Guild Wars 2

Kain Francois.4328:

Seriously? Permabans for players who are playing the game as intended? Unless it wasn’t intended to create rare items to salvage them? So what the heck did ANET even intend people to do with their useless Giver items? Wear them?

I’m sorry, but I cannot find any reason to defend them. Unlike a single karma NPC, this was something I’m sure was tested thoroughly, and thus’ intended. The fact they left it in for weeks makes this even worse because again: What the heck did they think players would do with the craft items?

I’m really getting tired of ANET banning players because ANET adds something into the game and later regrets it.

Will they start banning people who play high level fractals too? How about people who transmute cores into lodestones? I’m sorry, but this is just ridiculous!

I’m not even the one impacted by this, but after playing Guild Wars for 7 years, I’m very disappointed!

This. Right. Here.
I agree.

sooo…a short lived, market-corrected net-ecto salvage requires a perma ban but karma-precursor exploiters are temp ban and not required to delete?

like said before, test stuff before you release & utilize your account rollback system.

no need to be so harsh for such a silly (creative/clever) mishap. it is wintersday after all…

No, I wasn’t banned. No, I don’t know anyone that was.

However, I know Anet will not change their mind. Many years ago in GW1 they banned I believe 117 people for “hacking”. Even after they were shown exactly what was done and that it was not ’hacking" they stood by the bans. It was a simple “ferry” from one guild hall to a boss … a mechanic already in wide spread use in the game like from Nightfall to LA for new players.

They (Anet) are on a slippery slope (like it or not). If they don’t put their foot down from time to time and stand by it, they can’t enforce anything. To those banned … this is the time they chose. Like it or not it won’t matter how much you argue or try .. you have a better chance at a precursor drop in the forge than getting them to change their mind.

If it looks too good to be true …

coil.3420:

sooo…a short lived, market-corrected net-ecto salvage requires a perma ban but karma-precursor exploiters are temp ban and not required to delete?

like said before, test stuff before you release & utilize your account rollback system.

no need to be so harsh for such a silly (creative/clever) mishap. it is wintersday after all…

Ho ho ho you’ve been bad this Wintersday, so PERMA BAN FOR YOU. -_- But seriously, how can people who enjoy making these games do this to their players. Especially when a rollback tool should be already set and ready to remedy this development issue.

A fun holiday event ends with players being banned, part of the reason why I hate temporary content in MMOs.

“2. It’s not like stealing from the store. It’s more like that time I saw a pack of cheese for 1 euro and took 5 even though I knew that pack was way too cheap. When I got the the register, they wanted to charge me 3 euro/pack. I refused and pointed at the label. What do you think happened?
a) they banned me from the store for trying to exploit
b) they apologised for their mistake and I got the 5 packs for 1 euro per
Hint: It wasn’t a.”

Great, you only bought 5! Imagine you would have walked up there and said “hey, i want 500 of those!” and then stood infront of the store, selling the cheese for 2 euro each. Its either highly unlikley to happen, and if it does happen its illegal.

for number 3) Anet did the same for the karma exploit guys, were some people were let of the hook if they apologized and destroyed all profit/weapons. Im assuming that they said “screw it, if people want to exploit we show them what happens, off with the kid gloves”.
Ill give you number 4. Still doesnt excuse it though. two wrong doesnt make a right. Although I would like to see the guy who screwed up getting a pay cut/serious scolding. or atleast a public apology.
5. Is a totally different scenario. In the one we are talking about ectos were made out of nothing. In your example, killing the boss trough an exploit or something along that line doesnt mean you suddenly get better loot, and even with skipping/exploiting it would still take 10-15minutes to do, unlike the crafting exploit that allowed you to make a dozen ectos in less then 2 minutes…

Moving onto another post:
“the message sent by ANet is “You made profit from salvaging a crafting item, therefore it is a exploit.”” yes that was totally anets intention. Couldnt possibly be that they are trying to say “if its to good to be true and only avaialbe under certain circumstances that apply to nothing else, thus allowing you to create a huge profit out of next to nothing then its most likley an exploit and should be avoided”.

People really love to over-dramatize things to make it look one party is inocent…

Sky.7610:

Why? Well, the message sent by ANet is “You made profit from salvaging a crafting item, therefore it is a exploit.” Do you not understand how much destructive power this interpretation of “exploit” is?

That’s not the message that is being sent. That is actually condemnation of the condemners and is totally denying actuality.

The message is that if something is obviously a bug (a bug being unintended results by a program do to typo or logical error), and you egregiously exploit that bug instead of responsibly reporting it, then you will be banned according to the readily available terms of service and code of conduct.

When an item, that when crafted and salvaged duplicates one of the most valuable crafting materials in the game and can propagate itself along with a profit, there is obviously a problem. That goes well beyond simply making a profit from crafting typical crafting activities.

Especially when the team creating the content probably has little knowledge of the game altogether.

My question would be WHY did those recipe exist the way they were? If it was such an obvious oversight, shouldn’t ANY content developper have spotted it?

How did this get through quality assurance?

Its in ToS, you agreed to said ToS when u signed up for an account, before you ever started playing. You’re friend agreed to ToS, broke ToS, was then punished for his actions.

Lesson to learn- Play the game fairly so that everyone can enjoy the game instead of trying to find and abuse bugs, and exploits.

Might as well start complaing about other stupidity like " I downloaded a hack got caught hacking and was then banned, omg why didn’t Anet patch this hack before it was made, I shouldn’t be punished for this." …I’m sorry this thread is full of stupidity lol…

Seeing that we are now past the game’s infancy stage, I definitely understand the bans. When the karma/godskull exploits occurred the game was “too wet behind the ears”…at least that’s what I assume is their reasoning for temp then and perma now. They even explained that future exploits would not be given such leniency, yet here were are having the same comparisons brought up.

It was very obvious that the snowflake deal was exploitative. The items were mislabeled, they required 1/3 of an equivalent, and they created a loop which no other crafted items did. It looked like a duck, it smelled like a duck, it even talked like a duck. No one should be surprised it was officially labeled a duck.

Further, I’m sure that permas were handed out to only the grievous offenders. I highly doubt we are talking about 10s. Just like the karma exploit, we are most likely dealing with 100s, 1000s, etc per person. It becomes very hard to justify taking advantage of the whole deal 100s and 1000s of times, but I’m sure we will hear/read all sorts of pleas.

Gluttony.2017:

“2. It’s not like stealing from the store. It’s more like that time I saw a pack of cheese for 1 euro and took 5 even though I knew that pack was way too cheap. When I got the the register, they wanted to charge me 3 euro/pack. I refused and pointed at the label. What do you think happened?
a) they banned me from the store for trying to exploit
b) they apologised for their mistake and I got the 5 packs for 1 euro per
Hint: It wasn’t a.”

Great, you only bought 5! Imagine you would have walked up there and said “hey, i want 500 of those!” and then stood infront of the store, selling the cheese for 2 euro each. Its either highly unlikley to happen, and if it does happen its illegal.

for number 3) Anet did the same for the karma exploit guys, were some people were let of the hook if they apologized and destroyed all profit/weapons. Im assuming that they said “screw it, if people want to exploit we show them what happens, off with the kid gloves”.
Ill give you number 4. Still doesnt excuse it though. two wrong doesnt make a right. Although I would like to see the guy who screwed up getting a pay cut/serious scolding. or atleast a public apology.
5. Is a totally different scenario. In the one we are talking about ectos were made out of nothing. In your example, killing the boss trough an exploit or something along that line doesnt mean you suddenly get better loot, and even with skipping/exploiting it would still take 10-15minutes to do, unlike the crafting exploit that allowed you to make a dozen ectos in less then 2 minutes…

Moving onto another post:
“the message sent by ANet is “You made profit from salvaging a crafting item, therefore it is a exploit.”” yes that was totally anets intention. Couldnt possibly be that they are trying to say “if its to good to be true and only avaialbe under certain circumstances that apply to nothing else, thus allowing you to create a huge profit out of next to nothing then its most likley an exploit and should be avoided”.

People really love to over-dramatize things to make it look one party is inocent…

Not innocent, punishment was too harsh, basically perma ban in a game is like the death penalty in real life. We are arguing about 1) if it is an exploit 2) is right to punish with an ingame death penalty. Except you get to be reborn at a cost of $60.

PowerCat.5738:

Especially when the team creating the content probably has little knowledge of the game altogether.

My question would be WHY did those recipe exist the way they were? If it was such an obvious oversight, shouldn’t ANY content developper have spotted it?

How did this get through quality assurance?

Given the number of bugs and broken events in game not to mention how often a “fix” results in a break somewhere else … you Sir/Madam have received a demerit for assuming they have a QA department =p

AcidicVision.5498:

The message is that if something is obviously a bug…

It wasn’t obvious.

AcidicVision.5498:

An item, that when crafted and salvaged duplicates one of the most valuable crafting materials in the game and can propagate itself along with a profit, there is obviously a problem. That goes well beyond making a profit from crafting.

Infinite loops never result in an increased price of the inputs. Both snowflakes and mithril ore went up in price because this was NOT an infinite loop. Just because a couple ANet employees who are bad at logic and/or math say it’s an infinite loop doesn’t make it so.

No, the punishment was not harsh. I’m so glad people got perma-banned this time – I guarantee you a lot of the same people who have exploited other things in this game exploited this as well (orichalcum realm xfer exploit, karma weapon exploit, etc.) Arena Net needs to take a hard stance with exploiters so people think twice about doing something that obviously was not intended.

MistyMountains.3751:

Its in ToS, you agreed to said ToS when u signed up for an account, before you ever started playing. You’re friend agreed to ToS, broke ToS, was then punished for his actions.

Lesson to learn- Play the game fairly so that everyone can enjoy the game instead of trying to find and abuse bugs, and exploits.

Might as well start complaing about other stupidity like " I downloaded a hack got caught hacking and was then banned, omg why didn’t Anet patch this hack before it was made, I shouldn’t be punished for this." …I’m sorry this thread is full of stupidity lol…

Wait what? I am not much of a name caller, but you are a meanymeanykins. But seriously, what is fair in this game if it’s something that was released in a patch that everyone had access to who had to work for their 400 JC. I don’t think the people who were banned try to find these bugs…I’m pretty sure they tried it out because they liked Wintersday and then it hit them on how profitable the recipe was. However, profiting from it actually used ingame mechanics that seemed normal, it’s just the output was abnormal, players don’t have control over the output.

And I’m sorry, but hacks are third party software that wasn’t developed by ANet so I wouldn’t blame them nor try to defend my friend for using it. But it’s like a witch giving snow white an apple and telling her to eat it

azurrei.5691:

No, the punishment was not harsh. I’m so glad people got perma-banned this time – I guarantee you a lot of the same people who have exploited other things in this game exploited this as well (orichalcum realm xfer exploit, karma weapon exploit, etc.) Arena Net needs to take a hard stance with exploiters so people think twice about doing something that obviously was not intended.

And I know at least one guy who didn’t exploit other things except this but not even to the extent which I think Gaile was talking about, but still suffered the same consequences, but sure, let’s punish all people with a very small tolerant level. Profit a million, death penalty—-profit a hundred, death penalty. Seems fair. (sarcasm)

or use a tool to keep things under control and keep your community because all it takes is one good friend for me to consider leaving.

heck, maybe give your QA team some good treats if they would bother to play the game and know how recipes work.

PowerCat.5738:

My question would be WHY did those recipe exist the way they were? If it was such an obvious oversight, shouldn’t ANY content developper have spotted it?

How did this get through quality assurance?

It’s come to my attention, through many patches and content updates (I don’t think I need to remind anyone of the notorious Nov.15th patch/update), that either:

a) Arenanet doesn’t have a QA department, or
b) the QA dept. aren’t getting fed enough hamster treats.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

azurrei.5691:

No, the punishment was not harsh. I’m so glad people got perma-banned this time – I guarantee you a lot of the same people who have exploited other things in this game exploited this as well (orichalcum realm xfer exploit, karma weapon exploit, etc.) Arena Net needs to take a hard stance with exploiters so people think twice about doing something that obviously was not intended.

And I know at least one guy who didn’t exploit other things except this but not even to the extent which I think Gaile was talking about, but still suffered the same consequences, but sure, let’s punish all people with a very small tolerant level. Profit a million, death penalty—-profit a hundred, death penalty. Seems fair. (sarcasm)

I didn’t say all – exploiting is exploiting.

Kanthor.2094:

AcidicVision.5498:

The message is that if something is obviously a bug…

It wasn’t obvious.

AcidicVision.5498:

An item, that when crafted and salvaged duplicates one of the most valuable crafting materials in the game and can propagate itself along with a profit, there is obviously a problem. That goes well beyond making a profit from crafting.

Infinite loops never result in an increased price of the inputs. Both snowflakes and mithril ore went up in price because this was NOT an infinite loop. Just because a couple ANet employees who are bad at logic and/or math say it’s an infinite loop doesn’t make it so.

It was obvious. There is not a single thing in the game that you craft for 1 ecto and its principle component and then salvage for three ecto and get the principle component back with a high degree of reliability. With one snowflake you could turn 1 ecto into 9 with three crafts. That is obviously a problem for anyone with a shred of common sense.

The biggest perishable was mithril and the cost was trivial when the profit from selling one of those nine ecto gained could buy enough mithril for five more attempts, which would likely net between four and fifteen more ectoplasm. At least until the exploiters burned through the supply of reasonably priced mithril and got into the stacks left deep down the list by long forgotten gold farmers.

How some people can not see an obvious issue with that is mind blowing.

I agree with the ban as well. Although we can argue about this forever; exploiters are a minority and they will generally continue to exploit. Deleting thier characters should teach them a valuable lesson. Hopefully; they don’t come back to the game.

Calae.1738:

I agree with the ban as well. Although we can argue about this forever; exploiters are a minority and they will generally continue to exploit. Deleting thier characters should teach them a valuable lesson. Hopefully; they don’t come back to the game.

Why does everyone group exploiters into the category of repeatable offenses? Quite a few are not, believe it or not. And that’s what I’m discussing about. Not exploiters in general and the glutton exploiters. Why not make it so (at least in America) everyone who speeds gets a ticket and doesn’t have a “prayer for judgement” or a way to reduce the cost. No, let’s give them the whole deal because they did it the first time. I am seriously considering the other side arguments, but it makes no sense put the same people who steal for the first time in the same category as a con artist.

A good friend of mine was banned because he helped me make ecto using this method since I wasn’t max jeweler at the time. The only reason his numbers must appear so high is because he literally crafted enough of these things for me to burn through all of my BL salvage kits (I had like eight).

Anyway, let me put some perspective to this. When I first realized that this recipe existed, I thought the following: “ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control, and I applaud their active stance in helping players” Do you know why I thought this? They added dozens of recipes to the game that require full stacks of ectos in order to play the deepest and darkest difficulty FotM that exists currently. They even made posts in their change logs about their continued monitoring of the prices and costs associated with ascended items and how they were going about balancing that. It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally. I said to myself “Man, what a great opportunity to get myself some storage space back and maybe get some stuff that requires ectoplasm!” By the time I started having my good friend craft these for me (for which he was banned today), the market had completely normalized; there was no profit to be had from this at all. It cost the price of an ecto to get the materials to gamble for ecto. The only difference was that I had accrued many a Black Lion Salvage Kit through gems and otherwise (which all costs quite a bit of gold), so I only had to make one of these snowflake items. Great, I thought! How wonderful of ANet to help the market like this, I thought!

I didn’t think anything of it until the recipe was removed and subsequently changed. I had already done the deed, but I had no worries because the market had completely stabilized around the new conditions. It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

Now, because my friend crafted a bunch of these stupid snowflakes for me, he has been banned. I’m not okay with that. If ANet wants to drive their loyal playerbase into the ground, including people like me who have been customers for a few years shy of a decade, then so be it. I have been in good standing in ANet games (and all games) my entire life, and am shocked that I should have been banned for this, and am even more hurt that I have somehow brought a ban upon someone else for this. I have submitted a support ticket in the hopes that I get banned in his stead, but regardless, I need to say it here that I do not condone this ban. I agreed with the karma item exploit bans, but not this. This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours. This seemed fully in-line with everything that was said by ANet in the change log. This appeared to me fully acceptable within every known parameter in-game. This had a profit margin less than that of standard day-to-day market flipping and manipulation. I had every bit of confidence that this was okay by ANet, and that is why I did it. If ANet had made an announcement, maybe in GW2 (the game)‘s news feed, I would’ve stopped or avoided it, but they didn’t. They kept silent until it was too late, and our fates already sealed. I’m not okay with that. I can handle a lot of things, but this takes the cake. I am sorely disappointed with the company for their actions this day, and hope that they remedy this situation and get their procedures straight for the next time anything remotely close to this ‘exploit’ happens.

Sky.7610:

Well, the message sent by ANet is “You made profit from salvaging a crafting item, therefore it is a exploit.” Do you not understand how much destructive power this interpretation of “exploit” is? While extreme, a person could be banned RIGHT NOW for salvaging a rare(yellow) peice of gear that dropped and selling the ecto because profit was generated, or using a valid mystic forge recipe programmed in by ANet.

You’re right, that does sound extreme….ly implausible. The exploiters in question were not banned for taking advantage of this exploit ONE time, they were banned because they did it hundreds of times and proceeded to deflate the in-game economy with a flood of exploit-earned ectos. Forgive me if I don’t feel all that sorry for them.

And perm bans have been the ongoing policy for any major exploit since the game released back in August. This isn’t a new thing.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z44ml/karma_weapons_exploit/

If people haven’t learned their lesson by now, I can’t really sympathize with them all that much.

AcidicVision.5498:

Kanthor.2094:

AcidicVision.5498:

The message is that if something is obviously a bug…

It wasn’t obvious.

AcidicVision.5498:

An item, that when crafted and salvaged duplicates one of the most valuable crafting materials in the game and can propagate itself along with a profit, there is obviously a problem. That goes well beyond making a profit from crafting.

Infinite loops never result in an increased price of the inputs. Both snowflakes and mithril ore went up in price because this was NOT an infinite loop. Just because a couple ANet employees who are bad at logic and/or math say it’s an infinite loop doesn’t make it so.

It was obvious. There is not a single thing in the game that you craft for 1 ecto and its principle component and then salvage for three ecto and get the principle component back with a high degree of reliability. With one snowflake you could turn 1 ecto into 9 with three crafts. That is obviously a problem for anyone with a shred of common sense.

The biggest perishable was mithril and the cost was trivial when the profit from selling one of those nine ecto gained could buy enough mithril for five more attempts, which would likely net between four and fifteen more ectoplasm. At least until the exploiters burned through the supply of reasonably priced mithril and got into the stacks left deep down the list by long forgotten gold farmers.

How some people can not see an obvious issue with that is mind blowing.

You are terrible at math.

The expected value using mystic kits is .80 chance to retain your jewel and .9 ectos per salvage. BL kits weren’t profitable if you actually had to pay gems for them, and those are 1.5 ectos per craft, not 3.

By the time they fixed the exploit market was near equilibrium and it wasn’t anymore more profitable then a bunch of other recipes. People got banned even if they crafted on the last day before the fix and actually lost money.

FYI I wasn’t banned and hardly crafted any because it wasn’t very profitable when I tried it, but get your facts straight so you don’t look like an idiot.

I’m one of the unjustified banned of the first mega-wave of bans , my account was restored intact and unchanged when they had not the “technology” to roll back accounts or so and left me with a suspect of hack, without a clear response. I hope this time that the bans are more accurate and hit only hard exploiters.

This:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/151wsw/punishment_for_the_snowflake_jewelryexploiters/

When you accept the user agreement you know that this kind of actions are against rule of conduct.

Be realistic…. They will never let you make 500 golds in 18hrs… they need to keep farm slow. You will never make (without gold sellers or exploits) the legendary in short times(few days).

EDIT: Anyway I can agree that sometimes as deterrent may be useful an “account roll back” prior to the exploit (if the exploit was not too much).

ok there is a bit of a misunderstanding here, the bug/exploit is not the fact that it uses less materials, or has less value than an ecto, its the fact that the salvage was loopable. this differs from every other recipe. no matter what you salvage from another item, you still will have to get a large portion of the materials back, with this recipe, you basically got back enough material to salvage again with the only cost being the basic materials.

now a perma ban seems kind of harsh, but rollback doesnt really say dont exploit(just says worst comes to worst you get a rollback), and a 3 day ban says make sure you profit more than you would in 3 days of normal play if you exploit.

basically the message is dont exploit

HOWEVER

the problem is, what consititutes an exploit, for some people who came to the loop late, the costs of materials made it no more profitable than regular market stuff. The real issue, is yeah it sends the message dont exploit, but it also sends the message that you can be permanantly banned for something you may not really understand to be an exploit.

truth is, most of the trading post business practices probably feel the same to most people its all mad money

Rising Dusk.2408:

A good friend of mine was banned because he helped me make ecto using this method since I wasn’t max jeweler at the time. The only reason his numbers must appear so high is because he literally crafted enough of these things for me to burn through all of my BL salvage kits (I had like eight).

Anyway, let me put some perspective to this. When I first realized that this recipe existed, I thought the following: “ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control, and I applaud their active stance in helping players” Do you know why I thought this? They added dozens of recipes to the game that require full stacks of ectos in order to play the deepest and darkest difficulty FotM that exists currently. They even made posts in their change logs about their continued monitoring of the prices and costs associated with ascended items and how they were going about balancing that. It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally. I said to myself “Man, what a great opportunity to get myself some storage space back and maybe get some stuff that requires ectoplasm!” By the time I started having my good friend craft these for me (for which he was banned today), the market had completely normalized; there was no profit to be had from this at all. It cost the price of an ecto to get the materials to gamble for ecto. The only difference was that I had accrued many a Black Lion Salvage Kit through gems and otherwise (which all costs quite a bit of gold), so I only had to make one of these snowflake items. Great, I thought! How wonderful of ANet to help the market like this, I thought!

I didn’t think anything of it until the recipe was removed and subsequently changed. I had already done the deed, but I had no worries because the market had completely stabilized around the new conditions. It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

Now, because my friend crafted a bunch of these stupid snowflakes for me, he has been banned. I’m not okay with that. If ANet wants to drive their loyal playerbase into the ground, including people like me who have been customers for a few years shy of a decade, then so be it. I have been in good standing in ANet games (and all games) my entire life, and am shocked that I should have been banned for this, and am even more hurt that I have somehow brought a ban upon someone else for this. I have submitted a support ticket in the hopes that I get banned in his stead, but regardless, I need to say it here that I do not condone this ban. I agreed with the karma item exploit bans, but not this. This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours. This seemed fully in-line with everything that was said by ANet in the change log. This appeared to me fully acceptable within every known parameter in-game. This had a profit margin less than that of standard day-to-day market flipping and manipulation. I had every bit of confidence that this was okay by ANet, and that is why I did it. If ANet had made an announcement, maybe in GW2 (the game)‘s news feed, I would’ve stopped or avoided it, but they didn’t. They kept silent until it was too late, and our fates already sealed. I’m not okay with that. I can handle a lot of things, but this takes the cake. I am sorely disappointed with the company for their actions this day, and as little as I’m sure anyone (including their employees) cares, that’s one less faithful fan for the company.

Well said. In fact, I would trade my account for my friend’s and pay for a new one because my friend was much more dedicated that I was, I just hate that my gameplay has greatly depressed because of the lack of the fun people I play with.

Gluttony.2017:

“2. It’s not like stealing from the store. It’s more like that time I saw a pack of cheese for 1 euro and took 5 even though I knew that pack was way too cheap. When I got the the register, they wanted to charge me 3 euro/pack. I refused and pointed at the label. What do you think happened?
a) they banned me from the store for trying to exploit
b) they apologised for their mistake and I got the 5 packs for 1 euro per
Hint: It wasn’t a.”

Great, you only bought 5! Imagine you would have walked up there and said “hey, i want 500 of those!” and then stood infront of the store, selling the cheese for 2 euro each. Its either highly unlikley to happen, and if it does happen its illegal.

I have every right to do that. There are stores that sell items in bulk(and act as suppliers for smaller neighbourhood shops) who have that exact same policy. And it’s only illegal if I don’t have a permit to sell cheese. Last I checked, selling ectos on the TP was not against the RoC…did it change?

for number 3) Anet did the same for the karma exploit guys, were some people were let of the hook if they apologized and destroyed all profit/weapons. Im assuming that they said “screw it, if people want to exploit we show them what happens, off with the kid gloves”.

Acclaim maintained the “we screwed up, you screwed up, let’s just make it right and move on”-policy throughout the entire time I played the game. That was just 1 example(the best one, imo, since it was about a CS item). They did the same thing when their CS got hacked and people bought items for 1 coin each, when high lvl players exploited a low level quest to gain exp etc etc. Remove the benefits and move on. It’s all about how much a company cares about keeping their players. I guess ANet sold so many GW2 copies, they can afford to ban randomly.

Ill give you number 4. Still doesnt excuse it though. two wrong doesnt make a right. Although I would like to see the guy who screwed up getting a pay cut/serious scolding. or atleast a public apology.

What wrongs? The person who wrote the recipe didn’t see anything wrong with it. Why are players expected to “know better” than the creators? If you have a bar, it passes safety inspection and then bursts into flames because of faulty wiring, do they tell you “well, yeah, our guy missed it, but it’s totally your fault for not seeing smth’s wrong with your wiring, you’ve bee using electricity all your life, you should know better”? Cause if they do, you should probably consider leaving that country.

5. Is a totally different scenario. In the one we are talking about ectos were made out of nothing. In your example, killing the boss trough an exploit or something along that line doesnt mean you suddenly get better loot, and even with skipping/exploiting it would still take 10-15minutes to do, unlike the crafting exploit that allowed you to make a dozen ectos in less then 2 minutes…

It wasn’t out of nothing, it was out of a crafted item. Which is how most ectos appear in the first place. That aside…that particular exploit causes the boss to act different not only making the run faster, but also easier. 2 of the prt were beeping about how we are wasting time. Most of the exploits I mentioned have a time-saving effect. Since in this game time = gold, you are increasing your gold/hour rate by exploiting(same for JPs and pretty much every dungeon exploit). How is that any different again? I can give you more, arguably worse, exploits, but I don’t want to advertise them. One of them actually touches quite nicely on the ecto generation topic.

And, what, we are being selective about what exploits should be punished based on what profit they make? Are you seriously saying it’s ok to exploit as long as some guy somewhere decides “it’s not that big a deal”? I know we all rooted for Jean Valjean, but would you tell your kid it’s ok to steal if s/he’s really hungry? And what if she really needs that lipstick? Is that ok also, because it’s just a lipstick, not like she stole a Porsche? Where is the line?

Rising Dusk.2408:

, I thought the following: [b]"ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control

It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally.

It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours.

While the market for this one item stabilized…it messed up everything else that involved mithril, snowflakes, and even ectos. I find it hard to believe that they would mess up so many markets for one. It’s basically like believing that taking one step forward then taking three steps back will result in progression.

Essence Snow.3194:

Rising Dusk.2408:

, I thought the following: [b]"ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control

It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally.

It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours.

While the market for this one item stabilized…it messed up everything else that involved mithril, snowflakes, and even ectos. I find it hard to believe that they would mess up so many markets for one. It’s basically like believing that taking one step forward then taking three steps back will result in progression.

The price of mithril would have gone back down, as the price of the snowflake would have stabilized to “ecto-like” levels, like all other “ecto-producing” recipes.

PowerCat.5738:

Essence Snow.3194:

Rising Dusk.2408:

, I thought the following: [b]"ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control

It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally.

It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours.

While the market for this one item stabilized…it messed up everything else that involved mithril, snowflakes, and even ectos. I find it hard to believe that they would mess up so many markets for one. It’s basically like believing that taking one step forward then taking three steps back will result in progression.

The price of mithril would have gone back down, as the price of the snowflake would have stabilized to “ecto-like” levels, like all other “ecto-producing” recipes.

What about all the other items? The ripples from this one item were not so limited.

Essence Snow.3194:

PowerCat.5738:

Essence Snow.3194:

Rising Dusk.2408:

, I thought the following: [b]"ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control

It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally.

It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours.

While the market for this one item stabilized…it messed up everything else that involved mithril, snowflakes, and even ectos. I find it hard to believe that they would mess up so many markets for one. It’s basically like believing that taking one step forward then taking three steps back will result in progression.

The price of mithril would have gone back down, as the price of the snowflake would have stabilized to “ecto-like” levels, like all other “ecto-producing” recipes.

What about all the other items? The ripples from this one item were not so limited.

What other item? Mithril? It would have gone back down as people would unload their stock, and when snowflakes would have reached equilibrium, mithril would have gone back down as less people would craft the rings.

If you mean other “ecto producing” recipes, they are tied to the price of ectos, as all ecto producing recipes. For example, the godskull weapons and the “large skulls” on the TP, they are very close to the price of ectos cause they can salvage to ectos.

Whilst I realize we did agree to a ToS, I do hope ANET realizes what they’re doing will give the game very bad press.

Let’s be realistic here. This is not an exploit. It’s just extreme negligence before releasing the update. And now they’re pointing at the ToS in an attempt to cover up their mistakes.

Look ANET, I’ve played your game for many years. I love you guys. But please be more careful when releasing updates. And please make more sense when defining an exploit.

The press does not care what the ToS says.

PowerCat.5738:

Especially when the team creating the content probably has little knowledge of the game altogether.

My question would be WHY did those recipe exist the way they were? If it was such an obvious oversight, shouldn’t ANY content developper have spotted it?

How did this get through quality assurance?

Every single MMo Ive every play, have always let stuff like this slid past sometimes.

It just happens.

PowerCat.5738:

Essence Snow.3194:

PowerCat.5738:

Essence Snow.3194:

Rising Dusk.2408:

, I thought the following: [b]"ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control

It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally.

It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours.

While the market for this one item stabilized…it messed up everything else that involved mithril, snowflakes, and even ectos. I find it hard to believe that they would mess up so many markets for one. It’s basically like believing that taking one step forward then taking three steps back will result in progression.

The price of mithril would have gone back down, as the price of the snowflake would have stabilized to “ecto-like” levels, like all other “ecto-producing” recipes.

What about all the other items? The ripples from this one item were not so limited.

What other item? Mithril? It would have gone back down as people would unload their stock, and when snowflakes would have reached equilibrium, mithril would have gone back down as less people would craft the rings.

If you mean other “ecto producing” recipes, they are tied to the price of ectos, as all ecto producing recipes. For example, the godskull weapons and the “large skulls” on the TP, they are very close to the price of ectos cause they can salvage to ectos.

Any item listed on the tp prior to this involving ectos subsequently either forfeit listing fees or opportunity costs associated with not selling due to no longer being competitively priced ofc given that said items were listed competitively.

“Harsh” isn’t the right word. “Completely wrong” sums it up better.

PowerCat.5738:

Essence Snow.3194:

PowerCat.5738:

Essence Snow.3194:

Rising Dusk.2408:

, I thought the following: [b]"ANet is intentionally trying to drive down the price of ecto because it is getting out of control

It made perfect sense to me that they did this intentionally.

It had become no more profitable than crafting level 75 rare tailor items to salvage for ectoplasm, which told me that it was totally legitimate and that ANet decided post mortem that “ehh, maybe we went a bit too far”.

This was market stabilized in less than 24 hours.

While the market for this one item stabilized…it messed up everything else that involved mithril, snowflakes, and even ectos. I find it hard to believe that they would mess up so many markets for one. It’s basically like believing that taking one step forward then taking three steps back will result in progression.

The price of mithril would have gone back down, as the price of the snowflake would have stabilized to “ecto-like” levels, like all other “ecto-producing” recipes.

What about all the other items? The ripples from this one item were not so limited.

What other item? Mithril? It would have gone back down as people would unload their stock, and when snowflakes would have reached equilibrium, mithril would have gone back down as less people would craft the rings.

If you mean other “ecto producing” recipes, they are tied to the price of ectos, as all ecto producing recipes. For example, the godskull weapons and the “large skulls” on the TP, they are very close to the price of ectos cause they can salvage to ectos.

Difference is though, when you salavge a godskull you dont get all the skulls back, only 80-100% at getting one back. For the rings on the other hand you had a 80%-100% chance at getting the jewel back. You didnt have to buy a new flake and ecto every single time you made a ring. only 1/5 times and thats why it is an exploit compared to the godskull weapon. If you would only need one skull to make the weapon it would have indeed been an exploit, but you needed 3, so you would always loose at least 2 skulls, thus it was balanced.
Hope that makes sense…

Kain Francois.4328:

And please make more sense when defining an exploit.

That is exactly the problem. The definition of exploit is based on the intentions of the developer. Which makes the line between using a game mechanic to your advantage and abusing said game mechanic very very thin. Any creative thinking or strategy on our side is a potential exploit. Because we have no way of knowing what the devs were thinking when they created the content and whether they had our knowledge/ideas. This particular case proves it. They missed smth that according to half the people in this topic is very obvious. And that’s the scary part.

TWMagimay.9057:

Kain Francois.4328:

And please make more sense when defining an exploit.

That is exactly the problem. The definition of exploit is based on the intentions of the developer. Which makes the line between using a game mechanic to your advantage and abusing said game mechanic very very thin. Any creative thinking or strategy on our side is a potential exploit. Because we have no way of knowing what the devs were thinking when they created the content and whether they had our knowledge/ideas. This particular case proves it. They missed smth that according to half the people in this topic is very obvious. And that’s the scary part.

Well even if they did state the Snowflake Opportunity were an exploit, it’s like leaving $1000 on the street and telling people not to touch it.

Like I said: The press does not care about the ToS. People on the forums can argue whether or not a ban was justified, but I don’t think we can say the same for people outside the game and forum. So I am very worried this will ruin the game’s reputation.

This is probably the only time (unless their are “incidents” like this in the future) I will agree with this situation.

First off, it wasn’t an exploit. I don’t know where they got that from, but there was no exploiting. It was clear proper game mechanics. Create item, salvage it for gem and a chance at an ecto, make item again. Rinse repeat. There was no exploit. No one was manipulating anything that wasn’t intended. It worked exactly as it should have. It was their fault for making it only cost one gem, instead of multiple gems.

And permanently banning people for doing nothing wrong, is well… wrong. Like I said, there was no exploit or any rule breaking. The players are not at fault in any way whatsoever. They used the game mechanics that were provided to them normally, without any kind of manipulation of a loop hole or anything. And now they are banned for playing the game normally, which is ridiculous.

It is Anet’s fault for implementing an item that only required a single gem so players could keep reusing the gem. Not the players. Yet the players are the ones being punished for doing absolutely nothing wrong. It’s just not right at all.

The biggest problem with the ban is that this is the Nth time ANet has banned people for exploiting…when the offense wasn’t exploiting at all. I’m not so much worried for the game’s reputation as I’m worried that players are going to get fed up with the living in fear of accidentally waking the beast…and just go find some other game to play.

You know what ? Good.

Anet made it clear the first time that exploiters wouldn’t be tolerated. They were promptly banned en masse the first time with the norn cultural weapon, but unbanned afterwards, and left it a warning.

Now you brought this on yourselves.

Good riddance.

Don’t exploit and you wont get banned, pretty simple thing to live by in my opinion..

These people were fully aware they were exploiting a bug and using it to their gain, i think Anet did the right thing, people need to learn… don’t cheat don’t get banned from the game..

If you can’t see a exploit in this you need to get looked at..

For Great Justice.

It was about time that Anet shows the stick and stop the carrot stuff.

“If You’re Afraid of Wolves, Don’t Go into the Forest” (wise words)

P.S. This is just WARNING for future exploits if you ask me.

Ashariel.8490:

You know what ? Good.

Anet made it clear the first time that exploiters wouldn’t be tolerated. They were promptly banned en masse the first time with the norn cultural weapon, but unbanned afterwards, and left it a warning.

Now you brought this on yourselves.

Good riddance.

Except that if you understood what they were doing here, you’d know that this is -nothing- like the first instance. Not even close.

This was -not- exploiting by ANY definition.

On top of that, the first instance was entirely unjust anyway. ANet just needs to own their problems and do it better next time. It’s not like one day of a bad recipe is going to irreparably harm the economy, and this is just ANet taking out wrath on the players that they should be aiming at their QA and Devs.

Ashariel.8490:

You know what ? Good.

Anet made it clear the first time that exploiters wouldn’t be tolerated. They were promptly banned en masse the first time with the norn cultural weapon, but unbanned afterwards, and left it a warning.

Now you brought this on yourselves.

Good riddance.

So, when should I expect bans for:
- everybody who ever hit the last seal in fotm with a char skill
- everybody who ever used a mesmer portal in a JP
- every thief who uses stealth in WvWvW
- everybody who picks the rich ori node without killing the karka champ
- everybody who did the back jump in the dredge fractal
- everybody who stood in the safe spot for the first 2 bosses in Arah p3
- everybody who pulled the dredge boss in fotm in the next room
- everybody who ever blinked through a wall/over a hole
Do I have to go on or are you already on the list?

Dante.1508:

Don’t exploit and you wont get banned, pretty simple thing to live by in my opinion..

These people were fully aware they were exploiting a bug and using it to their gain, i think Anet did the right thing, people need to learn… don’t cheat don’t get banned from the game..

If you can’t see a exploit in this you need to get looked at..

It seems you are unfamiliar with what is even being discussed. You saw “exploit” and just immediately had to preach justice instead of reading what this was about I’m guessing.

There was no bug. There was no exploit either.

They crafted a ring. Salvaged the ring to get a chance at getting the gem back and a chance at an ecto. Then they crafted the ring again, and rinse and repeat. Simple regular game mechanics. No exploit, no bug.

It was Anet who made the ring only require one gem, not the players. Now players being punished cause they reused a gem to keep making a ring at a chance for ectos. When in turn, it was Anet’s fault for making the ring require only one gem. Again, no exploit and no bug.

Just wanted to add my own voice to the issue. Now, I have not been affected by the ban, nor has anybody I know been affected, so no bias here.

This move by ANet is totally messed up. Bugs + Zero Communication = Dev Responsibility. You introduced a bug, didn’t alert the community to the issue and that it was a violation of the TOS, and now blame us? I CALL SHENANIGANS!

Seriously, moves like this are just going to complete alientate your player base. Treat your customers better and own up to your own mistakes.

The worst part about it is that because it’s an economy, the thing hit equilibrium… The price of snowflakes immediately shot up, so the economy didn’t change at all in the overall scheme of things. It all equaled out, just like economies do.

Someone releases a tablet at half of the price of an iPad. Obviously anyone who buys it must be exploiting. Let’s ban them from Best Buy.

TWMagimay.9057:

Ashariel.8490:

You know what ? Good.

Anet made it clear the first time that exploiters wouldn’t be tolerated. They were promptly banned en masse the first time with the norn cultural weapon, but unbanned afterwards, and left it a warning.

Now you brought this on yourselves.

Good riddance.

So, when should I expect bans for:
- everybody who ever hit the last seal in fotm with a char skill
- everybody who ever used a mesmer portal in a JP
- every thief who uses stealth in WvWvW
- everybody who picks the rich ori node without killing the karka champ
- everybody who did the back jump in the dredge fractal
- everybody who stood in the safe spot for the first 2 bosses in Arah p3
- everybody who pulled the dredge boss in fotm in the next room
- everybody who ever blinked through a wall/over a hole
Do I have to go on or are you already on the list?

The fact that you do not see the difference in gravity between the exploits you listed and the one being discussed is mind boggling (also, thief stealth LOL?).

Bother messaging back when you can find an exploit that would allow me making ridiculous amounts of gold in mere hours in a risk-free way.