploiters, don’t get me wrong, but they are not the root cause
(as we say in development)
and yes, new ppl come too, i admit that,
but when the main trend: new players-(inactive+banned players)<0 then the game is going downwards. eve went -20% in staff personnel because of a “mistake” (also in revenues ofc and number of active players)
just some thoughts to think of…

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I don’t much appreciate being used in such a way, and find the behavior rude to just shuffle the responsibility off on someone else while sitting on the sideline making other people carry the load. Especially when you’re fighting a boss who has an enrage mechanic at lower health, increasing his difficulty.

What you do, or do not appreciate is a matter that should only concern you, you are letting it affect 3 other players. Besides that, you are showing the exact behaviour you say to have a dislike for, you “shuffle the responsibility off on someone else while sitting on the sideline making other people carry the load.”. Mirroring somebody elses bad behaviour out of spite is naive, especially considering your position. I would also like to point out that there is a stark difference between displaying such behaviour in the game, and posting about it on the official forums basically encouraging it. You are doing the latter, which is, again, is hardly how a dev should act.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Typically we do end up kicking the person and restarting the final boss, and completing it.

Proving that your immature ritual of dancing and emoting around the althopper was not productive, and that you could best have skipped it altogether and gone straight to kicking the person.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’ve been kicked as well for not participating when people do those things, and that’s fine – that’s their choice, and they got the votes.

Yet again you prove my point, YOU also had the vote to kick that althopper, instead you would rather show the behaviour that gets YOU kicked.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Point being, if you don’t like the behavior, don’t support it. I don’t foresee us being able to stop the behavior from a developer perspective, but I’m a designer and not a coder.

You are supporting the behaviour though, and that is exactly what is bothering me. Intentional or not, you are promoting being a deadweight when it suits you, or when you disagree with the current situation.
You might not be able to stop the behaviour, but you can stop encouraging it, it is irrelevant wether you are a coder, programmer or tester. You decided to post here, you carry a certain responsibility when you post here as dev. you failed that responsibility.

What you said, was wrong and should have been left out of your post entirely, it is debatable if it was intentional or not, but the way you posted it, is clearly wrong.

a disagreement becomes an argument when someone is incapable of just letting another person know your opinion on something, and instead feels the need to constantly attempt to justify it in an aggressive manner. Raving Nighteyes, everyone including rob understands what you are trying to say, and there is no reason to drag it out.

JesseBensen.4817:

a disagreement becomes an argument when someone is incapable of just letting another person know your opinion on something, and instead feels the need to constantly attempt to justify it in an aggressive manner. Raving Nighteyes, everyone including rob understands what you are trying to say, and there is no reason to drag it out.

I have been civil throughout all my posts, I think you are confusing aggressive with assertive. I am not attempting to justify anything, I am pointing out that his behaviour was wrong, instead Rob nonchalantly brushes it aside as if it were no issue.
If Rob understands what I was/am trying to say, I think he is fully capable of sayng so himself.

I would agree with you if a scenario occurred in which Robert presented a valid reason for the way he acted and I refused to agree with him, instead choosing to argue with him. This scenario has not occurred as of right now though.

Raving Nighteyes.6145:

You are supporting the behaviour though, and that is exactly what is bothering me.

His actions isn’t supporting the [alt swapping] behavior though and mainly aimed at those that do so without permission.

Also, I’d assume he wouldn’t turn his dev tag on when doing so, so he can do what he wants in-game so long as it doesn’t violate the TOS. As for how one presents themselves as far as being a dev goes, sometimes making a stand beyond the quick-fix of kicking gets the point across better. He didn’t say he does so all the time, just some of the time when people don’t ask permission of the team. That a dev feels it’s in poor taste to swap to begin with is good to hear.

It’s the developer’s fault for not making a perfect bug free product!
It’s human nature to cheat, I can’t help being human!
It’s other player’s fault for not calling me out!

I’m not responsible for the bad things I do!

Leo G.4501:

Raving Nighteyes.6145:

You are supporting the behaviour though, and that is exactly what is bothering me.

His actions isn’t supporting the [alt swapping] behavior though and mainly aimed at those that do so without permission.

Also, I’d assume he wouldn’t turn his dev tag on when doing so, so he can do what he wants in-game so long as it doesn’t violate the TOS. As for how one presents themselves as far as being a dev goes, sometimes making a stand beyond the quick-fix of kicking gets the point across better. He didn’t say he does so all the time, just some of the time when people don’t ask permission of the team. That a dev feels it’s in poor taste to swap to begin with is good to hear.

The behaviour that was bothering Rob was clearly not alt swapping, but being a burden/deadweight to the team by doing nothing (in his scenario a result from altswapping, but the cause of you being a burden should hardly matter, what matters is that you are being a deadweight).
I also stated in my post that acting that way in game is one thing, but posting about it here, where he does have a dev tag, another thing entirely.
I am actually astonished anyone would think that emoting/doing nothing is EVER a good way to solve a problem.
The main issue I have, as stated before, is that a dev is promoting undesired behaviour on the official forums. It is basically sending out the message: “it is ok to behave bad and ruin the game for 3 other players if 1 player does something you don’t like”.

Vox Hollow.2736:

It’s the developer’s fault for not making a perfect bug free product!
It’s human nature to cheat, I can’t help being human!
It’s other player’s fault for not calling me out!

I’m not responsible for the bad things I do!

They certainly need to resolve whatever conflict is happening between their QA team and the programmers because bugs keep happening every~ patch.
It’s the nature of most natural things to take the path of least resistance.
The rest of your appeal to ridicule not withstanding.

They certainly need to resolve whatever conflict is happening between their QA team and the programmers because bugs keep happening every~ patch.
It’s the nature of most natural things to take the path of least resistance.
The rest of your appeal to ridicule not withstanding.

Path of Least Resistance is an Explanation, not an Excuse.
It explains why nature and humans optimize their actions, it’s not meant to be used as a shield you throw up whenever you want to cheat your face off. How easy or difficult something is has no relationship to it’s morality, nor your responsibility for doing it.

As a customer you can certainly be dissatisfied with the quality of their QA team if you really want to. But this also has no bearing on the morality and responsibility of your actions.

I’ve read all this and concur in some fashion

Vox Hollow.2736:

They certainly need to resolve whatever conflict is happening between their QA team and the programmers because bugs keep happening every~ patch.
It’s the nature of most natural things to take the path of least resistance.
The rest of your appeal to ridicule not withstanding.

Path of Least Resistance is an Explanation, not an Excuse.
It explains why nature and humans optimize their actions, it’s not meant to be used as a shield you throw up whenever you want to cheat your face off. How easy or difficult something is has no relationship to it’s morality, and no relationship to your responsibility for doing it.

I should have been clearer. I’m saying that taking the path of least resistance is a natural thing and therefore does not require any excuse. “It was more optimal(for me) so I did it.” (see the too big to fail banks) Because we all agreed to Anet’s ToS they’re allowed to do whatever they like with almost no repercussions save players making a fuss.

If we’re going to get into a discussion over ethics and morals I’m going to bow out because I honestly don’t have much of either of those.

TNoD.8143:

I’ll take the example of (the previously fixed exploit) of swamp fractal, when facing Mossman. I find it very creative for players to decide to use a tree that they can climb without particular effort in order to perch an enemy that appears to be mostly close combat. As it happens, when you climbed that tree and started hitting the mossman, he’s disappear briefly and would simply stand there so you could kill him with impunity. Mossman isn’t really a difficult boss, but you CANNOT blame the players for finding ways of making a fight easier.

No, no no. That was a bug and a exploit. That boss can hit you with range attacks (he throws axes and inflicts agony with them). The problem with the tree is that te boss didn’t move or fight back. That is taking advantage of a bug. You can face that combat climbing at the roof of the house and you’ll see that mossman moves normaly and shoots you lots of times with the axes (and summons wolfs next to you).

I think that is the difference. Climbing the tree is an exploit because you bug the boss, but climbing the house is more like “taking advantage of terrain” so he doesn’t melees you (but it safer to fight him on the ground than from that roof xD).

A useful thread with good discussions between community and a dev. Could be worth a sticky, since I’ve seen this question come up a few times and the posts in here do well to answer many of the issues

You think the banks didn’t get punished because what they did was easy therefore they weren’t guilty of anything? I sincerely don’t know what to say to that.

If your not interested in talking about the thing I’m talking about, there wasn’t much of a point in responding to me at all.

Vox Hollow.2736:

You think the banks didn’t get punished because what they did was easy therefore they weren’t guilty of anything? I sincerely don’t know what to say to that.

If your not interested in talking about the thing I’m talking about, there wasn’t much of a point in responding to me at all.

They’re punishments were incredibly light all things considered, but this example has gone far and away from the actual discussion and my point which was the second sentence of what I posted
“I’m saying that taking the path of least resistance is a natural thing and therefore does not require any excuse.” and further to that since we all agreed to Anet’s ToS they can punish us however they see fit.

If you want to attack my example rather than agree or disagree with my statement than go ahead.

Just because we have a natural impulse to do something, doesn’t make it right. There are alot of very bad things that could be rightly called an optimization of effort. We’d be in a pretty horrible state is anything was okay as long as it was efficient.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Just because we have a natural impulse to do something, doesn’t make it right. There are alot of very bad things that could be rightly called an optimization of effort. We’d be in a pretty horrible state is anything was okay as long as it was efficient.

Exactly! Just because we can, it doesn’t mean we should.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Raving Nighteyes.6145:

Why can’t you just let the matter be, fight the boss with 4 people, most likely defeat him and carry on.
Or, even better, kick him, and invite somebody else to join you

I don’t much appreciate being used in such a way, and find the behavior rude to just shuffle the responsibility off on someone else while sitting on the sideline making other people carry the load. Especially when you’re fighting a boss who has an enrage mechanic at lower health, increasing his difficulty.
Typically we do end up kicking the person and restarting the final boss, and completing it. I’ve been kicked as well for not participating when people do those things, and that’s fine – that’s their choice, and they got the votes. It could have been a premade group with the intention of doing that, and I was just the fifth man who wasn’t informed. Just dust myself off and move on.

Point being, if you don’t like the behavior, don’t support it. I don’t foresee us being able to stop the behavior from a developer perspective, but I’m a designer and not a coder.

EDIT

They’re not going to be able to catch everything. It’s the nature of software testing, even my software testing professor has taught me that. The content was probably a lot more bugged before its current state. It can only get better with more iterations, when people spot something that was not caught before.

I think it’s also important to note that we learn from our mistakes and try to pay extra attention to things that have been exploited when we build new content. Our testing pass and development of salvageable crafted items will certainly get a bit more attention for all our new content being built as a result.
Mistakes happen, but I’ve always held the ideal that you only truly fail at something if you keep making the same mistake over and over.

Hopefully you punished the people who kicked you for not taking part in an exploit

Try to understand.

If you’re opposed to being used this way, and somebody just wordlessly slides in with their level 5 leech on the boss fight, what are your options exactly? I think opening up a dialogue about it and/or requesting a kick are your ultimate goals, but when you break the process of that down step-by-step the realities of what this entails exactly starts to creep in.

People aren’t always looking up at the party member UI and the combat log. It might take a bit to explain what’s happening to somebody whose never seen it before. People might prefer to ‘go with the group’ which involves them waiting for other inputs. It’s not like there’s a Pause button, and even if you do call for a Timeout, that’s no guarantee anybody’s going to hear you. And while you’re working out how to start getting across your communications and giving people time to respond, do you still keep fighting?

On a practical level this is kind of difficult, it’s hard as heck to type and do any appreciable level of action at the same time. On an emotive level, you’re between a rock and a hard place. The very principals that cause you to be upset with the practice encourages you to contribute to it happening. The choice between situational hippocracy and letting people walk all over you is bad enough, but to have to actually actively work towards abusing yourself is downright twisted.

So somebody would rather be a hippocrit than a doormat.
Honestly, I can’t blame them. Although I try my best to make my intentions clear beforehand, I’ve come across enough snakes in the grass to be hitting my breaking point too. I’m still trying to figure out how I want to handle it exactly.

Vox Hollow.2736:

So somebody would rather be a hippocrit than a doormat.
Honestly, I can’t blame them.

That’s an interesting way of viewing it. I mean, yeah I understand the perspective Raving Nighteyes were going on about, but I can also see what Robert was doing. It’s really hard to actually stop people from cheating/exploiting and you’re often punished for not participating (what can you do when people want to exploit but to quit and rob yourself of whatever time you spent doing the content?) so pointing out the situation seems more important than just doing the right thing. I mean, how do you even find exploits unless you experience them? Sure, some you find by accident but the more destructive ones you come across by seeking them out.

It’s understandable to feel devs should have higher standards, but in-game there’s little else you can do that doesn’t just harm yourself while letting the rude and cheats get off scott free. I mean, if Rob just said he quits when some leech joins mid-fight without asking, it does just as little if not less, than what he described he sometimes does.

From a scale of 1 to BAN where does CoE 3in1 lie? All you really accomplish there is cutting out the non-sense, zero reward encounters and you still have to do the rest as you would normally (unless you are stupid enough to skip the easy hacking event/Bjarl which give precious CoE chests).

What I’m really confused about is how most dungeon exploits still don’t produce nearly as much wealth as CoF1 farm which is considered legit. The economic effect of CoE 3in1 abuse I’d wager is also alot smaller than the inflating effect of the mindless everyone-runs-it CoF1 that’s considered legit since CoE significantly requires more skill to complete yet the wealth output is still around the same even with abusing skips in CoE 3in1.

MAIN POINT OF POST: Before you fix CoE 3in1 please consider adding loot to the first Alpha encounter and a chest to the lazer puzzle and have already reworked CoF1. But until you make trash mobs worth killing, people will continue to stealth through mobs, blink through walls and

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Levistis.8356:

Is switching to an alt at the end of a dungeon an exploit?

currently no – it’s just rude if you don’t tell your party first and act as dead weight in the final fight. People do it to level up their lower characters, because it’s a big burst of exp for dungeon completion.

This has happened to me a few times when playing, and usually from someone who doesn’t tell the party, and swap characters at like 25% boss HP. They bring in some level 20 character and stand off to the side while the 4 of us fight a boss. I typically respond by not fighting and just standing around them doing emotes and jumping, or trying to kite the boss into them if they are close enough to the encounter

i find the behaviour that you say you do to be very rude and childish. It’s not like the guy wasn’t participating, he fought alongside you until he felt the rest of the party could easily handle the boss. Honestly, I’d kick you before the guy who swapped out to a low lvl alt. He helped until the last possible moment then stayed out of the fight with his alt so he wouldn’t become a burden if he got downed. You CHOSE to be a burden instead of helping your team while you were 100% able to contribute.

I understand that it would be frustrating if it was an all pug and he swapped at the very beginning of a hard boss fight but the vast majority of people who do this only do it on extremely easy fights such as ac and ta dungeons (which have final bosses that can easily be done with very few numbers).

randomfightfan.4091:

i find the behaviour that you say you do to be very rude and childish. It’s not like the guy wasn’t participating, he fought alongside you until he felt the rest of the party could easily handle the boss. Honestly, I’d kick you before the guy who swapped out to a low lvl alt. He helped until the last possible moment then stayed out of the fight with his alt so he wouldn’t become a burden if he got downed. You CHOSE to be a burden instead of helping your team while you were 100% able to contribute.

I understand that it would be frustrating if it was an all pug and he swapped at the very beginning of a hard boss fight but the vast majority of people who do this only do it on extremely easy fights such as ac and ta dungeons (which have final bosses that can easily be done with very few numbers).

My personal opinion: you favor alt-swapping so I don’t really care what you think. Alt-swapping, in my opinion, is cheating because the character did no work to get any rewards and is exploiting a system that is in place to help players with connections who inevitably drops from time to time. The only reason it isn’t viewed as a terrible exploit ‘currently’ is because there is no way to code the game to disallow it and it hasn’t become an huge issue yet.

Whether one action is more childish and rude isn’t the issue, since one literally cheats while the other does not.

Very occasionally Alt-swapping is necessary in a dungeon (e.g. try doing AC path 3 without enough raw DPS in the party). But in such cases the solution is to bring in a higher-level alt, not a lower-level one.

Swapping to a lower-level alt in a dungeon is an exploit.